"Ursula K. LeGuin - Earthsea 1 - A Wizard Of Earthsea" - читать интересную книгу автора (Le Guin Ursula K)

A Wizard of Earthsea
Ursula K. LeGuin
1968




Only in silence the word,
only in dark the light,
only in dying life:
bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky.
-The Creation of Ea



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1 Warriors in the Mist
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The Island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above
the storm-racked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards. From the towns
in its high valleys and the ports on its dark narrow bays many a Gontishman
has gone forth to serve the Lords of the Archipelago in their cities as wizard
or mage, or, looking for adventure, to wander working magic from isle to isle
of all Earthsea. Of these some say the greatest, and surely the greatest
voyager, was the man called Sparrowhawk, who in his day became both dragonlord
and Archmage. His life is told of in the Deed of Ged and in many songs, but
this is a tale of the time before his fame, before the songs were made.
He was born in a lonely village called Ten Alders, high on the mountain
at the head of the Northward Vale. Below the village the pastures and
plowlands of the Vale slope downward level below level towards the sea, and
other towns lie on the bends of the River Ar; above the village only forest
rises ridge behind ridge to the stone and snow of the heights.
The name he bore as a child, Duny, was given him by his mother, and that
and his life were all she could give him, for she died before he was a year
old. His father, the bronze-smith of the village, was a grim unspeaking man,
and since Duny's six brothers were older than he by many years and went one by
one from home to farm the land or sail the sea or work as smith in other towns
of the Northward Vale, there was no one to bring the child up in tenderness.
He grew wild, a thriving weed, a tall, quick boy, loud and proud and full of
temper. With the few other children of the village he herded goats on the
steep meadows above the riversprings; and when he was strong enough to push
and pull the long bellows-sleeves, his father made him work as smith's boy, at
a high cost in blows and whippings. There was not much work to be got out of
Duny. He was always off and away; roaming deep in the forest, swimming in the
pools of the River Ar that like all Gontish rivers runs very quick and cold,
or climbing by cliff and scarp to the heights above the forest, from which he
could see the sea, that broad northern ocean where, past Perregal, no islands
are.
A sister of his dead mother lived in the village. She had done what was