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

the rain.
Along towards Sunreturn when the first heavy snows began to fall in the
heights of Gont they came to Re Albi, Ogion's home. It is a town on the edge
of the high rocks of Overfell, and its name means Falcon's Nest. From it one
can see far below the deep harbor and the towers of the Port of Gont, and the
ships that go in and out the gate of the bay between the Armed Cliffs, and far
to the west across the sea one may make out the blue hills of Oranea,
easternmost of the Inward Isles.
The mage's house, though large and soundly built of timber, with hearth
and chimney rather than a firepit, was like the huts of Ten Alders village:
all one room, with a goatshed built onto one side. There was a kind of alcove
in the west wall of the room, where Ged slept. Over his pallet was a window
that looked out on the sea, but most often the shutters must be closed against
the great winds that blew all winter from the west and north. In the dark
warmth of that house Ged spent the winter, hearing the rush of rain and wind
outside or the silence of snowfall, learning to write and read the Six Hundred
Runes of Hardic. Very glad he was to learn this lore, for without it no mere
rote-learning of charms and spells will give a man true mastery. The Hardic
tongue of the Archipelago, though it has no more magic power in it than any
other tongue of men, has its roots in the Old Speech, that language in which
things are named with their true names: and the way to the understanding of
this speech starts with the Runes that were written when the islands of the
world first were raised up from the sea.
Still no marvels and enchantments occurred. All winter there was nothing
but the heavy pages of the Runebook turning, and the rain and the snow
falling; and Ogion would come in from roaming the icy forests or from looking
after his goats, and stamp the snow off his boots, and sit down in silence by
the fire. And the mage's long, listening silence would fill the room, and fill
Ged's mind, until sometimes it seemed he had forgotten what words sounded
like: and when Ogion spoke at last it was as if he had, just then and for the
first time, invented speech. Yet the words he spoke were no great matters but
had to do only with simple things, bread and water and weather and sleep.
As the spring came on, quick and bright, Ogion often sent Ged forth to
gather herbs on the meadows above Re Albi, and told him to take as long as he
liked about it, giving him freedom to spend all day wandering by rainfilled
streams and through the woods and over wet green fields in the sun. Ged went
with delight each time, and stayed out till night; but he did not entirely
forget the herbs. He kept an eye out for them, while he climbed and roamed and
waded and explored, and always brought some home. He came on a meadow between
two streams where the flower called white hallows grew thick, and as these
blossoms are rare and prized by healers, he came back again next day. Someone
else was there before him, a girl, whom he knew by sight as the daughter of
the old Lord of Re Albi. He would not have spoken to her, but she came to him
and greeted him pleasantly: "I know you, you are the Sparrowhawk, our mage's
adept. I wish you would tell me about sorcery!"
He looked down at the white flowers that brushed against her white
skirt, and at first he was shy and glum and hardly answered. But she went on
talking, in an open, careless, wilful way that little by little set him at
ease. She was a tall girl of about his own age, very sallow, almost
white-skinned; her mother, they said in the village, was from Osskil or some