"Ursula K. LeGuin - Earthsea 3 - The Farthest Shore" - читать интересную книгу автора (Le Guin Ursula K)

file:///F|/rah/Ursula%20LeGuin/LeGuin,%20Ursula%20K%20-%20Earthsea%203%20-%20The%20Farthest%20Shore.txt

THE FARTHEST SHORE
URSULA K. LEGUIN
1972




------
The Rowan Tree
------

In the Court of the Fountain the sun of March shone through young leaves of ash and elm,
and water leapt and fell through shadow and clear light. About that roofless court stood four high
walls of stone. Behind those were rooms and courts, passages, corridors, towers, and at last the
heavy outmost walls of the Great House of Roke, which would stand any assault of war or earthquake
or the sea itself, being built not only of stone, but of incontestable magic. For Roke is the Isle
of the Wise, where the art magic is taught; and the Great House is the school and central place of
wizardry; and the central place of the House is that small court far within the walls, where the
fountain plays and the trees stand in rain or sun or starlight.
The tree nearest the fountain, a well-grown rowan, had humped and cracked the marble
pavement with its roots. Veins of bright green moss filled the cracks, spreading up from the
grassy plot around the basin. A boy sat there on the low hump of marble and moss, his gaze
following the fall of the fountain's central jet. He was nearly a man, but still a boy; slender,
dressed richly. His face might have been cast in golden bronze, it was so finely molded and so
still.
Behind him, fifteen feet away perhaps, under the trees at the other end of the small
central lawn, a man stood, or seemed to stand. It was hard to be certain in that flickering shift
of shadow and warm light. Surely he was there, a man in white, standing motionless. As the boy
watched the fountain, the man watched the boy. There was no sound or movement but the play of
leaves and the play of the water and its continual song.
The man walked forward. A wind stirred the rowan tree and moved its newly opened leaves.
The boy leapt to his feet, lithe and startled. He faced the man and bowed to him. "My Lord
Archmage," he said.
The man stopped before him, a short, straight, vigorous figure in a hooded cloak of white
wool. Above the folds of the laid-down hood his face was reddish-dark, hawk-nosed, seamed on one
cheek with old scars. The eyes were bright and fierce. Yet he spoke gently. "It's a pleasant pace
to sit, the Court of the Fountain," he said, and, forestalling the boy's apology, "You have
traveled far and have not rested. Sit down again."
He knelt on the white rim of the basin and held out his hand to the ring of glittering
drops that fell from the higher bowl of the fountain, letting the water run through his fingers.
The boy sat down again on the humped tiles, and for a minute neither spoke.
"You are the son of the Prince of Enlad and the Enlades," the Archmage said, "heir of the
Principality of Morred. There is no older heritage in all Earthsea, and none fairer. I have seen
the orchards of Enlad in the spring, and the golden roofs of Berila... How are you called?"
"I am called Arren."
"That would be a word in the dialect of your land. What is it in our common speech?"
The boy said, "Sword."
The Archmage nodded. There was silence again, and then the boy said, not boldly, but