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

mood to talk at last, he asked, "Do you think we will find what we seek in Hort Town?"
Sparrowhawk shook his head, perhaps meaning no, perhaps meaning that he did not know.
"Can it be a kind of pestilence, a plague, that drifts from land to land, blighting the
crops and the flocks and men's spirits?"
"A pestilence is a motion of the great Balance, of the Equilibrium itself; this is
different. There is the stink of evil in it. We may suffer for it when the balance of things
rights itself, but we do not lose hope and forego art and forget the words of the Making. Nature


file:///F|/rah/Ursula%20LeGuin/LeGuin,%20Ursula...20Earthsea%203%20-%20The%20Farthest%20Shore.txt (13 of 75) [1/19/03 3:51:29 PM]
 file:///F|/rah/Ursula%20LeGuin/LeGuin,%20Ursula%20K%20-%20Earthsea%203%20-%20The%20Farthest%20Shore.txt

is not unnatural. This is not a righting of the balance, but an upsetting of it. There is only one
creature who can do that."
"A man?" Arren said, tentative.
"We men."
"How?"
"By an unmeasured desire for life."
"For life? But it isn't wrong to want to live?"
"No. But when we crave power over life -endless wealth, unassailable safety, immortality-
then desire becomes greed. And if knowledge allies itself to that greed, then comes evil. Then the
balance of the world is swayed, and ruin weighs heavy in the scale."
Arren brooded over this a while and said at last, "Then you think it is a man we seek?"
"A man, and a mage. Aye, I think so."
"But I had thought, from what my father and teachers taught, that the great arts of
wizardry were dependent on the Balance, the Equilibrium of things, and so could not be used for
evil."
"That," said Sparrowhawk somewhat wryly, "is a debatable point. Infinite are the arguments
of mages... Every land of Earthsea knows of witches who cast unclean spells, sorcerers who use
their art to win riches. But there is more. The Firelord, who sought to undo the darkness and stop
the sun at noon, was a great mage; even Erreth-Akbe could scarcely defeat him. The Enemy of Morred
was another such. Where he came, whole cities knelt to him; armies fought for him. The spell he
wove against Morred was so mighty that even when he was slain it could not be halted, and the
island of Solea was overwhelmed by the sea, and all on it perished. Those were men in whom great
strength and knowledge served the will to evil and fed upon it. Whether the wizardry that serves a
better end may always prove the stronger, we do not know. We hope."
There is a certain bleakness in finding hope where one expected certainty. Arren found
himself unwilling to stay on these cold summits. He said after a little while, "I see why you say
that only men do evil, I think. Even sharks are innocent; they kill because they must."
"That is why nothing else can resist us. Only one thing in the world can resist an evil-
hearted man. And that is another man. In our shame is our glory. Only our spirit, which is capable
of evil, is capable of overcoming it!,
"But the dragons," said Arren. "Do they not do great evil? Are they innocent?"
"The dragons! The dragons are avaricious, insatiable, treacherous; without pity, without
remorse. But are they evil? Who am I, to judge the acts of dragons?... They are wiser than men
are. It is with them as with dreams, Arren. We men dream dreams, we work magic, we do good, we do
evil. The dragons do not dream. They are dreams. They do not work magic: it is their substance,
their being. They do not do; they are."
"In Serilune," said Arren, "is the skin of Bar Oth, killed by Keor, Prince of Enlad, three
hundred years ago. No dragons have ever come to Enlad since that day. I saw the skin of Bar Oth.