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

It is heavy as iron and so large that if it were spread out it would cover all the marketplace of
Serilune, they said. The teeth are as long as my forearm. Yet they said Bar Oth was a young
dragon, not full-grown."
"There is a desire in you," said Sparrowhawk, "to see dragons."
"Yes."
"Their blood is cold and venomous. You must not look into their eyes. They are older than
mankind..." He was silent a while and then went on, "And though I came to forget or regret all I
have ever done, yet would I remember that once I saw the dragons aloft on the wind at sunset above
the western isles; and I would be content."
Both were silent then, and there was no sound but the whispering of the water with the
boat, and no light. So at last, there on the deep waters, they slept.

In the bright haze of morning they came into Hort Harbor, where a hundred craft were
moored or setting forth: fishermen's boats, crabbers, trawlers, trading-ships, two galleys of
twenty oars, one great sixty-oared galley in bad repair, and some lean, long sailing-ships with
high triangular sails designed to catch the upper airs in the hot calms of the South Reach. "Is
that a ship of war?" Arren asked as they passed one of the twenty-oared galleys, and his companion
answered, "A slaver, I judge from the chainbolts in her hold. They sell men in the South Reach."
Arren pondered this a minute, then went to the gear-box and took from it his sword, which
he had wrapped well and stowed away on the morning of their departure. He uncovered it; he stood
indecisive, the sheathed sword on his two hands, the belt dangling from it.
"It's no sea-trader's sword," he said "The scabbard is too fine."
Sparrowhawk, busy at the tiller, shot him a look "Wear it if you like."


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"I thought it might be wise."
"As swords go, that one is wise," said his companion, his eyes alert on their passage
through the crowded bay. "Is it not a sword reluctant to be used?"
Arren nodded. "So they say. Yet it has killed. It has killed men." He looked down at the
slender, handworn hilt. "It has, but I have not. It makes me feel a fool. It is too much older
than I... I shall take my knife," he ended, and rewrapping the sword, shoved it down deep in the
gear-box. His face was perplexed and angry. Sparrowhawk said nothing till he asked, "Will you take
the oars now, lad? We're heading for the pier there by the stairs."
Hort Town, one of the Seven Great Ports of the Archipelago, rose from its noisy waterfront
up the slopes of three steep hills in a jumble of color. The houses were of clay plastered in red,
orange, yellow, and white; the roofs were of purplish-red tile; pendick-trees in flower made
masses of dark red along the upper streets. Gaudy, striped awnings stretched from roof to roof,
shading narrow marketplaces. The quays were bright with sunlight; the streets running back from
the waterfront were like dark slots full of shadows and people and noise.
When they had tied up the boat, Sparrowhawk stooped over beside Arren as if to check the
knot, and he said, "Arren, there are people in Wathort who know me pretty well; so watch me, that
you may know me." When he straightened up there was no scar on his face. His hair was quite grey;
his nose was thick and somewhat snubbed; and instead of a yewstaff his own height, he carried a
wand of ivory, which he tucked away inside his shirt. "Dost know me?" he said to Arren with a
broad smile, and he spoke with the accent of Enlad. "Hast never seen thy nuncle before this?"
Arren had seen wizards at the court of Berila change their faces when they mimed the Deed
of Morred, and knew it was only illusion; he kept his wits about him, and was able to say, "Oh