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

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The Masters of Roke
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The School on Roke is where boys who show promise in sorcery are sent from all the Inner
Lands of Earthsea to learn the highest arts of magic. There they become proficient in the various
kinds of sorcery, learning names, and runes, and skills, and spells, and what should and what
should not be done, and why. And there, after long practice, and if hand and mind and spirit all
keep pace together, they may be named wizard, and receive the staff of power. True wizards are
made only on Roke.
Since there are sorcerers and witches on all the isles, and the uses of magic are as
needful to their people as bread and as delightful as music, so the School of Wizardry is a place
held in reverence. The nine mages who are the Masters of the School are considered the equals of
the great princes of the Archipelago. Their master, the warden of Roke, the Archmage, is held to
be accountable to no man at all, except the King of All the Isles; and that only by an act of
fealty, by heart's gift, for not even a king could constrain so great a mage to serve the common
law, if his will were otherwise. Yet even in the kingless centuries, the Archmages of Roke kept
fealty and served that common law. All was done on Roke as it had been done for many hundreds of
years; a place safe from all trouble it seemed, and the laughter of boys rang in the echoing
courts and down the broad, cold corridors of the Great House.
Arren's guide about the School was a stocky lad whose cloak was clasped at the neck with
silver, a token that he had passed his novicehood and was a proven sorcerer, studying to gain his
staff. He was called Gamble, "because," said he, "my parents had six girls, and the seventh child,
my father said, was a gamble against Fate." He was an agreeable companion, quick of mind and
tongue. At another time Arren would have enjoyed his humor, but today his mind was too full. He
did not pay him very much attention, in fact. And Gamble, with a natural wish to be given credit
for existence, began to take advantage of the guest's absentmindedness. He told him strange facts
about the School, and then told him strange lies about the School, and to all of them Arren said,



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"Oh, yes" or "I see," until Gamble thought him a royal idiot.
"Of course they don't cook in here," he said, showing Arren past the huge stone kitchens
all alive with the glitter of copper cauldrons and the clatter of chopping-knives and the eye-
prickling smell of onions. "It's just for show. We come to the refectory, and everybody charms up
whatever he wants to eat. Saves dishwashing too."
"Yes, I see," said Arren politely.
"Of course novices who haven't learnt the spells yet often lose a good deal of weight,
their first months here; but they learn. There's one boy from Havnor who always tries for roast
chicken, but all he ever gets is millet mush. He can't seem to get his spells past millet mush. He
did get a dried haddock along with it, yesterday." Gamble was getting hoarse with the effort to
push his guest into incredulity. He gave up and stopped talking.
"Where... what land does the Archmage come from?" said that guest, not even looking at the
mighty gallery through which they were walking, all carven on wall and arched ceiling with the
Thousand-Leaved Tree.
"Gont," said Gamble. "He was a village goatherd there." ,
Now, at this plain and well-known fact, the boy from Enlad turned and looked with