"Andre Norton & Lackey, Mercedes - Elvenbane 1 -The Elvenbane" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

pure magical power unmatched anywhere in this world, and dragons returned
here; despite that the place had been abandoned long before Alara was born.
Lack of game could have been compensated for, as had been done elsewhere
by careful management. It was really the encroachment of elves and their
human slaves that caused them to leave the place to the desert hawks, ruby-
lizards, and their ilk.

And that was the concern of greatest moment to Alara. If she didn't want to
be detected, there was only one form she could take. She was going to be
here a while, and she wanted to be comfortable. After a moment of
inspecting the ruins, Alara found the perfect place to take up her station; a
hollow in the shelter of the wall that could have been created to cradle her
body, swollen with pregnancy. It lay full in the sun and she curled herself
into it, tucking tail and wingtips in neatly.

No use in making her shift any harder than it had to be, she thought with wry
good humor. Father Dragon didn't call her "lazy" for nothing--though she
preferred to think of herself as "efficient."
The sand was soft and yielding, and silken against the scales of her sides.
She contemplated the pool for a moment, letting its deep, silent water give
her the pattern for her meditations. Gradually she let her mind sink into it,
down through the blue-tinged waters, into the indigo depths, to the sand-
strewn bottom, where the cold water welled up from a hidden crack beneath
the sands. There was the magic, welling up as serenely as the water, from the
joining of the six shining ley-lines. She saw them with her overeyes, glowing
moon-on-dragon-scale silver, that peculiar sheen of pure metal with the
overlay of draconic iridescence, a furtive rainbow that was all colors and
none at all. And where the lines met, a silent fountain of power sang upward,
rising toward the sunbeams lancing down to meet it.

If only the elves knew... Alara chuckled to herself. The elvenkind were so
jealous of power, hoarders of any and all sources, and as greedy of its
possession as a child with a sweet. But the elvenkind could not see the ley-
lines, and could not avail themselves of the strength inherent in them. Only
the dragons could--and the humans...

Alara was not certain why the dragons were able to tap the alien energies of
this world. Perhaps, though they were not native to this place, it was because
their power came from shifting themselves to live in harmony with whatever
world they found themselves on. The elves, equally foreign here, could not
sense nor use these energies--so Father Dragon said--not only because they
were no more native to this world than the dragons, but because they made
no attempt to fit themselves to it. Instead, they chose ever to fit the world to
themselves.

As for the poor humans--those that were left with the ability to see the
power had little notion of how to use it, and if ever their masters learned they
did have that gift, they speedily met their end in the arena or at the hands of
an overseer. The elves did not tolerate such talents among their servants.