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

In fact, the next slave down the stairs was as near to perfect a victim as she
could have asked for; young, female, and so burdened with a stack of empty
boxes that she couldn't see and was having to check for each stair with a
cautiously outstretched bare toe. Alara waited until the girl had reached the
bottom of the staircase, then spoke, in a voice like a rusty hinge.

"Hast thou heard the Word, child?"

The girl shrieked in startlement and jumped, boxes flying in all directions.
She wound up with her back to the wall, her eyes round with fear and
surprise, her hair straggling over one eye in untidy curls. Alara sat like a
statue, white-filmed eyes staring straight ahead.

"Gods' teeth, ol' mam!" The girl panted, one hand at her throat. "Ye 'bout
frighted me t'death!"

Alara said nothing.

The girl pushed away from the wall, and peered at Alara, her eyes still round
with alarm. "How ye get down here, anyways? Ye don' b'long t' th' Lor'
Rathekrel--"

Alara raised one hand, and pointed upwards; the girl looked up involuntarily,
then dropped her gaze to Alara's "sightless" eyes. "The Voice of the
Prophecy belongs to no one, mortal or immortal," Alara intoned, doing her
best to sound mysterious. "Only to the ages."

The girl's brow wrinkled in puzzlement. "I don' know no Lor' Ages." She
started to edge away, and cast longing looks up the stairs. "Belike I better get
th' cook--"

"Hear the Prophecy!" Alara cried, forestalling the girl by standing up with a
swiftness at odds with her apparent age, interposing herself between the
slave and the staircase. "Hear and remember! Remember, and whisper it, and
pass it onward! Remember the foretelling of the Elvenbane!"

The girl uttered a strangled yip as Alara stood, and backed away. Alara
gathered her rags around her as if they were the silken robes she had lately
worn, and stared straight at the girl, her expression stern and forbidding.
Since she looked blind, this unnerved the girl even more. "There will come a
child," Alara whispered. "One born of human mother, but fathered by the
demons, possessed of magic more powerful than the elven lords! By this
shall you know the child, that it shall read the very thoughts upon the wind,
travel upon the wings of demons, and master all the magics of the masters
ere it can stand alone! The child shall resemble a human, yet its eyes will be
those of the demons; of the very green of the elf-stones. The child shall be
hunted before its birth, yet shall escape the hunt. The child shall be sold, and
yet never bought. The child shall win all, yet lose all."

Standard prophetic double-talk, she thought to herself. If the slaves had any