"Andre Norton - WW - Secrets 03 - The Warding of Witch World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

wife now sitting upright clasping the flask to her ample bosom, had a handful to play guard. But the
majority struck off northward, into the first thick fringe of the forest. Destree watched them go with
concern.

However, what she had to do lay elsewhere. She returned to the outer room of the shrine and
quickly stripped off her homespun clothing. Into a large basin she ladled water from the hearth pot and
measured into that, drop by careful drop, oils from several different vials.

Then she washed herself from head to foot, even dipping her hair into the basin, smearing the oily
liquid over her whole body. Making no effort to dry herself, she then sought the inner room.

Drawing from the couch before the shrine the covering on which the farmer's wife had lain, she
substituted another taken from a small chest by the altar. Green it was and brown, gold, and purple, all
intermingled so no human eye could follow any pattern, and though it was very old yet it was still intact.

Destree spread it with care over the couch and then stretched herself upon it, folding her hands
beneath her full breasts and closing her eyes.

The transition came quicker than it ever had in the few other times she had tried this ritual. Fear
-- pain -- the need to run -- run -- run -- Strange -- all the world about was strange, there was
nothing to be seen as a guide -- yet -- fear/pain -- the need -- the need to escape --

And the world she saw dimly was strange.

That strangeness fed fear. The very color of a leaf, the shape of a branch was all wrong. The
ferns which beat about her legs as she ran -- she shrank from their touch. This was not her world --
where had the Lady led her?

She -- she had been in the home wood and at peace with herself and the world about. Then
there had been the tall stones. One of them had been shiny, and that had attracted her so that she went
and laid hand upon it. Then -- then she had been whirled away into nothingness and when she could see
again she was in this fearsome place where all was alien and wrong.

Destree tried to cut behind the ever-present fear. The Dark? She sought the smell, the feel of evil.
But there was none -- only confusion and fear, pain --

Gruck! Out of nowhere came that name. She was... Gruck! In the same moment that became
clear to her, she strove to break the bond. But she realized now where the Lady had sent her. She --
she was the hunted monster.

But it was no beast. It thought, it strove wildly to learn what had happened to it. Nor was it
anything of evil wandering southward. It now rested under the compassionate hand of the Lady. So
somewhere another of those cursed gates had made a capture, and the innocent would be hunted down
and slain unless she could prevent it!

Destree's eyes snapped open. She was already pushing herself up from the couch. She paused
long enough to return the covering to its time-set folds and then, from a chest in the foreroom, she
brought her own woodsrunning clothes. Not the skirts such as she wore for the sake of making the valley
people receive her more easily. Instead, she drew on over her still oily body breeches, a shirt, a
sleeveless jerkin with oddly fashioned silver latches, boots made for hard service over indifferent trails.