"Roger Taylor - Hawklan 5 - Return of the Sword" - читать интересную книгу автора (Taylor Roger)

now he was teetering back to them again. He felt as though he were trapped in an hourglass, scrabbling
to escape the sand being drawn inexorably to the centre.

Abruptly he let the thoughts go. He was sufficiently aware of his own way of thinking to know that he
had reached a stage where pounding incessantly at the problem would merely drive any solution deeper
into hiding. Like a shrewd predator, all he could do now was mentally wander off тАУ do something else тАУ
anything else тАУ knowing that eventually the prey would quietly reappear, probably quite unexpectedly. He
smiled broadly and looked again at the stream. The sunlight sparkling off it in endlessly varying patterns
and its clattering progress down the hillside were indeed an antidote for his preoccupations.

As he watched the stream, his gaze was drawn to a ripple piled up over a large stone. It wobbled from
side to side as if trying to shake itself loose, but generally it maintained its shape and position. Tongue
protruding, Andawyr tossed a pebble towards it. It missed. He closed one eye, put out his tongue a little
further and tried again.

This time the pebble landed squarely in the ripple with a satisfying plop. As he had known it would,
nothing happened apart from a few bubbles drifting to the surface and floating away. The ripple would
only change if the rock that was causing it was moved, and then another would form elsewhere. Until that
happened, the ripple would remain unchanged while changing constantly; indeed, it could not exist
without that change тАУ who could shapestill water thus? From his sunny vantage, Andawyr could see
many such ripples in the stream. And other parts, which, though fed by smooth, untroubled waters, were
turbulent and disordered, never settling into any single pattern.

This streamтАЩs cleverer than I am, he thought. Without a momentтАЩs thought it knows how to form strange
and complex shapes that I couldnтАЩt predict if I did calculations for a year. The idea amused him. It was
the kind of example he delighted in slapping his studentsтАЩ faces with when they became either too
involved in something or too sure of themselves.

Forget it, he reminded himself, putting his hands behind his head and lying back on the soft turf. Get on
with your wandering.

And wander he did. But though he assiduously avoided the concerns that had sent him out of the
Cadwanen for relief, the thoughts that came to him were scarcely lighter as he found himself pondering
the Second Coming of Sumeral and all the changes that had happened since His defeat.

The Orthlundyn, for example, were now like a people awakened from a long sleep. They travelled far
and wide and had a seemingly insatiable thirst for knowledge. They had become very much the guiding
spirit of the Congress that followed the war. The Fyordyn, by contrast, were less steady, less confident
than they had been; cruelly hurt by the civil war that had followed OklarтАЩs murder of their king and his
near-success in seizing power for his Master. A lesser people might well have descended into a spiral of
disintegration, but many things sustained them through their trials, not least their finally having come
together to face SumeralтАЩs terrible army in Narsindal. And, too, their almost universal affection for their
queen, Sylvriss, and her son Rgoric, named after his ill-fated father. Less emotively, the Geadrol, the
QueenтАЩs Council of Lords, the actual government of Fyorlund, also played no small part, with the stern,
truth-searching discipline of its deliberations. The Riddinvolk, with their fanatical love of horses and
riding, seemed to be the least changed, but even they felt the guilt of their failure to note the return of
Sumeral.

And what about the Cadwanol? Andawyr thought as the old memories rehearsed themselves again.
Where do we stand in this great analysis?