"Patricia C. Wrede - Enchanted Forest 1 - Talking to Dragons" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wrede Patricia C)

me and the end of the sheath pointing away from me.

The woods had gone very, very quiet. I didn't like that,
but I would have felt stupid if I'd gotten up and picked up
the sword without doing anything. Besides, leaving things
half-finished can be awfully dangerous. I took a deep breath
and spoke as steadily as I could.

"Sword of the Sleeping King,
I conjure thee:

By stream and starlight,
By sun and shadow,
By song and stormwind,
Show me thy tale!"

It was the simplest spell I knew; almost the only one, in
fact. It's supposed to let the spell-caster know more about
the nature of whatever object is named in the first line of
the chant. I didn't think the spell would work quite the same
way on a magic sword, but it shouldn't do any harm, and
I was hoping to find out something useful. I finished the
spell, and everything was quiet for about two heartbeats.
Fast heartbeats; I was nervous. Then the world turned over.

That's what it felt like. The ground started shaking, and
the part under the sword pushed up until it made a mound
taller than I was. I didn't have much of a chance to look at
it; I was being rolled all over the open space and trying to
grab hold of something. Then everything went dark, and I
was falling, and a huge, deep voice said solemnly, "All hail
the Bearer of the Sword!"

And then it was over. I was lying on the ground in the
Enchanted Forest, trying to dig my way through the moss.
I stopped and waited. Nothing else happened, so I sat up
and looked around. I was still sitting in the same not-quite-
a-clearing, with the sword and sheath in the middle. The
sword...

The sword was standing upright, half-buried in a knee-
high mound that hadn't been there before. The blade was


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about a handspan out of the sheath, and it glittered when
the sun got through the trees enough to hit it. I stood up