The King (John Norman) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги

PROLOGUE

“And there were wolves in the land.”

-The Annals

“Let us laugh with steel.”

-An Otung Saying

“Let us see if there are men here.”

-A Drisriak Challenge

“The laurel is unpicked; We have forgotten the festivals; The laurel is unpicked; The statues are broken; The limbs of the gods lie in the dust; The holy places are defiled; The temples are in ruins. The laurel is unpicked; It has died upon the branch; The tree is dead; It is winter; It grows cold. Night has fallen upon the empire.”

-Alarion

“I have heard the drums; I have seen the riders on the hill; The breath of their horses is like fire; Their hoofs are like thunder; On their arms the sun blazes; The lords have come; I will come forth from the forest; I will plant again; I will find a wife; It is a new morning.”

-Anonymous, after Alarion

Note:

It has been the custom of the chronicler, or chroniclers, as the case may be, and as some have argued, to include certain observations, or reflections, in a manner prefatory to the Telnarian manuscripts. Here, however, we seem to encounter a departure from that practice. We have only these three quotations, and the two short poems. I do not understand them, or, at any rate, their placement here. Their inclusion with the manuscript may be the result of some accident, or mistake. This sometimes happens with complex papers. Certainly they seem, the poems at least, to have little to do with the story. I have included them, however, as they were with the manuscript.

-Editor