Valter67: переводы

→Kahlan was well aware that Nathan, the only living prophet that she knew of, was rather protective of the reputation of prophecy. Richard didn’t place much belief or reliance in prophecy, but Nathan did. He viewed Richard’s avoidance of prophecy, his free will, as the balance that prophecy, like all magic, needed to exist.

→“But she does have a smidgen of actual ability. If she didn’t, I would have brought her to your attention. I don’t think you would want a charlatan in the palace cheating people about prophecy any more than I would.”

→Nathan held his thumb and finger barely apart. “Little ones. She has only a very small amount of genuine ability. Most of what she says is pure embellishment, telling people what they want to hear so she can earn her way in life. A lot of what she does is to make the most likely future sound as if she had seen it in a vision. For instance, she might tell a young woman that she sees marriage in her future. Hardly divination, as most young women will marry.

→Zedd stared off into memories. “I put books about specific things I wanted to have at hand together in stacks. I had once meant to organize them on shelves. Never got around to it, though, and there were relatively few books there in that one place. Maybe now, with the war ended, when I get back to the Keep I can finally return to that long-forgotten work.”

→“The First Wizard’s enclave, at the Wizard’s Keep,” Richard said as he nodded. “I remember the way books were stacked in piles all over the place.”

→Zedd’s thin lips pressed tight for a moment as he considered the problem. “I guess not. I have to admit, what you say makes sense. I used to do something similar, but on a much, much smaller scale.”

→“In the example you mentioned, we would have a sheet for the book in with the cities category and we’d make a copy of that sheet to put in the rivers category. That way, we’re less likely to miss important secondary information.”

→“So, we’re making up a sheet for each book with its title, location, and some kind of description of what’s in the book. That way we can sort the pages into categories instead of having to sort the books themselves.

→Richard nodded. “I don’t want to move the books around too much because I don’t know why they’re in a particular library, or for that matter why they’re on particular shelves. Other than dangerous books on magic that are placed in restricted libraries, I haven’t been able to figure out any logic to where books are kept, but it’s possible that there is a reason for them being where they are. Without knowing the reason, I don’t want to move them around and chance inadvertently creating a new problem.

→Zedd gestured to the table. “That’s these stacks of papers?”

→“Oh, it’s not unknown, Lord Rahl,” Berdine said. “Like I was explaining, I think it’s a wordbook.”

→Zedd stared at him for a moment. “Well, I guess that makes some sense.”

→Richard laid a hand on Zedd’s shoulder. “We’ll put it on the list with all the other books that make no sense to us. That is its classification for now: unknown.”

→“If you’re not sure what it is,” Zedd fumed, “then how can you even classify it?”

→“Well, I can understand bits of it, the parts that are in High D’Haran, but I’m not sure what all these weird squiggly lines and symbols mean.”

→Zedd puzzled at her a moment. “What does that mean?”

→“Oh, this one,” Berdine said as she flipped over a few pages. “Some of it is in High D’Haran, but a lot of it isn’t. I suspect that it’s a wordbook.”

→As he handed the book to Berdine, Kahlan could see that after the title Regula on the spine, there was a strange circular symbol with a triangle in it embossed into the leather. Inside that circle with a triangle lay a curving, hooked symbol that she’d never seen before. It looked something like the number nine, but it was backward.

→Zedd closed it briefly to read the title. “Regula,” he announced in annoyance. He scanned a few pages, then shook his head in surrender. “I don’t know what the title means and after looking at it I have even less of an idea what it’s about.”

→Berdine scratched the hollow of her cheek. “Which book is it? What’s it about?”