"Bradley,.Marion.Zimmer.-.Darkover.-.Clingfire.2.-.Zandru's.Forge.(.With.Deborah.J.Ross)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bradley Marion Zimmer)

ZANDRU'S FORGE
BOOK TWO OF The Clingfire Trilogy
MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY
AND DEBORAH J. ROSS
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ELIZABETH R. WOLLHEIM
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Copyright й 2003 by The Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust
All Rights Reserved.
Cover Art by Romas Kukalis.
DAW Book Collectors No. 1257.
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Book designed by Stanley S. Drate/Folio Graphics, Inc.
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First paperback printing, June 2004 123456789 10
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For Sarah Holdfast to your dreams!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My gratitude to those who have graced my life with their compassion, kindness, courage, and hope. You know who you are.

DISCLAIMER
The observant reader may note discrepancies in some details from more contemporary tales. This is undoubtedly due to the fragmentary histories which survive to the present day. Many records were lost during the years following the Ages of Chaos and Hundred Kingdoms and others distorted by oral tradition.

AUTHOR'S NOTE
Immensely generous with "her special world" of Darkover, Marion loved encouraging new writers. We were already friends when she began editing the DARKOVER and SWORD & SORCERESS anthologies. The match between my natural literary "voice" and what she was looking for was extraordinary. She loved to read what I loved to write, and she often cited "The Death of Brendan Ensolare" (FOUR MOONS of DARKOVER, DAW, 1988) as one of her favorites.
As Marion's health declined, I was invited to work with her on one or more Darkover novels. We decided that rather than extend the story of "modern" Darkover, we would return to the Ages of Chaos. Marion envisioned a trilogy beginning with the Hastur Rebellion and Zandru's Forge, the enduring friendship between Varzil the Good and Carolin Hastur, and extending to the fire-bombing of Hali and the signing of the Compact. While I scribbled notes as fast as I could, she would sit back, eyes alight, and begin a story with, "Now, the Hasturs tried to control the worst excesses of laran weapons, but there were always others under development..." or "Of course, Varzil and Carolin had been brought up on tales of star-crossed lovers who perished in the destruction of Neskaya ..."
Here is that tale.
Deborah J. Ross March 2001

"It is not lily days which shape our souls, but the frozen winter nights, when we find ourselves in the pit of Zandru's Forge and discover who we truly are."
ЧFelicia Leynier

PROLOGUE
The boy came to bid farewell to his father as the light of dying embers flickered across the fieldstone hearth. He shivered, thinking of the night outside and the horseman who would come to take him away. With a patience beyond his twelve years, he waited for his father to speak the words that would send him away, perhaps forever.
For a long moment, the man swathed in tattered blankets did not move. Only the slow, stuttering rise and fall of his chest and the glitter of his eyes indicated he still lived. The old injury to his lungs, from a time he would never speak of, had brought him to the brink of death before, and each time, he had recovered.
Father, please don't die, the boy thought, and wondered again if this were why he was being sent away. To Arilinn, so far, to live among beasts and wizards.
"Eduin." A whisper, like a fall of ashes. "My son."