"Brooks, Terry - Landover 01 - Magic Kingdom for Sale - Sold" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brooks Terry)

i6 MAGIC KINGDOM FOR SALE - SOLD!

Miles saw him as a grief-stricken recluse, hiding from the
world while he mourned his dead wife. Maybe that was the
way everyone saw him. But Annie's death had not created
the condition; it had merely emphasized it. He had been slip-
ping back into himself more and more in recent years, dis-
satisfied with what he viewed as the continuing deterioration
of his profession, frustrated with the way in which it seemed
to sink down upon itself until it no longer served the purposes
for which it had been created. Miles would think it odd that
he should feel that wayЧDoc Holiday, the corporate trial
lawyer who had slain more Goliaths than any David had ever
dreamed effacing. What did he have to feel frustrated about
when the system had worked so effectively for him? But of
course one's personal successes sometimes only served to
point up the inequities worked on others. It was that way
with him.

He mixed a Glenlivet and water in his apartment and re-
tired to the front room, seating himself on the sofa and staring
out the window into the lights of the city. After a time, he
pulled the Christmas Wishbook from Rosen's from his brief-
case and opened it to the item on handover. He had been
thinking about it all day; he had been thinking of nothing else
since he had first laid eyes on it last night.

What if it were real?

He sat there for a long time, the glass in his hand, the
catalogue open before him, thinking about the possibility.

His present life, he felt, was at a standstill. Annie was
dead. The profession of lawЧfor him, at leastЧwas just as
dead. There were more cases to be taken, more courtroom
battles to be won, more Goliaths for David to slay. But the
excesses and deficiencies of the legal system would still be
there. In the end, he would simply be going through the same
ritual with its frustrations'and disappointments, and it would
all be meaningless. There had to be more for him in this life.

There had to be.

He looked at the colorful rendering of the knight in battle
with the dragon, the damsel in the castle keep, the wizard

Terry Brooks i?

casting his spell, the fairy folk looking on. Landover. A