"Brooks, Terry - Landover 04 - The Tangle Box" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brooks Terry)

nervously on one ear. No, there would be no reasoning with this
bunch. The faithful had become a ragged mob of doughheads. Fools
discovering their own lack of wit were famous for reverting to
form. Would they be sadder but wiser for the experience? he
wondered. Or would they simply stay stupid to the end? Not that it
mattered.
He had to stoop to pass through the opening behind the panel, which
was well under his six-foot-eight height. He had raised all the
other doors in the house when he had renovated it. He had told
everyone that Skat Mandu needed his space.
Inside was a stairway leading down. He triggered the release once
more, and the heavy steel panel swung slowly back into place.
Biggar flew through just as the door sealed and sped down the
stairwell after Horris.
"He was there behind you, you know," the bird snapped, flying so
close he brushed the other's face with his wing tip. Horris lashed
out with one hand, but missed. "Just for a minute, he was there."
"Sure he was," Horris muttered, still a little unnerved by the
experience, angry all over again for being reminded of it.
Biggar darted past. "Trying to blame me for your mistakes won't
save you. Besides, you need me!"
Horris groped for the light switch against the shadowed wall as he
reached the bottom of the stairs. "Need you for what?"
"Whatever it is you are planning to do." Biggar flew on into the
dark, smug in the knowledge that his eyesight was ten times better
than Horris's.
"Rather confident of that, aren't you?" Horris cursed silently as
his searching fingers snagged on a splinter of wood.
Terry Brooks n
Page 9
Brooks, Terry - MKL#4 - The Tangle Box
"If for nothing else, you need me as a cheering section. Face it,
Horris. You cannot stand not having an audience. You require
someone to admire your cleverness, to applaud your planning."
Biggar was a voice in the dark. "What is the purpose of concocting
a well-devised scheme if there is no one to appreciate its
intrinsic brilliance? How shallow the victory if there is no one to
hail its masterful execution!" The bird cleared his throat. "Of
course, you need me, too, to help with your new plan. What is it,
anyway?"
Horris found the light switch and flicked it on. He was momentarily
blinded. "The plan is to get as far away from you as possible."
The basement spread away through a forest of timbered pillars that
held up the flooring of the old manor house and cast their shadows
in dark columns through the spray of yellow light. Horris marched
ahead resolutely, hearing pounding now on the steel panel above.
Well, let's see what they can do with that! he sneered. He wound
his way through the timbers to a corridor that tunneled back into
shadow. Another light switch triggered a row of overheads, and
stooping again to avoid the low ceiling, he started down the