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

environment, stray cats and dogs, or little children. These
Terry Brooks 13
were all concerns for lesser beings. He cared only for himself, for
his own creature comforts, for twisting things about when it suited
him, and for schemes that reinforced his continuing belief that all
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Brooks, Terry - MKL#4 - The Tangle Box
other life-forms were impossibly stupid and gullible.
Thus the creation of Skat Mandu and his cult of fervid followers,
believers hi a twenty-thousand-year-old wise man's words as
channeled by a myna.
Even now, it made Horris smile.
Horris admitted to only one real character flaw, and that was a
nagging inability to keep things under his control once he started
them hi motion. Somehow even the most carefully considered and well
planned of his schemes ended up taking on a life of then: own and
leaving him stranded somewhere along the way. And even though it
was never his fault, it seemed that he was always, inexplicably,
being relegated to the role of scapegoat.
He reached the end of the corridor and stepped into a
thirty-foot-square room which housed stacks of folding tables and
chairs and crates of Skat Mandu pamphlets and reading material. The
tools of his trade, enough fodder for a fine bonfire.
He looked beyond the mounds of useless inventory to the single
steel-lined door at the far side of the room and sighed wearily.
Beyond that door was a tunnel that ran for almost a mile underneath
the compound to a garage, a silver and black 4WD Land Cruiser, and
safety. A careful planner was never without a bolt hole in case
things went haywire, as they had just done here. He had not
expected to put this one to use quite so soon, but circumstances
had conspired against him once again. He grimaced. He supposed it
was a good thing that he was always prepared for the worst, but it
was an annoying way to live.
He glared purposefully at Biggar, who was perched on the crates
safely out of reach. "How many times have I warned you against
giving in to acts of conscience, Biggar?"
i4 THE TANGLE BOX
"Many," Biggar replied, and rolled his eyes.
"To no purpose, it seems."
"I'm sorry. I am only a simple bird."
Horris considered that mitigating circumstance. "I suppose you
expect aaether chance, don't you?"
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Brooks, Terry - MKL#4 - The Tangle Box
Biggar lowered his hлul to keep from snickering. "I would be most
grateful, Horris."
Horris Kew's gangly frame bent forward suddenly in the manner of a
crouched wolf. "This is the last time I ever want to hear of Skat
Mandu, Biggar. The last. Sever whatever lingering relationship you
share with our former friend right now. No more private