"Brooks,.Terry.-.Word03.-.Angel.Fire.East" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brooks Terry)

Promise me.

The words are thin and weak and empty of life. Ross stares in
silence at the man.

Promise m e...

-=O=-***-=O=-

John Ross awoke with sunshine streaming down on his face and
the sound of children's voices ringing in his ears. The air was hot
and sticky, and the smell of fresh turned earth and new leaves rose
on a sudden breeze. He blinked and sat up. He was hitchhiking
west through Pennsylvania, and he had stopped at a park outside
Allentown to rest, then fallen asleep beneath the canopy of an old
hardwood. He had thought only to doze for a few minutes, but he
hadn't slept well in days, and the lack of sleep had finally caught up
to him.

He gazed around slowly to regain his bearings. The park was large
and thickly wooded , and he had chosen a spot well back from the
roads and playgrounds to rest. He was alone. He looked down at
his backpack and duffel bag, then at the polished black staf f in his
hands. His throat was dry and his head ached. A spot deep in his
chest burned with the fury of hot coals.

His dream shimmered in a haze of sunlight just before his eyes,
images from a private hell.

He was a Knight of the Word , living one life in the present and
another in the future, one while awake and another while asleep,
one in which he was given a chance to change the world and
another in which he must live forever with the consequences of his
failure to do so. He had accepted the charge almost twenty-five
years ago and had lived with it ever since. He had spent almost the
whole of his adult life engaged in a war that had begun with the
inception of life and would not end until its demise. There were no
boundaries to the battlefield on which he fough tЧ neither of space
nor of time. There could be no final resolution.

But the magic of a gypsy m orph could provide leverage of a sort
that could change everything.

He reached in his backpack and brought forth a battered water
bottle. Removing the cap, he drank deeply from its lukewarm
contents, finding momentary relief for the dryness in his throat and
mouth. He had trouble fitting the cap in place again. The dream had
shaken him. His dreams did so often, for they were of a world in
which madness ruled and horror was commonplace. There was
hope in the present of his waking, but none in the future of his