"Cook,.Rick.-.Wizardry.01.-.Wizard.Bane" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cook Rick)

"Now," he went on in a somewhat gentler tone. "What is your special virtue?"
"Huh?"
"What is it that you do?"
"Oh, I'm a programmer. From Cupertino. Say, where are we, anyway?"
"We are in the North of World on the Fringe of the Wild Wood," Bal-Simba told him.
"Where's that in relation to California?"
"Far, far away I am afraid. You were Summoned from your own world to this one by he who is dead." He nodded in the direction of the freshly raised cairn.
"Oh," Wiz said blankly. "Okay." He paused. "Uh, how do I get back?"
"That may take some effort," Bal-Simba told him. The black giant suddenly became more intent.
"Again. What is your special virtue?"
"I told you, I'm a programmer. I work with computers."
"I do not think we have those here. What else do you do?"
"Well, ah. Nothing really. I just work with computers."
"Are you a warrior?"
"Huh? No!" Wiz was slightly shocked.
"Think," commanded Bal-Simba. "There must be something else."
"No, there really isn't," Wiz protested. "Well, I do watch a lot of old movies."
It was Bal-Simba's turn to look blank.
"That's all there is, honest." Wiz was facing the black wizard so he did not see Moira's face fall.
"There must be more here," said Bal-Simba. He paused for a minute.
"Now. I swear to you that I mean you no harm." He smote his breast over his heart. "I swear to you that I will neither willingly harm you nor allow you to come to harm." He struck his chest again. "That I may aid you, will you give me leave to look deeper into you?"
"Uh, yeah. Sure," Wiz said a little apprehensively.
"Then sit here where you may be more comfortable." Bal-Simba guided Wiz to the rock where Patrius had sat so recently. He reached into his pouch and drew out a small purple crystal. "Look at this." Wiz gazed at the tiny gem cupped in the great pink palm. "Look deeply. Fix your attention on it. Observe . . . observe."
Wiz's eyes glazed and his mouth went slack.
"To business then." Bal-Simba tucked the crystal back into his pouch and began the task of learning all he could about this visitor from so far away.

"Strange indeed," muttered Bal-Simba, turning from where Wiz dozed in a trance. "Very strange."
"How so, Lord?" Moira asked.
"There is no sign of magic."
"No magic! None at all?"
"None that I can detect. Despite his name, this Wiz is as lacking in manna as a newborn babe."
Moira crumpled. "Then it was all for nothing," she said bitterly. "Patrius died for nothing! Oh, Lord, I am so sorry."
"I do not know. There is something-strange-about him, but it is not magic."
"The effects of the Summoning?"
Bal-Simba frowned. "I do not think so. It goes beyond that, I believe." He kept silent for a moment.
"You say Patrius told you he was summoning a wizard?" he asked at last.
"Yes, Lord." Then Moira stopped. "Well . . . not exactly."
"What then exactly?"
Moira screwed up her face in an effort to remember. "Patrius said he was Summoning someone who could help us against the League." She made the warding gesture. "Someone with great magical power. When I asked him if the man was a wizard he evaded the question. But," she added thoughtfully, "he never called him a wizard."
"But he did say that this man had great power?"
"Yes, Lord. He said he looked long and hard to find him."
"That I can believe," Bal-Simba said absentmindedly. "Searching beyond the World is long and hard indeed. Hmm . . . but he did not call him a wizard, you say?"
"No, Lord."
"When I asked Patrius that he would not answer."
Bal-Simba's head sunk down on his chest.
"Lord," Moira interrupted timidly, "didn't Patrius tell the Council what he was doing?"
Bal-Simba grimaced. "Do you think we would have allowed this madness had we known? No, we knew Patrius was engaged in a great project of some sort, but he told no none, not even his apprentices, what he was about.
"He had spoken to me of the tide of our struggle with the Dark League and how it fared. He was not sanguine and I knew in a general way that he intended something beyond the common. But I had assumed he would lay the project before the Council when it came to fruition. I assumed rashly and it cost us dearly."
"But why, Lord? Why would he take such an awful risk?"
"Because with the League so strong not all of the Mighty together could have performed a Great Summoning."