"Peter David - Sir Apropos 03 - Tong Lashing" - читать интересную книгу автора (David Peter)

BOOK ONE

Sick Transit




Chapter 1

Ship Rex



Totally soaked and certain I would die as I desperately clung to a piece of driftwood, alone in a
raging sea while the vessel I'd booked passage on slid to a watery grave, I couldn't help but consider that
there was very little upside in playing games of chance with creatures of pure, unremitting evil.

I am not certain if that particular bit of advice will be of much general utility. It certainly lacks the
universal appeal of cautions against going out of one's way to annoy magic users, or the hazards of
involving oneself in the affairs of such beings. In point of fact, I had no idea when I sat down at a gaming
table in the bowels of the good shipLarp that I would find myself, barely an hour later, the sole survivor
of the poor vessel's explosive and disastrous end. On the other hand, if one had sat me down and told
me that such events were about to transpire, I can't say as I would have been all that surprised.

I have that talent. The talent--or insufferably bad luck, if you will--to find myself in the midst of
unexpected adventures, or disasters, or cursed happenstance, despite all my best efforts to stay out of
harm's way. As any who have read my earlier autobiographical scribblings know all too well, I make it a
full-time occupation to mind my own business, keep my head down, and stay well clear of danger
whenever it presents itself. I can only say that danger has become devilishly clever in inflicting itself upon
me. I would almost admire the ingenuity ill fortune displays in finding me and inflicting itself upon me if it
weren't for the deuced inconvenience. It almost makes me wonder what there is about me that seems
worth the trouble. I'm damned if I can figure it out. Then again, for the things I've done in my life, I'm
likely damned anyway, so I suppose it all evens out.

I bear the unlikely name of "Apropos," a moniker given me by my long-dead tavern wench of a
mother. I was spawned as the result of her gang rape by a group of knights. As a consequence, I have an
understandably jaded view of the world. Knights, after all, are supposed to represent all that is good and
true, pure and decent in mankind. When a host of these avatars of wonderfulness spend their off-hours
brutally raping a helpless floozy, with the end result being me, it should be easy to comprehend why I
take the nobility of chivalry far less seriously than the common man. And that's speaking as someone who
is as common as they come.

Curiously, this did not prevent my brief tenure as "Sir Apropos of Nothing" in the court of good King
Runcible, and my even briefer status as future royal son-in-law. That business came to a fairly disastrous
end, and after further misadventures I wound up fleeing the state of Isteria altogether, in the company of a
magic user named Sharee.

Sharee...

Odd. I thought we'd wind up together.