"Farland, David - Runelords 5 - Sons of the Oak (v1.0)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farland David)

"King Anders, you think?" Iome asked. "Back from the dead?" That drew Fallion's attention. Fallion peered up at her with eyes gone wide, riveted.
"It couldn't be. I saw his body myself," Borenson said. "He was cold when they took him from the battlefield at Carris. No matter how much of a wizard he was, I doubt that he could have come back."

Yet Iome gave him a hard look.
Fallion asked, "How can a man come back from the dead?"
"Anders was mad," Iome answered, "wind-driven. He gave himself to the Powers of the Air. As such, he could let his breath leave him, feign death."
Fallion looked to Borenson. "Can he really do that?"
"I've seen it," Borenson said. "Such men are hard to kill."
Iome dared not reveal more of what she suspected about Anders. Borenson put in, "Whoever he is, he isn't working alone. He mentioned a superior: someone named Shadoath. Have you heard the name?"
Iome shook her head no. "It sounds ... Inkarran?" she mused. It didn't sound like any name that she had ever heard. "If Anders is back, that could explain much," Iome said. She turned to Fallion. "You were attacked only moмments after your father... passed. I doubt that anyone could have known that he was going to dieЧunless they had a hand in it."
Fallion shook his head and objected, "No one could have killed him! His Earth Powers would have warned him."
That was the kind of thing that the cooks and guards would have told Fallion. Gabom was invincible. Iome half believed it herself. But she also knew mat Anders was both more powerful and more evil than her son could know.
"I'm with the boy," Borenson said. "It seems more likely that his enemies just waited for him to die. His endowments were aging him prematurely. He was old, even for a wizard."
Fallion had to wonder. His father should have known that he was going to die. His Earth Powers would have warned him weeks, perhaps months, in advance. And thus if he had foreseen his own death, why had he not avoided it?
Perhaps he could not avoid it, Fallion thought. But at least, he could have come home to say good-bye.
He said good-bye in his own way, Fallion realized. But it seemed a small thing.
And for that matter, why had Gaborn sent Fallion into me

mountains toward danger as his last act? Had his father meant for him to find Rhianna, to help save her?
That didn't make any sense. Rhianna wasn't one of the Chosen. His father couldn't have known of her distress. The Earth King's powers were limited. He didn't know everyмthing.
Fallion was in a muddle.
"Why would anyone want to kill me?" Fallion wondered aloud. He saw his mother stiffen, exchange a look with Borenson.
She knelt, bit her lower lip, and seemed to search for the right words. "There are many men who might want you dead. I haven't wanted to alarm you, but you need to know: your father traveled through many realms, seeking out the good people of the world. He Chose those that he liked best, and with his blessing, he helped them to prosper, and proмtected them from harm."
She held her breath a moment, letting this sink in. "Now those people venerate him. They love your father like no king before him. And you are his heir. There will be many who will want to serve you more than their own kings. Who would want to serve an old warlord in Internook, for exмample, when he could have the son of the Earth King as his lord?"
"No one," Fallion said.
"Exactly," Iome said. "Which is why, when the last Earth King died over two thousand years ago, other lords banded together and slew his offspring, in order to protect their thrones."
"But I don't want anyone's throne," Fallion objected.
"You don't now," Borenson said with a note of hope in his voice, "but if you were to stake such a claim ..."
"Wars would rage across me land," Iome said, and Fallion
imagined millions of people, rising up at once, to subjugate
their lords. j
"But I wouldn't do that," Fallion said.
Iome looked to Borenson, unsure what to say next, and

Borenson whispered, "Not now," he said. "Maybe you'll never want that. But the time may come...."
Fallion looked at his mother, saw her blanch. Borenson had just suggested the unthinkable.
Iome had to deter the child from that line of thinking. "What is the duty of a Runelord?" Iome asked Fallion. She had made him memorize the words as an infant.
"The Runelord is the servant of all," Fallion said. "It is his duty to render justice to the aggrieved, to foster prosperity among uie needy, and to establish peace whenever peril looms."
"That was your father's creed," Iome said, "and the anмcient creed of House Orden. But it is not the creed of every king."
"Certainly it is not the creed of Anders," Borenson said. "Or of those who followed him. He fears you, fears the kind of king mat you could become."
"But I've done nothing to him," Fallion said.
Iome knelt, looking into his eyes. "It's not what you have done, it is what you could do. When you were born, your faмther looked into your heart, and saw that you had an ancient spirit, that you had been born many times. He said that you came to the Earth with a purpose. Do you know that purмpose?"
Fallion felt inside himself. He didn't feel special at all. He was just frightened. And he wasn't aware of any powerful desires, except that his bladder was full and would soon need to be emptied. "No," Fallion said.
Iome peered into his face, and her features softened as she smiled. Fallion could see wetness in her dark eyes. "Your faмther said, 'He comes to finish what I could not.'"
Fallion wondered at that. His father had been the most revered king in two thousand years. He had led an army against the reaver hordes and won. People said that mere was nothing that he couldn't accomplish. "What does that mean?" Fallion asked. "What am I supposed to do?"
Iome shook her head. "I don't know. But in time it will be-

come clear to you. And when it does, Anders will indeed find that he has a worthy foe."
Fallion wondered what to do. He couldn't fight. But sudмdenly he knew the answer. Fallion turned a step, peered out through the open doors, to the veranda, where a sudden breeze gusted, blowing the curtains inward toward him. "When he was dying, Da told me to run. He said that they would come for me, and I was to keep running. He said that die ends of the Earth are not far enough."
Iome made a choking noise, and when Fallion turned, he saw her dark eyes glistening with tears. She looked to Sir Borenson, as if to confirm what Fallion had said. Borenson peered at the floor as if he were a wizard staring into some dark orb, and he nodded. "Those are the words he gave me," Borenson said. "He told me to take the boys and run, and said, 'The ends of the Earth are not far enough.'"