"Jim Farris - Mage 3 - Arc of Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farris Jim)

About the Author

Chapter One
"To truly understand the Ancient One, it must be understood that they are not like any ordinary,
mundane human who ever lived, before or since. Like all the truly mighty mages of legend and
song, Eddas Ayar was and is passionless, and compassionless. Beyond humanity, Eddas Ayar was
and is no mere mortal being, but more a force of nature, or the will of a vengeful god incarnate.
To ascribe ordinary, human motivations to any mage is false - they wield powers far beyond
normal beings, and that power shapes their view of the world, distancing them from it. The
greatest of mages were even more distanced from the world by their power, and Eddas Ayar was
and is perhaps the greatest mage in all of history. Thus, the Ancient One was so far removed from
humanity that ascribing human goals and motivations to their actions is simply impossible."

- Lord Caladis, The Eddasine Chronicles, 1817 NCC

I reached out an ebon-gloved hand to adjust the full-length mirror, and looked myself over. The same
strange woman who had gazed back at me for seven decades stood there, her expression calm. Even
after all these years of gazing upon the woman in the mirror, it still felt odd at times to see her rather than
myself - a tall, bearded, olive-skinned Hyperborean male.

The half-elf woman in the mirror was beautiful, of that there was no doubt. Night-black hair drawn back
into a ponytail, highly arched eyebrows, eyes as black as jet... Her body, forged by seventy years of the
ascetic life of a battle-mage, had received its final forging in the raging, destructive chaos that was the
very heart of a mana-storm. Her beauty, because of that, was beyond ordinary mortal beauty... She
was, in fact, possessed of a terrifying, alien and surreal beauty, fitting of who and what she really was.
She was dressed in the ebon, long-sleeved hooded robes I favored, though with a black waist-belt over
it to draw it closer about her figure. Wearing the black, elbow-length kidskin gloves and knee-length
kidskin boots that had once belonged to my beloved Dyarzi, she looked every inch what the two ebon
feathers she bore beneath her hairband announced she truly was - the Raven of Yorindar.

"Old Man, stop primping! You look fine," a voice called.

I turned, looking over my shoulder, and saw Joy coming up the stairs to my room at the top of my tower.
Though now over ninety, the proud beauty of Joy's youth had been restored by my own sorcery, and she
was once again the golden-haired goddess the late King Darian had taken as his wife. She was, in truth, a
giant - though her mother's brush with the edge of a mana-storm had left her daughter of diminutive size,
at a mere five cubits in height. And, though the giants might still consider her to be quite small as she was
barely the size of a toddler to them, Joy towered head and shoulders above any human I had ever
known. "Old Man, you've fussed in that mirror for an hour, now. Come on - it's nearly time. You don't
want to be late."

"The first impression is very important, Joy. For some of those children, it will be the first time they have
ever seen me. For some others, it will be their first day of lessons as an apprentice battle-mage," I
replied, turning back to the mirror. "I will leave nothing but my best impression each time winter returns,
and the children come."

"Yes, and for the rest of them, they've seen you a hundred times before and all your primping is
completely wasted. Now come," Joy said, and grinned at me.

I chuckled. "Well, I suppose you're right. After all, they can see what I really look like beneath this