"Gardner F. Fox - Kothar 01 - Kothar Barbarian Swordsman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fox Gardner F)

need of heroes, may realize that his heroes must live in order that he,
himself, may survive."

KotharтАФBarbarian Swordsman is an epic hero for any age, but it would
appear that our age needs him more than any other.
Donald Maclvers, Ph. D.

The Universe is old. Old!

For ten billion years the stars of this, our galaxy, hurtled outward
across the gulfs of space. For another billion years they hung suspended at
the apex of their expansion.

During the past three billion years, now that the universe is contracting
instead of expanding, those stars, dim and faint with age, have been
collapsing in upon themselves, rushing headlong back to their beginnings
and their ultimate destruction.

In time, there will be no Time.
 Ages ago, as the legends say, the race of Man knew those stars and all
their planets, named and visited them, and left on those planetary surfaces
vast cities, great monuments to mankind's own greatness. Once,
uncounted millennia before, an empire of Man was spread throughout the
universe. This empire died more than a billion years ago, after which man
himself sank into a state of barbarism.

Here and there on a planet man has occupied can be seen a bit of
stonework which he left behind him as a reminder of past glory, or a few
rocks of what had been a mighty megopolis, even some chunks of marble
as a memento of forgotten art masterpieces. The rust and erosion of eon
upon eon has bitten deep into mankind's creations.

Today, wherever man can be found on the planets of the dying
star-suns, the very shapes of the continents on which he lives bear little
resemblance to those he knew two billion years before. The oceans cover
his cities, the desert sands his tombs and temples, while the fierce north
wind ruffles vegetation that earlier man had never seen.

Today, man is a barbarian in a barbaric world. Man has reverted back
to the childhood of his earliest years. He has forgotten his heritage, he has
made new gods to replace the old. Man has outlived his glory.

And yetтАФto some men and women who live in the sunset years of the
race has been given a power unknown to those men of an earlier age, yet a
power famed and feared in the legendry of his people. For there are
wizards and warlocks, sorcerers and witches in these days, and their spells
and incantations are known to work malignant miracles.

There are also warriors, fighting men whose swords earn them fame
and fortune, men inured to hardship and a way of life totally alien to the