"C. S. Friedman - Coldfire 3 - Crown of Shadows" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friedman C. S)

a chance."
"He'll never kill you. Human life is cheap to him, but killing you would mean destroying his family
line-forever-and he would never do that to one of his own creations. No, Andrys Tarrant, you're the one
man on this planet that he won't ever kill. That's why I need you."

"Then he'd torture me-"

"Worse than he has already?"

Andrys lowered his head. And trembled.

"He's powerful," the demon said. "Perhaps the most powerful fleshborn creature that this planet has ever
produced. And evil, without question. But he's also proud, and infinitely vain-and that will be his
undoing." The brittle voice altered, becoming smooth. Seductive. Liquid tones, that lapped at his brain
like a drug. "You know what I want. Now let me show you what I have to offer in return."

Fear wrapped a cold hand about Andrys' heart. A hundred generations of Tarrants clamored for him to
flee.

But-

But-

What did he have to lose?

"Go ahead," he whispered.

-And it occurred to him that maybe with demonic help he could get the bastard who'd slaughtered his
family, could make him pay... but not with a quick death, oh no. Nor with simple pain. With something
equivalent to what he had done to Andrys-some slow, living death that would rot away his soul until there
was nothing left but a core of despair, stripped of all its pride and its vanity and its strength and its power
and

all its hope___He pictured the proud Neocount of

Merentha made helpless by his actions, assigned to a living hell by the force of his hatred, and felt
something stir inside him that had been dead for too long. Purpose. Direction. Hope. His blood ran hot
with it, and he trembled as unaccustomed vitality poured into his brain. As his body flushed with the thrill
of his intentions.

And then it was gone. As suddenly as it had begun.

The hope, the certainty, the sense of power-all dissolved into the night, as if they had never been. All that
remained was a spark of heat in his groin, as if he had just withdrawn from a woman. And an emptiness
so vast it seemed ready to swallow him whole.

"Well?" the demon demanded. "Do you want to live again? Or shall I leave you to crawl your drunken
way into an early grave, and exchange this hell for the one that follows? Which is it?"

His hands shook as he tried to think. Bargaining with demons was suicidal, he knew that. No one ever