"Barbara Hambly - Darwath 2 - The Walls Of Air" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

Prologue



The Reaches of the Dark



Gil Patterson thought her vision of the strange city was all a
dream - until the wizard Ingold Inglorion appeared one night in
her kitchen, seeking a place to bring the infant Prince of Dare
from the ancient horror that was attacking the city of Gae.
Rudy Solis didnтАЩt believe in wizards and magic - even when
he saw Ingold emerge, with an infant in his arms, beside the
place where Rudy had stopped to fix his car.
But when one of the monstrous, evil Dark crossed the Void in
IngoldтАЩs wake, their only escape was back with the wizard to
the embattled world from which he had fled.
It was a world where magic worked within a logic of its own.
And it was a world where the loathsome Dark were again
ravening, after they had lain almost forgotten in underground
lairs for three thousand years. Gae had fallen, and the city of
Karst was jammed with refugees. The King was dead, and
proud, ambitious Alwir was now Regent for the infant Prince
Tir, as brother to the young Queen Minalde - or Aide, as most
called her.
Then the Dark struck in massive numbers at Karst. In the
fighting, Gil discovered that even a graduate student of history
could become a warrior. And Rudy found himself aiding the
young Queen to save her child again from the Dark.
At IngoldтАЩs urging, those who were left began the long,
agonizing march toward the Keep of Renweth through trails
choked with snow and buffeted by mountain winds. During that
flight, Dissension among the leaders was as much a danger as
the trailing Dark and the White Raiders, who were coming from
the plains to loot. Alwir and the fanatic lady Govannin, Bishop
of the Church, were engaged in a struggle for power. And both
feared Ingold -the Bishop because all wizardry was evil in her
Faith.
To Gil and Rudy, unused to the hardships of freezing cold and
day-after-day marching, the trip was hard. But Gil found herself
accepted as one of the Guards, the elite fighting force of Gae.
And Rudy found that Aide returned his love. His joy in this was
equalled only by his discovery that he could call up fire - and by
IngoldтАЩs promise to teach him to be a wizard.
In the end, through the efforts of Ingold, some eight thousand
people reached the monstrous, black Keep, built three thousand
years before by wizardry as a defence against the previous
scourge of the Dark. There, in its vast chaos of deserted aisles
and chambers, they could make themselves a refuge for a time,