"Barbara Hambly - Windrose 1 - The Silent Tower" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

and roll for cover until it was instinct. But now he stood, paralyzed like a stupid
peasant, in the waxy moonlight at the foot of the step as the fat black shape of the
wizard came stumbling out of a nearby alley, aptly named Stinking Lane. He saw the
man's round moonface clearly and the shocked panic in his eyes as Thirle began to
run clumsily across the court, arms outspread like a bird's wings for balance.
From the darkness on the opposite side of the Yard, Caris heard the crack of a
pistol.
Thirle rocked back sharply at the impact of the bullet, his feet flying out from
under him as he flopped grotesquely on the stones. A dark shape broke cover from the
shadows on the opposite side of the court, running toward Thirle, toward the mouth of
Stinking Lane behind him, a black cloak covering him like a wing of shadows. All
this Caris watched, but all of it, including the fact that he knew Thirle was dead, was
less to him than his grief for the loss of his magic. None of it mattered-none of it had
anything to do with him. But deep within him shock and horror stirred-at what was
happening and at himself.
In a daze of anger, he forced himself to run, to intercept that fleeing black
figure. He'd gone two steps when the digging bite of the cobbles on his bare feet
reminded him belatedly that he had neither boots nor weapons. Cursing the
carelessness and stupidity that seemed to be upon him tonight, he flung himself to one
side into the black pocket of shadow between the novices' house and Thirle's. From
across the court, he caught the flash of a pistol shot.
Splinters of brick exploded from the corner of the house, so close to his face
that they tore his cheek. He knew it would take his man some moments to reload and
knew he should dart out and take him then-but he hesitated, panic he had never
known clutching at his belly. He heard feet pounding the cobbles and forced himself
to stumble upright, to race in pursuit, but his legs dragged as if tangled in wet rope. It
meant nothing to him. His soul had turned as sterile and cold as the magicless world
around him. It would be easier to stop now, shrug, and go back to bed, Thirle's body
would still be there in the morning. Dully angry at himself, he made himself run. For
five years, in spite of exhaustion, occasional illness, and injuries, he had made himself
pick up the sword for training, but forcing himself now was more difficult than it had
ever been. In some oblique corner of his mind, he wondered if this were a spell of
some kind, but it was unlike any spell he had ever known.
His steps slowed. The fugitive leaped over Thirle's body and vanished into the
utter blackness of Stinking Lane. Caris dodged sideways, pressing against the house
wall and slipping forward to the corner, knees flexed, ready to drop if that hand with
its pistol appeared around the edge. The two shots had been so close together that the
killer must have had two weapons-both empty now-and possibly he had a third.
Through Caris' thin shirt, he felt the roughness of the coarse-plastered wall and the
dampness that stuck the thin fabric to his ribs with sweat. He found he was exhausted,
panting as if he had run miles.
He reached the mouth of the lane and looked around.
He saw nothing. No light-no walls-no sky. There was only a black and endless
hollow, an abyss that seemed to swallow time itself, as if not only the world, but the
universe, ended beyond the narrow band of pallid moonlight that lay on the cobbles
beneath his feet.
Terror tightened like a garrote around his throat. He had not felt that hideous,
nightmare fear since he had waked in the night as a small child to see the gleam of
rats' eyes winking at him in the utter dark of the loft where he slept. Staring into that
emptiness of endless nothing, he felt horror pressing upon him, horror of he knew not