"Laurell K. Hamilton - Ravenloft - Death of a Darklord" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Laurell K)

ONE



The skull lay on the desk, gleaming in the thin daylight. It was an old piece of bone, clean and dry. It
looked human until held in oneтАЩs hands and studied. The eye sockets were huge, almost as large as the
empty sockets of a bird of prey. The strong yellowish teeth had sharp edges; the front teeth were fangs,
made for piercing flesh, spilling blood.

Calum Songmaster remembered what the thing had looked like when alive. Something between a hawk
and a wolf. . . and what was left of the human the creature had once been. The man had been Gordin
Smey, a friend, a comrade in battling evil. With the remnant of his mind, his decency, he had begged
Calum to kill him. Calum had done it. Gordin had been a good man, with a wife and children. He had
slain many monsters, but in the end, he had become one of them. Calum had saved the skull as a
reminder that the land of Kartakass could corrupt anyone. Now he lay in the soft, smothering folds of his
sickbed, propped up on one side like a spitted piece of meat, save that pillows and quilts kept him in
place, not a sharp metal spike. But he was just as trapped. He stared at the skull of his long-dead friend
and envied him his quick death. Calum had survived all the evils of the land for eighty years. It was a
prodigious age to have lived to see. Foul sorceries, monsters, beasts, robbers, evil people of every
description; all these he had survived. Old age was not so easily escaped.

For many months, he had been unable to sit at his desk and work. The pain of the disease that ate him
alive made every movement agony. He had been a tall, strong man, but now he was a bundle of sticks
clothed in loose skin. He had made his housekeeper take down the roomтАЩs mirror. Calum no longer
recognized the fragile creature that stared back at him. In his mind, he was still young, strong, but mirrors
did not lie, so he banished the truth-telling glass. The pain, and what he could see of his own body, were
reminder enough. His friends had come to visit him. His good friends. It was why he was propped up on
his side, so he could see them without having to move, without having to let them know how much even
the smallest movement hurt him. His housekeeper was very good about such things. He planned to leave
her what money he had and this house. After twenty years, she deserved more, but it was all he had.
Fighting evil was not a particularly lucrative business. His friend, his best friend, sat in a chair by the bed.
Jonathan Ambrose was not really young, nearly fifty. There was gray in his beard. His hair had receded
to a thin circle that he kept closely cropped. The fashion was to let what hair you had grow long, but
Jonathan never cared much for fashion. He wore a simple brown robe, clean, well mended, but utterly
plain. No one had worn ankle-length robes in a decade, but Jonathan found them comfortable. His clear
blue eyes looked at Calum. His face was smooth, calm. There was no hint of horror or pity. For that
Calum was grateful, but at .the same time, irritated. To look at him, Jonathan might have been here on
any afternoon. No special reason. Calum wanted to shout, тАЬDonтАЩt you know IтАЩm dying, dying?тАЭ He was
angry his friend could face him without showing the pain he saw on so many faces. So why had he gotten
angry at his housekeeper for crying this morning? Calum gave a careful sigh. Nothing would satisfy him.
He wanted everyone to know and pity his pain, and yet not to show it. He wanted to have his cake and
eat it, too.

тАЬI am a cranky old man,тАЭ Calum said in a scratchy voice that he barely recognized as his own. Jonathan
smiled that same gentle smile. тАЬNever.тАЭ Calum had to smile. His anger dripped away. He was suddenly
glad of the visit. Was it a sign of deathтАЩs nearness, these swift-changing moods? He was not sure; he had
never died before.

In a smaller chair, the one his housekeeper usually sat in to do her sewing while she kept him company,
sat the only other woman he allowed to see him like this. Tereza was tall, lithe, dark. Her thick black hair