"Lyndon Hardy - Riddle of the Seven Realms" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hardy Lyndon)

Elezar was moving on to things with which he was far less familiar.

"Three of them," Elezar repeated. "So you state that there are ten laws rather than seven?"

"No, the three metalaws are quite different from the rest," Astron said. "Each of the other
realms, that of men, the skyskirr, the fey, and the others, is governed by seven laws of magic out
of infinitely many. The metalaws govern which ones are active and how they are changed."


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Elezar looked over Astron's head to the far side of the rotunda. Translucent membranes flicked
down over his eyes to remove external distractions as he defocused in thought. "The metalaws were
known by some of the most ancient princes," he said. "Even if we could not use them ourselves, we
understood their manipulations well. And in the realm of the skyskirr, they are all-important;
compared to them, the laws themselves pale into insignificance."

Elezar stared back at Astron. "But in the realm of men, for epochs none realized that such things
as metalaws existed. For the mortals, there were only the seven laws of magic as you have stated
them, constant and unfailing. Humankind spent their brief lives entirely ignorant of the greater
powers that slumbered all about them."

The prince paused. "So you see, it is indeed possible. Caspar's riddle might be a valid question,
one with a definite answer. Ah, for the answer." Elezar looked away. "The answer that would give
me victory over yet another who thinks his power greater than mine."

The prince ran his slender tongue over his lower Up, apparently savoring an imagined victory. He
smiled and waved to the hovering imps for another display. But as the complex pattern formed.
Elezar shook his head and motioned them to return to stillness. He looked back at Astron. "But I
have no ready reply, cataloguer," he said. The words were forced and came with difficulty. "I
stall for more time and Caspar guesses at my weakness. He even taunts me with clues, so sure is he
that I will fail."

Astron felt his thoughts suddenly boil and tumble. Elezar, Elezar the one who was goldenтАФof all
the princes, he was the one with the keenest mind. The others might wage their games of power by
mustering great arrays of djinns into eye-blinding battles, but Elezar time after time bested them
all with deft strokes of high strategy or bound up the outcome in riddles for which only he could
unravel the answer in the end.

And if this time Elezar could not provide the solution, then there was great peril for all that he
commanded as

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well. The barely controlled rages of Caspar were well known throughout the realm. None without an
equal appetite for ripping things asunder could hope to survive for long under the rule of a