"Simon Hawke - Sorcerer 3 - The Ambivalent Magician" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawke Simon)

depths of my subconscious where you belong. I've got work to do.

"No, you shall not get rid of me that easily," said Warrick, staring intently at the swirling eddies in the
crystal. "You have meddled in my affairs for the last time. Your powers are considerable, and I must
concede a grudging admiration for your skills in this sorcerous art you call 'narration,' but I, Warrick the
White, of the House of Morgannan, Grand Director of the Sorcerers and Adepts Guild and Royal
Wizard to the Kingdom of Pitt, will not be trifled with by some upstart demigod from the ethereal
planes!"

Oh, please. For one thing, I'm no demigod, I'm just a struggling writer trying to make a living. And you're
a fictional character, for God's sake. You don't even exist except in my imagination.

"Do not attempt to work your wiles on me, Narrator. I think, therefore I exist."

It's "I think, therefore I am. Cogito, ergo sum." Rene" Descartes. If you're going to quote, get it right. I
will not have my readers thinking I'm a sloppy writer. You've already gotten this book off to a really
bizarre start, and my editors still haven't recovered from the last time you pulled something like this. They
just don't understand how a writer can lose control over his own characters. I had to take some time off
from this series and write a serious book just to prove to them I haven't gone totally around the bend.
They're still not sure about me, and it's all your fault. This isn't helping any. You're making my life very
difficult, you know.

"Not nearly as difficult as it is going to be," said Warrick, concentrating fiercely on the crystal in an effort
to bring forth an image of the Narrator, so he would finally know what the mysterious "voice in the ether"
looked like.

However, at precisely that moment, Teddy, his little troll familiar, had a slight mishap. Only Warrick was
capable of hearing the strange, disembodied entity he called "the Narrator," so as he watched his master
speaking to the crystal ball, Teddy could only hear one side of the conversation. As a result, he wasn't
paying very close attention to his work, and the little troll backed into a chair and knocked over a
precariously balanced pile of ancient scrolls and vellum tomes. They went crashing to the floor of the
sanctorum, making a tremendous racket and upsetting Warrick's concentration.

"Very clever," Warrick said, "but you have only succeeded in delaying the inevitable. I have not attained
the highest rank in the Sorcerers and Adepts Guild for nothing. My concentration is not so easily
broken." He returned his attention to the crystal ball, willing an image of the narrator to appear.

Unfortunately, that wasn't going to happen, because no matter how hard he concentrated, he couldn't
change the fact that this particular crystal ball wasn't equipped for optically correct visual reception. The
most it could do was allow him to hear voices from the ethereal planes and see vague, indistinct forms
and pretty swirling colors.

"That's ridiculous!" said Warrick. "Of what use is a scrying crystal if one cannot see images within it?"

Not much use at all, apparently. Too bad.

"This is absurd! I have been using this scrying crystal for years and it has never yet failed to serve me
properly."

I guess it must be broken, then.