"Simon Hawke - Wizard 5 - The Samurai Wizard" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawke Simon)

pilot, which required peak mental and physical conditioning to hold
airliners in the sky, or thaumagenetic engineer, an art form
demanding years of study to master the spells involved in creating
magically hybridized life forms. And, finally, there was corporate
sorcerer, the highest pinnacle to which most adepts could aspire.
A very select few could, upon completion of ten years as a
sorcerer, qualify for the exams that could allow them to advance to
the rank of mage, but so demanding were final levels of
certification that only one Japanese had ever succeeded in passing
them. The number of mages in the world could be counted on the
fingers of one hand. First and foremost among them all had been
the legendary Merlin Ambrosius, Father of the Modern
Thaumaturgic Age It had been Merlin who had brought back the
forgotten discipline of magic after awakening from his long,
enchanted sleep. He had brought the world out of the dark age of
the Collapse by founding-schools of thauma-turgy, administered by
his most gifted pupils, one of whom had been the Arab prince,
Sheikh Rashid AlтАЩHassan, the first of MerlinтАЩs students to attain the
rank of mage.
Like Ambrosius, AlтАЩHassan was gone now. He had been seduced
by necromancy, a crime punishable throughout the world by death,
and it was rumored that he had met his end in mage war between
himself and his old master. Others said that he was consumed by
his own spells, black magic run amok, and the ruins of his splendid
palace, left untouched since he had disappeared, stood as a
frightening object lesson to all those who might be tempted by the
dark side of the thaumaturgic arts. In any case, no one knew for
certain what had happened. Both AlтАЩHassan and Ambrosius had
disappeared, never to be seen again. There had been no sign of
Merlin ever since the day his Beacon Hill mansion was totally
consumed by flames, yet there were those who continued to believe
that Merlin was still alive. Kanno doubted it, himself. He believed
that the master and the student had destroyed each other. And that
meant the two most powerful mages on the planet were no more.
That left only Zorin, the aloof and implacable Russian, who
disdained to use a magename; the venerable Tao Tzu of Tibet, an
aged recluse whose magename meant тАЬSon of the WayтАЭ; and
KannoтАЩs own former sensei, Yohaku, whose true name he had never
known and whose magename translated as тАЬwhite space.тАЭ
Yohaku had studied in America, under Ambrosius himself, and
the master of masters had once remarked upon his pupilтАЩs selfless
dedication, his total openness and lack of preconceptions in
approaching his studies of the art. He had referred to him as a
student who came to his teacher as if he were a тАЬblank slateтАЭ upon
which knowledge could write freely. So deeply affected had the
warlock been by that remark that he had translated тАЬblank slateтАЭ
as тАЬempty spaceтАЭ or, more literally, that space that is purposely left
blank or white upon a canvas. That was how Yohaku got his
magename. Kanno had lost track of how many times Sensei had
told that story.