"Simon Hawke - Wizard 7 - The Wizard of Camelot" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawke Simon)

could
see that as large as it was, the oak had been split completely in two, right
down the middle, from its uppermost branches straight down to where its trunk
rose from the ground. Smoke swirled and eddied all around it, and as it
slowly
dissipated, I saw what appeared to be a figure standing in the cleft.

I blinked, and shook my head, and blinked again. My first quick impression
was
that I had been illuminated briefly in that flash of lightning and now some
guard stood over me, but the man I saw was dressed nothing like a guard, and
he
carried no weapons, save for a long, slender wooden staff.

He wore some sort of robe, emblazoned with curious symbols, and he wore a
high,
conical hat. He had a long white beard and snowy hair that fell well past his
shoulders. And as I stared at him with disbelief, he looked down at me and
said,
"Greetings, good sir. My name is Merlin."


CHAPTER 2


It seems impossible to imagine these days that the name of Merlin would not
instantly be recognized, even without Ambrosius appended to it, but back
then,
Merlin was, at best, part of an obscure legend, a piece of folklore, a
onetime
curiosity to academics who had occasionally debated whether or not he and
King
Arthur had ever actually existed. And those debates had ceased with the
coming
of the Collapse.

The legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table had once
fascinated
schoolchildren all over the world. Scores of books had been written on the
subject, both novels and scholarly studies, and the story had also been the
basis for films, television programs, comedies, dramatic plays, and musicals.
Graduate students had written papers on the subject, and historians had
searched
for the authentic British king on whom Arthur had supposedly been based, as
they
had searched for Merlin, the legendary wizard who had been his mentor and
advisor. That time had passed, however

Universities had closed during the Collapse, for there had been no one to
attend