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

them. Schools had become little more than poorly operated day-care centers
over
which a pall of gloom had hung, for teachers had left the profession in
droves,
driven out of it by the sheer necessity for survival, and those who watched
over
the largely empty classrooms, save for a few diehard idealists, were often
barely more educated than their students. Anyone capable of finding work of
any
kind, regardless of how young or old, was either working, out looking for
work,
or preying upon those who had it. Faced with the disaster of the Collapse,
people had ceased regarding education as a priority. Mere survival had become
challenging enough.

I had grown up during the Collapse, and though I'd had some schooling, I had
joined the service as soon as I was old enough and my real education had been
shaped by the events I lived through. I had always loved to read, however,
and
in my childhood, I had been exposed to the story of King Arthur, but that had
been over three decades earlier and a lot of water had flowed under the
bridge
since then. In any event, the memory was hardly foremost in my mind at that
particular time, which was not surprising, considering the circumstances. I
did
not connect the name of Merlin with King Arthur; and consequently, it meant
nothing to me.

I had, after all, been suffering from an emotional trauma, and I wasn't even
thinking clearly The shock had, to some extent, restored me to my senses, but
I
was still not quite myself. I gazed at the strangely garbed old man standing
there before me in the rain, in the cleft of that bifurcated tree, which had
been peeled back as if it were a huge banana skin, and all I could do was
simply
stare at him. He looked away, and for a moment, he seemed to have eliminated
me
from his consideration. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs, men exhaled
heavily, stretching and rolling his shoulders, as a man might upon awakening
from a long and restful sleep. He craned his neck back and looked up at the
sky,
allowing the rain to fall upon his face, and men he sighed, wearily, or
perhaps
contentedly. He looked around, men focused his gaze on me once more.

He stepped down out of the center of the ruined tree, his movements stiff and
awkward as he labored to walk toward me. He seemed extremely old and frail,
but
when he spoke, the strength and deep resonance of his voice belied
appearances.