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

breakfast table, the dishes not yet cleared away, me drinking my tea and
Merlin
smoking his curved pipe with its ever-changing odors, and it seemed for all
the
world as if an elderly, avuncular neighbor had dropped by for a friendly
morning
chat. Old Mr. Ambrosius, from next door. A bit eccentric, perhaps, but a
pleasant, harmless, and altogether rather charming bloke. One who had stepped
out of a tree he happened to have slept in for about two thousand years.

"So many things have changed," he said. "And yet, in essence, much has
remained
the same. There is still ambition, greed and lust for power. There is still
poverty and hunger. There are still those who have much, and those who have
nothing. In its driven quest for progress, humanity has overreached itself.
You
have achieved progress at the expense of enlightenment. And see what has
resulted. You have poisoned the very air you breathe, befouled the water that
you drink, and stripped the Earth of her resources. Humanity has pissed in
its
own well, Thomas. Your miraculous machines are winding down, and your
marvelous
technology is now of little use to you. It shall not replace that which was
lost... or that which was forgotten."

He sat silent for a moment, pensive, shaking his head as if with paternal
disapproval.

"Well, I can hardly disagree," I said, "but you still haven't told me what it
is
you plan to do."

"My plan,'' he said, "is to bring back the forgotten knowledge. There is
great
need of it."

"What, you mean magic?" I said.

"Yes. The discipline of thaumaturgy, or magic, if you prefer My greatest
strength, indeed, my greatest satisfaction, has always been derived from
teaching. Therefore, I shall instruct others in the Craft, so that the age of
magic may return."

I could only gape at him. "But... how on Earth do you propose to teach a
supernatural ability?"

"There is nothing supernatural about it," he replied. "Magic has always been
a
fact of nature, governed by its laws. Granted, it does take a certain talent
not