"Robert Jordan - The Wheel of Time 06 - Lord of Chaos" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jordan Robert)

Demandred hesitated before following. Halfmen's names were always in the Trollocs' tongue-wrenching language.
"Shaidar Haran" came from what people now named the Old Tongue. It meant "Hand of the Dark." Another
surprise, and Demandred did not like surprises, especially not at Shayol Ghul.
The entry into the mountain could have been one of the scattered vents, except that it emitted no smoke or steam. It
gaped enough for two men abreast, but the Myrddraal kept the lead. The way slanted down almost immediately, the
tunnel floor worn smooth as polished tiles. The cold faded as Demandred followed Shaidar Haran's broad back
down and down, slowly replaced by increasing heat. Demandred was aware of it, but did not let it touch him. A
pale light rose from the stone, filling the tunnel, brighter than the eternal twilight outside. Jagged spikes jutted from
the ceiling, stony teeth ready to snap shut, the Great Lord's teeth to rend the unfaithful or the traitor. Not natural, of
course, but effective.
Abruptly, he noticed something. Every time he had made this journey, those spikes had all but brushed the top of
his head. Now they cleared the Myrddraal's by two hands or more. That surprised him. Not that the height of the
tunnel changedтАФ the strange was ordinary hereтАФ but the extra space the Halfman was given. The Great Lord gave
his reminders to Myrddraal as well as men. That extra space was a fact to be remembered.
The tunnel opened out suddenly onto a wide ledge overlooking a lake of molten stone, red mottled with black,
where man-high flames danced, died and rose again. There was no roof, only a great hole rising through the
mountain to a sky that was not the sky of Thakan'dar. It made that of Thakan'dar look normal, with its wildly
striated clouds streaking by as though driven by the greatest winds the world had ever seen. This, men called the Pit
of Doom, and few knew how well they had named it.
Even after all his visitsтАФ and the first lay well over three thousand years in the pastтАФ Demandred felt awe. Here
he could sense the Bore, the hole drilled through so long ago to where the Great Lord had lain imprisoned since the
moment of Creation. Here the Great Lord's presence washed over him. Physically, this place was no closer to the
Bore than any other in the world, but here there was a thinness in the Pattern that allowed it to be sensed.
Demandred came as close to smiling as he ever did. What fools they were who opposed the. Great Lord. Oh, the
Bore was still blocked, though more tenuously than when he had wakened from his long sleep and broken free of
his own prison in it. Blocked, but larger than when he woke. Still not so large as when he had been cast into it with
his fellows at the end of the War of Power, but at each visit since waking, a little wider. Soon the blockage would
be gone, and the Great Lord would reach out across the earth again. Soon would come the Day of Return. And he
would rule the world for all time. Under the Great Lord, of course. And with those of the other Chosen who
survived, also of course.
"You may leave now, Halfman." He did not want the thing here to see the ecstasy overcome him. The ecstasy, and
the pain.
Shaidar Haran did not move.
Demandred opened his mouthтАФ and a voice exploded in his head.
DEMANDRED.
To call it a voice was to call a mountain a pebble. It nearly crushed him against the inside of his own skull; it filled
him with rapture. He sank to his knees. The Myrddraal stood watching impassively, but only a small part of him
could even notice the thing with that voice filling his brain.
DEMANDRED. HOW FARES THIS WORLD?
He was never sure how much the Great Lord knew of the world. He had been as startled by ignorance as by
knowledge. But he had no doubt what the Great Lord wanted to hear.
"Rahvin is dead, Great Lord. Yesterday." There was pain. Euphoria too strong became pain quickly. His arms and
legs twitched. He was sweating, now. "Lanfear has vanished without a trace, just as Asmodean did. And Graendal
says Moghedien failed to meet her as they had agreed. Also yesterday, Great Lord. I do not believe in coincidence."
THE CHOSEN DWINDLE, DEMANDRED. THE WEAK FALL AWAY. WHO BETRAYS ME SHALL DIE
THE FINAL DEATH. ASMODEAN, TWISTED BY HIS WEAKNESS. RAHVIN DEAD IN HIS PRIDE. HE
SERVED WELL, YET EVEN I CANNOT SAVE HIM FROM BALEFIRE. EVEN I CANNOT STEP OUTSIDE
OF TIME. For an instant terrible anger filled that awful voice, andтАФ could it be frustration? An instant only.
DONE BY MY ANCIENT ENEMY, THE ONE CALLED DRAGON. WOULD YOU UNLEASH THE
BALEFIRE IN MY SERVICE, DEMANDRED?