"John Lee - Unicorn Saga 04 - The Unicorn Peace" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lee John)

dropping in sudden terror.

Jarred Courtak woke with a start. His mouth was dry
and his hands were clenched. His heart was pounding.
He lay there for a while calming himself. The dream
was still vivid in his mind and he tried to make sense
of it. There were those, usually men or women in whom
the Talent was weak, who made a living from the inter-
pretation of dreams, but he had never been a believer.
It was true that the Archmage had once seen the future,
but that had been as a result of Magic, properly ap-
plied. He shrugged mentally and rolled out of bed. It
would soon be time for the ritual of Making the Day.

He breakfasted in the Outpost's Hall with the rest of
the Magicians and then returned to his rooms to pre-
pare for the morning's meeting of the Commission for
the Outland. The Commission, together with the re-
search he had been doing for a history of Strand, had
dominated his life for years now. He had been on the
Commission since its founding thirteen years ago. Its
deliberations had meandered on ever since. There had

4 + JOHN LEE

been no sense of urgency in the early days. Jarrod had
been alone in his conviction that the soil was safe, free
of whatever had caused mutations in the past, but the
barren expanse had greened since then and become a
vast, flat savanna. Pressure for colonization was grow-
ing.

He wondered if the past night's dream had any con-
nection with the coming meeting. A vote on partition
was a possibility. A draft of the proposal had been cir-
culated. There was nothing in it for the Discipline. He
had fought hard for territory in the beginning and had
been told, politely but firmly, that the Discipline was
not a sovereign state and thus had no role to play in
matters territorial. He had persisted and a move had
been made to oust him. He had appealed to the Arch-
mage.

He smiled at the memory of what had come next.
Archmage Ragnor had descended on Stronta like the
specter of death, breathing anathema. In a speech be-
fore the Royal Council of Paladine, the Commissioners
and the diplomatic corps, he had declared that the en-
tire Outland belonged to the Discipline by right of con-
quest. The resulting furor dominated conversation in