"Jane Lindskold - Lord Demon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lindskold Jane)

"I see. I was going to offer you a home here with me. I would even complete your training as a sorcerer."
He laughed.
"I am too old," he stated.
"I will make you young."
Li Piao shook his head.
"I do not think you understand, Lord Demon. I appreciate your kind offer more than any I have ever received. But the la
years are good, too, and I would spend them with those I have known and loved."
I reached out and squeezed his arm.
"Perhaps the offer was not a kindness on my part," I said, "so much as a matter of selfishness. But I like you, humanтАФe
moreтАФfor your honesty. I will always be your friend. I will not even touch your memories of this discussion, for I would lik
to come and go as you would, for a visit."
"This humble one is honored."
"Come. Rise and join me," I said. "There is a thing I would show you."
He joined me. I took him on a long, timeless route through realms of wonderтАФand as we went, I ran my chi through him
day he would learn that though I had never trained him, I had enormously enhanced what his old teacher must have seen in
making him perhaps the greatest natural magician in the world.
Coming to my showroom, I gestured. Plates, pots, and bottles were displayed everywhere. I took down my favorite bow
was green, and dragons guarded whatever it might bear. Like all of the items, it was enhanced and virtually indestructible.
"A present, then," I said, handing it to him. "Eat from it regularly. It will improve your health. And think of me thenтАФhum
who can plain-talk with a demon. Come! I will show you more now before I take you home."
Timidly, he took the arm I offered, the bowl in his other hand, and we walked and flew through places of light and twiligh

Autumn came on, and I packed a small bag and slid it into sidewise space. I had let Tuvoon and Viss talk me into attendi
the Great Conventicle in both the human and ghost mountains of northern China. The journey was easy, save for the mazel
tunnels of the entryway and these were almost fun, we knew them so well. As we went, I felt something small slide into m
jacket pocket. As Viss was on that side of me, I said, "What are you doing?'' as I put my hand in after it.
"Don't remove it on pain of rotten luck, unless your straits are quite dire. It is my small blessing. Promise?"
"Very well. I bear a lady's favor."
"Exactly."
We entered the palace beneath the mountains. I passed several congregations of my peers in gardens and on walkways.
Three times I heard a whispered "Godslayer!" from the crowds.
 "I'd forgotten," I said, "and I was hoping they had, too."
"You know it's not something easily forgotten," Tuvoon told me. "Everybody wants to be part of a legend or two."
"That guy would have taken me apart if I hadn't been damn lucky," I told him.
"I was there, too," he replied, "and it wasn't all luck."
"Shit!" I said. "He was a demigod, and I was a brash young demon who probably surprised him more than anything."
"Nevertheless, your victory was a turning point in the battle, and the battle proved a crucial one. It's certainly not bad bei
known as the only demon in memory to have single-handedly killed a god."
I shrugged. "These kids don't know what it was like."
"So let them have their hero."
I growled, and we made our way to our quarters.
There were numerous messages awaiting meтАФmostly invitations to dine and a few to appear on panels dealing with obs
thaumaturgical concepts the organizers must have thought my generation enjoyed more than theirs. They were wrong.
That day I had drinks with Stormmiller, Pigeon Eyes, Icecap, and Spider QueenтАФlunch with Dragon Gore and He of the
Towers of Light; dinner with Seven Fingers and Spilling Moonbeams. I had hopes of finding the Walker and speaking with
but he was nowhere to be found. Neither was DevorтАФin fact, his entire group was conspicuously absent.
Cocktails are a European and American import, one of those things that became popular when some of the more trendse
demons emigrated along with various waves of Chinese expatriates. Perpetual exiles that we are, a change of physical anc
point doesn't trouble us overly much. Cultural shifts, though, those touch us more deeply. Even after my own emigration, I
always entertained second thoughts about American cultural values.