"02.Planeswalker" - читать интересную книгу автора (McGough Scott)

He and Mishra had fought from the beginning in a sunlit
Argive nursery. How could they not, when he was the eldest
by less than a year and Mishra was the brother everyone
liked better?
Yet they'd been inseparable, so keenly aware of their
differences that they'd come to rely on the other's
strengths. Urza never learned the arts of friendship or
affection because he'd had Mishra between him and the rest
of the world.
And Mishra? What had he given Mishra? What had Mishra
ever truly needed from him?
"How long?" Urza asked the wind in a whisper that was
both rage and pain. "When did you first turn away from me?"
Urza reopened his eyes and resumed his trek. He left no
footprints in the dust and snow. Nothing distracted him.
The desiccated corpse propped against one tent pole wasn't
worth a second glance, despite the metal plates rusting on
its brow or the brass pincers replacing its left arm. Urza
had seen what his brother had become; it wasn't surprising
to him that Mishra's disciples were similarly grotesque.
His faceted eyes peered into darkness, seeing nothing.
Now, that was a surprise, and a disappointment. Urza
had expected insight the way a child expects a present on
New Year's morning. Disappoint Mishra and you'd have gotten
a summer tantrum: loud, violent and quickly passed.
Disappoint Urza and Urza got cold and quiet, like ice,
until he'd thawed through the problem.
After four thousand years had they plundered the last
Thran powerstone? Exposed the last artifact? Was there
nothing left for his eyes to see?
A dull blue glint caught Urza's attention. He wrenched
a palm-sized chunk of metal free from the rocks and rubble.
Immediately it moved in his hand, curving back on itself.
It was Thran, of course. An artificer of Urza's skill
didn't need jeweled eyes to recognize that ancient
craftsmanship. Only the Thran had known how to forge a sort
of sentience between motes of metal.
But Urza saw the blue-gray metal more clearly than ever
before. With time, the right tools, the right reagents, and
a bit of luck, he might be able to decipher its secrets.
Then, acting without deliberate thought, as he very rarely
did, Urza drove his right thumbnail into the harder-than-
steel surface. He thought of a groove, a very specific
groove that matched his nail. When he lifted his thumb, the
groove was in the metal and remained as he slowly counted
to ten.
"I see it. Yes, I see it. So simple, once it can be
seen."
Urza thought of Mishra, spoke to Mishra. No one else,
not even his master-student, Tawnos, could have grasped the