"03.Time Streams" - читать интересную книгу автора (McGough Scott)

limit the freedom of those under his command, to more
completely defend all of us against external foes so that he
alone can torment us."
The silver man felt uncomfortable with this new line of
thought. "External foes? What foes does Malzra have?"
"Oh, everyone is against him, or didn't you know?" said
Teferi lightly as they moved farther down the hallway. He
idly conjured a small knife, whirled it deftly between his
fingers, and then dispelled it. "At least that's what Malzra
thinks. He's got clockwork creatures and actual warriors
roaming the walls around the academy at all hours, and clay
men tramping through the woods by the sea, and gear-work
birds that spy on the island. I myself have never heard of a
single real enemy, but Malzra spends so much time creating
these machines and recreating them and perfecting them,
there must be something more than psychotic paranoia at the
root of it, wouldn't you think?"
"I suppose so," the silver man answered.
They came to another room, this one filled with
dissected hulks of metal, leaning clockwork warriors,
dismantled machines, piles of rusted scrap iron, and at the
far wall, a great open furnace. Workers on one side of the
blazing forge shoveled coal into the flames and pumped
massive bellows. Workers on the other side dumped bins of
spare parts into great vats of molten metal. Throughout the
rest of the grimy chamber, students moved among the ruined
machines like vultures picking at a battlefield of dead. A
shiver of dread move through the probe.
Teferi noticed the impulse and smiled grimly. "See,
Arty, even if Malzra has no other enemies, his old creations
could easily turn on him. They should. They certainly have
reason to hate him. Malzra quickly tires of his playthings.
I can imagine a legion of metal men such as yourself
learning that Malzra planned to melt them down. They could
escape across the sea. I can imagine whole nations of
clockwork creatures who have fled their creator only to
muster themselves in hopes of returning and killing him."
The silver man was aghast. "How could an artifact
creature ever seek to destroy the artifact creator?"
"Give it a year, Arty," Teferi said lightly, though none
of the students laughed this time. The boy patted the
golem's arm. "Give it a year-two at the outside, and you'll
be facing that fiery furnace. It's the way of artifice. When
you're in pieces in that room, then ask yourself what you
think about Master Malzra."
Jhoira was again in her rocky haven from the world. She
spent less and less time in the academy and more and more
time here, dreaming of far-off places and futures-
A white flapping motion caught her eye. There along the
shore, between two fingers of stone, something was moving.