"Modesitt, L E - The Hammer of Darkness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Modesitt L E)

bed to the wardrobe, putting each foot down carefully, unsure
of his perceptions and his footing. By the time he puts out a
hand to lean on the wall edge of the wardrobe, he is dripping
sweat.
He shivers.
The robe, which had felt almost silky when he awoke, grits
against his skin like sandpaper. Martin fingers the cuff, but
the material still feels smooth to his fingertips.
He shivers again, but ignores the chill to concentrate on the
personal belongings laid out on the chest-level recessed ward-
robe shelf.
Two items leap to his eye. The first is the solidio cube of
Kryn, which glows with a new inner light.
The second is the Regent's Scholar belt clasp. Before, it
had been a dull maroon. Now it glowers at him with a crim-
son malevolence.
One hand against the wall, still propping himself up, the
former scholar and present fugitive/prisoner checks the gar-
ments. The robes provided by the Brotherhood have all been
replaced with simple pale yellow tunics and trousers, three
sets, and two new pairs of soft brown formboots lie on the
floor.
After wiping his forehead with the back of his cuff, still
looking silky and feeling gritty, he checks through the under-
clothes and folded personal items.
Most are missing ... anything that might have linked him
to the Brotherhood or to his time as a Regent's Scholar.
"But why leave the clasp?"
But why leave the clasp?
... leave the clasp ...
... leave the clasp ...
The room twists upside down, then right-side up, then up-
side down.
Martin closes his eyes. The brochure he'd been studying
before Boreas had stunned him had mentioned disorientation.
But this wasn't disorientation. It verges on torture.
He opens his right eye. The room is right-side up. He
opens his left eye, and the room jumps to the left and stays
in the same place, all at once, so that Martin sees doubled im-
ages.
He concentrates on fixing the images into one, just that,
keeping his visions of things firmly in place. The images
merge.
The sweat streams from his forehead again.
Suddenly the floor looms in front of his face, and pain like
fire screams from his nose. And darkness ...
The overhead is still pale yellow, and his head still aches.
So do his nose and a spot on his forearm.
Again he is flat on his back on that same pallet, in the
same hospital, if that is what it is.