"Larry Niven - The Magic May Return" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

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"... but fear itself Steven Barnes..................~........╗136

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1 Strength, Poul Anderson and

Introduction

Vou are about to enter a fantasy world that belongs to Larry Niven.

Three years ago, Ace published THE MAGIC GOES AWAY, a beautifully illustrated book in which Larry Niven told the story of the end of magic. As Sandra Miesel said in her Afterword to that book, "Magic no longer exists in our world. But if, as all traditional cultures assert, it ever existed, then why has it disappeared? If magic vanished because its driving energy was depleted, what caused the shortage? And above afl, how did people react to the crisis?"

to THE MAGIC GOES AWAY was tremendous. Headers If" -d what Larry Nfven did with fantasy, making it as much a IB of ideas as the hard science fiction for which he Is justly i..
"I have a proposition for you," said Jim Baen, then Ace's science fiction editor, to Larry Niven, "I will do all of the work and you wID take all of the credit." Niven. of course, has been too smart to believe a statement like that for more years than he might like to admit, but the project was a good one. and it prospered. Several well-known science fiction and fantasy authors, admirers of Niven and of THE MAGIC GOES AWAY, wrote their own stories in the universe that Niven had created. Larry Niven read each story, and made suggestions from time to time, but each author brought to the work his or her own magic, and each story is a unique achievement in its own right. Then Alicia Austin added her magic, with illustrations that make it clear why she has won the Hugo and World Fantasy Award.

Here is the result: THE MAGIC MAY RETURN. Original stories by Poul Anderson and Mildred Downey Broxon, Steven Barnes, Dean Ing, Fred SaberhagenЧand the original Larry Niven story about the Warlock, "Not Long Before the End." as a refresher course in the nature of mana,

Enjoy.

IXjotLong

The End

Larry Niven

A swordsman battled a sorcerer once upon a time.

In that age such battles were frequent. A natural antipathy exists between swordsmen and sorcerers, as between cats and small birds, or between rats and men. Usually the swordsman lost, and humanity's average intelligence rose some trifling fraction. Sometimes the swordsman won, and again the species was improved; for a sorcerer who cannot kill one miserable swordsman is a poor excuse for a sorcerer.

But this battle differed from the others. On one side, the sword itself was enchanted. On the other, the sorcerer knew a great and terrible truth.

We will call him the Warlock, as his name is both forgotten and impossible to pronounce. His parents had known what they were about. He who knows your name has power over you, but he must speak your name to use it.

The Warlock had found his terrible truth in middle age.

By that time he had traveled widely. It was not from choice. It was simply that he was a powerful magician, and he used his power, and he needed friends.

TOE MAGIC MAY RETURN

NOT LONG BEFORE THE END

He knew spells to make people love a magician. The Warlock had tried these, but he did not like the side effects. So he commonly used his great power to help those around him, that they might love him without coercion.

He found that when he had been ten to fifteen years in a place, using his magic as whim dictated, his powers would weaken. If he moved away, they returned. Twice he had had to move, and twice he had settled in a new land, learned new customs, made new friends. It happened a third time, and he prepared to move again. But something set him to wondering.

Why should a man's powers be so unfairly drained out of him?

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