"Mickey Zucker Reichert - Renshai 02 - The Western Wizard" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reichert Mickey Zucker)

Trilless rose, her wrinkled features lost in the shadow of her hood. She wore a white cloak over robes
so light they enhanced an otherwise nearly invisible tinge of pink in her ivory-pale Northern skin. To the
Northmen, white symbolized purity. And, though no law of gods or Wizards made her dress the part of
goodness to the point of caricature, she chose to do so anyway. It reminded her always of her job and
her vows, and it gave added credence to her station. Odin's constraints against direct interference kept
her contacts with mankind rare and brief. Few enough men believed in Wizards anymore. .



Other concerns touched Trilless then. The Southern Wizard had disappeared even before the Great War
had begun. Surely, he knew that his champion had been defeated; yet he had chosen not to acknowledge
the loss or the rout of his followers. The experiences of Trilless' predecessors led her to believe that he
had retired to a private haven to sulk. It was not uncommon for a Cardinal Wizard to withdraw for
decades, returning only when large-scale events made a swift or strong defense necessary.



Yet Trilless knew her opposite too well. Despite two centuries as a Cardinal Wizard, Carcophan had
scarcely more patience than a mortal. She could not help but admire his dedication to his cause though it
stood in direct opposition to her own. She guessed Carcophan had left to plot in quiet; and when he
struck, she knew it would be with sudden and unexpected competence and efficiency. His predecessors
had relied on subtlety, insidiously infusing the followers of neutrality and goodness with his evil. Trilless
and her predecessors had done much the same thing with their goodness. Over the millennia, this had led
to a balance and a blurring of the boundaries and definitions of their causes. But Carcophan tended to
choose warrior's tactics: abrupt, committed strategies that resulted either in massive victories or, as in the
Great War, in wholesale defeat. I need to know what he's planning.



And Trilless faced one more urgent worry. Odin had decreed that the number of Cardinal Wizards
should always remain four; yet she had not heard from Tokar, the Western Wizard, in nearly half a
century. Ordinarily, this would not have bothered her; the actions and locations of the paired champions
of neutrality, the Eastern and Western Wizards, meant little to her. But when she had last seen Tokar, he
had just chosen his apprentice, which meant that his time of passing was imminent. As well, the attack by
Carcophan's champion should have brought the Western Wizard into the foreground. But it had not.



Shadimar, the Eastern Wizard, had taken over the tasks the Western Wizard had been destined to fulfill.
While Odin's Law allowed this, the Eastern Wizard was always the weaker of the two and far less
capable of handling his stronger compatriot's duties in addition to his own. Odin's laws stated that if a
Wizard was destroyed, the others must band together to replace him; but strict protocol regulated who
could initiate the proceedings. Neither Trilless nor Carcophan benefited from neutrality, and their causes
could only strengthen without the Western Wizard to oppose them. Had Shadimar requested their aid,
Trilless and Carcophan would have had no choice but to give it. There could be only two reasons why
Shadimar had chosen not to do so. Either the Western Wizard still lived, or Shadimar was as uncertain as
she of the fate of the Western Wizard. Until Shadimar could prove his partner's death, revealing his need
to work alone could only make him vulnerable.