"Christopher Stasheff - Rogue Wizard 07 - A Wizard In Midgard" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stasheff Christopher)

He wondered what had happened to the cheerful outgoing teenager he used to be,
then remembered the kaleidoscope of women who had used him as targets for
cruelty, or to make their lovers jealous, or for social climbing. On reflection,
he wasn't surprised the cheery boy had gone underground, and was more sure than
ever that he would never find a mate.
The wind of alienation blew through him-he was an absurd figure, for what
purpose could he have in life? He remembered his boyhood on the medieval planet
of Gramarye and his leave-taking, then the aimless wandering that had led him to
join SCENT, his outrage at the team's heartless manipulation of a backward
planet's culture without regard to human rights, and his own decision to work
for those rights among oppressed people, solo, then with Dirk, now solo again.
But he also remembered the planets he had put on the road to forms of government
of their own choices, the lives he had saved that he knew about and the many,
many he had probably saved but didn't know about, and felt a renewed strength to
go plodding on toward old age and death. His life would serve some purpose,
after all, and who knew? There might still be some bits of pleasure in it, too.
Alea dried her tears, telling herself that she had to go on, that life would
somehow prove worth living. She didn't believe herself, but generations of women
had drummed that idea into their daughters, and old women had told them it had
proved true for them. Life had good times and bad times, and sometimes it was so
bad that you couldn't believe it would ever be good again-but it would, if you
could just hang on.
She sighed, braced her tree-branch staff, and pushed herself to her feet again.
At least the giants had left her food and drink.. She couldn't believe how kind
they had been, how horribly the grown-ups had lied to her as a child!
Could they have lied about the bad times passing, too? Alea shoved the thought
to the back of her mind-it wouldn't bear thinking about. You had to go on, that
was all, because if you gave up, if you just crawled into a hole and died, then
life certainly couldn't ever get better, could it? No, all in all, it was worth
the gamble. She decided to go on a lit de farther yet.
At least the giants' wallet and aleskin had strings for holding them to the
belt-strings to them, but straps to her. She slung them over her shoulders and
set off down the road, determined to find some place she could be happy, some
place where life could have meaning. She couldn't be the only slave who had ever
escaped, after all-in fact, she'd heard stories about escapees who'd fled to the
northern wasteland, and never been brought back. Of course, those stories also
said the runaways lived by robbing travelers, even by eating them, but
considering how badly the tales had lied about the giants, there was every
reason to think they'd lied about the escapees too. She decided to take a chance
on the North Country.
She stopped to look at the sun and take her bearings. It was ahead of her and
off to the right, still well before noon, so her road was angling toward the
north anyway, and away from Midgard. She saw a bend to the left in the distance,
which meant the road would turn even further toward the north. She set off,
resolving to find people of her own kind if she had to walk ten years to do it.
After ten minutes, the exhaustion hit her. A dizzy spell seized her, and she
stopped in the roadway, leaning on her staff and waiting for the world to steady
itself, hoping it would. She realized she was worn out both emotionally and
physically, for she'd been walking all night. Daylight was her time to hide and
sleep, and. she'd just started dozing when Jorak and Rokir had shaken her awake.