"Sheri S. Tepper - The True Game 2 - Necromancer Nine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tepper Sherri)

NECROMANCER NINE
Sheri S. Tepper

[18 jul 2001 тАУ proofread and re-released for #bookz]


1 тАУ Necromancer Nine
I had decided to change myself into a Dragon and go looking for my mother despite all argument to
the contrary.
Himaggery the Wizard and old Windlow the Seer were determined otherwise. They had been after
me for almost a year, ever since the great battle at Bannerwell. Having seen what I did there, they had
decided that my "Talent" could not be wasted, and between them they had thought of at least a dozen
things they wanted done with it. I, on the other hand, simply wanted to forget the whole thing. I wanted to
forget I had become the ownerтАФcan I say "owner" ?тАФof the Gamesmen of Barish, forget I had ever
called upon the terrible Talents of those Gamesmen. I'd only done it to save my life, or so I told myself,
and I wanted to forget about it.
Himaggery and Windlow wouldn't let me.
We were in one of the shining rooms at the Bright Demesne, a room full of the fragrance of
blossoms and ubiquitous wisps of mist. Old Windlow was looking at me pathetically, eyes three-quarters
buried in delicate wrinkles and mouth turned down in that expression of sweet reproach. Gamelords!
One would think he was my mother. No. My own mother would not have been guilty of that expression,
not that wildly eccentric person. Himaggery was as bad, stalking the floor as he often did, hands rooting
his hair up into devil's horns, spiky with irritation.
"I don't understand you, boy," he said in that plaintive thunder of his. "We're at the edge of a new
age. Change rushes upon us. Great things are about to happen; Justice is to be had at last. We invite you
to help, to participate, to plan with us. You won't. You go hide in the orchards. You mope and slope
about like some halfwitted pawn of a groom, and then when I twit you a bit for behaving like a perennial
adolescent, you merely say you will change into a Dragon and go off to find Mavin Manyshaped. Why?
We need you. Why won't you help us?"
I readied my answers for the tenth time. I behave as an adolescent, I would say, because I am
oneтАФbarely sixteen and puzzled over things which would puzzle men twice my age. I mope because I
am apprehensive. I hide in orchards because I am tired of argument. I got ready to say these things.
"And why," he thundered at me unexpectedly, "go as a Dragon?"
The question caught me totally by surprise. "I thought it would be rather fun," I said, weakly.
"Fun!" He shrugged this away as the trifle it was.
"Well, all right," I answered with some heat. "Then it would be quick. And likely no one would
bother me."
"Wrong on both counts," he said. "You go flying off across the purlieus and demesnes as a Dragon,
and every stripling Firedrake or baby Armiger able to get three man-heights off the ground will be
challenging you to Games of Two. You'll spend more time dueling than looking for Mavin Manyshaped,
and from what your thalan, Mertyn, tells me, she will take a good bit of finding." He made a gesture of
frustrated annoyance, oddly compassionate.
"You have others," I muttered. "You have thousands of followers here. Armigers ready to fly
through the air on your missions. Elators ready to flick themselves across the lands if you raise an
eyebrow at them. Demons ready to Read the thoughts of any who come within leagues of the Bright
Demesne. You don't need me. Can't you let one young person find out something about himself before
you eat him up in your plots
 Windlow said, "If you were just any young person, we'd let you alone, my boy. You aren't just any
young person. You know that. Himaggery knows it. I know it. Isn't that right?"
"I don't care," I said, trying not to sound merely contentious.