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

"You should care. You have a Talent such as any in the world might envy. Talents, I should say.
Why, there's almost nothing you can't do, or cause, or bring into being
"I can't," I shouted at them. "Himaggery, Windlow, I can't. It isn't me who does all those things."
I pulled the pouch from my belt and emptied it upon the table between us, the tiny carved
Gamesmen rolling out onto the oiled wood in clattering profusion. I set two of them upon their bases, the
taller ones, a black Necromancer and a white Queen, Dorn and Trandilar. They sat there, like stone or
wood, giving no hint of the powers and wonders which would come from them if I gripped them in my
hand. "I tried to give them to you once, Himaggery. Remember? You wouldn't take them. You said, 'No,
Peter, they came to you. They belong to you, Peter.' Well, they're mine, Himaggery, but they aren't mine.
I wish you'd understand."
"Explain it to me," he said, blank faced.
I tried. "When I first took the figure of Dora into my hand, there in the caves under Bannerwell,
Dora came into my mind. He was.., is an old man, Himaggery. Very wise. Very powerful. His mind has
sharp edges; he has seen strange things, and his mind echoes with themтАФresonates to them. He can do
strange, very marvelous things. It is he who does them. I am only a kind of. .
"Host," suggested Windlow. "Housing? Vehicle?"
I laughed without humor. They knew so much but understood so little. "Perhaps. Later, I took
Queen Trandilar, Mistress of Beguilement. First of all the Rulers. Younger than Dorn, but still, far older
than I am. She had lived. . . fully. She had understanding I did not of. . . erotic things. She does
wonderful things, too, but it is she who does them." I pointed to the other Gamesmen on the table. "There
are nine other types there. Dealpas, eidolon of Healers. Sorah, mightiest of Seers. Shattnir, most
powerful of Sorcerers. I suppose I could take them all into myself, become a kind of... inn, hotel for
them. If that is all I am to be. Ever."
Windlow was looking out the winDorn, his face sad. He began to chant, a child's rhyme, one used
for jump rope. "Night-dark, dust-old, bony Dora, grave-cold; Flesh-queen, love-star, lust-pale,
Trandilar; Shifted, fetched, sent-far, trickiest is Thandbar." He turned to Himaggery and shook his head
slowly, side to side. "Let the boy alone," he said.
Himaggery met the stare, held it, finally flushed and looked away. "Very well, old man. I have said
everything! can say. If Peter will not, he will not. Better he do as he will, if that will content him."
Windlow tottered over to me and patted my shoulder. He had to reach up to do it. I had been
growing rather a lot. "It may be you will make these Talents your own someday, boy. It may be you
cannot wield a Talent well unless it is your own. In time, you may make Dorn's Talent yours, and
Trandilar's as well."
I did not think that likely, but did not say so.
Himaggery said, "When you go, keep your ears open. Perhaps you can learn something about the
disappearances which will help us."
"What disappearances?" I asked guardedly.
"The ones we have been discussing for a season," he said. "The disappearances which have been
happening for decades now. A vanishment of Wizards. Disappearances of Kings. They go, as into
nothing. No one knows how, or where, or why. Among those who go, too many were our allies."
"You're trying to make me curious," I accused. "Trying to make me stay."
He flushed angrily. "Of course I want you to stay, boy. I've begged you. Of course I wish you were
curious enough to offer your help. But if you won't, you won't. If Windlow says not to badger you, I
won't. Go find your mother. Though why you should want to do so is beyond me and his voice faded
away under Windlow's quelling glare.
I gathered the Gamesmen, the taller ones no longer than my littlest finger, delicate as lace,
incorruptible as stone. I could have told him why I wanted to find Mavin, but I chose not to. I had seen
her only once since infancy, only once, under conditions of terror and high drama. She had said nothing
personal to me, and yet there was something in her manner, in her strangeness, which was attractive to
me. As though, perhaps, she had answers to questions. But it was all equivocal, flimsy. There were no