"Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman - Deathgate Cycle 3 - Fire Sea" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weis Margaret)

My Lord suggests that the Death's Gate was never meant to be traversed! He can't tell what its
function isтАФor was. Its purpose may have been nothing more than to provide an escape route from
a dying universe. I disagree. I have discovered that the Sartan intended there to be some type of
communication between worlds. This communication was, for some reason, not established. And
the only connection I have found between worlds is Death's Gate.

All the more reason that I must remain conscious on my next journey. My Lord has suggested to
me how to discipline myself to achieve my goal. He warns me, however, that the risk is extremely
great.

I won't lose my life; my ship's magic protects me from harm.

But I could lose my mind. [3]

CHAPTER

KAIRN TELEST, ABARRACH

"FATHER, WE HAVE NO CHOICE. YESTERDAY, ANOTHER CHILD DIED. The day before,
his grandmother. The cold grows more bitter, every day. Yet," his son pauses, "I'm not certain it is
the cold, so much, as the darkness, Father. The cold is killing their bodies, but it is the darkness that
is killing their spirit. Baltazar is right. We must leave now, while we still have strength enough to
make the journey."

Standing outside in the dark hallway, I listen, observe, and wait for the king's reply.

But the old man does not immediately respond. He sits on a throne of gold, decorated with
diamonds large as a man's fist, raised up on a dais overlooking a huge hall made of polished
marble. He can see very little of the hall. Most of it is lost in shadow. A gas lamp, sputtering and
hissing on the floor at his feet, gives off only a dim and feeble light.

Shivering, the old king hunches his shoulders deeper into the fur robes he has piled over and around
him. He slides himself nearer the famt edge of the throne, nearer the gas lamp, although he knows
he wffl extract no warmth from the flickering flame. I believe it is the Comfort of the light he
seeks. His son is right. The darkness is killing us.

"Once there was a time," the old king says, "when the lights in the palace burned all night long. We
danced all night long. We'd grow too hot, with the dancing, and we'd run outside the palace walls,
run out into the streets beneath the cavern ceiling where it was cool, and we'd throw ourselves into
the soft grass and laugh and laugh." He paused. "Your mother loved to dance."

"Yes, Father, I remember." His son's voice is soft and patient.

Edmund knows his father is not rambling. He knows the king has made a decision, the only one he
can make. He knows that his father is now saying good-bye.

"The orchestra was over there." The old king lifts a gnarled finger, points to a corner of the hall
shrouded in deep darkness. "They'd play all during the sleep-half of the cycle, drinking parfruit
wine to keep the fire in their blood. Of course, they all got drunk. By the end of the cycle, half of
them weren't playing the same music as the other half. But that didn't matter to us. It only made us