"Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman - Deathgate Cycle 4 - Serpent Mage" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weis Margaret)

My Lord, You may remove Abarrach completely from your calculations. I found
evidence to indicate that the Sartan and the mensch did once inhabit that hunk
of worthless, molten rock. The climate undoubtedly proved too harsh for even
their powerful magic to sustain them. They apparently tried to contact the
other worlds, but their attempts ended in failure. Their cities have now
become their tombs. Abarrach is a dead world,

The report was true. Haplo had said nothing false about Abarrach. But its
truth was polished veneer, covering rotten wood beneath. Haplo was almost
certain his lord would know his servant had lied; the Lord of the Nexus had a
way of knowing everything that went on in a man's head . . . and his heart.

The Lord of the Nexus was the one person Haplo respected and admired. The one
person Haplo feared. The lord's wrath was terrible, it could be deadly. His
magic was incredibly powerful. When still a young man, he had been the first
to survive and escape the Labyrinth. He was the only PatrynтАФincluding
HaploтАФwho had the courage to return to that deadly prison, fight its awful
magics, work to free his people.
Haplo grew cold with fear whenever he thought about a possible encounter
between his lord and himself. And he thought about it almost constantly. He
wasn't afraid of physical pain or even death. It was the fear of seeing the
disappointment in his lord's eyes, the fear of knowing that he had failed the
man who had saved his life, the man who loved him like a son.

"No," said Haplo to the dog, "better to go on to Chelestra, the next world.
Better to go quickly, take my chances. Hopefully, with time, I can sort out
this tangle inside me. Then, when I return, I can face my lord with a clear
conscience."

He arrived on the bridge, stood staring down at the steering stone. He'd made
his decision. He had only to put his hands on the sigla-covered round stone
and his ship would break the magical ties binding it to the ground and sail
into the rose-hued twilight of the Nexus. Why did he hesitate?

It was wrong, all wrong. He hadn't gone over the ship with his usual care.
They'd made it safely out of Abarrach and through Death's Gate, but that
didn't mean they could make another journey.

He'd prepared the ship in a slapdash manner, jury-rigging what he could not
take time to carefully repair. He should have strengthened rune structures
that almost surely had been weakened by the journey, should have searched for
cracks, either in the wood or the sigla, should have replaced frayed cables.

He should have, as well, consulted with his lord about this new world. The
Sartan had left written lore concerning the four worlds in the Nexus. It would
be folly to rush blindly into the world of water, without even the most
rudimentary knowledge of what he faced. Previously, he and his lord had met
and studied . . .