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

their power strong.

"My son," said a gentle voice.

If the Lord of the Nexus had come raging aboard the ship, denouncing Haplo as
a traitor, hurling threats and accusations, Haplo would have defied him,
fought him, undoubtedly to the death.

Two simple words disarmed him completely.

"My son."

He heard forgiveness, understanding. A sob shook Haplo. He fell to his knees.
Tears, as hot and bitter as the poison he'd swallowed on Abarrach, crept from
beneath his eyelids.

"Help me, Lord!" he pleaded, the words coming as a gasp from a chest that
burned with pain. "Help me!"

"I will, my son," answered Xar. His gnarled hand stroked Haplo's hair. "I
will."

The hand's grip tightened painfully. Xar jerked Haplo's head back, forced him
to look up.

"You have been deeply hurt, terribly wounded, my son. And your injury is not
healing cleanly. It festers, doesn't it, Haplo? It grows gangrenous. Lance it.
Purge yourself of its foul infection or its fever will consume you.

"Look at yourself. Look what this infection has done to you already. Where is
the Haplo who walked defiantly out of the Labyrinth, though each step might
have been his last? Where is the Haplo who braved Death's Gate so many times?
Where is Haplo now? Sobbing at my feet like a child!

"Tell me the truth, my son. Tell me the truth about Abarrach."

Haplo bowed his head and confessed. The words gushed forth, spewing out of
him, purging him, easing the pain of the wound. He spoke with fevered
rapidity, his tale broken and disjointed, his speech often incoherent, but Xar
had no difficulty following him. The language of both the Patryns and their
rivals, the Sartan, has the ability to create images in the mind, images that
can be seen and understood if the words cannot.

"And so," murmured the Lord of the Nexus, "the Sartan have been practicing the
forbidden art of necromancy. This is what you feared to tell me. I can
understand, Haplo. I share your revulsion, your disgust. Trust the Sartan to
mishandle this marvelous power. Rotting corpses, shuffling about on menial
errands. Armies of bones battering each other into dust." The gnarled hands
were once again stroking, soothing.