"Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman - Deathgate Cycle 5 - The Hand of Chaos" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weis Margaret)

INTRODUCTION

TO THE

FOUR REALMS

I AM CALLED HAPLO.

My name means single, alone. It was given to me by my parents as a sort of
prophecy, for they knew they would not survive the prison into which my
people, the Patryns, had been castтАФthe prison of dark and terrible magics
known as the Labyrinth.

I became a RunnerтАФone who fights the Labyrinth. I was one of the lucky ones I
made it through the Final Gate, though I very nearly perished in the attempt.
If it had not been for this sausage-stealing dog who sits here beside me, I
would not be here, penning this account. The dog gave me the will to live when
I would have given up and died. He saved my life.

The dog gave me the will to live, but my lord Xar gave me a reason to live, a
purpose.

Xar was the first Patryn to escape the Labyrinth. He is old and powerful,
highly skilled in the rune-magic that gives both the Patryns and our enemies,
the Sartan, our strength. Xar escaped the Labyrinth, then immediately went
back into it. No other has ever had the courage to do so, and even now he
risks his life daily to rescue us.

Many of us have emerged from the Labyrinth. We live in the Nexus, which we
have made into a beautiful city. But have we been rehabilitated as our captors
had intended?

An impatient people, we learned patience in that hard school. A selfish
people, we learned self-sacrifice, loyalty. Above all, we learned to hate.

It is my lord Xar's goalтАФour goalтАФto take back the world that was snatched
from us, to rule it as we were always meant to rule, and to inflict dire
punishment on our enemies.

The realms used to be but one world, one beautiful green-blue world. It
belonged to us and the Sartan, for our rune-magic made us powerful. The other,
lesser races, whom we call menschтАФthe humans, elves, and dwarvesтАФworshiped us
as gods.

But the Sartan thought we Patryns were gaining too much control. The balance
of power started to shift in our favor. Furious, the Sartan did the only thing
they could to stop us. Using their rune-magicтАФthe magic based on
probabilitiesтАФ the Sartan sundered the world and cast us into prison.

They formed four new worlds out of the rubble of the old, each from an element