"Sara Douglass - Redemption 3 - Crusader" - читать интересную книгу автора (Douglass Sara)

paces away from DragonStar.
A man walked out of the arch.
He was white-haired and emaciated, and his entire form trembled as he walked. His face was deeply
lined, his eyes faded and tired.
"Who are you?" he said, stopping a pace before DragonStar.
"My name is DragonStar SunSoar," he said, "and I am the result of your mistakes."
The old man cackled with laughter. "DragonStar? What kind of a name is that?"
He peered about him. "Where are we? Topside again?"
DragonStar wondered if the old man still thought he was on his home world. "What is your name?"
"Me? Oh, my name is Fischer. Where am I?"
DragonStar stared at him. He'd talked to the bridge about the moment when this man — a vastly
younger version, apparently — had appeared and taunted Rox and the other Demons. Then the man had
been full of confidence and knowledge. Now?
Ah, but that man was only a phantasm of the trap. The bridge had sent him the
original. No wonder the effort had killed her.
"You are in the remains of a land called Tencendor," DragonStar said, "where the craft
from your world crashed tens of thousands of years ago."
Fischer looked sharply at him. "Ah, and the Demons have followed?"
"Look about you."
"Aye," Fischer said, and grimaced. "Aye, they followed. Have you summoned me to blame me?"
"No. I need to ask you a question."
"Ah! I'd rather that you blamed me! I am sick of questions ... what to do? When to do it? How?
How? How? It took us forty years of questions before we came anywhere close to a single answer, and
even then we only patched up the problem, we did not solve it. What is your question?"
"You reflected the Demon's hatred back at him, thus trapping him."
"Yes. Is that your question?"
"No. It trapped him, and it dismembered him, but it did not kill him. Why not?"
Fischer looked at the man carefully. He was pretty enough, and had a strange charismatic appeal,
but Fischer did not know if he would be strong enough to do what was necessary. If he was merely told,
then he would never get the strength. If he discovered it for himself, then he just might have a hope.
"I cannot answer the question," Fischer said, "but I have a piece of advice. Evil cannot be destroyed,
it merely festers."
 "Why can't you answer the question?"
"I cannot teach you what is right or wrong. In this battle the answers must come from your spirit.
You must learn what will work against the Demons." Fischer looked at him steadily. "You must learn
from our mistakes."
DragonStar stared, and then relaxed. "Thank you, Fischer."
Fischer grinned, and nodded his head. "My pleasure, m'boy. Finish it for us, I beg you. Our world
was destroyed. I hope yours will be reborn."
DragonStar started to say something, but jerked in surprise as a stone fell from the archway and
thudded into the ground behind Fischer.
Fischer likewise jumped, then scurried back under the arch as another, and then another, stone fell.
"Finish it this time," he whispered, and then the entire arch caved in, and the last DragonStar saw of
Fischer was the man's arms raised in a hopeless attempt to protect himself against the falling masonry.
There was a rumble, and the archway collapsed into the moat.
Finish it for us.
DragonStar stood there a long time, staring into the moat and the pile of rubble he could dimly see in
its depths.
Then he pulled the Song Book out from under his arm and leafed slowly through it.
The Enchanted Song Book did not tell him how to destroy the Demons at all. It was literally a list of