"Simon Hawke - Wizards 08 - Wizard of Lovecraft Cafe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawke Simon)

as the Ragnarok. In Germanic myth, it became known as the Gotterdammerung, the Twilight of the
Gods. The upheaval had its counterpart in many creation myths, because from it humans had emerged as
dominant. Not many of the Old Ones had been left alive. The Dark Ones were defeated and entombed
in the Euphrates Valley, held in a magical state of half-life by a powerful spell devised by the surviving
members of the Council of the White, all of whom—save one—gave up their lives, or at least their
corporeal existence, to infuse their life energies into three enchanted runestones that held the Dark Ones
prisoner. These stones became the spell known as the Living Triangle, and they were placed within the
Eternal Circle where the Dark Ones were confined. The one who placed them there was Gorlois, the
youngest and the last surviving member of the Council, who then went out into the world to live among
the humans.

As the ages passed, Gorlois made his way to the lands of the north, where he became a warlord. He
took a De Dannan witch to wife and had a son with her named Merlin, who inherited the sorcerous
powers of his father. When his wife began to age, Gorlois abandoned her and found another, a young
Welshwoman named Igraine, with whom he had three daughters. He named them Elaine, Morgana, and
Morgause. And each of them inherited his powers, too. One day, a rival warlord saw Igraine and fell in
lust with her. Aided by Merlin, Uther Pendragon overcame Corlois, who realized too late that Uther had
magic on his side, and as he died, he infused his life force into the fire opal ring he wore, a ring that
passed on to his daughter, Morgana, who became known as the sorceress Morgan Le Fay.

To revenge herself on Merlin and his pupil, Arthur, son of the man who had brought about her father's
death, Morgana cast a spell on Arthur and took him to her bed. The issue of this union was a boy named
Modred, part human, part immortal mage. Then Morgana tricked Merlin with the aid of a young witch
whom she sent out to seduce him. She cast a spell on him, immuring him within the cleft of a large oak,
where he would sleep for the next two thousand years. Arthur and Modred then faced each other on the
field of battle and both fell, but being part immortal, Modred had recovered from wounds that would
have killed an ordinary man. He left Britain and for the next two thousand years traveled the world as an
embittered mercenary, living many different lives and amassing a huge fortune. When Kira had first met
him, he was a shadowy hit man known as Morpheus, who had accepted a contract on her life.

In the meantime, the world forgot the ways of magic. Thaumaturgy became relegated to storybooks and
legends until the day technology came grinding to a halt in the global disaster known as the Collapse. It
was then, when anarchy reigned at the close of the twenty-second century, that Merlin awoke from his
long sleep and brought back the old knowledge. It was the beginning of the Second Thaumaturgic Age.
Merlin founded schools throughout the world, training adepts in the discipline of magic, and the old
infrastructure of technology revived, supported by thaumaturgy as a new energy base. But the return of
magic to the world awoke the Dark Ones in their tomb, and with the aid of one of Merlin's pupils, who
had removed the runestones, they managed to escape. And ever since that day, Kira's life had no longer
been her own.

She recalled the day it started for her, the day she chose to steal the runestones from Christie's auction
house. It was not her usual sort of job. She was a cat burglar, not a snatch-and-grab artist, and the idea
of stealing the gems in broad daylight, in a roomful of adepts, seemed crazy—yet she had been unable to
resist. From the moment she had read about the auction in the paper, she had felt strangely compelled to
make the heist. In fact, she had been quite literally compelled, both by fate and magic, though she had not
realized it at the time.

That was the day she had met Wyrdrune. She smiled as she recalled her first impression of him. It had
been far from favorable. A scruffy, young warlock with a mass of curly blond hair and the look of a boy
caught with his fingers in the cookie jar. He had been born Melvin Karpinsky. Wyrdrune was his mage