"Holly Lisle - World Gates 03 - Gods Old and Dark" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lisle Holly)

And then he wasn’t.

A pulse that felt like an atom bomb going off tore through the fabric of the universes and
slammed waves of energy at Eric, pounding him with the wake of something huge that had
moved past. The last, hardest wave physically picked him up and threw him out of the
gate-mirror and sent him crashing into the wall on the opposite side of the room. He hit his
head and saw stars and toppled to the floor, dazed, while thunder erupted from the middle
of a tranquil, sunny afternoon, shaking the foundations of the old house that held the
florist shop and the Sentinels’ gate, and lightning ripped into a tree next to the building,
cracking limbs and sending them flying. Downstairs he heard glass shatter and Betty Kay
scream—and then rain blasted the windows like it had been shot out of a pressure nozzle.

Eric rolled over, getting hands and knees under him. He tried to stand, but he couldn’t. He
was too dizzy. He looked up long enough to see that the gate was closed and the mirror
had a crack running through it from top to bottom. He hung his head and found himself
staring at the floor between his hands, where a little puddle was forming. Bright red.
Shiny. Funny—the roof didn’t usually leak red.

The red puddle seemed to expand, or maybe it was just that everything else got smaller,
fuzzed in grey. And he seemed to be falling forward…

Natta Cottage, Ballahara, Oria

“I don’t know if I can do this anymore.” Molly McColl, who had once seemed as human
as her half sister, Lauren Dane, stood beside the fireplace in the cottage in a world that less
than a year earlier neither of them had known existed.

“I know it’s awful for you. But we can’t quit,” Lauren said. “If we quit, the Night Watch
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Lisle,%20Holly%20-%20[Wo...tes%2003]%20-%20Gods%20Old%20and%20Dark%20(v1).htm (17 of 292)23-7-2007 19:24:41
 file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Lisle,%20Holly%20-%20[World%20Gates%...0[World%20Gates%2003]%20-%20Gods%20Old%20and%20Dark%20(v1).htm


wins. Everything dies.” Lauren’s short, dark hair swung as she struggled to hang on to her
son, Jake, three years old, bright-eyed and blond and squirming to get down. Jake was
alive because Molly had died to save him—her first death, and the only one she could
have prevented.

“You don’t know how awful,” Molly told her. “I’ve died five times since this started. I’m
weary, I’m scared all the time, and”—Molly turned away—“and I’m losing me,” she said.
“It’s all just slipping out of my fingers—my memory of what it was to be alive, to be real.
It’s like I can hold what’s left of the person I used to be up to the light and see nothing
there but a few threads and tatters. Rags. And the funny thing is, it doesn’t even hurt much
anymore.”

Lauren put Jake down, crouched, and said, “Play in here. Quietly.” She handed him his
toys, a stuffed duck and a teddy bear and a bag of blocks, then came over to Molly’s side.
With the two women standing side by side, the difference in their heights, which only a
year before had been identical, became impossible to overlook. Lauren was still about five-
foot-six; Molly had topped out at six feet.