"Thieves World - Beyond The Veil" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morris Janet E)

forgot to tell you: I took the stand as part of my share of the spoils. And I'll
give it to you, Randal, as soon as you bring your partner back."
"You've got that? Oh, Crit… that is, sir: it's invaluable. I'll be able to
utilize the globe much more effectively. Bring Niko back more easily, more
quickly, if you'll just let me have it now…"
But Critias was shaking his head, chewing a piece of marsh hay he'd had behind
his ear. He said around it, "Later, mageling, later. Go fetch Niko home."

* * *

As a haughty young philosopher, ages ago, before the curse which had made him a
tireless wanderer, bereft of sleep and love and what men call peace, Tempus had
said that "God is day/night, winter/summer, war/peace, satiety/hunger…" Further,
he had proclaimed that out of all things can be made a unity, and out of a
unity, all things.
The most daunting consequence of the curse which afflicted him was that he must
live and learn the truth of those things he'd said when talk was idle and wisdom
cheap. He called himself Tempus because time was his, unending: he was the river
of it—always changing, always the same. Once he had been called The Obscure by
those who knew him; now they called him the Riddler, the sleepless one, and
worse behind his back.
For he was death's prophet, a living talisman of war. Those who loved him died
of it; those he loved were bound to spurn him: this burden an archmage had laid
upon him. He never slept; he could not die. His body regenerated itself
tirelessly, even without the help of the Storm God whom he had served so long
and who finally—like everything else he loved—had deserted him.
He was alone among men, no matter their quality or their number. Even surrounded
by his Stepsons, his curse kept him solitary: he loved them dearly. They were
mortal, to a soul. Every one of them would die and he would not. There would be
many requiems to be said for them, many biers to light in the days and years
ahead. So he tried not to care too much for them, the Sacred Banders and the
rest.
And yet, he thought, sitting in Brother Bomba's with Bomba's wife in her office,
looking down and over the patrons in the ground floor barroom through
alchemically crafted one-way glass, he was not quite so alone or quite so
unhappy as he customarily liked to think he was. The woman whose hospitality he
enjoyed was unabashedly middle-aged, a former barber-surgeon of the armies,
tough-minded and pragmatic in the face of fate and dissolution. A weathered and
wrinkling smile (which would have sent a lesser woman running to the mageguild
to sell a bit of soul for the illusion of youth and beauty) always greeted him.
Eyes which had looked on fields of casualties sustained in defeat and victory
always met his steadily. She was what few were to him: a respected, trusted
friend. Once, long ago, they might have had congress; he couldn't remember.
Women in general he found tiresome, even less likely than men to live up to
their potential. But Madame Bomba had no illusions: she knew death intimately,
she was free from fear and loved life too much to forget what lay at the end of
it. Like her bones, her spirit was yet strong.
With her, he could speak freely. With him, she always did. If not for her
husband, he continually teased her, their liberties could be extended. But that
was not what they spoke about tonight.