"Christopher Stasheff - Warlock 13 - Warlock's Last Ride" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stasheff Christopher)

acceleration chair, head back, eyes fixed on the stars. What need had she of the memory of a traitor
when she had the reality of a friend who cared for her far more than any but her parents ever had? And
what right had he to be gazing at the stars and wallowing in his misery when she was here, lively and
vital, to distract him? She stepped forward, angry words rising to her lips to rouse him from his lethargy,
to jolt him back to the life they shared—but as she came close, she saw the unutterable grief in his eyes.
She slowed, letting her gentler emotions well up, sympathy and concern, and asked, very softly, "What
hurts you, Magnus?"

His head tilted, gaze coming down, seeming to wander over the fittings of the bridge until it found
her face, then rested a minute before he said, "My little brother."

Words of anger leaped to her tongue again, anger at the younger man who would hurt his own
brother so, but she contained them, pushed them down, knowing that the younger d'Armand, the titanic
telepath so distant on their home world, would scarcely spend the vast amount of energy necessary for
his thoughts to reach Magnus over so many light-years unless there were good reason. "What news
could a brother have to so sadden one of his own blood?" she asked softly.

"News of our mother," Magnus answered. "She is dying."

ALEA SPOKE BUT little in the days that followed but was never far from Magnus, trying to
reassure and comfort him by her mere presence. She remembered well the death-watch as her mother lay
dying, remembered the greater pain of her father's last days, greater because there was no one with
whom to share it, no one whose pain dwarfed her own.

She never thought that it was unfair that Magnus should have the comfort of a friend when she had
not—she was only glad that he did not have to face this long journey home alone.

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In moments of honesty, she had to admit that she was also glad he finally needed her in a way
neither of them could deny.

So she sat by and waited, watching his profile against the stars or watching him sitting in the lounge
in the cone of light from the hidden lamp, saw him looking up now and then, startled to see her sitting
and reading across from him, remembering his manners enough to ask how she fared, trying to engage in
conversation, and she tried to be reassuring and positive then, smiling and talking of
inconsequentialities, but ones in which she knew he had an interest—art and literature and science—
though before long, his attention would fade, his gaze would wander, and she would let her own
conversation lapse and return to her reading.

Reading! She hadn't even known how, when he met her on the road, on her home planet of
Midgard, where only the nobles were literate. She hadn't known how to fight when she had run away
from slavery, had survived a night or two alone and friendless in a world torn by war and hatred, in a
forest filled with wolves and bears. Magnus had—well, not taken her in, though it felt like that. She was
sure he hadn't thought of it that way, either, though she suspected he knew he was giving her protection.
He hadn't said so, though, only that he was glad of a travelling companion. So he had walked the roads
with her, teaching her how to fight and how to use the talent for telepathy that had been buried inside her