"Matthew Woodring Stover - Caine 02 - Blade of Tyshalle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stover Matthew Woodring)

"What, he doesn't have friends enough already?"


"Businessman," Chandra says with a nervous laugh, "he doesn't have any
friends at all."


And that's when he decided to send for me.
 2


Overworld.


When the Winston Transfer first opened the gate from Earth to Overworld, the
Studio had been lurking in the background, waiting to step through. Overworld is a
land of dragons and demons, of hippogryphs and mermaids, of hedge wizards and
thieves, master enchanters and noble knights.


It is a billion dreams come true.


I burn for it. I lust for Overworld the way a martyr dreams of the arms of God.


My father took me to first-hand one of Raymond Story's early Adventures
when I was seven years old, and when Story spoke a Word of Power and the
Hammer of Dal'kannith smote an evil ogre and splashed the brains from its leering
ten-gallon head, I felt the soaring echo of his joy of battle and the surge of puffing
magick and well, you know: there really aren't any words.


For my tenth birthday, my father bought me the cube of Story's epic three-day
battle with the mad dragon Sha-Rikldntaer. The very first of the thousand or so times
I played it, I knew.


I had to do it. I had to be there.


Ten years intervening have only sharpened my lust.


Everything in my life was perfect. I was at the top of my class, had the
highest psych rating the Conservatory had ever measured, my elving surgeries were
going perfectly, and I was absolutely on top of the world until Chandra called me into
his office and took it all away.