Eddings Dav
May Karol Winnetou
Muktananda Swami DokÄ…d idziesz
wiedza i zycie2
Norton Andre Odrzucona korona
Kratochvil Stanisław Psychoterapia Kierunki metody badania (4)
019 09 (2)
lex polonica 5
speak numeral (2)
I Robot
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."You didn't really, really think I'd let you do that, did you?" Althalus said."You can take your Book, if you think you must, but ours stay right where they are.Quickly, Ghend.Time's almost run out."Ghend's answering snarl was almost bestial as he snatched up the smoldering black Book."You haven't heard the last of this, Althalus!" he shouted as he turned back toward the door."Oh, yes we have, brother." The voice was not the voice of Althalus even though it came from his lips.Then the voice cracked like thunder."Now, Eliar!"There was a sudden hollow sound as the door beside Dweia's window vanished.The archway that had enclosed it became a formless hole filled with the empty darkness of Nowhere and Nowhen.Beyond that formless hole, Althalus could see the buildings of flame and the wailing creatures of fire that were the sum and essence of Nahgharash sinking and liquefying into the rivers of fire that were the streets of the city of the damned, and the rivers ran fast to spill over some unimaginable brink to cascade into the abyss of absolute nothingness.And now, all commingled and aware, the streets and the buildings and they who dwelt in flame shrieked out in despair, and their shrieks faded down and down and down into that utter silence.Khnom, all aflame and gibbering in panic, tried to catch at the sides of the formless hole as he was inexorably drawn into the nothing that lay beyond the doorway, but that, of course, was hopeless.Khnom passed through the doorway of this world and vanished.Ghend, armored in fire and still clutching his burning Book, flailed about with his free arm, desperately seeking something he could cling to as the emptiness beyond the doorway drew him across the smooth marble floor of the tower room.Shrieking and cursing, he clawed at the marble, but still he slid inexorably toward his fate.And at the last moment, he looked with pleading eyes at the face of his enemy and reached out a supplicating hand."Althalus!" he cried."Help me!"And then he vanished through that awful doorway with his Book still clutched to his breast, and his scream faded behind him as he fell forever into the nothing that had finally claimed him."Close the door, Eliar," Althalus said with profound sadness."We're finished with it now."EPILOGUE“It was one of those things you have to see to believe, Twengor,' the bald Gebhel told the vastly bearded Clan Chief as Althalus and his friends all sat reminiscing in Albron's hall on the evening before the wedding of Khalor and Alaia early the following summer."The silly thing stuck up out of the plains of North Wekti like a huge tree stump-except that you don't very often come across a tree stump that's a thousand feet high.""I still don't understand what possessed you to abandon your trenches, Gebhel," the recently elevated Chief Wendan said."You'd just finished tearing up the Ansu cavalry and wiping out that surprise attack from the rear.Why didn't you just sit tight? Your trenches seem to have worked out very well.""Khalor's scouts told us that the Ansus had reinforcements coming, and it was fairly obvious that they'd reach our trenches long before Kreuter and Dreigon could possibly make it," Gebhel explained."Trenches are all right, but only if you're not too badly outnumbered.When the numbers start moving into the neighborhood of five to one against you, it's time to cut and run, I always say.""It all turned out for the best," Sergeant Khalor said."I had a few doubts about that tower myself, to be perfectly honest with you, but that artesian spring and all the food supplies in that cave sort of tipped the balance.""Oh, yes," Gebhel agreed with a broad grin."If you gentlemen don't mind a bit of advice, I wouldn't play dice with Khalor if you can avoid it.He's had a run of unbelievably good luck here lately.Even nature seems to be on his side.""Oh?" Koleika Iron Jaw said."A wind storm pops out of a dead-calm morning just when he needs it to fan a grass fire.Then there's that earthquake that opened a ditch across the top of that tower right in front of the crazy man who was charging our position.And to cap it all, there was the river that ran in both directions and washed an entire enemy army away." Gebhel absently rubbed his hand over his bald head."There were a lot of things going on that I couldn't understand," he admitted."Would you consider the possibility of divine intervention, Sergeant?" Bheid asked slyly."I'm an Arum, Brother Bheid," Gebhel said."We prefer not to think about that sort of thing." Then he shrugged."I don't know exactly how all those lucky things happened.I'm just glad that Khalor was on my side during that particular war.""I'd say that his lucky streak hasn't run itself out yet," Twengor said, grinning."I've seen the lady he's going to marry tomorrow, and that's about as lucky as any man's likely to get."Althalus leaned back in his chair, smiling faintly.Any time there was a gathering of more than three Arums, they always seemed to start telling each other war stories, and the stories inevitably got better with every telling.After a few seasons, the stories would slip over the line to become legends, and legends tended to gloss over the more blatant impossibilities [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]
