The Law of Nines. Terry Goodkind

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ important to me. That it does work is what matters.

      “If you wish to describe what we do in our world as merely a different form of technology rather than use the word ‘magic,’ if that makes it easier for you to accept, then call it by that name. The name makes no difference.

      “Magic and technology are merely tools of mankind. If you called that phone a magic talking box, would you use it any differently?”

      “I concede the point.” Alex gestured. “So, do something. Show me.”

      She leaned back and slipped the little black book back where she kept it. “I told you, this is a world without magic. I can’t use magic here. Magic doesn’t work here. Believe me, I wish it did, because it would make this a lot easier.”

      “I hope you realize how convenient that excuse sounds.”

      She leaned in again with that deadly serious look she had. “I’m not here to prove anything to you, Alex. I’m here to find out what’s going on so I can try to stop it. You just happen to be in the middle of it and I’d not like to see you get hurt.”

      That reminded him of what he’d said when he had pulled her back from getting run over by pirate plumbers—that he’d not like to see her get hurt.

      “A little difficult, isn’t it, if you can’t use your sorceress powers, considering that you don’t know how this world works. I mean, no offense, but you didn’t even know how to make tea.”

      “I didn’t come here thinking it would be easy. I came out of desperation. There is a saying in our world that sometimes there is magic in acts of desperation. We were desperate.”

      Alex scratched his temple, unable to contain his sarcasm. “Don’t tell me, the people who sent you are sorcerers. A whole coven of sorcerers.”

      She stared into his eyes for a moment. Tears welled up.

      “I didn’t risk eternity in the black depths of the underworld to come here for this.”

      She set down her napkin, picked up the painting, and stood. “Thank you for the beautiful painting. I hope you heed my warnings, Alex. Since you don’t seem to need my help, I’ll attend to other concerns.”

      She stopped and turned back. “By the way, covens have to do with witches—thirteen of them—not sorcerers. I’d not like to even contemplate thirteen witch women all together in one place at once. They’re known for their rather rash temperament. Be glad they can’t get here; they’d simply gut you and be done with it.”

      She marched away without a further word.

      Alex knew that he’d blown it. He’d crossed a line he hadn’t known was there. Or maybe he crossed a line that he should have known was there. She had wanted him to listen, to try to understand, to trust her. But how could he be expected to believe such a preposterous story?

      The waitress had seen Jax leaving and headed for the table. Alex pulled out a hundred-dollar bill—the only kind of cash he had—threw it on the table, and told the waitress to keep the change. It was the biggest tip he’d ever left in his life. He rushed across the quiet room, weaving among the tables.

      “Jax, wait. Please?”

      Without slowing she glided through the door and out into the halls, her black dress flowing out behind like dark fire.

      “Jax, I’m sorry. Look, I don’t know anything about it. I admit it. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be so flippant—it’s one of my faults—but how would you react if the situation were reversed, if before today I told you how we make tea?”

      She ignored his words.

      “Jax, please, don’t go.”

      He broke into a trot trying to catch up with her. Without looking back she turned down a small, dimly lit hall toward a side exit. Long skeins of wavy blond hair trailed out behind her like flags of fury. An exit sign cast the hall in hazy red, otherworldly light.

      Jax reached the door before he could catch up with her. She stopped abruptly and turned to him in a way that made him stop dead in his tracks. He was almost close enough to reach out and touch her. Something warned him to stay where he was.

      “Do you know the meaning of the name Alexander?”

      Alex wanted to say something to her, to apologize, to talk her into staying, but he knew without a doubt that he had better answer her question and no more or he would cross a line…forever.

      “It means ‘defender of man, warrior.’”

      She smiled to herself just a little. “That’s right. And do you value your name, its meaning?”

      “Why do you think I sign my work, my passion, ‘Alexander’?”

      She gazed at him a long moment, her features softening just a bit. “Maybe there is hope for you. Maybe there is yet hope for all of us.”

      She abruptly turned and threw open the door. Without looking back she said over her shoulder, “Heed my words, Alexander, defender of man: Trouble will find you.”

      Harsh afternoon light flared into the hall, turning her figure into nothing more than a harsh fragment of silhouette twisting the shafts of light.

      Alex reached the door just as it slammed shut. He threw it open again and ran out into an empty side parking lot. Trees grew in a green band close to the building. Beyond grassy hillocks waited parked cars that in the flat gray light of the overcast afternoon no longer looked nearly so lustrous.

      Jax was nowhere to be seen.

      Alex stood staring around at the quiet, empty surroundings.

      She’d been out of his sight for only a few seconds. She couldn’t have been more than a half-dozen steps ahead of him. It seemed crazy, but she had vanished. The woman had just vanished into thin air.

      Just like she had vanished the last time.

      He wondered if this was how it had been for his mother.

       12.

      ALEX REALIZED THAT it was dark and that he had been driving around in a daze for hours. He found it unnerving that he hadn’t even noticed that it had gotten dark.

      Jax’s final words, her warning, kept echoing in his thoughts. He didn’t know if she had meant them literally, or in the way his grandfather always meant them. He was beginning to wonder if his grandfather had always meant more than Alex had thought. While Ben had the seven wrong—according to Jax—he had been on to something, or close to it, anyway.

      But that was only if the things she had been saying were true. If not, then it made Ben just the eccentric old man most people believed him to be. But Alex knew him to be a strong and wise man, a man in many ways shaped, perhaps haunted, by his years in special forces, doing only god knew what back before Alex had been born.

      Alex had learned only obliquely, from his parents’ conversations, the shadowy shape СКАЧАТЬ