Читать онлайн «Games Wizards Play»
Автор Диана Дуэйн
Contents
Hipparchus
Coney Island
Wellakh / Hempstead
Antarctica / Knox Coast
San Francisco
Mumbai
Hempstead / Elsewhere
Hempstead / Mumbai
Manhattan: Javits Center
Javits Center: The Cull
New York: The Losers’ Party
Mumbai / Shanghai / Elsewhere
Canberra
Canberra: The Post-Semis Mixer
Antarctica and Daedalus
Sol IIIa, Sol, Sol III
Copyright © 2016 by Diane Duane
Could It Be from KIM POSSIBLE: THE MOVIE.
Words and music by Andrew Gabriel and Cory Lerois © 2005 by Wonderland Music Company, Inc. and Walt Disney Music Company. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
ISBN 978-0-547-41806-3
eISBN 978-0-544-63371-1
v1. 0216
Acknowledgments
Thanks also to John C. Welch, provider of technical assistance that has proved of inestimable value in the production of this book.
I . . . am about to embark upon a hazardous and technically unexplainable journey . .
. to confer, converse, and otherwise hobnob with my brother wizards.—Oz the Great,
When moon and sun stand each in place
And your opponent takes the field,
Look past him to the one you’ll face
When all hid truths stand new-revealed.
When that time comes, your only shield
Will be the outward gaze toward space;
The cold will show what sword to wield
Against the fire’s and death’s embrace.
Still, though your oldest foe should yield,
Beware the last fall of the dice:
Though now an ancient sorrow’s healed,
Beware who pays the final price—
And do not miss, ’twixt fire and ice,
Your chance to make the sun rise twice.
—I Ching trigram 30, Fire over Fire: “Double Brightness”
I am not young enough to know everything.
—Oscar Wilde
1
KIT RODRIGUEZ LAY SPRAWLED in the gray dirt, staring in shock at the fire-blackened book that had just landed open side down in front of him. His stomach flip-flopped as he realized that very close by, another wizard lay dead.
Still smoking gently at its charred edges, the other wizard’s manual, a thick, beat-up paperback with a cracked spine, slowly started to vanish. Sheer horrified fascination made it hard for Kit to look away. Only when the manual had finished dissolving did he manage to swallow. His mouth was bone dry, not just because of all the dust flying around, and his heartbeat was hammering in his ears. It was amazing how loud your own heart sounded in these conditions, especially when it might shortly stop without warning.
