An Armory of Swords

Начало книги

The gods’ great Game of Swords, and with it the whole later history of planet Earth, might have followed a very different course had the behavior of one or two divine beings-or the conduct of only one man-been different at the start. Even a slight change at the beginning of the Game produced drastic variation in the results. And Apollo has been heard to say that there have been several such beginnings.

One of those divergent commencements-which, in the great book of fate, may be accounted as leading to an alternate universe, or perhaps simply as a false start-saw all of the gods’ affairs thrown into turmoil at a remarkably early stage, even before the first move had been made in the Game. It happened on the day when the Swords, all new and virginally fresh, all actually still warm from Vulcan’s forge, were being brought to the Council to be put into the hands of those players who had been awarded them by lot.

Читать дальше →