Чудок импи
"Раскрывающийся текст" «Very few mortals could behold the Emperor’s true form and live. Even his voice was lethal. So he wore masks, erected facades that he might move around the galaxy without leaving deathly awe in his wake. I was his son, and as such able to withstand much more than any mortal man ever could, but even I had not seen my father’s true face. He was at once a warrior, a poet, a scientist and a vagabond, and yet he was also none of these things. They were, all of them, merely camouflage to conceal his true nature. And the costume my father chose to wear now was that of an ageing remembrancer.
‘My son, you must not kill him.’
‘He has earned his fate,’ I spat belligerently, not wishing to defy my father but at the same time unable to let the murderer go unpunished.
‘Vulkan, please do not kill him.’
‘Father!’
I felt a hand grip my shoulder, cold and vice-like. The spear was no longer clenched in my fist, its absence like smoke escaping through my grasping fingers.
‘Brother…’ said Curze as he rammed the spear into my back and I saw it»