"Anderson, Poul - Fire Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Poul)

Afterward, when the Marauder had retreated, the blue plants did, too, and their animals-save for kinds like the phoenix, which always throve in South Valennen; and folk could again beget children with hope that these would grow up.

Amanak ordered the prisoners tethered in the best grazing the oasis offered. There was no other food. Any dried meat or fruit that anybody had brought was long since eaten; and who had strength to search for game? Free to range, he and his warriors could get something into their guts from the sparser parts of the vale.

Night fell as they plucked and cropped. The years around Fire Time were doubly strange in that each night of advancing spring was (hereabouts) longer than the last-for the Red One so moved through heaven as to share it with the True Sun about midsummer.

Stars glittered forth, Ghost Bridge, doubly lit small rock of Narvu, above shadowed steeps and pinnacles. The air stayed hot, but a breath of breeze came like a well-wisher's hand. At last the victors could take their ease. Amanak heard sighs go through the dimly seen mass of them as body after body dropped and chins sank down onto arms laid across forelegs. He settled himself by a low fire. Tomak lay at his side, and three more sons. Kusarat of Sekrusu asked if he might join them. "Unless you would sleep," he added politely.

"No, I would liefer rest awake for a little," Amanak said.

"And I. My thoughts are still a jumble. Did I drowse off straight-away, I'd have no hope of making a good dream for myself."

"Vu? Do you have skill in the dream art? I knew that not."

"No, I can't bring any forth that are worth telling," Kusarat admitted. "But I can make them pleasant... or useful."

Amanak nodded. "Thus is it for me."

"And me," said Tornak. He laughed. "Tonight I want dreams of beer and females-not in Tarhanna nor my father's hall, but Port Rua when we take it-that should be something!-or even Sehala."

"Be not over-eager," Amanak warned him. "Those conquests lie afar in time; antd we may not live to make them."

"The more reason to dream them," said Tornak's half brother Igini. Their father signed them both to silence. They were young, their manners not yet honed. The other two were older, sober married males, though since neither had passed his sixty-fourth year, Amanak's power continued over them too.

His desire was that Kusarat be shown respect. Seemingly the latter was just as anxious to please, for he asked, "Are these lads yours, Amanak?" and upon getting a yea: "Then you must have the rest out widely, those who've gotten their growth. I hear you've sired very many, by more different females than most of us ever get at."

Amanak didn't deny it. Besides several advantageous marriages and a row of concubines, no doubt he had made fruitful a fair number of wives he borrowed on his travels. Husbands were pleased to give him that hospitality, in the hope of strong children bom into their houses. Above the fame and power he had won, there was himself, huge, soft-footed, eyes as vividly green in the black face as teeth were white, the worst of the wounds he had gotten in a gale-driven life all healed without a scar.

What he did say, gravely, was: "Aye, some are raiding at sea, some bear my messages across land. But most are at home doing their work, by my orders. I never forget how thin an edge we must live on till we've won new homes in better countries. Even a victory like today's means less than the garnering of what food and goods we can."

"Ng-ng-ng ... you speak like a Gathering dweller," Kusarat murmured.

"Which I have been. Since then I've dealt with them here in Valennen, watched them, listened to them, always trying to learn. Why do you suppose they wield power across the whole known world? Aye, they've more skills than us, their heartland is more wealthy and populous than ours, true, true. But mainly, I do believe, mainly they have this habit of thinking ahead."

"You'd make us into their image?" Kusarat asked warily.

"As far as we can gain thereby, and are able," Amanak said.

Kusarat regarded him for a silent while, by the flicker of spitting, shadow-weaving flames, before he replied:

"And yet you deal with the dauri ... who knows with what witchcraft?"

"That question is often shot at me," Amanak said. "The best answer I can give is the truth."

Kusarat erected his ears and switched tail against flank. "I listen."

"I first met them, kyai-ai, maybe two hundred years ago when I was a youth, hardly out of cubhood, and the world not troubled by the Torchbearer. Already then its brightness cast shadows by night, and we knew it was on the way back to us. But the young do not fear a distant tomorrow and the old have no reason to. We lived well in those days-do you remember?

"My parents dwelt in Evisakuk, where Mekusak was Overling. My father was a full freeholder and had given no oath. Their house lay in the woods on Mount Fang, without close neighbors. Nevertheless, my parents thought Mekusak must have sired me, an eventide when he chanced by and got shelter from them. For I grew to be like him in size and short temper and hating to scratch the soil. We kept a niggard plot where we raised a few herbs. Mainly my father and we lads were hunters. When sent out alone. I often stayed away for days on end, and afterward tied about having had a long chase. They doubted me, since they had seen what I could do when we fared together. Thus year by year I grew more estranged, and chafed more.