"Anthony, Piers - Incarnations 04 - Wielding A Red Sword" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Piers)

MIME

It was a traveling show, the kind that drifted from village
to village, performing for thrown rupees. There was a
chained dragon who would snort smoke and sometimes
fire when its keeper signaled, a harpy in a cage who
flapped her wings and spat curses at the audience, and a
mermaid in a tank who would, for a suitable fee, bring
her head out of the water to kiss a spectator. Standard
stuff, hardly impressive, but fun for the children. The
dragon was old and flabby, the harpy was ugly, and the
mermaid, though pretty enough, evidently spoke no local
dialect. But at least this show was convenient and cheap,
and the crowd was thick.

The man who watched was undistinguished. He was
slightly below average height, wore a faded gray shawl,
and he kept his mouth shut. He had evidently suffered
some abrasion of the face, for it was to an extent swathed
in dirty bandages, so that only his eyes, nose, and mouth
were exposed. He had the mark of the Sudra caste, though
he could have been taken for an Aryan in race. Since none
of the twice-bom would mix voluntarily with the more
lowly merchants and laborers of the once-bom, his iden-
tity had to be taken at face value.

2 Wielding a Red Sword

Of course, caste had been legally abolished in most of
the kingdoms of India. But what was legal did not nec-
essarily align with what was actual. One had only to watch
the reaction of anyone who inadvertently brushed by a
Pariah to understand that!

Now the main show developed. A stage magician per-
formed sundry acts of illusion, causing the faces of de-
mons to manifest in smoke and a flock of birds to startle
out of his hat. One of the birds let a dropping fall on the
head of a spectator, who complained loudly, whereupon
the magician gestured and changed the bird into a shining
gold coin, which tumbled to the ground and rolled. The
spectator pounced on the coinЧbut it converted to a ven-
omous snake that hissed and struck at him, while the other
spectators laughed. Good magic!

Then there was an exotic dancer, who undulated in the
company of a giant python. Her performance was partly