"Asprin, Robert - Thieves' World 08 - Soul of the City" - читать интересную книгу автора (Asprin Robert)

screech of unearthly stresses around the rent in time and space through which
the chariot approached that he only barely noticed that Theron had thrown up
both hands to shield his face and was cowering like an aged child at his own
table.

The horses were harnessed in red leather that was shiny, as if wet. Beyond the
blood-red reins were hands, and the arms attached were well-formed and strong,
brown and smooth, without hair or scar above graven gauntlets. The'driver's
torso was covered by a cuirass of enameled metal, cast to the physique beneath
it, jointed and gilded in the fashion chosen by the Sacred Band at its
inception.

Tempus did not need to see the face, by then, to know that he was not being
visited by a god, nor an archmage, nor even a demon, but by a creature more
strange: as the chariot emerged fully from the miasma around it and the horses
snorted and plunged, dancing in place, and the wheels screeched to a halt,
Tempus saw a hand raise to a brow in a greeting of equals.

The greeting was for him, not for Theron, who cowered with wide eyes. The face
of the man in the chariot smiled softly. The eyes resting upon Tempus so fondly
were as pale and pure as cool water. And as the vision opened its mouth to
speak, the god-din in Tempus's ears subsided to a rustle, then to whispers, then
to contented sighs that faded entirely away when Abarsis, dead Slaughter Priest
and patron shade of the Sacred Band, wrapped his blood-red reins casually around
the chariot's brake and stepped down from his car, arms wide to embrace Tempus,
whom Abarsis had loved better than life when the ghost had been a man.

There was nothing for it, Tempus realized, but to make the best of the
situation, though seeing the materialization of a boy who had sought an
honorable death in Tempus's service wrenched his heart.

The boy was now a power on his own-a power from beyond Death's Gate, true, but a
power all the same.

"Commander," said the velvet-voiced shade, "I see from your face that you still
have it in your heart to love me. That's good. This was not an easy journey to
arrange."

The two embraced, and Abarsis's upswept eyes and high curved cheeks, his young
bull's neck and his glossy black hair, felt all too real-as substantial as the
splinters that had somehow gotten under Tempus's fingernails.

And the boy was yet strong-that is, the shade was. Tem-pus, stepping back,
started to speak but found his voice choked with melancholy. What did one say to
the dead? Not "How's life?" surely. Certainly not the Sacred Band greeting....

But Abarsis spoke it to Tempus, as he had said it so long ago in Sanctuary,
where he'd gone to die. "Life to you, Riddler, and everlasting glory. And to
your friend ... to our friend... Theron of Ranke, salutations."