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

Theron and his creature Tempus were to blame for this black blizzard straight
from hell.

It was whispered by a woman to Critias, Tempus's first officer and finest covert
actor, who had infiltrated the noble strata of the imperial city; And Crit, with
a wry twitch of lips that drew down his patrician nose and a rake of his
swordhand through dark, feathery hair, replied to the governor's wife he was
bedding: "No one gives a contract for a sunrise, m'lady. No man. that is.
Theron is no more than that. When gods throw tantrums, even Tempus listens."

Crit had fought in the Wizard Wars up north and the woman knew it. His guise was
that of a disaffected officer who had renounced his commission after Abakithis's
assassination at the Festival of Man and now, like so many others of the old
guard, scrambled from allegiance to allegiance in search of safety.

So the governor's wife just ran a finger along his jaw and smiled
commiseratingly as she said, "You men of the armies ... all alike. I suppose
you're telling me that this is good? This storm, this hail black as hell? That
it's a sign we poor women cannot read?"

And (thinking of the prognosticators-bits of hair and silver and bone and luck
nestled in the pouch dangling from his belt that, with the rest of his clothes,
lay in a heap at the foot of another man's bed) Crit replied in Court Rankene,
"When the Storm God returns to the armies, wars can be won-not just fought
interminably. Without Him, we've just been marking time. If He's angry, He'll
let us know on what account. And I'd bet it won't be Theron's-or Tempus's. One's
a general whom the soldiers chose exactly because the god had abandoned us
during Abakithis's reign; the other is..."

It was not the woman's hand, reaching low, which made him pause. She wanted
Crit's protection; information was what he'd sought here in return. And gotten
what he'd come for, and more from this one-all a Rankan lady had to give. So he
thought-in a moment of unaccustomed tenderness for one who would likely
entertain, on his account, the crowds who'd throng the execution stands when the
weather broke-to explain to her about Tempus. About what and who the man Crit
had sworn to serve was, and was not.

He settled for "... Tempus is what Father Enlil-Lord Storm to the armies-wills,
and cursed more than Ranke and all her enemies put together. By gods and men, by
magic and mages. If there's hell to pay because of Theron's reign, rest assured,
lady, it's he who'll suffer in all our steads."

The Rankan woman, from the look on her face and the hunger on her lips, had lost
interest in the subject. But Crit had not. When he left her, he marked her door
with a sign for the palace police without even a second thought to the fine body
behind it which would soon be lifeless.

The sky was still black as a witch's crotch and the wind was chorusing its
judgment song in a many-throated voice Crit had heard occasionally on the
battlefield when Tempus's non-human allies took a hand in this skirmish or that