"Barnes,.Stephen.-.Kundalini.Equation.V0.9" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barnes Steven)

The tableau was frozen for a moment. The sticks twitched in Adam's hands as if they were alive.
"Who ... are you?" Oei asked at last.
Adam paused in confusion, uncertain of his reply. The muscles along his jawline spasmed as if conducting electric current.
The silence in the room was painful. Oei scuttled backward, watching Adam's swiveling sticks. "No one . . . can do what you just did."
Adam looked down at his hands. "I . . ."
"Leave," Oei croaked. "I don't know what just happened, and I do not want to know. I do not know what path it is you follow, but if I were you, I would stop." The old master paused, and his eyes grew more afraid. "I know you now. Yogis have written of you."
"And Savagi?"
The silence now was thick. "That one. So. I was right. If you follow him, I have already said too much." He drew himself up with ruined dignity, bowed, and turned to leave the floor.
Adam nodded. "Mr. Oei," he said, "I'm sorry. I really am."
Oei stopped, but did not turn around. "I will say a prayer for you," he said softly. "It may not be enough."


Look for these TOR books by Steven Barnes
THE DESCENT OF ANANSI (with Larry Niven) THE KUNDALINI EQUATION



ATOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
THE KUNDALINl EQUATION
Copyright й 1986 by Steven Barnes
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
The lines from "Zomby Woof" by Frank Zappa that appear on page 281 are used by permission, copyright й 1973 Munchkin Music, ASCAP.
First printing: May 1986 A TOR Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates 49 West 24 Street New York, N.Y. 10010
Cover art by Les Edwards
ISBN: 0-812-53150-7 CAN. ED.: 0-812-53151-5
Printed in the United States 098765432

Chapter One
The Legend
This whole world was enveloped by deathЧby Hunger. For what is Death but Hunger? And Death bethought himself: would that I had a self!
ЧBook One, Verse Two, The Upanishads
1500 B.C., Indus Valley India
In silence, concealed within an angled web of temple rafters, Jiarri notched an arrow to his bowstring and sighted along its shaft at the priest beneath him. The old man was pinned to the bloodstained frescoed wall by spikes through his wrists; his toes barely reached the ground.
End his pain. Jiarri lowered his arrow's silver tip. He could do nothing but watch.
The squat, muscular spearmen on either side of the priest snapped to attention as a new figure entered the temple of Kalirangpur.
The newcomer was thick-chested, with the shoulders of an ape. His scarred face mirrored the hideous carnage just beyond the temple's shattered, metal-bound doors. His armor and carriage proclaimed him an officer. Something
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round and flat beneath one massive arm caught the smoldering torch's glare, throwing it back to the wall in flashes of white.
Behind the officer waddled a small, grotesquely obese figure whose feet slapped a clumsy rhythm on the tile. His rags, matted with filth, fluttered about him like a shroud. A scrap of cloth swathed his face diagonally from scalp to chin, covering his left eye: one of the beggars who sought alms in the marketplace, now licking up behind his true master. Jiarri growled, and aligned the tip of his arrow with the back of the spy's neck.
The officer thumbed back the priest's eyelid, and spat directly into the iris. The old man convulsed, the spikes tugging cruelly at his wrists. The officer said something in a guttural tongue and threw down a silver plate veined with tiny rivulets of gold. It rolled on edge to the priest's feet and clattered to the ground.
The ragged spy snatched it up. "The General wants to know where this came from." His voice was a barely comprehensible mishmash of barbaric consonants. "The etching, the molding, are much finer than anything else in Kalirangpur." His bandaged finger lightly traced the elegantly carved image of a sacred bull. "The General has seen such plates, but they were old, tarnished. This is new, the metal freshly cast."
There was no reply. Like a hawk seizing a rabbit the General's hand flashed out, fingers sinking deeply into the priest's wizened throat. He twisted the old man's head around until their eyes locked.
"You don't have to die," the spy said.
The priest coughed painfully, then spoke for the first time. "All men die."
The spy peeled the bandage away from his face, blinking against the light. "But why die here, today, in agony?" He called sharply, again in the barbarian tongue, and two guards prodded a trio of children into the temple at spearpoint. The priest's knees sagged. He groaned as fresh blood oozed from his wrists.