"Brunner,.John.-.Traveler.In.Black.V1 (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brunner John)

"No, I laugh at the foolishness of mankind," said the black-clad traveler.
"So! In what impressively mirthful manner is this foolishness manifest, pray?"
"Why, thus," the traveler said, and told the story of Tolex and Ripil, fighting before the gate of the city.
But Duke Vaul did not find the anecdote in the least degree amusing. He commanded that the temple guard should at once go in search of these two, and fumed while they were hunted down. When they arrived, however, it was as corpses they were laid on the temple floor.
"Mighty Duke!" cried the guardsmen respectfully, bowing their heads as one, and then let their captain continue.
"Sire, we found these two clasped dying in each other's arms. Each bore one bloody cudgel; each has a broken skull."
"Throw them into the river," said Duke Vaul curtly, and resumed converse with the black-clad traveler.
"You arrogate to yourself the right to laugh at men's foolishness," he said, and gave a wicked grin. "Then tell me this: are you yourself entirely wise?"
"Alas, yes," said the traveler. "I have but one nature." "Then you can succeed where all my so-called wise men have failed. See you this idol?"
"I could hardly avoid seeing it. It is a considerable work of-ah--art."
"It is claimed that a way exists to invest it with life, and when this way is found it will then set forth to lay waste the enemies of this city and execute justice upon them. By every means we have sought to bestow life upon it; we have given it blood, which is life, as you doubtless know, from every class and condition of person. Even my consort, who but a few hours ago sat beside me on this throne"-the duke wiped away an imaginary tear-"now hangs with her throat gashed on that chain-jangling gibbet before the altar. Still, though, the idol declines to come to life. We need its aid, for our enemies are abroad in every corner of the world; from Ryovora to the ends of the earth they plot our downfall and destruction."
"Some of what you say is true," nodded the traveler.
"Some? Only some? What then is false? Tell me! And it had better be correct, or else you shall go to join that stupid chief priest who finally tired my patience! You can see what became of him!"
The traveler glanced up and spread his hands. Indeed, it was perfectly clear-what with the second mouth, the red-oozing one, the priest had lately acquired in his throat.
"Well, first of all," he said, "there does exist a way to bring the idol to life. And second, yes, it will then destroy the enemies of this city. But third, they do not hide in far corners of the land. They are here in Acromel."
"Say you so?" Duke Vaul frowned. "You may be right, for, knowing what a powerful weapon we wield against them-or shall wield, when we unknot this riddle-they may well be trying to interfere with, our experiments. Good! Go on!"
"How so, short of demonstrating what I mean?"
"You?" The duke jerked forward on his throne, clutching the ebony arms so tightly his knuckles glistened white. "You can bring the idol to life?"
The traveler gave a weary nod. All the laughter had gone out of him.
"Then do it!" roared Duke Vaul. "But remember! If you fail, a worse fate awaits you than my chief priest suffered!"
"As you wish, so be it," sighed the traveler. With his staff he made a single pass in the air before the altar, and the idol moved.
Agshad in the attitude of devotion did not open his clasped hands. But Lacrovas swung his sword, and Duke Vaul's bearded head sprang from his shoulders.
Pellidin let fall the three crushed persons from his hand and seized the headless body. That he squeezed instead, and the cupped hands of Agshad in the posture of accepting sacrifice filled with the blood of the duke, expressed like juice from a ripe fruit.
After that the idol stepped down from the altar and began to stamp on the priests.

Thoughtfully, having made his escape unnoticed in the confusion, the traveler took to the road again.
Perhaps there would be nothing worse to behold during this journey than what he had observed in Acromel. Perhaps there would be something a million times as bad. It was to establish such information that he undertook his journeyings.

In Kanish-Kulya they were fighting a war, and each side was breathing threatenings and slaughter against the other.
"Oh that fire would descend from heaven and eat up our enemies!" cried the Kanishmen.
"Oh that the earth would open and swallow up our enemies!" cried the Kulyamen.
"As you wish," said the traveler, "so be it."
He tapped the ground with his staff, and Fegrim who was pent in a volcano answered that tapping and heaved mightily. Afterwards, when the country was beginning to sprout again-for lava makes fertile soil- men dug up bones and skulls as they prepared the ground for planting.

On the shores of Lake Taxhling, men sat around their canoes swapping lies while they waited for a particular favorable star to ascend above the horizon. One lied better than all the rest.
But he lied not as his companion lied-to pass the time, to amuse each other harmlessly. He lied to feed a consuming vanity hungrier than all the bellies of all the people in the villages along the shore of the lake, who waited day in, day out, with inexhaustible patience for their menfolk to return with their catch.
Said the braggart, "If only I could meet with such another fish as I caught single-handed in Lake Moroho when I was a stripling of fifteen! Then you would understand the fisherman's art! Alas, though"-with a sigh-"there are only piddling fish in Lake Taxhling!"
"As you wish, so be it," said the traveler, who had accepted the offer of food by their fire. And the next dawn the boaster came home screaming with excitement about the huge fish he had caught, as great as the one he had taken in Lake Moroho. His companions crowded around to see it-and the mountains rang with their laughter, because it was smaller than some others they themselves had taken during the night.

"I do not wish him to love me for my beauty or my fortune," declared the haughty child of a merchant in the city called Barbizond, where there was always a rainbow in the sky owing to the presence of the bright being Sardhin chained inside a thundercloud with fetters of lightning. The girl was beautiful, and rich, and inordinately proud.
"No!" she continually insisted, discarding suitor after suitor. "I wish to be loved for myself, for what I am!"
"As you wish, so be it," said the traveler, who had come in the guise of a pilgrim to one of the jousts organized that this lady might view her potential husbands. Twenty-one men had died in the lists that afternoon, and she had thrown her glove in the champion's face and gone to supper.
The next time there were jousts announced, no challenger came, and the girl pulled a face and demanded that more heralds go forth. Her father summoned a hundred heralds. The news went abroad. And personable young men said in every city, "Fight for a stuck-up shrew like her? Ho-ho! I've better ways to pass my time, and so've my friends!"
At length the truth dawned upon her, and she became miserable. She had never been happy. She had only thought she was happy. Little by little, her pride evaporated. And one day, a young man came by chance to her father's house and found she was a quiet, submissive, pleasant girl, and married her.

Thus the journey approached its end. The traveler felt a natural relief that nothing excessively untoward had occurred as he hastened his footsteps towards the goal and climax of his excursion-towards Ryovora, where men were sensible and clear-sighted, and made no trouble that he had to rectify. After this final visit, he could be assured that his duty was fulfilled.
Not that all was well by any means. There were enchanters still, and ogres, and certain elementals roamed abroad, and of human problems there might be no end. Still, the worst of his afflictions were growing fewer. One by one, the imprints of the original chaos were fading away, like the footmarks of travelers on the road above the hill where Laprivan of the Yellow Eyes was prisoned.
Then, as the gold and silver towers of Ryovora came to view, he saw that an aura surrounded them as of a brewing storm, and his hope and trust in the people of that city melted away.

III