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

Tyllwin chuckled, a scratching noise, and the flowers on the whole of one tree turned to fruit and rotted where they hung. His nearest neighbors left their seats hastily and moved towards the Margrave's end of the table.
Tyllwin's huge found head, like a turnip-ghost's, turned to watch them, and a smile curved his dusty lips. He said, "Is it not certain, masters of Ryovora, that these things foreshadow an important event?"
The rotten fruits fell with a squelching sound, and, ants hurried from among the roots of the trees to investigate. The company hardly dared do more than nod.
"Therefore," said Tyllwin, "I suggest we investigate the commotion which is shortly to take place at the main gate."
He fell silent. A few dead leaves blew across the table. Most of them clustered before Tyllwin's place, and he touched them with a bony hand, making them dissolve. The watchers trembled.
Still, the Margrave was relieved to find that nothing more outrageous was going to follow Tyllwin's unexpected loquacity. He said, "Well, what is the opinion of you all?"
Ruman spoke up, with a glance towards Tyllwin that lasted only half a second after meeting Tyllwin's eyes. He said, "I have not scried any such commotion."
"But you have not scried since yesterday," objected Gostala with feminine practicality.
"True, true. Then I am with Tyllwin."
"Petrovic?" inquired the Margrave.
"I am aware," that dried-up individual said in a doubtful tone, "that the people believe all our troubles would be at an end if we had a god, as other cities do. I hope that in this instance they are wrong; they usually are. Having heard from our neighbors at Acromel how severely they suffer from their deity-"
"This is far from the point," interrupted Gostala, tapping the table with a thumb-bone which had once been the property of a man fortunate enough-or unfortunate enough-to be her lover. "I say we do not know. Let us therefore expect both nothing and everything."
"Rational and well-spoken!" approved the Margrave. "Those in favor ...?"
All present laid their right hands on the table, except Tuc, who had left his in the mouth of a dragon beyond an interesting sea of fire far to the north. Even Tyllwin moved with the rest, causing yet more leaves to wither and tremble on the tree that had suffered most since he broke from his impassivity.
"Agreed, then," said the Margrave. "Let us go thither."
The company rose with a bustle and began to adjourn to the main gate. The Margrave, however, remained behind a few moments, contemplating Tyllwin, who had not vacated his place.
When the others were at a distance he judged safe, he addressed the enchanter in a low voice.
"Tyllwin, what is your opinion of a god?"
Tyllwin laughed creakingly. "I have been asked that before," he said. "And I will answer as I did then: I do not know what a god is, and I doubt that many men do, either."
A branch on the tree overhanging him split with a warning cry, so that the Margrave flung up his hand automatically before his face. When he looked again, Tyllwin was gone.

The commotion at the gates, foreseen by Tyllwin and by no other of the council members, had already begun when the stately procession entered the avenue leading to them. Each enchanter had come after his or her own style: Petrovic walking with his staff called Nitra, from which voices could sometimes be heard when the moon was full; Gostala riding on a creature she had conjured out of the deep water which was its natural element, that cried aloud in heart-rending agony at every step; Ruman on the shoulders of a giant ape fettered with brass; Eadwil on his own young legs, although his feet shone red-hot when he had gone ten paces-this was to do with a geas about which no one ever inquired closely. The air about them crackled with the struggle between protective conjurations and the tense oppressive aura that enshrouded Ryovora.
In the wide street before the gateway a crowd had gathered, laughing, shouting, exclaiming with wonderment. In the midst of the throng, a man in outlandish attire, his face set in a frown of puzzlement, was vainly trying to contend with a hundred questions simultaneously.
The crowd parted to let the nobility by, and at once closed in again, like water around a slow-moving boat
The Margrave came up behind the rest, panting somewhat, for he was getting fat, and looked the stranger over curiously, while the people's voices rose to almost a roar and then sank again into a muttering buzz. At last, having cast a beseeching glance at his companions and received no offers of assistance, he was compelled to address the newcomer.
"Sir, who are you and what do you want?"
In the terribly patient tone of one dealing with lunatics, the stranger said, "My name is Bernard Brown, and all I want is to go home."
"That is easy enough," said the Margrave in relief. But if he had paused to reflect that Tyllwin was concerned at this man's arrival, he would not so soon have been optimistic. He rounded on Petrovic. "Will you oblige?" he said.
Petrovic looked up in the air and down at the ground. He scratched a number of ideograms in the dust with his staff Nitra, then hastily scuffed them over with his foot. He said flatly, "No."
"Well, if you won't you won't," sighed the Margrave. He appealed to Gostala, who merely shook her regal head and went on scrutinizing Bernard Brown.
"Eadwil!" cried the Margrave.
The boy, whose face had gone perfectly pale, stammered a few incomprehensible words and burst into tears.
"See! They can't! What did I tell you?" bellowed a bull-like voice from the crowd, and the Margrave shot a glance at the speaker as sharp as a spear.
"Come forth!" he commanded, and with the aid of a number of bystanders the fellow pushed and shoved until he stood before his ruler. He was an insolent-faced churl with a shock of corn-colored hair, and wore a leather apron with big pockets in which reposed the tools of his trade. He appeared to be some kind of worker in metal.
"You are-" said the Margrave, and ran through a short formula in his mind. "You are Brim, a locksmith. What did you mean by what you said?"
"What I said, of course," the fellow retorted, seeming amused. "Why, anyone can see he's not to be pushed around by ordinary folk!"
"Explain further," commanded the Margrave.
"Why, 'tes simple as your mind . . .sir." Brim thrust an errant lock of hair back into place with his blunt thumb. "I see it plain, and so do all of us. Here we've been saying these years past that what's amiss with Ryovora is we haven't got a god like all those towns around the world every wherever. And now, today, what else do the omens say? Can you tell us that?"
He thrust a stubby finger at the Margrave's chest. The Margrave recoiled and looked at him distastefully. But he was by inclination an honest man, so he had to shake his head and admit that although the noble enchanters had speculated long and long about the recent omens they had not been able to arrive at any conclusion.
"There, mates! What did I tell you?" bellowed Brim, whirling to face the crowd. There was an answering yell, and in a moment the situation had turned topsyturvy. The throng had closed in on Bernard Brown, unmindful that they trod on some of the nobles' toes, and had seized him and gone chairing him down the avenue, while men, women and children ran and skipped behind him, singing a rhythmic song and laughing like hyenas.
"Well!" said the Margrave in vexation. "This is a most improper and irregular state of affairs!"

VI

The Margrave had cause to repeat those words, with still greater emphasis and an even more sombre expression, the following morning. He sat once more at the head of the long table in the Moth Garden, for the air had become if anything more oppressive than yesterday; moreover, reports of omens seemed to have doubled in number.
"This is extremely aggravating!" said the Margrave testily. "Virtually the entire populace is firmly convinced this stranger is a god, simply because they can't make head or tail of what he says. Accordingly, they have turned me out of my own palace-I spent an uncomfortable night here in the Moth Garden-and are at work converting it into a temple for this character without so much as a by-your-leave!"
Eadwil suppressed an inappropriate smile. "Moreover," he supplied, "all those persons who have voyaged extensively are being interrogated concerning the correct manner in which to pay homage to a new deity. Brim the locksmith, around whom this ferment seems to be most turgid, has traveled to Acromel and is enthusiastic for human sacrifice; there is a group of women who in their youth were captives in Barbizond and wish to hold daily single combats before the altar; a man who formerly fished Lake Taxhling declares that the sole method of adopting the god is to burn down the city twice a year and re-build it, as the fisherfolk do with their reed-hut villages..."
Petrovic shook his withered head and opined, "No good will come of this."
"Has anyone knowledge of Tyllwin's whereabouts?" inquired the Margrave, for the gaunt one's place was empty today.
A shudder went down the table, and those in earshot shook their heads, not without expressions of relief.