"John Dalmas - Yngling 3 - The Circle of Power" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dalmas John)

* Chapter 40
* Chapter 41
* Chapter 42
* Chapter 43
* Chapter 44
* Chapter 45
* Chapter 46
* Chapter 47
* Chapter 48
* Chapter 49
* Chapter 50
APPENDICES
* THE PSYCHOME AND THE PSYCHE
* THE OGRE AS A HYPNOCONDITIONED SOLDIER
* LINGUSTIC CONSERVATISM IN 29th CENTURY SCANDINAVIA
* PRONUNCIATION GUIDE FOR NEOVIKING NAMES AND WORDS
* LUNAR CALENDAR OF THE WOLF CLAN (& OTHERS)



PROLOGUE
The Sanctuary was semi-dark, lit by a single,
large oil lamp that set blurred shadows trembling and jumping. Seven men,
robed in silk, sat in a circle on straw mats, legs folded beneath them.
Another sat in the center. Their shaven heads were upright. Lamplight
flickered on calm faces, glinting on eyes otherwise black, giving off an aroma
too mild to conceal the fragrance of Korean pine from panels, timbers and
floor. As dark as the room, was the sound that came from their throats -- a
deep and droning тАЬOM,тАЭ protracted and near the limit of audibility, like the
dying hum of some great bell.
They were questing. Vague images flicked
behind unfocused eyes. Now and then something vaguely recognizable came to
them, to be gone before it stopped shimmering. They didnтАЩt try to hold them.
When -- if -- they found something significant, it would stay to be examined.
After a bit, they got one clearly, of conical
tents -- a campground -- with a village of log huts not far behind it. Behind
the image was a sense of context; this was some tribal gathering. The picture,
still wavering, shifted, then focused on a very large, physically powerful
man. A man without eyes, they somehow knew, who nonetheless carried a sword. A
man without eyes who walked briskly, meaningfully. Suddenly he stopped. And
turned as if to look at the men who spied on him from their Circle of Power.
He did have eyes, strange eyes without pupils,
that somehow seemed to lock with their collective gaze. Then the vision
wavered and was gone, and they knew without discussion that they would not get
it back.
The emperor, Songtsan Gampo, sat in his study
before open, glass-paned doors. A light cool wind blew from the northwest
across the Yan Mountains, played with the silver wind chimes on his balcony,
and touched his face. Above his left shoulder an oil lamp, its flame shielded
by a glass chimney, cast faintly yellow light on the manuscript he read.