"David Drake - General 03 - The Anvil" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

white radiance above each pointed stained-glass window.
The far end of the audience chamber was a hemisphere plated with
burnished gold, lit via mirrors from hidden arcs. It glowed with a
blinding aura, strobing slightly. The Chair itself stood four meters in
the air on a pillar of fretted silver, the focus of light and mirrors
and every eye in the giant room. The man enchaired upon it sat with
hieratic stiffness, light breaking in metallized splendor from his
robes, the bejeweled Keyboard and Stylus in his hands. From somewhere
out of sight a chorus of voices chanted a hymn, inhumanly high and
sweet, castrati belling out the chorus and young girls on the descant:

"He intercedes for us --
Viceregent of the Spirit of Man of the Stars!
By Him are we boosted to the Orbit of Fulfillment --
Supreme! Most Mighty Sovereign, Lord!
In His hands is the power of Holy Federation Church --
Ruler without equal! Sole rightful Autocrat!
He wields the Sword of Law and the Flail of Justice --
Most excellent of Excellencies! Father of the State!
Download His words and execute the Program, ye People --
Endfile! Endfile! Ennd . . . fiiille."

On either side of the arch framing the Chair were golden trees ten
times taller than a man, with leaves so faithfully wrought that their
edges curled and quivered in the slight breeze. Wisps of white-colored
incense drifted through them from the censers swinging in the hands of
attendant priests in stark white jumpsuit vestments, their shaven heads
glittering with circuit diagrams. The branches of the trees glittered
also, as birds carved from tourmaline and amethyst and lapis lazuli
piped and sang. Their song rose to a high trilling as the pillar that
supported the Chair sank toward the white marble steps; at the rear of
the enclosure two full-scale statues of gorgosauroids rose to their
three-meter height and roared as the seat of the Governor of the Civil
Government sank home with a slight sigh of hydraulics. The semicircle
of high ministers came out from behind their desks -- each had a
ceremonial viewscreen of strictly graded size -- and sank down in the
full prostration, linking their hands behind their heads. So did
everyone in the Hall, except for the armed guards.
The Companions had stopped a few meters back. Now Raj felt Suzette's
hand leave his; she sank down with a courtier's elegance, making the
gesture of reverence seem a dance. He walked three more steps to the
edge of the carpet and went to one knee, bowing his head deeply and
putting a hand to his breast -- the privilege of his rank, as a
general and as one of Barholm's chosen Guards. It might have done him
some good to have made the three prostrations of a supplicant; on the
other hand, that could be taken as an admission of guilt.
You never know, with Barholm, Raj thought. You never know. Center?
effect too uncertain to usefully calculate, the passionless inner voice
said. After a pause: with barholm even chaos theory is becoming of
limited predictive ability.