"04 - Emperor and Clown 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Dave)

Emperor And ClownEmperor And Clown
Book 1 of A Man Of His Word
By Dave Duncan
ISBN: 0-345-36631-X


ONE
Naught availeth

1
Of all the cities of Pandemia, only Hub had no legend or history of its
founding. Hub was a legend in its own right, and history was its creation.
Hub had always been. It was the capital of the Impire, the mother of
superlatives, the City of the Gods. It sprawled along the shores of Cenmere like
a marble cancer.
Alone among all the dwelling places of mankind, only Hub had never known sack or
rape or the ravages of war. Forever it had lurked in peace behind the swords of
its legions and the sorcery of the Four. Hub was graced by the spoils of a
thousand campaigns and nourished on taxes extracted from half the world. Slaves
in forgotten millions had died to build it, priceless artworks had crumbled
and-weathered away in its halls and gardens to make space for more.
It was the best and worst parts of a hundred cities, melted into one. Its finest
avenues were wide enough to march a century abreast; its darkest alleys were
slits where half a legion could have vanished without trace.
Hub was grandeur. Hub was squalor. Hub gathered all the beauty of the world and
offered every vice. Its wealth and population were uncountable. Year in and year
out, by ship and wagon, food poured into Hub to feed its teeming mouths, yet the
humble starved. Hub exported war and laws and little else but bodies-especially
those in summer, when the fevers raged. The rich imported their wine from
distant lands, but their servants drank from the same wells as the poor, and
they infected their masters.
All roads led to Hub, the imps boasted, and in Hub the greatest ways led to the
center, the five hills, the five palaces. The abodes of the wardens, the Red,
the White, the Gold, the Blue-beautiful but sinister, these were secret places,
masked and buttressed by sorcery, and few went willingly to those. In their
midst, highest and greatest, shone the Opal Palace of the imperor, seat of
government and all mundane power.
To the Opal Palace came glory and. tribute and petitions and ambassadors.
And to the Opal Palace came also, each in its own time, all the problems of the
world.
At the center of Pandemia, Shandie thought, is the Impire. At the center of the
Impire is Hub. At the center of Hub is the Opal Palace-although that isn't quite
true, because it's too near the lake to be really in the center--and at the
center of the Opal Palace is Emine's Rotunda, and at the center of the rotunda
is me.
Am I, he amended hastily.
And that wasn't quite true, either, because the exact center of the great round
hall was the throne, and he was standing one step down from the throne, on
Grandfather's right.
He must not move. Not a finger. Not a toe. This was a very formal occasion.