"Fancher, Jane - Rings 1 - Ring Of Lightning" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fancher Jane S)

heat. Even where great and powerful leadership results in
cities to rival Rhomatum in both size and population, those
citizens still conduct their lives under the most primitive of
conditions, where the very necessities of life create filth and
stench unimaginable to a citizen of Rhomatum.
These have a long and complex history of petty kingdoms
and empires with which Darius, in his Histories, was nota-
bly unconcerned.
The conscientious scholar can't but wonder whether this
lack of interest on the part of Rhomatum's founder in the
World Beyond the Web (a tendency which to this day, Rho-
matum herself displays in her extra-web dealings) indicates
(1) an idiosyncrasy endemic to any node city, (2) an isola-
tionist tendency inherited from Rhomatum's sociotechno-
logic progenitor, or (3) a simple echo of Rhomatum's
founder's own limited interests and biases. . . .
. . . insofar as history can be described as 'fact, ' insofar as
we have a multiplicity of accounts to substantiate those
'facts,' we have ample reason to believe the following to
be 'true':
1) In the spring of the thirty-ninth year of Matrindi's reign
in Mauritum, Darius Rhomandi, of no proven patronage,
led 257 adult males, 199 adult females and an unrecorded
number of minor children out of the city of Mauritum and
across the Amaidi Channel to the mainland valley where
they founded the city of Rhomatum.
2) That Darius was ultimately responsible for capping and
controlling the Rhomatum leynode also appears undisputed,
as is the case with Darius' claim to Maurii priesthood,
though he was apparently a very minor priest, most likely
of the metal-working order, considering the endless detail
with which he describes the casting of the Rhomatum rings.
3) According to hill-folk tradition, a tradition substanti-
ated by the ruins scattered throughout the valley and foot-
hills, the Dorian refugees were by no means the first
inhabitants of the valley. However, none of the physical evi-
dence supports the current, highly popularized theory that
Darius led an army into the valley and destroyed the Tamsh-
irin of local folklore: the patterns of destruction still extant
on the ruined castles and altars, while not indicative of natu-
ral weathering and decay, have more in common with ley-
invoked lightning storms than with any human engine of
war. Nor is there evidence in the remaining architecture to
suggest other than human origin.
Indeed, in this, considering the deserted sites, rubbled vic-
tims of Rhomatum's shunted lighting storms, now extant on
the Rhomatum Web's own borders, we can trust Darius'
account that the valley beyond Persitum Node had become
a maelstrom following Mauritum's capping of Persitum. A
constant pounding of lightning would seem, at least to this