"Farmer, Philip Jose - World of Tiers 03 - A Private Cosmos" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)A PRIVATE COSMOS
17 most level of Talanac, the greatest city in the world." Kickaha did not contradict him. At one time, the capital city of Atlantis, the country occupying the inner part of the next-to-highest level, had been four times as large and populous as Talanac. But it had been destroyed by the Lord then in power, and now the ruins housed only bats, birds, and lizards, great and small. "But," the priest said, "where the world has five levels, Talanac has thrice three times three levels, or streets." The priest put the tips of the excessively long , fingernails of his hands together, and, half-closing his slightly slanted eyes, intoned a sermon on the magical and theological properties of the numbers three, seven, nine, and twelve. Kickaha did not interrupt him, even though he did not understand some of the technical terms. He had heard, just once, a strange clinking in the next room. Just once was enough for him, who had survived because he did not have to be warned twice. Moreover, the price he paid for still living was a certain uncomfortable amount of anxiety. Always, he maintained a minimum amount of tension even in moments of recreation and lovemak-ing. Thus, he never entered a place, not even in the supposedly safe palace of the Lord, without first finding the possible hiding places for ambushers, avenues of escape, and hiding places for himself. He had no reason to think that there was any danger for him in this city and especially in the sacrosanct temple-library. But there had been many times when he had had no reason to fear danger and yet the danger was there. The clinking was weakly repeated. Kickaha, 18 A PRIVATE COSMOS without an "Excuse me!" ran to the archway through which the unidentified, hence sinister, noise had come. Many of the black-robed priests looked up from their slant-topped desks where they were painting cartographs on skin or looked aside from the books hanging before them. Kick-aha was dressed like a well-to-do Tishquetmoac, since his custom was to look as much like a native as possible wherever he was, but his skin was two shades paler than the lightest of theirs. Besides, he wore two knives, and that alone marked him off. He was the first, aside from the emperor, to enter this room armed. Takoacol called out to him, asking if anything was wrong. Kickaha turned and put a finger to his lips, but the priest continued to call. Kickaha shrugged. The chances were that he would end up by seeming foolish or overly apprehensive to the onlookers, as had happened many times in other places. He did not care. As he neared the archway, he heard more clink-ings and then some slight creakings. These sounded to him as if men in armor were slowlyЧ perhaps cautiouslyЧcoming down the hallway. The men could not be Tishquetmoac because their soldiers wore quilted-cloth armor. They had steel weapons, but these would not make the sounds he had heard. Kickaha thought of retreating across the library and disappearing into one of the exits he had chosen; in the shadows of an archway, he could observe the newcomers as they entered the library. But he could not resist the desire to know immediately who the intruders were. He risked one fast peek around the corner. A PRIVATE COSMOS 19 Twenty feet away walked a man in a complete suit of steel armor. Close behind him, by twos, came four knights, then at least thirty soldiers, swordsmen and archers. There might be more because the line continued on around the curve of the hall. Kickaha had been surprised, startled, and shocked many times before. This time, he reacted more slowly than ever in His life. For several seconds, he stood motionless while the ice-armor of shock thawed. The knight in the lead, a tall man whose face was visible because of the opened visor of his helmet, was the king of Eggesheim, Erich von Turbat. He and his men had no business being on this level! They were Drachelanders of the level above this, all natives of the inland plateau on top of the monolith which soared up from this level. Kickaha, who was known as Baron Horst von Horstmann in Dracheland, had visited the king, von TUrbat, several times and once had knocked him off a horse in a joust. To see him and his men on this level was startling enough, since they would have had to climb down a hundred thousand feet of monolith cliff to get to it. But their presence within the city was incomprehensible. Nobody had ever penetrated the peculiar defences of the city, except for Kickaha on one occasion, and he had been alone. Unfreezing, Kickaha turned and ran. He was thinking that the Teutoniacs must have used one of the "gates" which permitted instantaneous transportation from one place to another. However, the Tishquetmoac did not know where the three "gates" were or even guessed that they existed. Only Wolff, who was the Lord of this universe, his 20 A PRIVATE COSMOS Despite this, the Teutoniacs were here. How they had found the gates and why they had come through them to this palace were questions to be answered laterЧif ever. Kickaha felt a surge of panic which he rammed back down. This could only mean that an alien Lord had successfully invaded this universe. That he could send men after Kickaha meant that Wolff and Chryseis were unable to prevent him. And that might mean they were dead. It did mean that, if they were alive, they were powerless and therefore needed his help. Ha! His help! He was running for his life again! There were three hidden gates. Two were in the Temple of Ollimaml on top of the city, next to the emperor's palace. One gate was a large one and must have been used by von Turbat's men if they had entered in any force. And they must have great force, otherwise they would never have been able to overcome the large and fanatical bodyguard of the emperor and the garrison. Unless, Kickaha thought, unless the invaders had somehow been able to capture the emperor immediately. The Tishquetmoac would obey the commands of their ruler, even if they knew they originated from his captors. This would last for a time, anyway. The people of Talanac were, after all, human beings, not ants, and they would eventually revolt. They regarded their emperor as a god incarnate, second only to the all-powerful creator Ollimaml, but they loved their jade city, too, and they had a history of twice committing deicide. In the meantime ... in the meantime, Kickaha A PRIVATE COSMOS 21 was running toward the archway opposite the one through which the invaders must be stepping just now. A shout spurred him on, then many were yelling. Some of the priests were crying out, but several of the cries were in the debased Middle High German of the Drachelanders. A clash of armors and of swords formed a base beneath the vocal uproar. Kickaha hoped that the hallway was the only one the Drachelanders were using. If they had been able to get to all the entrances to this' roomЧno, they couldn't. The arch ahead led to a hall which only went deeper into the mountain, as far as he knew. It could be entered by other halls, but none of these had openings to the outside. That is, he had been told so. Perhaps his informants were lying for some reason, or perhaps they hadn't understood his imperfect Tishquetmoac speech. Lied to or not, he had to take this avenue. The only trouble with it, even if it were free of invaders, was that it would end up in the mountain. HI THE LIBRARY was an immense room. It had taken five hundred slaves, rubbing and drilling twenty-four hours a day, twenty years to complete the basic work. The distance from the archway he had just left to the one he desired was about 180 yards. Some of the invaders had time to enter the library and take one shot at him. Knowing this, Kickaha began to zigzag. When he neared the arch, he threw himself down and rolled through the exit. Arrows slissed above him and kukked into the stone wall or bunged off the floor near him. Kickaha uncoiled to his feet and raced on down the hallway; he came to the inevitable curve, and then stopped. Two priests trotted past him. They looked at him but said nothing. They forgot about him when shrill cries stung their ears, and they ran toward the source of noise. He thought they would be acting more intelligently if they ran the other way, since it sounded as if the Drachelanders might be massacring the priests in the library. However, the two would now run into the pursuers, and might delay them for a few seconds. Too bad about the priests, but it wasn't his fault if they were killed. Well, perhaps it was. But he did not A PRIVATE COSMOS 23 intend to warn them if silence would help him keep ahead of the hunters. He ran on. Just before he came to another forty-five degree bend, he heard screams behind him. He stopped and removed a burning torch from its fixture on the wall. Holding it high, he looked upward. Twenty feet from the top of his head was a round hole in the ceiling. It was dark, so Kickaha supposed that the shaft bent somewhere before it joined another. The entire mountain was pierced with thousands of these shafts. All were at least three feet in diameter, since the slaves who had made the shafts and tunnels could not work in an area less than this. Kickaha considered this shaft but gave up on it. There was nothing available to help him get up to it. Hearing the scrape of metal against stone, he ran around the curve and then stopped. The first archer received a blazing torch in his face, screamed, staggered back, and knocked down the archer behind him. The conical steel helmets of both fell off and clanged on the floor. Stooping, Kickaha ran forward, using the archer with the burned face, who had sat up, as a shield. He pulled the archer's long sword from his sheath. The man was holding his face with both hands and screaming that he was blind. The soldier he had knocked down stood up, thus preventing the bowmen who did see Kickaha from shooting at him. Kickaha rose and brought the sword down on the unprotected head of the soldier. Then he whirled and ran, stooping,again. Too late, some of the bowmen fired. The arrows struck the walls. He entered a large storage room. 24 |
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