"Philip Jose Farmer - The Green Odyssey" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

abandon her children and would try to take them along, thus wrecking all his escape plans. He might just as
well hire a brass band and march behind it out of the city and onto the windтИТroller in the light of high noon.)

Nevertheless his conscience troubled him. If it was painful to leave Amra it was hell to leave Paxi, his
daughter. For days he had considered taking her along with him, but eventually abandoned the idea. Trying to
steal her from under Amra's fiercely watchful gaze was almost impossible. Moreover, Paxi would miss her
mother terribly, and he had no business exposing the baby to the risks of the voyage, which were many. Amra
would be doubly hurt. Losing him would be bad enough, but to lose Paxi also...! No, he couldn't do that to
her.



5 14
 The Green Odyssey

The outcome of this conversation with her was that she apparently dropped her suspicions. At least she never
spoke of them again. He was glad of that, for it was impossible to keep entirely hidden his connection with
the mysterious actions of Miran the Merchant. The whole city knew something was up. There was
undoubtedly a lot of money tied up with this deal of the wagon caravan going to the seashore. But what did it
all mean? Neither Miran nor Green would say a word, and while the Duke and Duchess might have used their
authority to get the information from their slave, the Duke made no move. Miran had promised to let him in
on a share of the profits, provided he gave the merchant a free hand and asked no questions. The Duke was
quite content. He planned on spending the money to increase his collection of glass birds. He had ten large
rooms of the castle glittering with his fantastic aviary: shining, silent and grotesquely beautiful, all products
of the glassтИТblowers of the fabulous city of Metzva Moosh, far, far away across the grassy sea of the
Xurdimur.

Green was present when the Duke talked to Miran about it.

"Now, Captain, you must understand just exactly what I do want," warned the ruler, lifting a finger to
emphasize the seriousness of his words. His eyes, usually deepтИТsunk in their fat, had widened to reveal large,
brown and soulful orbs. The passion for his hobby shone forth. Nothing: good Chalousma wine, his wife, the
torture of a heretic or runaway slave, could make him quiver and glitter with delight as much as the thought
of the exquisitely wrought image of a Metzva Moosh bird.

"I want two or three, but no more because I can't afford more. All made by Izan Yushwa, the greatest of the
glassтИТblowers. I'd particularly like any modeled after the birdтИТofтИТterror...."

"But when I was last in Estorya I heard that Izan Yushwa was dying," said Miran.

"Excellent, excellent!" cried the Duke. "That will make everything recently created by him even more
valuable! If he is dead now it is probable that the Estoryans, who control the export of the Mooshans, will be
putting a high price on anything of his that comes their way. That means that bidding will be high during the
festival and that you must outbid any prospective buyers. By all means do so. Pay any price, for I must have
something created by him in his last days!"

The Duke, Green realized, was so eager because of the belief that a part of a dying artist's soul entered into
his latest creations when he died. These were called "soulтИТworks" and brought ten times as much as anything
else, even if the conception and execution were inferior to previous works.