"Empire 1 - Daughter of the Empire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Feist Raymond E)

Lady

The priest struck the gong.

The sound reverberated off the temple's vaulted domes, splendid
with brightly coloured carvings. The solitary note echoed back and
forth, diminishing to a remembered tone, a ghost of sound.

Mara knelt, the cold stones of the temple floor draining the
warmth from her. She shivered, though not from chill, then glanced
slightly to the left, where another initiate knelt in a pose identical to
her own, duplicating Mara's movements as she lifted the white head
covering of a novice of the Order of Lashima, Goddess of the Inner
Light. Awkwardly posed with the linen draped like a tent above her
head, Mara impatiently awaited the moment when the headdress
could be lowered and tied. She had barely lifted the cloth and
already the thing dragged at her arms like stone weights! The gong
sounded again. Reminded of the goddess's eternal presence, Mara
inwardly winced at her irreverent thoughts. Now, of all times, her
attention must not stray. Silently she begged the goddess's forgiveness,
pleading nerves - fatigue and excitement combined with
apprehension. Mara prayed to the Lady to guide her to the inner
peace she so fervently desired.

The gong chimed again, the third ring of twenty-two, twenty for
the gods, one for the Light of Heaven, and one for the imperfect
children who now waited to join in the service of the Goddess of
Wisdom of the Upper Heaven. At seventeen years of age, Mara
prepared to renounce the temporal world, like the girl at her side
who - in another nineteen chimings of the gong - would be counted
her sister, though they had met only two weeks before.

Mara considered her sister-to-be: Ura was a foul-tempered girl
from a clanless but wealthy family in Lash Province while Mara was
from an ancient and powerful family, the Acoma. Ura's admission
to the temple was a public demonstration of family piety, ordered
by her uncle, the self-styled family Lord, who sought admission into
any clan that would take his family. Mara had come close to defying
her father to join the order. When the girls had exchanged histories
at their first meeting, Ura had been incredulous, then almost angry
that the daughter of a powerful Lord should take eternal shelter
behind the walls of the order. Mara's heritage meant clan position,
powerful allies, an array of well-positioned suitors, and an assured
good marriage to a son of another powerful house. Her own
sacrifice, as Ura called it, was made so that later generations of girls
in her family would have those things Mara chose to renounce. Not
for the first time Mara wondered if Ura would make a good sister of
the order. Then, again not for the first time, Mara questioned her
own worthiness for the Sisterhood.