"Flint, Kenneth C - Gods of Eire 03 - Master of the Sidhe UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flint Kenneth C)

The ship from Eire sailed on into the cove, heading for the quays. From its deck, hundreds of figures could now be seen swarming upon them. They seemed to be men, normal in size seen swarming upon them. They seemed to be men, normal in size and shape. But in dress they were far different from the people of Eire. There was no ragged Fomor dress, no de Danann finery or flashing jewels. All were clad alike in close-fitting trousers and tunics of a silver-gray.

Some of them worked at tasks upon the ships. Others moved materials in and out through three enormous doorways in the Tower's base. So diligent about these labors were

they that even the ship's arrival caused only a few to interrupt their efforts to glance toward it, and then only for an instant. The visitor lowered sail and slid into an empty berth at the quays without the slightest show of welcoming or excitement.

Bres didn't wait for the ship to be tied up or the gangway run out. He leaped impatiently across the bulwark onto the quay and started along it at a rapid stride, headed for the nearest of the doorways.

He glanced up at the towering structure as he walked. Its gleaming length loomed above him now, seeming to lean out over him threateningly. From so close it was noticeable that the glass surface of each side was not really a single sheet but formed of enormous interlocking panels of a diamond shape joined so finely that only a delicate, precise network of lines was visible. From his angle this pattern seemed to overlay a chilly reflection of a somber gray sky.

As Bres neared the doorways, a party of men appeared from it. There were a dozen uniformed men in two files, led by another who strode a bit ahead. The men in ranks, unlike the others on the quay, were helmeted with skullcaps of a dull silver and armed with sheathed swords and curious spears. These last were heavy weapons with shafts as thick as a wrist and large metal globes at the end in place of points. This formidable party tramped purposefully down the quay toward Bres with a hard, high-stepping march. Their leader called them to a halt before him and drew himself to rigid attention facing the visitor.

Bres stopped, eyeing the leader narrowly, He was quite young, swarthy, with handsome but crudely drawn features, like his men's. His officer status was proclaimed by the single bands of silver about each upper sleeve. For his youth, he had the disciplined bearing of one long trained, holding himself rigidly, his expression set in a soldierly impassiveness.

"Welcome to the Tower/' he declared in a brisk, flat tone. "We have been sent to give you escort... ah ..." He hesitated. A faint anxiety softened his iron look.

"You will address me as High-King," Bres supplied irritably. "Now, take me to BalorЧimmediately."

"Yes . . . High-King," the officer responded. "The Commander is waiting to receive you. This way please." He lifted a directing arm.

26

MASTER OF THE SIDHE

THE TOWER

27

"I know the way well enough," Bres told him brusquely, and pushed past, not awaiting their escort.

Taken off guard, the officer quickly ordered his men to turn and follow while he trotted off ahead in an effort to catch up with the swiftly striding Bres. But Bres was still leading them as they reached the first of the doorways and passed into the Tower.

They entered a space that was cavernous. The late sun cast a wedge of yellow light far into the room, making what lay beyond seem all the more dimly lit in contrast. The ceiling high above and the distant outer walls were lost in shadow.

The vast floor area was cluttered with materials of all sortsЧboxes, barrels, sacks, jars, baskets, bundlesЧpiled in mounds and ridges and mountains to create a bewildering landscape. And here and there amid the jumble, shrouded in cloth and shadows and the dust of ages, sat massive, indefinable but ominous shapes, like monstrous beasts crouched in hiding

The little column threaded its way through this mazelike place, finally arriving at a far corner. There an opening in the thick wall revealed a broad stairway. Not slowing his pace, Bres started up it, his supposed escort clattering loudly up behind.

The stairway took them around two sharp turns and up three flights before it brought them out into a long, blank-walled corridor. This they followed until it opened abruptly into a realm of stark white light,

They were now on the lowest level of the Glass Tower itself. The area they entered was the floor of an atrium that rose upward through the center of the entire Tower, a square, thirty-story column of open space, soaring away to a tiny dot of brightness high above.

Around this atrium ran galleries, level upon level, each lined by a rail of gleaming silver metal, each separated from the gallery above it by a band of smooth, spotless white wall. From bottom to top, each level was exactly the same, each of the precise, sharp-cornered, clean proportions as the next one above it, all forming a perfectly balanced whole. And all was lit with an even, hard glow of icy whiteness that seemed to come from everywhere at once and left no shadows.

On the atrium floor and the levels above, more hundreds of the uniformed men of the Tower swarmed, all apparently

engaged in business of enormous urgency. Their expressionless faces, drained of human color by the uncompromising light, took on the dead grayness of their dress, giving them the look of graven-stone playing pieces moving on the board of a gigantic chesslike game.

In each corner of the atrium a large square column of the same unadorned white rose upward, connecting all the levels as if supporting them. Bres and his company started across the floor toward the nearest one, the visitor pushing his way aggressively through the bustling crowd from whom he drew only faintly curious looks.