"Gray, Julia - Guardian 03 - The Crystal Desert" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gray Julia)

Even the fact that some of the revellers were chewing qard leaves no longer concerned him.
Several hours later, as the feasting came to an end, he watched as the remnants of the gargantuan meal - which, for some reason he didn't understand, were called 'the snow-leopard's portion' - were cleared away. After an evening of excess, the Toma's frugal ways were reasserting themselves; nothing would be wasted. However, Terrel could not understand why several clean mutton bones were placed into a fire to bake.
'Why are they doing that?' he asked Mlicki.
'When the bones crack,' his friend replied sleepily, 'the shaman reads omens in the patterns.'
'So who'll do it this time?'
'I don't know. It won't happen for a while yet.'
'Why not?'
'We have the storytelling next,' Mlicki replied, sounding eager now in spite of his obvious tiredness.
'Who tells the stories?'
'Medrano will start. After that, anyone who can make themselves heard and keep the audience's attention! It'll probably be dawn before it's finished.'
Terrel already knew that the Toma were fond of storytelling. Having no written language, they kept a record of their history - as well as myths and legends, jokes and parables - in their heads.
'It sounds as if it's going to be an entertaining night,' he commented, feeling a little of his friend's excitement himself now.
Eventually, Medrano got to his feet. He waited for the general rumble of conversation to die down, but it gave no sign of abating - and Terrel couldn't help feeling that it would take an earthquake or something equally devastating to quieten the boisterous gathering. But he was wrong.
While Medrano waited patiently, Zahir stood up and, setting his fingers to his lips, let out a high-pitched, piercing whistle. Even then the noise did not stop, but at least it fell in volume.
'Before the storytelling begins,' Zahir shouted, his face flushed and his eyes shining, 'I have something to say! Soon you'll be telling stories about me! I'm going to be the Toma's champion in the Race of Truth.'
The silence then was absolute, with shock and outrage frozen on the faces of all the elders. Terrel was taken aback by their response. He had no idea what Zahir's announcement meant - or why it should have provoked such a stunned reaction.
Chapter Ten
'Sit down, b-' Algardi caught himself just in time. Calling his son 'boy' on this of all nights would have been an insult too vile even for Zahir's crime. 'This is neither the time nor the place.'
Taken aback by his father's anger, Zahir was about to respond, but Algardi did not give him the chance.
'You have no right to make such a claim. The winds-'
'The winds failed us!' Zahir burst out, finding his voice at last. 'We have to do this on our own.' But there was uncertainty in his eyes now, in spite of his defiance. He was in the wrong and, deep down, he knew it.
'Even so,' Algardi replied, tacitly admitting the truth of his son's words, 'this decision is to be made by the Toma as a whole, not by any one man. And not now.' The finality of this statement silenced Zahir.
No one else spoke. Most people kept their eyes averted from the protagonists, and even though he did not fully understand the reasons for it, Terrel shared in the general mood of embarrassment.
'Sit down,' Algardi repeated, quietly this time.
As Zahir obeyed, swallowing his pride, his father turned to look at Medrano. The artist had been as shocked and dismayed as anyone else by what had happened, but he understood what was needed now.
'This is the oldest story of all,' he began. 'So old that it was once written down!' His voice was a little uncertain at first, but it quickly gained in confidence. His audience recovered too, glad to be able to return to the proper events of the evening, to something they understood and enjoyed. Most looked up at Medrano, their faces displaying a mixture of relief and anticipation.
'It was carved into the stones of the forbidden city of Y-Harah,' the artist went on, 'which the nomad scholar Zayla found during the years of his wanderings. It's thanks to him that this story is still told, because he committed it to memory and it has been passed from father to son for countless generations. Listen then, and carefully, for Zayla's tale is all we have left from that ancient time.'
Medrano paused, looking round at the eager faces before him. Terrel glanced around too, and realized that he was the only one surprised by the nature of the artist's opening. The rest of the gathering had obviously been expecting nothing else. Most people were nodding, or smiling in recognition of familiar words. Tradition evidently decreed that the oldest story of all was also the first to be told at such important gatherings.
'Long ago, in a time before the burning winds came, when life flowed freely across the green plains of Misrah, the city of Y-Harah was ruled by an evil tyrant called Hargeysa, a man so insane he always chose to ride a horse rather than a camel!'
This comment drew more smiles and some laughter from Medrano's audience.
'Hargeysa called himself the Sentinel, and claimed to watch over his people with the eyes of the moons - and because Y-Harah was a prosperous city, its inhabitants were content to believe him. Of course, their faith might have been influenced by Hargeysa's army of loyal bodyguards, who enforced their master's every wish. Anyone who disagreed with the Sentinel was liable to vanish mysteriously in the night, never to be seen again. But for most life was good, even though Y-Harah was cut off from the outside world. The city had its own language. Their clothes, their music and dances, even the way they cooked their food, was quite unlike anywhere else - which was the way Hargeysa wanted it. None of his subjects was allowed to leave. Those allowed to work outside the city walls were watched by the soldiers, and anyone caught trying to escape was publicly tortured before being put to death.
'What was worse, Hargeysa saw all foreigners - he called them non-believers - as a threat, because an oracle had once told him that if such a heretic ever entered the city walls, then the inhabitants of Y-Harah would all be doomed. Because of that, any stranger found within a day's march of the city was executed on the spot, so that there was no chance of breaking the spell that protected them.'
By now the Toma were engrossed, their earlier disappointment set aside. Terrel had the feeling that even Zahir's egotistical presumption was already being viewed in a more forgiving light, as the hot-headedness of a very young man. The humiliation of the public rebuke by his father had been punishment enough - and now it was time to enjoy the rest of the night's entertainments. Medrano's initial nervousness had vanished now, and he knew that he held his audience in the palm of his hand.
'Hargeysa's actions became known far and wide, and for many years no outsider even tried to approach Y-Harah. So the Sentinel slept easily beneath his chilouk, which was woven from threads the colours of the four moons. Many tribes looked from afar upon the city's riches and were envious, but even when such people were suffering from terrible droughts, the citizens of Y-Harah refused to share any of their plentiful crops. And none dared raid Hargeysa's lands, because his reputation was now that of an invincible ruler, a king. It was said that the walls of Y-Harah were lined with weapons no army could withstand, sorcerous devices that spewed forth fire and smoke to choke a man to death, or hurled spears of metal and stone that could tear man or beast apart before they had even come within sight of the city's towers. It was said that Hargeysa could make the ground open up to swallow his enemies in pits of scalding tar, and that the trees in his orchards grew vines that would snake around any foe and strangle him as he attempted to pass by. Many people thought such tales were ridiculous, but no one was prepared to risk their life to discover the truth. No one except Soofarah the Meddler, that is.'
The mention of this character drew another round of smiles, and this was followed by laughter as Medrano went on to describe her. He told of how, as a girl, Soofarah had been wilful and inquisitive, always poking her nose into things that did not concern her, so that even among her own clan she became the cause of much friction. However, she also learnt many things, including the 'gift of many faces'. Years later, having satisfied her curiosity about the ways of men on her wedding night, she divorced her husband and set out alone to travel wherever the winds took her. After many adventures, she met a sorceress who told her that she would only meet her true love if she journeyed to Y-Harah.
'True to her nature,' Medrano continued, 'Soofarah set out immediately, heedless of the dangers. Eventually she reached the borders of Hargeysa's land, where she came across the body of an ancient goatherd who had died while tending his flock. Ignoring the rank smell that infused the coarse material, Soofarah dressed herself in the old man's clothes, and used her gift to take on his likeness. Then, having hidden the corpse in the undergrowth, she made her way towards the city. When she was in sight of the walls she began to hobble, crying out in a feeble voice and feigning illness. The tale she told was of raiders who had driven off her animals and left her for dead, and although this sounded incredible - who would dare to do such a thing? - no one questioned her identity and she was taken inside the city.
'There she stayed for seven days and seven nights, changing her appearance wherever necessary so that her disguise fitted her purpose. She visited every part of Y-Harah, including Hargeysa's palace, as she searched for her true love.'
After a suitable amount of embellishment, Medrano revealed what everyone in the audience, except Terrel,
already knew. Soofarah's true love was a cat, a creature who was as endlessly curious and as selfish as she was. They escaped from Y-Harah together and remained inseparable for the rest of the cat's long life.
'And there it would have ended had it not been for the fact that, on her continuing travels, Soofarah came across the caravan of the great hero, Zorn.'
This name was clearly familiar to the nomads, and there were murmurs of appreciation as Medrano went on to describe the fabled warrior - whose destiny was to defend his land and his people from all evil. Terrel, who had been enjoying the story as much as anyone, found himself frozen in disbelief when he learnt that, according to the legend, Zorn had been born on the night of a lunar confluence, when all four moons had been full and perfectly aligned. Terrel and his twin had been born on such a night, and it had been prophesied that another hero - the Guardian of the Tindaya Code - would be born at the time of one confluence and fulfil his destiny at the time of the next. The seers had originally thought that this would be seventy-five years later, but the changes to the orbit of the Dark Moon meant that the timing was now uncertain. However, Terrel had little opportunity to wonder whether Zorn was Misrah's equivalent of the Guardian; he didn't want to miss any more of Medrano's story.
'While Soofarah was in Zorn's camp, there was a night of storytelling, and she chose to relate the tale of her visit to Y-Harah. At first no one believed her, but when she changed her appearance to that of the old goatherd and demonstrated how she had entered the forbidden city, even Zorn began to take notice. Soofarah's description of the place was so detailed that in the end no one doubted her, and she proved more than willing to answer the warrior's questions about the strength of the walls, the layout of the gates and the streets within, as well as the nature of the city's weapons and fortifications. In doing so she gave the lie to many myths that had grown up about the Sentinel's impregnable stronghold.'
Terrel could see where this was heading. He'd read an account of the fall of another forbidden city in the library at Havenmoon. The names and many details of the story had been different, but in that version, just as in Medrano's, the fortress had been brought down by a single interloper. Were all legends universal? he wondered. How could that be? The Floating Islands had been cut off from the rest of Nydus since time began.
Returning his attention to the artist, he heard how, armed with this intelligence, Zorn decided to invade Y-Harah. His success was aided by a sudden eclipse, which the defenders took as an ill omen, and in due course the city was ransacked and Hargeysa killed. Soofarah's adventure had indeed broken the Sentinel's spell, and brought the oracle's curse to fruition.
'But that was not all,' Medrano added. 'After the city had been plundered, a great shaking of the earth shattered every building until the place was in ruins. And these remains were buried the following day, by the greatest karabura the world had ever seen. The evil that was Y-Harah was gone for ever.'
Terrel knew that a karabura was a 'black sandstorm', the worst, most violent kind of desert whirlwind. To him even the idea of a yellow sandstorm - a sarik-buan, which the nomads had told him was easier to survive - sounded
terrifying. He fervently hoped he would never encounter either of the dreadful phenomena.
'Some say that Y-Harah reappears for one day every ten thousand years,' Medrano went on. 'Others claim that it will rise again when the world is coming to an end. But if either of those auguries is true, the evil will not return alone. For Zorn is not dead but sleeping - perhaps within the ruins of Y-Harah itself - and he will return to the land of the living to protect us when he is needed. And the signal of his rebirth will be another alignment of all the moons.'
As the artist's tale came to an end, he looked up to the night sky where the White Moon hung like a pale echo of the desert sun, dazzling and beautiful but cold. Most of his audience followed his gaze, and then - as Medrano sat down - they shouted and whistled their approval, banging hands and feet upon the ground.
After that, Terrel was sure that none of the other stories would be as dramatic, or seem so relevant to his own concerns - and he was right - but many of them came close. As the night drew on, he listened to tales of lakes that wandered from place to place; of desert dreams in which lost souls tried to lure unwary travellers to the deathly wasteland; of the caravan of a thousand men and camels that had been swallowed by a karabura, never to be seen again. One man recited a long poem, with the entire tribe chiming in on the final few words of each verse; another painted so vivid a picture of the erlik, the desert spirits of the night, that Terrel could almost see these creatures above them, watching over the encampment. There was humour too, with the tale of the lazy camel who lay down and refused to get up - until its resourceful handler thought of lighting a fire under the animal's hindquarters!