"Hambly,.Barbara.-.Darwath.5.-.Icefalcons.Quest" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

"My Lord, I must protest." Bektis appeared from between the wagons, bundled in a velvet coat lined with mammoth wool that came down to his heels. He had a muff of white fur on one hand, the hand where he wore the jeweled Device all the time now, and a dozen sables wrapped around his neck.
"We know how to operate the dethken iares.. ." Only that wasn't the real name of the thing in the tent, thought Tir. It was called a chknaies. Who had known that? ". . . with a single ... ah"-he glanced at the young guardsman standing nearby-"source." He took Lord Vair's arm, led him a little apart, closer to the wagon beneath which Tir crouched. More softly, he went on, "My Lord, I cannot vouch for what might happen."
"It is your business to know what will happen," snapped Vair. "I thought you claimed expertise in this matter, sorcerer. I thought you said you knew everything of such machines and of the mages who created them." The razor-edged voice sank soft, turning Tir's belly cold and sick. "Is this not then the case?"
"Of course it is the case," Bektis replied quickly. "It's just that it was not considered safe . . ."
"Flesh is flesh," replied Vair. "Did you not say that the dead flesh is multiplied within the vat? That it can only duplicate itself so far with the substance of the victim, but that the machine knows the image of that which is to be created? Is this not then how it works?"
"Of a certainty it is," replied the mage, but his long fingers emerged from the muff to tangle and twist the snowy lovelocks of his beard.
"We need men." Vair's voice was hard now, though no louder than the whisper of the ice wind razoring from the crumbling ramparts above. "The savages gather around us, and it is still some days to our destination. Once we get on the ice we can be taken at a disadvantage. And we must needs still have enough men at our disposal to consummate the taking of Dare's Keep. Now, can it be done as I wish or not?"
"My most illustrious Generalissimo..."
"Every machine can be tinkered with, sorcerer, by those who truly understand them. You say this Harilomne did it, this heretic whose studies of the ancients taught you in your turn. Don't treat me like a commoner. Every expert can adjust and change."
His voice was like the grip of the hooks in Tir's collar, in Tir's flesh. "This is why one brings experts, instead of leaving them to perish at the hands of those hypocrites who wish to foist blame for their own crimes upon the heads of their tools. Not so, sorcerer?"
Bektis bowed his head. "It is so indeed, Lord."
"Then I trust you will make the necessary adjustments?"
"I will do so, Lord."
"Good," Vair said softly. "Good."
He walked away toward the tent where he slept; Bektis to the camp's central fire, where Hethya stood, warming her gloved hands. Hethya, Bektis, Vair, Shakas Kar, Nargois ... Tir counted them off on his fingers, then wriggled along the hard-frozen ground to the back of the largest wagon-sledge.
Even the three sides of the wagon-box had been given a petticoat of canvas and goat-hair cloth so that the space beneath, if not precisely warm, was at least protected from the winds. The legs of a table were visible in the long flat rectangle of reddish light burning within, surrounded by a horrible jumble of carrion shapes.
On one sledge lay the pitiful sheep, with cut throats and blood drying on their wool; on another, a lumpy mass, covered with a goat-hair blanket, that stank and dripped. A third sledge, behind the others, was heaped with random things, brush and cut wood and even piles of dirt.
Tir crawled to the edge of the wagon-box where the curtains began. There were at least four layers of them, to cut both cold and any possibility of light seeping out.
He crawled between them, like a mouse in a bed curtain, until he was behind the sledges with their gruesome burdens, where the smell was awful but the light of lamps and candles did not penetrate. Then he chinked the curtains a little and peeked through.
The iron tub up in the wagon-box, arches looming over it like the ribs of an unknown beast. Two big lumps of gold-woven crystal set at angles to its unarched end and the jointed canopy of glittering mesh suspended above.
Steps went up from the tent to the wagonbox, but even after the men who'd hauled in the dirt and corpses departed, Tir dared not emerge to have a closer look. In the main part of the tent there was a folding table, with what looked like a box on it.
He tallied it all in his mind.
And pounding him, tearing him, whispering in the blackness of the back of his brain was the knowledge that he'd seen all this before. That he knew what was in the box on the table.
The curtains covering the entrance heaved and blew. Tir let the hanging fall shut to almost nothing. He had to know. There had to be somebody who knew, who could tell Ingold.
It was Bektis and Nargois. With them was Ugal, big and handsome and friendly, taking off his spiked helmet and looking around him with awed gray eyes. Tir's heart stood still with horror and grief. No. Not him.
But there was nothing that he could say or do.
At Bektis' direction (Bektis never did any work) Ugal and Nargois carried two dead sheep and a great quantity of wood and dirt up the steps, the planks creaking under their weight. They went down for another load, and Tir looked away when they pulled back the cover over the other sledge. The stench, the horrible bloated black bodies with the flesh falling away ...
He knew he should be brave and look but he couldn't. He kept his face buried in his arms while their feet creaked up the plank steps. He tried not to hear the noise the things made when dropped into the vat. If he threw up they'd find him. That awareness was the only thing that kept him from doing so.
Then he heard Vair's voice.
"Ugal, is it?" There was gentleness in his tone, and affection, like a strong father addressing a son.
"Yes, my Lord." Ugal was delighted with the recognition, delighted that his generalissimo knew his name. He was always telling Tir, My Lord praised me or My Lord spoke to me-I think he knows my name.
"Do you understand the help I need from you? The magnitude of the task I'm asking you to do?"
"I-I think I do, my Lord. None of us really..."
"None of you really knows. No. That is as it should be, but it makes your help-your willingness to help-a gift of trust doubly to be treasured. Please understand how much I value that."
Tir raised his head and looked. The shadows behind the dead sheep were dense as night, and he could open quite a slit between the hangings. He saw Lord Vair touch the young man Ugal's face with his left hand, like a caress.
"Thank you, Lord."
"You understand this will hurt a little."
Behind Lord Vair, Shakas Kar entered the tent, silently.
Vair went on, "It isn't much, but sometimes men have cried out, you remember."
"I won't cry out."
"Sometimes men do," said Vair. "There is a drug, you understand, that weakens the subject; would you be willing to wear a gag? That way there can be no fears, no apprehensions on the part of your friends."
"I am willing to do whatever you wish, Lord, but I promise you, I will not weaken."
"Good man." Vair stepped forward and embraced the young soldier. "Good man."
No! Tir screamed, despairing, silent. Run away, Ugal! Run away!
Tir watched as the young man stripped, and Shakas Kar stepped forward with a gag of metal and leather. Bektis offered the young man a cup first, which he drank as if it were sacramental wine.
They gagged him then, and Hethya came in, with the haughty mien of Oale Niu, her eyes like stone. She and Shakas Kar brought from the table the black stone box, which contained-as Tir knew it would-a set of needles, some crystal, some silver, some iron, eight or ten inches long and tipped in jewels or beads of glass.
These they drove into the young man's flesh, at certain points-thohar points, whispered one of those distant memories, bringing with it a shudder of blackness, a desperate desire not to see anything further-while Ugal stood tall and beautiful, naked, head thrown back, wincing a little at the stabs but silent and proud.
He had a knotted war-scar on one thigh and another on his left arm, and with his long white hair hanging about his shoulders he seemed like a splendid animal, like a father or an elder brother Tir had always craved.
When the needles were all in his flesh Hethya and Bektis helped him climb up the wooden steps and lie down in the great iron vat with the carrion and the wood and dirt-as a warrior Ugal would have encountered worse.
They adjusted something inside. Maybe, thought Tir, so that the needles sticking out of his back wouldn't be pushed crooked when he lay down.