"M. John Harrison - Viriconium 1 - The Pastel City" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison John M)

while the Northmen licked their wounds and
nourished their resentments. A slow war of
attrition began, with the Southerners grown
spineless again, the Northmen schooled to
savagery by their harsh cold environment.
Viriconium revered stability and poetry and
wine-merchants: its wolf-cousins, only revenge.
But, after a century of slow encroachment, the
wolves met one who, if not of their kind,
understood their ways . . .
Methven Nian came to the throne of
Viriconium to find the supply of metals and Old
Machines declining. He saw that a Dark Age
approached; he wished to rule something more
than a scavenger's empire. He drew to him young
men who also saw this, and who respected the
threat from the North. For him, they struck and
struck again at the lands beyond Duirinish, and
became known as the Northkillers, the Order of
Methven, or, simply, the Methven.
There were many of them and many died. They
fought with ruthlessness and a cold competence.
They were chosen each for a special skill: thus,
Norvin Trinor for his strategies, Tomb the Dwarf
for his skill with mechanics and energy-weapons,
Labart Tane for his knowledge of Northern
folkways, Benedict Paucemanly for his
aeronautics, tegeus-Cromis because he was the
finest swordsman in the land.
For his span, Methven Nian halted the decay:
he taught the Northmen to fear him; he instituted
the beginnings of a science independent of the
Old Technologies; he conserved what remained of
that technology. He made one mistake, but that
one was grievous.
In an attempt to cement a passing alliance with
some of the Northern Tribes, he persuaded his
brother Methvel, whom he loved, to marry their
Queen, Balquhider. On the failure of the treaty
two years later, this wolf-woman left Methvel in
their chambers, drowning in his own blood, his
eyes plucked out with a costume-pin, and, taking
their daughter, Canna Moidart, fled. She schooled
the child to see its future as the crown of a
combined empire; to make pretense on Methven's
death to the throne of Viriconium.
Nurtured on the grievances of the North, the
Moidart aged before her time, and fanned in
secret sparks of discontent in both North and
South.