"Charles Ingrid - Burning Bridges" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ingrid Charles)

BURNING BRIDGES
Charles Ingrid


ACT II
TO stand in the throne city of Sshen was to stand in the midst of a province walled
city, filled with cacophony and culture, to be overcome by a vast, dark tide of peoples. It
its quarters . . . city-states, in actuality . . . of peoples and classes, threaded throughout by
military presence of the Sshen and emperor. To go within the inner walls of the city, into
palace complex itself, was to stand in the wash of the radiance of the greatest civilizatio
the world that called itself Lunavar. It was to want to be inside the palace, to study, to bec
one with its greatness and mystery. To be admitted meant submitting oneself to the mage sta
the emperor, to be examined and memorized before being allowed into the museum and lib
of knowledge, antiquities, and beauties. And, while studying, being studied.
To go inside meant days of kneeling in silent petition. No one was quite sure what e
would see the petition granted but scholars were allowed within by the handful. He wa
inside. He had to get inside. He had a blood debt that could only be paid by getting inside.
So Brennan wrapped himself in black and knelt on the steps of the palace by the mus
wing and fasted and meditated and keenly observed the doors, windows, floors, u
balconies, and guards through the veil gauze masking his face. He left at night, as the o
did, and broke his fast, but unlike the others, Brennan made sketches of what he had obser
dictated and copied what he had to his mainframe server, and when he returned in the morn
he knelt in a different place to expand his observations. He would not be denied.
But midway through the third morning, the eldest of the elders approached him quietly.
have been watching you, scholar. Come with me."
He rose to his feet silently, knees barely aching, his stomach complaining more
anything, and unwrapped his face and followed the emperor's mage. They went through a
portcullis that Brennan had marked and into the spice-scented shadowy interior of a s
chamber. He looked up, sensing that the antechamber leaned against what was a high to
and he scanned the interior, looking for evidence of that. There, before he could anticipat
protest, the elder took his wrist, slashing it with a sharp stinging knife and allowing bloo
splash into an earthenware basin. Brennan moved away without a word despite his surp
applying pressure, and the mage nodded as he wrapped the wound carefully, rendering it
invisible within his sleeves. The mage of the Emperor of Sshen returned his ritual knife
forearm sheath that Brennan had not marked before, hidden within faded crimson robes.
"Follow me," the elder said, without apology or explanation. As he stepped from
antechamber, he put the bowl onto a rack, the coppery aroma of Brennan's blood mingling
that of clove and sandalwood, the pungent scents assailing his heightened senses. They c
not mask the animal odor that began to seep through the chamber and Brennan thought he h
a heavy, impatient body moving behind the walls with a dull thud. A shuttered enclo
behind the rack of bowls rattled heavily as the walls were hit again. He smelled . . . not an
. . . but reptile before the elder moved him through an arched doorway.
 They moved into an inner courtyard where lesser mages sat on cushions, reading,
books and parchments, pots of dipping ink and styli at their sides. Almost as one they loo
up at his entry, and the elder turned to him.
"Remove your head scarf."
Brennan did so, unwrapping the black gauze that had concealed him. His dark, glossy l
tumbled free to his shoulders, his thin fine goatee revealed on his chin, and his dark
watching all of them as they sketched and noted his presence. "Barbarian," one of
muttered to himself, stylus quickly skritching across the paper. He did not try to hide the s