"Robert Jordan - Conan The Unconquered" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jordan Robert)

The forty men gathered there, a fifth part of his Chosen, did need this
show of splendor to reflect the glory of their cause. Yet the most important
single item in that chamber, an altar set in the exact center of the circle
formed by the room, was of unornamented black marble.
Two-score men turned silently as Jhandar entered, saffron robed and
shaven of head as the laws of the cult demanded, just as it forbade its women
to cut their tresses. Eager eyes watched him; ears strained to hear his words.
"I am come from the Pool of the Ultimate," he intoned, and a massive
sigh arose, as if he had come from the presence of a god. Indeed, he suspected
they considered it much the same, for though they believed they knew the
purposes and meanings of the Cult, in truth they knew nothing.
Slowly Jhandar made his way to the black altar, and all eyes followed
him, glowing with the honor of gazing on one they considered but a step
removed from godhead himself. He did not think of himself so, for all his
ambitions. Not quite.
Jhandar was a tall man, cleanly muscled but slender. Bland, smooth
features combined with his shaven head to make his age indeterminate, though
something in his dark brown eyes spoke of years beyond knowing. His ears were
square, but set on his head in such a fashion that they seemed slightly
pointed, giving him an other-worldly appearance. But it was the eyes that oft
convinced others he was a sage ere he even opened his mouth. In fact he was
not yet thirty.
He raised his arms above his head, letting the folds of his robes fall
back. "Attend me!"
"We attend, Great Lord!" forty throats spoke as one.
"In the beginning was nothingness. All came from nothingness."
"And to nothingness must all return."
Jhandar allowed a slight smile to touch his thin mouth. That phrase,
watchword of his followers, always amused him. To nothingness, indeed, all
must return. Eventually. But not soon. At least, not him.
While he was yet a boy, known by the first of many names he would bear,
fate had carried him beyond the Vilayet Sea, beyond even far Vendhya, to
Khitai of near fable. There, at the feet of a learned thaumaturge, an aged man
with long, wispy mustaches and a skin the color of luteous ivory, he had
learned much. But a lifetime spent in the search for knowledge was not for
him. In the end he had been forced to slay the old man to gain what he wanted,
the mage's grimoire, his book of incantations and spells. Then, before he had
mastered more than a handful, the murder was discovered, and he imprisoned.
Yet he had known enough to free himself of that bare stone cell, though he had
of necessity to flee Khitai. There had been other flights in his life, but
those were long past. His errors had taught him. Now his way was forward, and
upward, to heights without end.
"In the beginning all of totality was inchoate. Chaos ruled."
"Blessed be Holy Chaos," came the reply.
"The natural state of the universe was, and is, Chaos. But the gods
appeared, themselves but children of Chaos, and forced order - unnatural,
unholy order - upon the very Chaos from which they sprang." His voice caressed
them, raised their fears, then soothed those fears, lifted their hopes and
fanned their fervor. "And in that forcing they gave a foul gift to man, the
impurity that forever bars the vast majority of humankind from attaining a