"Greg Keyes - The Python King's Treasure" - читать интересную книгу автора (Keyes J Gregory)

high cheekbones, long black hair plaited into a queue.
That meant the dead man's clothes would probably fit Fool Wolf. He began
rummaging about the apartment and shortly found a closet full of green robes.
He took one and found it fit rather well, so he cast about for further items
of disguise. A turban, of course, and something with which to make a false
beard, perhaps.
He congratulated himself on his luck. It looked as if no one else lived
here-there were no woman's clothes, no servants' quarters. The dead man seemed
to have lived alone. He could keep his head down here until the pursuit
cooled.
 He had just settled onto a comfortable cushion with a plate of olives when
the door splintered inward. Fool Wolf froze, an olive halfway to his mouth.
Standing in the doorframe was a rather large man in a black fighting sarong
and loose, blood-red shirt. His arms, visible from the elbow, were covered in
elaborate tattoos. On his forehead was a single tattoo, the glyph of a tiger
chasing its own tail. A long, curved sword gleamed in his sash.
The black-clad man walked into the room, followed by two hulking eunuchs
that made him look like a dwarf, and ten guardsmen behind them. All had the
tiger tattoo.
"Lohar Pang?" The man in black said. It sounded something like a question.
Fool Wolf pursed his lips. The corpse was in the next room. If they went in
there ...
"Of course," he replied. "Lohar Pang, at your service."
"Wonderful. You will come with us."
"I'm busy at the moment," Fool Wolf replied, bowing.
"Ah. My apologies," the man in black said. "I misspoke. You will come with
us, or you will die."
"Oh," Fool Wolf said, "this is a day for misstatement, for I'm not busy at
all. Shall we go?"

Fool Wolf had heard of Prince Fa-few in Fanva had not. He wasn't one of the
nine princes, but he was a merchant of considerable power and reportedly dark
tastes. He looked about sixty, with a trim beard and sooty eyes. He wore a
robe so deeply red it was almost black, bordered with twining serpents and
eels picked out in garnet. His throne was of heavy dun wood and would have
been rather plain if not for the human skulls along the armrests and high
back. Into each skull twenty or so nails had been driven. Fool Wolf suspected
that this had been done when the heads were still breathing and blinking and
screaming.
Prince Fa frowned down at Fool Wolf, then examined his long, gold-leafed
nails. "This should be a simple task, for one of your repute," the prince
said, flashing teeth like bits of polished abalone. "You have familiarized
yourself with the- problem-and with the gods in question? You examined the
objects I sent you?"
"Absolutely," Fool Wolf said, wondering what in the name of the Horse Mother
prince Fa was talking about.
"And you still say you can do it?"
"Of course. I have no doubts."
"Good. Then you will live. You will depart immediately." He leaned forward,
and his shadowed eyes caught the flicker of a candle flame, a red fish in deep