"Sterling E. Lanier - Hieros 01 - Hiero's Journey" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lanier Sterling E)

hundred trained Abbeyman, as well as the armed traders, all good fighters, the
attack had been beaten off only with great
10 HIERO'S JOURNEY
difficulty. Twenty dead men and several cartloads of vanished goods were the
result. And not one captive, dead or alive. If a Leemute fell, one of the
great, spotted dog-things had seized him and borne him away.
Hiero had studied the Leemute files for years and knew as much as anyone below
the rank of abbot about the various kinds. And he knew enough to know how much
he did not know, that many things existed in the wide world of which he was
totally ignorant.
The thought of forelooking made Hiero rein the morse to a halt. Using the mind
powers, with or without Lucinoge, could be very dangerous. The Unclean often
had great mental powers too, and some of them were alerted by human thoughts,
alerted and drawn to them. There was no question of what would happen if a
pack such as had struck the convoy found a lone man ready to hand.
Still, there had to he some danger any where, and forelooking often helped one
to avoid it if not used to excess. "Your wits, your training, and your senses
are your best guides," the Father Abbots taught. "Mental search, forelooking,
and cold-scanning are no replacements for these. And if overused, they are
very dangerous." That was plain enough. But Hiero Desteen was no helpless
youth, but a veteran priest-officer, and all this by now was so much reflex
action.
He urged the morse off the track, as he did so hearing the buffer herd just at
the very edge of earshot. They are traveling fast, he thought, and wondered
why.
In a little sunny glade, a hundred yards from the trail, he dismounted and
ordered Klootz to stand watch. The big morse knew the routine as well as the
man and lifted his ungainly head and shook the still-soft rack of antlers.
From the left saddlebag, Hiero took his priest's case and removed the board,
its pieces, then the crystal and the stole; draping the latter over his
shoulders, he seated himself cross-legged on the pine needles and stared into
the crystal. At the same time he positioned his left hand on the board,
lightly but firmly over the pile of markers, and with his right made the sign
of the cross on his forehead and breast.
"In the name of the Father, his murdered Son, and Spirit," he intoned, "I, a
priest of God, ask for vision ahead on my road. I, a humble servant of man,
ask for help in my journeying.
THE SIGN OF THE FISHHOOK 11
1, a creature of earth, ask for signs and portents." As he concentrated
staring into the crystal, he kept his mind fixed firmly on the road and
especially the area to the east and south, the direction in which he was
headed.
In a moment, as he watched, the clear crystal became cloudy, as if filled with
swimming wraiths of mist and fog. Thousands of years after western
anthropologists had refused to believe the evidence of their own eyes when
watching Australian aborigines communicate over hundreds of miles by staring
into two pools of water, a man of the seventy-fifth century prepared to see
what lay ahead of him in his travels.
As Hiero stared, the mist cleared and he felt drawn down into the crystal, as
if he were becoming a part of it. He shrugged this familiar feeling aside and