"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 14 - The Temples of Ayocan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

The lights kept growing brighter, the chant kept growing louder. Now Blade could make out words,
and understand them. Once again Lord Leighton's computer had done its incomprehensible work on his
brain, altering it so that he understood and responded in the language of the new dimension, however
strange it might be.
The chant was a repetition of a single set of sentences, in a complex and varying pattern. Blade could
pick out at least three different parts, and every fourth repetition they seemed to shift key entirely.
Over and over again the words came:
"Hail, flower of life! Hail, flower of death! We come to you in the service of Ayocan. We come to
you in the judgment of Ayocan."
Ayocan? thought Blade. King, priest, saint, devil, god, spirit? And the flower of life/death? Blade had
a sudden chilling thought. Could the "flower" be the one growing on the bushes where he was lurking, the
bushes with the narcotic sap? There didn't seem to be anything else living here that might match the
description. And what were the people approaching across the lake planning to do with the bushes?
He had no time to answer these questions, or ask himself any more. Suddenly even more
yellow-orange light was shining from the lake. Narrowing his eyes against the new glare, Blade saw that
behind each of the nine original lights a second one was now burning, brighter than the first. Then the
original lights all went out, suddenly, simultaneously, with almost military precision. Now Blade could see
what was approaching him across the lakeтАФand who.


Chapter 3
┬л^┬╗
Nine long outrigger canoes were approaching Blade across the lake, each sixty-odd feet long and filled
with men. He counted more than thirty men in each canoe. All were thin-faced and brown-skinned, but
otherwise they seemed divided into two groups.
One group was obviously warriors. They carried long swords that gleamed in the torchlight with the
sheen of polished bronze, and daggers and short-handled axes that seemed to be made of polished green
stone. They wore dark blue armor from neck to wrists and ankles, consisting of dyed leather patches
sewn on a cloth backing, and on their heads they wore vividly dyed orange, red, yellow, and green
helmets plumed with white feathers. About twenty of the men in each boat were warriors. Two stood at
the bow, tending the torch that poured out yellow-orange light, one stood at the stern, tending the
steering oar, and the others paddled.
The other men in each canoe wereтАФwhat? They wore only simple flowing yellow-orange robes, with
a bit of blue embroidery at the neck, and no weapons that Blade could see. Their heads were not only
shaved bald but apparently oiled, from the way they glistened in the light. Their faces were also oiled, and
cheeks, forehead, and neck were marked with cryptic signs in white. Each of them, Blade noticed,
carried a large blue cloth bag also marked with white signs and slung from a blue leather belt at his waist.
It was these men who were keeping up the chant about the flower of life and death.
 That was all Blade was able to make out before the warriors suddenly drew in their paddles. The
canoes floated in to shore and grounded on the gravel beach with gentle scraping sounds. The warriors in
the bows of each one leaped down into the water, carrying a large stone with a rope tied around it, and
dropped this improvised anchor on the beach. In each canoe a yellow-robe rose to his feet and went
forward to the torch in the bow, pouring some liquid over it from a small bronze ewer he took from the
bottom of the boat. Each torch blazed up still more brightly, spreading yellow-orange light still farther up
the slope from the beach.
In Blade's mind the need to be cautious fought a brief battle with the need to make contact with the
human population of this dimension. Normally he would not have hesitated to step out from his hiding
place and greet the men in the canoes. But the shaven-headed men looked too much like priestsтАФpriests
of Ayocan, perhaps? And where there were priests, there was often some religious rite that it was
ill-advised for a stranger to interrupt. The best plan for the moment was to stay under cover, watch, and