"Eric Van Lustbader - Sunset Warrior 5 - Dragons on the Sea" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lustbader Eric van)

That which is known as Magic

Was once the progeny of ignorance.

Ancient Shinju saying

PREFIGURE

KILL RHYTHM
'He is coming!' Qaylinn, the chief Rosh'hi of the Bujun, gripped the wooden balustrade of the terrace
that ran the entire length of the top floor of the temple of which he was the master. His old, lined face
shone in the deep russet glow of the huge, oblate sun as it began to sink over the marshes where geese
rose and alit as they had from time immemorial.

'I told you he would come!'

'Yes,' the voice said from behind him, 'but will he listen to what we have to say?'

Qaylinn, who had been trained since infancy to intuit intent from the nuances of the human voice, turned
to face the other man - a tall, stately figure with a halo of steel-gray hair. Even so long from the battlefield,
he is still the soldier inside, Qaylinn told himself. 'You are afraid,' he said quietly.

'Are you not?'

Qaylinn shook his head. 'You forget. I have met the Dai-San. I know him.'

The tall man shook his head. 'I, too, have met the Dai-San in the presence of the Kunshin, our sovereign,
and my private opinion is that he is allowed too near the Dragon Throne,' he said. 'I think it is foolish to
delude oneself into believing that he is knowable. Can one know a god? I think not.'

'Whatever he may be now, he was a man, once,' Qaylinn said steadily. 'And I assure you he has no
designs on the Dragon Throne. He has bonded with the Kunshin; they are closer than brothers.' It was
important to keep the minister's fear in check. Should it spread to the other members of the councilтАж In
any event, their faith in the Dai-San must not be shaken. His work was not yet done, and he was their
only hope. 'From the womb of woman he came and so in his mind - whatever he has now become,
whatever magic has been worked on him - he remains at his core a man.'

High Minister Ojime grunted. 'Would that I had your faith, sayann.' Sayann, a Bujun term for extreme
respect, was not often used, and even less by Ojime. 'I, too, know that our fate -and the fate of the entire
world of man - rests in the hands of the Dai-San.'

A wind was rising, unnatural and unsettling. It caused Qaylinn's deep saffron robe to swirl about his bare
feet, ruffled Ojime's oiled cotton and cured leather coat which was the color of indigo, connoting his
senior rank within the Sekkan, the council of Bujun.

Of course Ojime is frightened, Qaylinn thought. He is a political animal; he has been taught to fear and
covet power that is greater than his own. It is how he came to don the cloth of indigo. Qaylinn wondered
how many of the other high ministers feared and envied the Dai-San his godlike powers. His bald pate
tingled. There was danger here, he knew, over and above the pressing reason he had summoned the