"George R. R. Martin - In the House of the Worm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

sun's waist and often outlined the maybe-ruins on the horizon.

From noon, when the Sun Masque commenced (all times were arbitrary with the worm-children, for the
light was the same, day and night), until midnight, all the feasters would be masked, even the Manworm,
and long curtains of heavy red velvet would be drawn across the great window, to hide the sun. Silent
torch-tenders would bring out the feast on black iron trays, and arrange it on the long table: heavy
mushrooms in cream sauce, subtly flavored puffballs, tiny slugs wrapped in bacon, fragrant green wine
alive with struggling spiceworms, fried crawlers, roast hole-hogs from the Manworm's royal larder, hot
mushroom bread, a thousand other delicacies. And, as a centerpiece, if they were lucky, a plump
six-limbed groun-child (or two!), just below the age of puberty, basted with care and served whole, its
meat white and juicy. The guests would eat until they could eat no more, joke and laugh through their
veils and dominoes, then dance beneath the torches for hours on end while obsidian ghosts mocked their
movements in the walls and floor. When midnight finally came, the unmasking began. And when all had
bared their faces, the bronze knights would carry the reigning Manworm to the fourth wall, and he would
pull the curtain cord (if he still had hands├втВмтАЭif not, the knights would pull it) and unmask the sun.

The Manworm that year was the Second Vermentor, fourteenth of his line to rule the yaga-la-hai from
the High Burrow in the House of the Worm. He had reigned a dozen years already, and soon his time
would be at an end, for the priest-surgeons had done their holy work all that while, and there was nothing
left to purify but the too-human head that lolled atop the sinuous writhing torso. Soon he would be one
with the White Worm. But his son was ready.

The bronze knight Groff, huge and stiff in armor, carried Vermentor to the window and acted as his
hands. The velvet slid back smoothly, and the old sun was revealed as the Manworm intoned the ancient
worship words and the worm-children gathered round to look.

Annelyn, surrounded by his friends and acolytes, was one of the closest to the glass, as was fitting.
Annelyn was always to the front. He was a slim and glorious youth, tall and graceful. All the highborn
yaga-la-hai had soft mocha skins, but Annelyn's was the softest of them all. Most of his fellows had
blond or red-blond hair, but Annelyn's was the brightest yellow-gold; it crowned his head in delicate
sculptured ringlets. Many worm-children had blue eyes, but none so blue and deep as Annelyn's.

He was the first to speak after the curtains were drawn. ├втВм┼УThe black parts grow,├втВмтАв he observed to
those around him, in a light, clear voice. ├втВм┼УSoon our curtains will not be needed. The sun now masks
itself.├втВмтАв He laughed.

"It dies,├втВмтАв said Vermyllar, a gaunt boy with hollow cheeks and flaxen hair who worried far too much.
├втВм┼УMy grandfather told me once that there was a time when the black plains were smoky red and the
seas and rivers were white fire, painful to look upon.├втВмтАв Vermyllar's grandfather had been second son
of the Manworm, and thus knew all sorts of things that he passed on to his grandson.

"Perhaps it was so,├втВмтАв Annelyn said, ├втВм┼Уbut not in his time, I would wager, or even that of his
grandfather.├втВмтАв Annelyn had no blood ties with the line of the Manworm, no secret sources of
knowledge, but he was always quite sure of his opinions, and his friends├втВмтАЭVermyllar and stout Riess and
beautiful Caralee├втВмтАЭthought him the wisest and wittiest of men. Once he had killed a groun.

"Don't you worry about the sun dying?├втВмтАв Caralee asked him, tossing blond curls easily as she turned to
face him. She looked enough like Annelyn to be his sister-twin; perhaps that was why he wanted her so.
├втВм┼УAbout the burrows growing cold?"