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

Annelyn laughed again, and Riess laughed with him. (Riess always laughed with Annelyn, though Annelyn
suspected that the fat boy seldom understood the joke.) ├втВм┼УThe sun was dying long before I came into
the House of the Worm, and it will continue dying long after I have left,├втВмтАв he said, turning away from
the window. He was splendid that night, in his costume of pale blue silk and spidergray with the crest of
theta stitched above his breast.

"As for the cold,├втВмтАв Annelyn continued, as he led his three companions back toward the feasting table,
├втВм┼УI don't believe that the old sun has anything to do with heat, one way or the other."

"It does,├втВмтАв said Vermyllar, who had come in brown rags like a mushroom farmer. He and Caralee
matched Annelyn stride for stride across the obsidian, their images hurrying at their feet. Riess puffed
along behind, struggling to keep up in the mock armor of a bronze knight.

"Did your grandfather tell you that?├втВмтАв Annelyn asked. Riess laughed.

"No,├втВмтАв Vermyllar said, frowning. ├втВм┼УBut notice, Annelyn, how the sun resembles a hot coal stolen
from a firebox?"

"Perhaps,├втВмтАв Annelyn said. He paused beside the wine-bowl and filled two cut-crystal goblets with the
rich green wine, fishing in the bowl until he found two worms tied in a writhing knot. He scooped them
into Caralee's drink, and she smiled at the proposition when he handed her the glass. The second goblet,
with a single worm, he sipped himself as he turned back to Vermyllar.

"If the sun is nothing but a large coal,├втВмтАв Annelyn continued, ├втВм┼Уthen we need not worry, since we have
plenty of smaller coals on hand, and the torch-tenders can always fetch up more from the dark."

Riess giggled. He had set his knight's helm on the table and was now munching from a platter of spiced
spiders.

"That may be true,├втВмтАв Vermyllar said. ├втВм┼УBut then you admit the sun is a coal, that it helps to warm the
burrows."

"No,├втВмтАв said Annelyn. ├втВм┼УI merely conjectured. In fact, I think the sun is an ornament of sorts, set in
the sky by the White Worm to provide us with light and an occasion for masques."

Suddenly, startlingly, there was laughter, coarse and low. Annelyn's smile turned abruptly to a frown
when he realized that whoever it was laughed not at his wit, but at him. He drew himself up and turned in
annoyance.

When he saw who laughed, however, he only raised a glass (and a fine blond eyebrow) in mock salute.

The Meatbringer (so they called him├втВмтАЭif he had a truer name, he did not use it) ceased his laughter; there
was a silence. He was a low, broad man, a head shorter than Annelyn and uglier than any of the
yaga-la-hai, with his straight white hair, mottled pink-brown skin, and enormous flat nose. His orange
and crimson image etched by torchlight in the obsidian was taller and more handsome than the
Meatbringer himself had ever been.

He had come to the Sun Masque alone and out of costume, horribly out of place, admitted only because
of the groun-child he had provided. Instead of masque finery, he wore his familiar suit of milk-white
leather, sewn from the skin of dead grouns, with a colorless half-cloak of woven grounhair. Throughout