"Paul McAuley - The Book of Confluence 02 - Ancients of Days" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mcauley Paul J)

laid siege to a block of the city which had refused to pay an increase in taxes. He said, "In the city
where I grew up, the people celebrate the setting of the Eye of the Preservers, not its rising. They
sail across the river to the far-side shore and hold a winter festival. They polish and repair the
settings of the shrines, and renew the flags of the prayer strings. They light bonfires, and feast
and dance, and lay flowers and other offerings at the shrines."
"The ordinary people of Ys celebrate the rising of the Eye because they think that once more
they are beneath the beneficent gaze of the Preservers, and all evil must flee away. They bang
gongs, rattle their pots and pans, and light firecrackers to drive evil into the open. I am not
familiar with your city, Yama, but I wonder why its people are glad to believe that they are free
of this gaze. Surely they must worship the Preservers, for else they would be unique amongst the
ten thousand bloodlines of the Shaped."
 "They celebrate the beginning of winter. They dislike the summer's heat."
"Ah. In any case, although the Eye is named because it has the appearance of the organ of
sight, it does not share the function of its namesake. Anyone with a little learning knows that
when the Preservers vanished beyond the horizon of the Universe, they left behind servants to
watch over us, their poor creatures. Were not the shrines once the homes of countless avatars who
guided and inspired us? Are not all of the changed bloodlines infected with the particles of the
breath of the Preservers, who will cherish our memories after we die?"
"I am glad to see the Eye. I have always preferred summer to winter. Is it what you brought
me to see?"
"I would like to talk with you in private. Do not be afraid. This walkway has stood for longer
than the Department. It was built long before Confluence entered its present orbit."
But Yama felt a chill vertigo, for they were now so far out that the buildings heaped along
the hem of the Palace were directly below. A cold wind buffeted him; the walkway hummed like
a plucked wire. All he could see of it was that part of its mesh floor beneath his feet, illuminated
by the intense light of the single firefly above his head.
He could lose his grip on the slender rail and fall like a stone through someone's roof. Slip,
or perhaps be pushed.
"You are the first to come here with me," Syle said, "but then, you are a singular young man.
Take your firefly, for instance. You should have allowed them to choose you, and not taken the
brightest anyone has ever seen."
"But it did choose me." Yama had kept others from joining it because he feared that he
would be blinded inside their ardent orbits.
"Some say that fireflies multiply in dark places hidden from our sight, but I think not. Every
year there are fewer and fewer people in the Palace properтАФby which I mean the corridors and
chambers and cells, and not the newer buildings built over the lower floors. Once, even the least
of bloodlines were crowned with twenty or thirty fireflies, and the Palace blazed with their light.
Now, many fireflies are so feeble that they have become tropically fixed on members of the
indigenous tribes which infest the roof, or on rats and other vermin. I doubt that there is another
firefly as bright as the one you wear, except perhaps within the chambers of the Hierarchs. It will
attract much attention, but it is fixed now, and will not leave you until you leave this place."
Yama said, "I hope that it does not put me in danger."
He could order the firefly to leave, and then choose others more ordinaryтАФbut that might be
worse than having selected it in the first place.
Syle did not answer at once. At last, he said, "You know that I find the cateran is very
amusing, but I do not think that she will be able to marshal a successful defense of the
Department."
Yama remembered what Rega had said. "If you gave us more menтАФ"
"How would you train them? Indigenous Affairs will send an army of its best troops to
enforce the quit claim."