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

of the Department of Vaticination, and occupy the place where once Hierarchs had swum
amongst maps of the Galaxy's stars, ordering the voyages of ships that fell from star to star
through holes in space and time.
Pandaras told Tamora, "My master has paid you to help him find his bloodline, and it is a
better and more honorable task than this game of soldiers. As you will at once see, if you let me
tell my tale."
"You run if you want," Tamora said. "I'd like to see you run, rat-boy. It would prove what
I've always thought about you."
 Pandaras said, with an air of affronted dignity, "I'll ignore the slights on my character, except
to say that those who attribute base motives to all around them do so because they expect no
better of themselves. But while you have been playing at soldiers, I have been risking my life.
Master, please hear me out, I must tell you what I heard."
"If this is more kitchen gossip," Tamora said, "then hold your yap. You'd inflate the breaking
of a glass into an epic tragedy."
"Neh, and why not? It's a painful death for the glass concerned, leaves its fellows bereft of a
good companion, and makes them aware of their own mortality."
Yama said, "Pandaras claims to have overheard a conspiracy."
"Master, she will not believe me. It is not worth telling her."
"Out with it, Pandaras," Yama said. "Forget your injured dignity."
"There were two of them. They were whispering together, but I heard one say, 'Tomorrow, at
dawn. Go straightaway, and come straight back.' This was a woman. The other may have been a
servant, for he simply made a noise of assent, and the first said, 'Do this, and I see a great
elevation. Fail, and she lives. And if she lives we all may die.' Then they both moved off, master,
and I heard no more. But it is enough, don't you think?"
Tamora said, "We should expect nothing less. These old departments are rats' nests of
poisonous intrigues and feuds over trifles."
Pandaras said, "If we can trust no one here, why must we stay? We should cut our losses and
run."
Yama said, "You have not told us who these plotters were."
"Ah, as to that . . ."
Tamora scowled. "Grah. You were scared, and didn't dare look."
"Had I leaned out over the gallery rail, I might have been seen, and the game would have
been up." Pandaras batted at the pair of fireflies which circled his head; they dipped away and
circled back. "These cursed things we must use instead of candles would have given me away."
"As I said, you were scared."
Yama said, "It does not matter. The gate is closed at night, and opens again at sunrise.
Whoever leaves when it opens tomorrow will be our man."
Tamora said, "And when we catch him we can cut the truth from him."
"No," Yama said. "I will follow him, and learn what I can. If there is a conspiracy, of course.
There may be an innocent explanation."
Drilling the thralls was all very well, but Yama had done little else in the three days since
they had arrived here. He was beginning to feel as if he was suffocating in the stale air of the
Department of Vaticination, with its meaningless ceremonies and its constant reverent evocation
of the dead days of its long-lost glory. He wanted to see more of the Palace. He wanted to find
the records of his bloodline and move on. He wanted to go downriver and plunge into the war at
the midpoint of the world.
"It's obviously some plot against the fat bitch," Tamora said thoughtfully. "It's because of
Luria's refusal to bargain with the Department of Indigenous Affairs that we're here. Without her,
there would be no dispute."
"'Fail, and she lives. And if she lives we all may die,'" Pandaras said.