"Paul McAuley - The Book of Confluence 03 - Shrine of Stars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mcauley Paul J)

here. The flier's light cannon missed the Weazel, and she made a run for it. Maybe Phalerus was
left behind, but the rest will be with the ship. The Captain won't know your master has been
taken, and maybe she'll come back for him." He ran a hand over the parallel scars that seamed his
broad chest. He said, "I belong with the ship, little master."
Pandaras swiped away the little black bees that had clustered at the corners of his eyes to
drink his sweat. "I'm not your master," he said. "We are traveling together, as free men. Eliphas
betrayed my master and killed your shipmates, and I will kill him for that. I swear it. Eliphas
claimed to know of a city hidden in the Glass Desert where others of my master's bloodline lived,
and so lured him all this way from Ys. Eliphas is a liar and a traitor, but all lies have some truth
in them, and I think we'll find the place where he has taken my master if we continue downriver.
You will help me, and then you can set out on your own road."
Pandaras did not want the responsibility of looking after Tibor, but he needed him because
the hierodule knew how to survive in the wilderness. Pandaras had lived all his short life in Ys.
He knew the city's stone streets and its people; he knew words which, if whispered in the right
place, could kill a man; he knew the rituals and meeting places of hundreds of cults, the
monastery where anyone could beg waybread and beer at noon, the places where the magistrates
and their machines never went, the places where they could always be found, the rhythm of the
docks, the histories of a thousand temples, the secrets of a decad of trades. But the randomness of
this wild shore confused and frightened him. It was tangled, impenetrable, alien to thought.
"I am a slave of all the world, little master." Tibor drew on the stub of his cigarette, held his
breath, and exhaled. "Nothing can change that. Ten thousand years ago my bloodline fought on
the side of the feral machines, against the will of the Preservers. In the shame of our defeat we
must serve the Preservers and their peoples for all our lives, and hope only that we will be
redeemed at the end of time."
"All men are servants of the Preservers," Pandaras said. "They raised us up from animals,
remember all who have ever lived, and will raise them from the dead in the last moment at the
end of time and space. If you must be a servant, then serve my master, Yama. He is of the ancient
race of the Builders, who made this world according to the will of the Preservers. In all the world,
he is closer to them than any other manтАФthe emissary from the holy city of Gond admitted as
much. He is their avatar. I have seen him bend countless machines to his will. In Ys, on the roof
of the Palace of the Memory of the People, he brought a baby of one of the indigenous people to
self-awareness, and you saw how he drew up monstrous polyps from the bottom of the Great
River to save us from Prefect Corin. He is a wise and holy man. He alone can end the war begun
by the heretics; he alone can return the world to the path which will lead to redemption of all its
peoples. So by helping me find him, you will serve all the world."
"We will search for your master, and for my ship," Tibor said. He drew a last puff from the
stub of his cigarette and pinched it out and swallowed it. His long red tongue passed over his
black lips. "But a ship is easier to find than a man. How will we find him, in all the long world?"
Pandaras showed Tibor the ceramic coin Yama had given him before following the traitor
Eliphas into ambush. It held a faint spark in its center. Pandaras hoped that it meant that Yama
was still alive, but no matter which way he turned the coin, the spark did not grow brighter or
dimmer.
Tibor nodded. "I have heard of such things, young master, but never thought to see one."
"It's real," Pandaras said. "Now work harder and talk less. I want to be gone from here as
soon as possible."
At last the pyre was finished. Pandaras and Tibor laid Phalerus's body on top and covered it
with a blanket of orange mallows and yellow irises. Tibor knew the funeral rituals by heart, and
Pandaras followed his instructions, becoming for that short time the servant of a holy slave. They
asperged the body with water and Tibor said prayers for the memory of the dead sailor before
lighting the dry reeds he had woven through the lower layers of the pyre.