"Morris, Janet - Silistra 03 - Wind from the Abyss UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morris Janet E)

When it was no more than a speck in the greening sky, I rose clumsily, trembling, to collect the papers I had strewn across the mat in my terror. They were the arrar Carth's papers, those he had forgotten in his haste to attend his returning master's summons. : 1
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I knelt upon my hands and knees on the silvery pile, that I might gather them up and replace them in the tas-sueded folder before he returned.
Foolish, I thought to myself, that I had so feared the hulion. It could not have gotten in. I could not get out. It could not get in. Once I had thrown a chair at that impervious clarity. The chair had splintered. With one stout thala leg, as thick as my arm, had I battered upon that window. All that I had accomplished was the transformation of chair into kindling. The hulion, I chided myself, could have fared no better.
Hulions, upon occasion, have been known to eat man flesh. Hulions, furred and winged, fanged and clawed, are the servants of the dharen. I had had no need to fear. Yet, I thought as I gathered the arrar Carth's scattered papers, they are fearsome. Perhaps if I had been able, as others are, to hear its mind's intent, I would have felt differently. My fingers, numb and trembling, fumbled for the delicate sheets.
One in particular caught my eye. It was in Carth's precise hand and headed: "Preassessment monitoring of the arrar Sereth. Enar fourth second, 25,697."
I had met, once, the arrar Sereth. Upon my birthday, Macara fourth seventh, in the year '696 had I met him, that night upon which my child had been conceived. I had read of his exploits. He frightened me, killer of killers, enforcer for the dharen, he who wore the arrarЧchald of the messenger. Sereth, scarred and lean and taut like some carnivore, who had loved the Keepress Estri, my namesake, and with her brought great change upon Silistra in the pass-Amarsa, 25,695Чyes, I had met him.
I sat myself down cross-legged upon the Galeshir carpet, papers still strewn about, forgotten, and began to read:
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The time is approximately three enths after sun's rising, the weather clouded and cool, our position just south of the juncture of the Karir and Thoss rivers. I highly recommend that you look in upon the moment.
The arrar Sereth, on the brindle hulion Leir, touched his gol-knife. It was the first unnecessary movement he had made in over an enth. My presence, alongside upon a black hulion, disquieted him. The brindle, gliding at the apex of its bound, snorted. He touched its shoulder, and the beast, obedient, angled its wings and began its descent.
When its feet touched the grass, he set it as a grounded lope. I followed suit, bringing my black up to pace him.
Sereth regarded me obliquely. I, as he, served the dharen, he thought, and touched his hulion to a stop.
We had been riding all the night, up from Galesh, where I had met him with the two beasts. He had served dharen, most lately, in Dritira. And before that, in the hide diet, and before that upon the star world M'ksakka had he dealt death and retribution at Khys's whim. And dealt them successfully, though those tasks had been fraught with deadlier risk than a man might be expected to survive. His thought was wry, recollecting.
"How did you find M'ksakka?" I asked, to key him, to bring something else above the impenetrable shield he has constructed. My hulion growled at the brindle he rode, and that one answered.
"1 will make a full report to Khys," he said, slipping off the hulion's back. "Let us rest them."
I joined him where he lay upon the grass, staring at the sky.
"I missed this land," he said. "The sky there is dark and ominous, always clouded. M'ksakkan air stings eyes and lungs. Everything is covered with a fine black dust. I would not go again off the planet."
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"Perhaps he will not send you," I conjectured.'
He saw M'ksakka, and that seeing was colored by his distaste, both for the world and the work he had done there. The methods he had employed displeased his sense of fitness. The value of the M'ksakkan's death was to him obscure. I saw the moment: the adjuster's surprised eyes, wide and staring as Sereth's fingers closed on his throat, around his windpipe; the M'ksakkan's clawing hand upon his wrist as he ripped out the man's larynx, vocal cords dangling; then the blood, spurting, and the sound of the adjuster's choking death.
And I saw others he had killed, those who were anxious to try their skills against a real live Silistran. He had been hesitant to do so, but more hesitant to face an endless line of their ilk, so he had killed the first three. Again, his thoughts sank below readable level. The hulions lay quiet, lashing their tails. The clouds scudded heavy over the sun. A soft, drizzling rain commenced,
"The dharen is pleased with you," I said.
He sat up, his mind absolutely, inviolate. "What do you want, Carth?" He stared down at me. I lay perfectly still He made no attempt to read me for his answer. He merely waited.
"A first impression. You are coming up for assessment," I answered, rising up. "We want to get some sense of you. Your mental health is now our concern."
He tossed his head, ripping grass from the sward.
"You brought child upon that wellwoman in Dritira," I prodded.
He saw her. In many ways she had reminded him of the Keepress. It had been passes since he had taken a woman. On M'ksakka there were females, but nothing he understood to be a woman. He had not couched many of them. And in hide diet, there were only forereaders. In Dritira, with that woman who reminded him of the Keepress, he had spent his long-pent sperm. Four times he had used her, before
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she was more than a receptacle in his sight. And he had abused her, more than was his custom.
"Get me the forms. I will collect my birth-price," he answered. He did not want the woman.
"You should take her. We have been considering her. She might yet make a forereader,"
"Then it is a pity she caught. From inferior sperm can come only inferior stock."
"Khys has asked me," I said, "to bid you welcome to any of the forereaders we hold in common at the lake. Spawn from such a union would be doubtless possessed of talent. The bitterness you hold is out of proportion to the reality. We all, at one time or another, find there is something we want that we may not have."
He did not answer me, but rose and went to his hulion. He thought of her as one thinks of the dead; with acceptance, and then of his life, and what compromises he had made to keep it. What he let me know, I have no doubt, will please you. What he did notЧthat is what concerns me. He allowed me nothing else for the duration of our return.
His shield, as you will see, is set lower and much farther into his deeper conscious than any I have encountered. Most of his processing must take place behind it. Deep-reading him is out of the question. He visualizes barely enough to verbalize his will. That he is functioning superbly is attested to by his works. 'That he feels it to his advantage to serve us at present is a certainty. I worry over what might occur, should he choose, eventually, not to serve us.
My formal recommendation is for a complete and detailed assessment. Also, I feel some attempt might be made to pacify him, in light of what he is fast becoming. Or perhaps even to eliminate him, lest he become, like Se'keroth, the weapon turned upon the wielder.
And it was signed Carth.
"Carth!" I gasped, as a dark hand snapped the
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sheet from my grasp. Still upon my knees, I twisted to see him. His dark eyes gleamed. He ran his hand through his black curls.
"Did you find this informative, Estri?" he asked, towering over me, the paper crumpled in his fist. Carth was furious. I dared not answer.
I started to my feet.
"Pick them up!" he commanded, pointing.
I scurried to obey him, scrambling for the sheets strewn upon the web-work, my stomach an icy knot. Once before, I had seen Carth this agitated, when I had written for him a certain paper. And he had called it audacious, and destroyed it. I finished, and rose to my full height, handing the tas envelope to him. My head came to his shoulder. He looked down at me, sternfaced.
"You were ill-advised to do this," he said. "He is not pleased with you. This"Чand he threw the crumpled sheet across the roomЧ"will only aggravate matters. You had best make some effort to placate him."
"What do you mean?" I demanded. "Has he taken some sudden interest in me?" I had seen the dharen precisely three times since I had come to reside at the Lake of Horns: the night he had gotten me with child, the day following, and once while I lay near death when the child had driven me to seek it. He had not been at the Lake of Horns when I bore his he-beast into the world. I had cried out for him during that premature and extended labor. He had not been available. Now, nearly eight passes later, he had returned.
"Do not be insolent!" Garth's voice snapped as his palm slapped my face to one side. Tears in my eyes, I put my hand to my cheek. It was what I had thought, not what I had said, that had brought me punishment. Shaking my head, I backed away from him. Though I had known Carth a telepath, a surface-reader, rarest of Silistran talents, never had
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he shown his skills before me, one who neither spoke nor heard the tongues of mind.