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

For I could not. I stared at the open door, sank to my knees. If I ran, he would find me and bring me back. I remembered his wrath. I recollected his strength. And I found that not only did I dare not run, but that I dared not displease him. I wondered how I could sit calmly with the open door beckoning, and not try.
I sat cross-legged, a luxury he would not have allowed me. Above my head, the tiny suns had dimmed, as ever when no Day-Keeper is within their range. To the miniature stars, each within its prison, I did not exist. I wondered if they were sad, and restless, as was I in my constraint. And if there were any of them, for the bronze ceiling hosted twelve, that felt love.
I lay upon my stomach, on the rusty Galeshir carpet, humming softly, under my breath. My acknowledged couch-mate, the dharen, whom I had so fully served, was possessed totally of me. A responsive female, he had made me. I smiled to myself. I was other than I had been, a few enths ago. And doubtless he would teach me to become still a different creature. I shivered. I wondered if the fear of him would pass.
Sighing, I rose and wandered the dharen's lair, that I might know what such a man would choose to keep about him. Without a word, he had left me. I found myself at the gol table, a featureless translucent slab, upon which he had piled his trail gear. A straight-blade lay there, half the length of my arm, in a chased scabbard of green stra metal. Its hilt was inlaid with titrium wire, the butt of it a single fire gem.
I slid it from the scabbard, my hand upon the hilt. A strange thrill went through me, holding the weapon, as if I had held such before. Upon the stra
WIND FROM THE ABYSS
21
blade was engraved a legend, in some unfamiliar script. And a symbol, one I had seen repeated upon the scabbard and hilt, a bursting spiral. And then I recollected the tune I hummed: Se'keroth.
Chilled cold, I replaced the sword in its housing, and stepped back. I did not touch the gol-knife there, or the strange sharp-edged circles of steel piled beside it. "Se'keroth, Sword of Severance," rang in my head.
Wordless, he had left me, in an unlocked room filled with weapons. I ran my palms along the inner thighs, still damp without moisture. I paced the chamber's confines, trailing my hand along the smooth northern thala that paneled the walls, my bare feet soundless upon the Galeshir mat. I could kill myself, if I chose. I could arm myself and run. I did neither.
My hand found a panel, forward of the others. I slid it back. Bound books and scrolls lay there, orderly, behind a second wall of glass. Among them I saw his own works, numerous volumes, including Ors Yris-Tera, "Book of the Weathers of Life." And what must have been the game itself, yris-tera, the three-level board and leather shaker. Inside that shaker, I knew, were sixty bone pieces. Another creation of Khys's, Ors Chaldra, lay near it. Divination and morality had been Khys's concerns, in hide-days, when he and some few others attempted to put Silistra back together again, after the fall. Disquieted, I slid the panel back in place. How could I aspire to him? . Upon the gol table, among his other gear, had been Khys's own chald. He did not, as do most Silistrans, wear his chald soldered about him. The great chald of Silistra, in which every strand given upon the planet was woven, lay like some sleeping slitsa among his leathers.
If I had had a chald, a testament to my skills and accomplishments, a prideful statement of my
22
Janet E. Morris
chan-tera, the will of the life, I would not have left it casually upon some table. But I bore no chaldra. If I had ever, it was lost, along with my past. It is a shameful thing, to be chaldless. I had been told that someday I might bear the arrar's chald, the highest attainable. But that was before my madness, before the child.
I found I had come again to the beckoning doors. I turned and surveyed Khys's keep once more; the rust-silked couch, the gol table, the windowed alcove floored with cushions. Above my head, the tiny suns flickered, dimmed again. I went and collected the three bowls near the couch and placed them on the stand that held their brothers, and the golden kifra pitcher. I smoothed the silks over the dharen's sumptuous couch.
Once more the door drew me. Doubtless, he would tire of me. I, barely literate, unskilled, was no fit companion for such a man. He had gone, leaving me unrestrained. I might not see him for another two years. I remembered what he had said, that there were better than two thousand women at the Lake of Horns. And what he only implied, that any of them would be honored to stand in my place. He had gotten already that which he had desired from me.
I put my hand upon the door's bronze handle, pushed it back. Standing in the doorway, I regarded the tapestried hallway, the vaulted ceiling with its myriad tiny stars for illumination. The floor was of stones, squares of blue ornithalum and green-veined archite. I put one bare foot upon that smooth coldness.
And then I heard him, his voice edged with anger. From the left, around a sharp turning by a tapestry depicting battling hulions, he strode into my sight, another beside him.
I stood frozen, caught with one foot upon the hall stones. Not even did I move to shake my hair
WIND FROM THE ABYSS
23
over my nakedness before a stranger. Khys's companion looked enough like him that they might have been brothers, except for his hair, shades darker than mine. He wore a full loose robe of blue-black, with a glittering spiral at his left shoulder. About his waist was a chald nearly as grand as the dharen's, wide and thick, imposing in its magnitude.
"... as I please!" said Khys to his companion. They had not yet noticed me. I stood witless, unmoving.
"It seems to me," said the other, not intimidated, "that your passion clouds your judgment in this matter." I clutched the door's edge, leaned upon it.
"You will come to think differently," said Khys, his mouth an angry white line. "I can . .. Estri! Come here." They both stopped there before the hulion tapestry.
Trembling, I hastened to obey him. His companion's eyes assessed me coldly. I knelt to him, as he had taught me, my hair falling over his feet, my knees upon the cold floor. It was not easy, before another. I felt my skin flush.
"Doubtless you can make her obedient. That is not a factor," said the other.
"On the contrary, it is the factor. But one must define obedience. I feel," said Khys, "that even though you have prejudged matters, what I have done may still enlighten you. This'is no time to discuss it."
And he bent and touched me. I rose, my hair over my breasts, shining in the soft light. Khys's eyes seemed concerned. The other's glance was openly hostile.
"Walk with us," he said, and they moved apart, that I might be between them.
"This is Vedrast, Estri."
24
Janet E. Morris
"Presti mil, Keepress," intoned Vedrast, his full mouth feigning a smile.
"You mistake me, arrar." He took my arm, as if to guide me back into Khys's keep. I felt a slight shock, at his pressure, then a sense of presence. I grabbed Khys's wrist, fearful. He shook his head imperceptibly. I dropped my hands^to my sides.
"My apologies, lady," said Vedrast, enigmatic. His eyes were decidedly amber.
Khys turned to close the double doors, and the light in the keep brightened.
The arrar Vedrast crossed the room and poured himself a bowl of kifra, taking it to the alcove, where he lounged back upon the cushions there. The spiral glittered upon his robe. I turned from him, to Khys, behind me.
My couch-mate stood with his hands upon his hips, his face abstracted. He seemed elsewhere. I waited, wanting to run to him, seek shelter from this other, who glowered, intimidating, from amid the cushions.
He motioned me to him, took me in under his arm. He was scowling, but not at me.
"You had best lighten your touch, Vedrast," he said to his guest. "It is the entire monitoring system that stands to judgment here."
"I do not take your meaning," said Vedrast slowly, his jaw a grim line. Whorls of sparks danced in the air between them. Khys stiffened.
"This that you do here is at best, a formality. I will do, as I have always done, my own will. Properly handled, the monitoring you want as its own authority will uphold me. If it does not, then it has been improperly done."
The arrar blanched visibly, put down his bowl, and got purposefully to his feet. Khys pushed me gently to one side. They considered one another.
"Will you gainsay rules of your own creation?"
"I made guidelines that, properly adhered to,
WIND FROM THE ABYSS
25
would serve as safety factors in complicated hests of long duration. If the sorting of the monitor is not free from preconceptions, the work is valueless."