"Morrison, Patricia Kennealy - Throne Of Sconeuc - Tk#2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morrison Patricia Kennealy)

BORVOS, captain of Elathan's guard
TREIC, his lieutenant
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Patricia Kenneafy
In The Copper Crown;
It is the Earth year 3512. The FSS Sword, a probe ship from Earth sent out to make diplomatic first contact with alien civilizations, arrives unknowingly in what turns out to be Keltic space.
An interstellar kingdom comprising seven star-systems, Keltia was founded in 453 A.D. by Kelts from Earth led by St. Brendan the Astrogator. It is ruled at present by the young High Queen Aeron, who, seeing in the Sword's arrival a chance for Keltia to re-establish friendly relations with the world from which her people came so long ago, sets about achieving an alliance.
Aeron's wish is by no means universal, however, neither within her own realm nor beyond the Curtain Wall, the psionically-maintained forcefield that conceals Keltia from the rest of the galaxy. The Cabin Imperium and the kingdom of Fomor, ancient and bitter enemies of the Kelts, have been informed of the contact with Earth by the traitor princess Arianeira, sister of Aeron's consort-to-be, Gwydion; and now Jaun Akhera, heir to the Cabiri Emperor Strephon, and Bres, the king of Fomor, join forces to invade and occupy Keltia before Keltia can ally with Earth.
Theb Haruko, the Japanasian captain of the Sword, and his lieutenant Sarah O'Reilly, who by now have become Aeron's friends, discover to their horror that Hugh Tindal, one of their fellow crewmen, has been seduced into joining Arianeira's treasonous plot. But before they can tell Aeron of this, Arianeira uses black sorcery to breach the Curtain Wall and let in the Imperial and Fomori fleets.
In the savage battles that follow, the Kelts, though successful in space, cannot throw back the invaders from the Throneworld
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of Tara. Aeron herself engages in a fierce duel of vengeance with Bres, the Fomorian king, who has just slain her friend Haruko, and who, three years before, ambushed the starship carrying her parents and her first consort, Roderick, all of whom perished.
She kills Bres, whose son Elathan, now King, immediately withdraws from the war and takes his armies home to Fomor; Elathan had been opposed all along to the war with Kelts, to the angry disgust of his father and his half-brother, Talorcan, and now that he has become King he can do as he wishes. Aeron, however, has been terribly wounded in the Fight with Bres, and she is saved only by the sorcery of Gwydion, who uses his considerable powers to create a magical pool to heal her of her injuries.
Caerdroia, the Keltic capital, finally falls to Jaun Akhera's own desperate use of sorceryЧwhich art Aeron has steadfastly refused to employ in resistanceЧand Aeron, Gwydion and Morwen, the Keltic prime minister, are all taken prisoner by the Imperials.
Arianeira, however, repents of her treachery, and, with Gwydion's complicity, arranges an escape for Aeron and Morwen. Although Aeron refuses to leave without Gwydion, at last he manages to trick her into going, and she and Morwen flee. When Jaun Akhera discovers that the Queen and her prime minister have both fled the City, and that his supposed ally Arianeira was the one who effected their escape, he is enraged, and fully intends to kill Arianeira for her betrayal. But Arianeira has already killed herself to atone for her treason to Aeron, and to thwart Jaun Akhera's vengeance, and she dies in her brother Gwydion's arms.
The planet Tara remains in Imperial hands, with Jaun Akhera and his brother Sanchoniathon in occupation of CaerdroiaЧand with Gwydion as a willing hostage. He does so to keep Keltia for Aeron and in hopes of organizing a resistance; before the City's fall he dispatches the royal family and othersЧincluding the Terran lieutenant O'Reilly, who has elected to remain in Keltia after the Sword's return to EarthЧto parts unknown for sanctuary.
After a long and terrible flight over the mountains, in deep snow and bitter cold, Aeron and Morwen manage to reach a secret spaceport where Arianeira has hidden Aeron's starship Retaliator, and in that ship they escape from the planet and from Keltia.
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They are bound on a long and difficult quest, even the reality of which is uncertain: to find the lost and legendary Treasures of Keltia, taken away from the kingdom fifteen centuries before by the great King Arthur himselfЧmagical weapons that will enable Aeron to win back her realm from Jaun Akhera, and, if such is her final choice, to destroy Jaun Akhera and win an empire of her own for herself and for Gwydion. But first she and Morwen must find Arthur . . .
Ni bu Arthur ond trafu. ("Arthur himself had but his time.")
Chapter 1
/n the days following his coronation, Elathan of Fomor had had little time to call his own. The Iron Crown of his ancestors had been set upon his head, the fealty of his barons had been accepted, the body of his father, Bres, had been placed in the dim dusty vaults beneath the palace with the fifty-four kings and queens who had preceded him as mon-archs of Fomor. Time now to begin to rule, not merely to reign.
In truth, there was much that had need of being ruled, and well did Elathan know it. In his first hour as king, he had taken a decision that would without question shape not only his own reign but the destiny of Fomor for generations and reigns to come: Thousands of star-miles away, upon the Keltic throneworld of Tara, Elathan had called his armies from the war with KeltiaЧhad whistled them off like hounds from the huntЧand against all advice had quit the war, taking his forces home to Fomor with the body of his father. But the war had gone on all the same without him, a war neither of Elathan's making nor to Elathan's likingЧa war begun in treachery by Jaun Akhera, heir to the Cabin Imperium, and joined in by Bres out of vengeance and a long, long hatred.
A shadow of sorrow crossed Elathan's face at the thought of his father. They had never been closeЧBres had reserved such affection as he could feel, or show, for his youngest child, his blond daughter Rauni, and for Talorcan, his son by bis longtime concubine ThonaЧand in these last few months they had been not merely estranged but actively antagonistic. All the same, Bres had been Elathan's King as well as his father, and the loss was a real one.
Well, Bres was beyond all vengeance now, stain upon Tara by the Keltic queen herself, in a combat that had put paid to a quarrel seventy years old, and had nearly put paid to Queen
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Aeron as well. But she had not died: She had been taken prisoner by Jaun Akhera, and then she had escapedЧfled off-planet, her friend and First Minister Morwen Douglas with her and all the Imperial fleets after her.
And they had not found her! Elathan felt a surge of elation at the thought: hopefulness that she would continue to elude capture, and no astonishment whatever that he should feel so.
He would not mind an escape of sorts himself: to flee the Court and his capital of Tory, to slip away to his favorite country seat in the southern hillsЧno attendants, no courtiers, no guards, just him and Camissa his lady. They had been happy there beforeЧbefore.Bres had seen fit to throw Fomor into unholy alliance with the Imperium and vengeful war with the KeltsЧand they would be happy there again; though of course any such idyll would now have to wait until after their wedding, and that itself would have to wait on the six months' official mourning for Bres. But after that . . . The thought of Camissa brought a peace to his spirit and an ease to his bearing, and he smiled.
The chamberlain who had stood so patiently before him all this while took the smile as recognition, and coughed discreetly.
"The ambassadors from Alphor wait outside, Majesty. Shall I show them in?"
Elathan came back into the present with a start, nodded reluctant assent and rose from the ivory chair as the doors opened on the Coranian envoys. He had been dreading this official encounter since the day of his crowning, had put it off, in fact, as long as he had dared; but he could keep Strephon's minions waiting no longer, not without risking insultЧor retaliation.
He had broken with protocol so far, however, as to receive them here, in his private office, at his desk with all its working clutter, instead of in the Presence Chamber as was customary. It was a subtle reminderЧnot too subtle, he hopedЧ that the ambassadors would be certain to pass on home to the Emperor Strephon.
He watched them as they came gliding across the room. It was the dead of winter here in Tory; yet the Coranians had defied the bitter cold and leaden skies to appear in full regalia of their home planet: long, ankle-hobbling skirts of intricately pleated white linen over narrow trousers of rich figured cloth, chests half-bared under short jackets, gold-embroidered sleeveless coats falling below their knees. Upon their heads were
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small shapeless caps like velvet bags, banded with jewelled cords, and their gold-capped slippers too were velvet. Their garb looked extremely foreign by contrast to the simply cut robes of the Fomori; their faces were gilded by the variable sun that had made their homeworld of Alphor by turns into a freezing desert and a burning waste. Beneath the velvet caps, their hair was thick, straight, dark.
They stopped on the other side of the desk and bowed deeply to Elathan as the chamberlain withdrew. He returned the obeisance with the curt nod of a sovereign, concealing his distaste, and indicated that they might sit in his presence. But they carefully waited until he had resumed his own chair before they did so.
"My lords," murmured Elathan, freeing them to speak.
"We extend the felicitations of the Cabiri Emperor Strephon, long may he reign, to his noble cousin of Fomor," said the emissary who seemed senior of the two. "And, of course, the Imperium's deepest sorrow for the untimely demise of Your Majesty's royal father, in so abhorrent a manner."
Elathan did not reply at once. "We thank our cousin Strephon for this earnest of his sympathy and concern," he said then. "You are here to take up your diplomatic duties, my lordЧ?"
"I am called Emen Gaitz, Majesty," said the ambassador, looking more than a little chagrined, for Elathan should certainly have known his name, and, the envoy almost instantly realized, undoubtedly did . . . "May I present my colleague Chamara?" he murmured, chastened.
"Your credentials?"
Silently Emen Gaitz extended a gold diptych to Elathan, who broke the thin seal and gave the contents a cursory scan.
"Your Majesty will find all in order . . . We are indeed appointed duly by the Emperor to the court of Fomor, but we have also another errand, of somewhat more delicacy, entrusted to us by another member of the Imperial family."