"Andre Norton - Brother To Shadows" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

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Brother to Shadows by Andre Norton




THE CHILL FINGERS OF THE DAWN WIND CLAWED. Behind the spires of the
Listeners the sky was the color of a well-honed throwing knife. There was not any answer
to time's passing in Ho-Le-Far Lair.

Brothers stood in the courtyard as they had since twilight, keeping the Face-the-great-
storm position with a purpose that rose above any cramping of limb or protest of body.
Only their eyes were apprehensive and what they watched was that oval set at the crown
of the arch which marked the door of the Master's great hall. What should have showed a
glow of light was lifeless, as dull as the stone in which it was set.

Now through that door, which gaped like a skull's lipless jaws at the top of a flight of
stairs, came the long awaited figure muffled in robes the hue of dried bloodтАФThe Shagga
Priest.

He spoke and his voice, though low-pitched, carried as it had been trained to do.

"The Master has fulfilled his issha vow."

No one in those lines below wavered, though this was an ending to all the life they had
known.

Those two to the fore of the waiting company raised hands in Sky-draw-down gestures.
Then they strode forward with matching steps while the priest descended further to meet
them. He stopped, still above their level, so they must look up to meet his eyes. In the
growing light their Shadow garments were a steel to match the lowering sky.
TarrHos, Right Hand to the Master, crossed his hands at breast level, drawing with action
too quick for the eye to truly follow, slender daggers.

"It is permitted?" he asked of the priest, his voice as hard as the weapons he displayed.

"It is permittedтАФby the Issha of this Brotherhood it is so." The priest nodded his shaven
head and his own hands advanced, like predators on the prowl, from the shadows of his
wide sleeves to sketch certain age-old gestures.

TarrHos went to his knees. Three times he bowed, not to the priest but to that lifeless
stone above. It was a blinded eye now; that force which it had contained had fled, no
brother or priest could tell why or how. It had been, it was not, and with it went the life of
this Lair.