"Steve Perry - Matador 6 - Black Steel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Steven)

of perfect swords or knives, there were certainly other uses for such a substance. The reward he offered
for information pertaining to this subject was quite large. As far as he had been able to find out, the
secret had never come to light elsewhere. That was good. When the last thief met his end, perhaps the
secret would once again belong to none other than the House of Black Steel.

He looked at the weapon he held. The metal was indeed black, but not a flat black. There were lighter
and darker streaks, wavy lines, where the folding that made the many hammered layers showed. It
seemed to make the blade glow in rich, dark shades from point to guard. The hilt was a broad curved
band of nickel-stainless steel, mirror bright to contrast with the blade, and the handle was of curlnose
tusk, burnished smooth, the ivory gone a buttery yellow with age and use, fastened to the full tang with
chrome-blued bolts. The sword had belonged originally to his father's father's father, had cost a month in
the life of a master craftsman to produce, and was priceless. Certain wealthy collectors of such
weaponry would give nearly everything they owned for such a piece as this, hundreds of thousands of
standards, without a moment's hesitation. And unlike a museum item, this was still an active blade,
bathed in the flesh and blood of more than a hundred men and women. A score of those killed had been
by Cierto's own hand, weaving a shroud of fatal thickness. Cierto did not think the sword of his great-
grandfather had an equal anywhere in the galaxy.

And if he could help it, it never would.

In a small Place of the Way, a dojo on Koji, the Holy World, a woman sat seiza in the middle of a large
room. Save for herself, the room was empty of other life; empty too, was the woman's mind as she
meditated upon the Void. The floor upon which she knelt was of highly polished zebrawood, the
planking chosen and laid in such a way as to create large zigzag patterns. The woman wore hakima, a
long split skirt of white silk, and a gi-style black silk shirt with three-quarter sleeves. Next to her on the
floor, handle nearly touching her left knee, was a katana-patterned sword, edge outward, point to the
rear, nestled inside a wooden sheath with twenty-three coats of white lacquer upon it. The blade of the

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curved sword was of black steel, hand-hammered in the old method; the handle was of pebbled ray hide,
crisscrossed in the traditional manner with the diamond-wrap turnings of black silk cord, enclosed at the
butt with a plain cap of stainless steel; the guard, too, was a circle of solid stainless steel the diameter of
a small teacup, bearing a simple etching on one side. The weapon was four hundred years old; it had
seen much use and it had dealt in both life and death, sparing more often than it had slain. It had come to
the woman from her older sister, who had died during the overthrow of the Confed six years past. Before
that, it had belonged to their mother, received as a wedding gift from her mother.

The woman meditated upon the Void. Next to her the sword lay waiting. In a moment she would pick up
the sheathed weapon and it would be freed in an eyeblink to move through the intricate motions of Kaji-
te, the kata called "Fire Hand." In a moment. But for now, the sword waited as its mistress meditated
upon her entrance into the Void-a sword which had been made with such precision and care it had
hardly an equal in all the galaxy.

Sleel looked around the house owned by Jersey Reason with grudging approval. He'd seen better private
security, but not much better and not at many places. The house sat in the middle of a large lot-that had
to be very expensive, given real estate prices on Hawaii-with clear views to the property lines in all
directions. To the west lay the sea, to the east the road, and other houses bordered the north and south
edges of the lot. A line of banana trees and other tropical foliage partially hid an electric come-see-me