"Roberts, John Maddox - Stormlands 03 - The Poisoned Lands UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Roberts John Maddox)

"That suits me well," Ansa said. He found that he liked this; being in a strange land, among alien people. Most of his tribesmen would have found the situation discomfiting, but Ansa had always known he was different in this.
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They halted before a small house, one no different from the others. Its doorway was flanked with two statues. In stylized form they represented a man and a woman. Fyana's bumper knelt and she slid from her saddle. She made a perfunctory bow to each image, then went inside. Ansa dismounted and stood looking about him. There was no place to tether his cabo except to one of the statues, and he felt that it would be unwise to do that, so he held his reins and stood awkwardly, waiting for something to happen.
A few minutes later, Fyana reemerged from the house, followed by a taller woman who wore a striped robe. She placed her fingertips together and bowed slightly.
"Welcome, warrior. I am Ulla, Elder of this village. Will you come inside? Imasa will see to your cabo." At these words, a boy appeared at Ansa's elbow. Ansa regarded him doubtfully.
"Thank you, but this is a spirited beast. Perhaps an experienced rider ..."
She smiled. "Imasa is an excellent cabo handler. Have no fear."
He placed the reins in the boy's hand and the cabo was led away, docile as one of the fat little quil in the streets. Ansa shrugged and followed the two women into the cool, dim interior of the house. The furnishings were sparse, but the floor and walls were covered with rich carpets. There were no windows, but light entered through skylights of thick glass. At Ulla's gesture, the three seated themselves on embroidered pads placed around a low table of carved and inlaid wood. The other two said nothing, so Ansa held his silence as well.
A young girl appeared from a rear room bearing a tray that held a steaming pitcher and cups. Fyana poured the hot liquid into cups. Ansa took one and sipped at it, watching the others closely. He was familiar with this sort of welcoming ritual, but each people possessed local customs and he did not want to give offense. The drink was a fragrant herb
infusion. When he set the emptied cup on the table the women seemed satisfied that the ceremony was complete and Ulla called for more substantial refreshments.
Ansa studied the woman. Fyana had called her an Elder, but she appeared to be little older than Fyana herself. Like everything else, it seemed age was difficult to discern among these people. She had the same silver hair and blue-tinged skin, but her eyes were pale gray.
"Fyana tells me that you have left your native plains to see the world, from a spirit of adventure."
"I grew restless at home," he concurred.
"And how is the king, your father?"
He blinked and bit back a denial, knowing it would be futile. "So it is true, then, that you have magical powers?"
She laughed musically. "No need for magic. I met your father some years ago, at a trade fair. His physiognomy is quite distinctive, and you resemble him. I knew that he has sons about your age. Hence, you must be one of them. Have no fear. King Hael has been a good friend to us, and if you wish to travel incognito, we will not reveal your secret. South of here, you are unlikely to meet anyone who knows what your father looks like."
"That is a relief. In answer to your question, he does well, indeed, although I have seen little of him lately. He travels much in the east, in recent years." He left unspoken the thought that had gnawed at him for years; that his father was obsessed with the east, with the fire-weapons and other strange crafts of the easterners. His life had become an endless quest to maintain his military edge over his old enemy, Gasam the Shasinn.
"Yes, he has not been seen with the trade missions in some time," Ulla said.
"Do not think, because of that, he values the Canyon less," Ansa said, seeing a chance to exercise a little diplomacy on his father's behalf. "He counts you among his most valued friends."
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"The Canyon lies between the plains and the southern kingdoms," she pointed out. Then, softening, "But, I know that King Hael would be our friend even if we weren't a buffer between him and his enemies."
"But Sono and Gran aren't his enemies," Ansa pointed out.
"They soon may be," Ulla said. "Gasam has taken Chiwa, and he will not be satisfied with that land alone. Surely he will try to take the other southern nations soon." She regarded him with some concern. "Perhaps this would not be a good time for you to be wandering in those lands. Stay here with us. There is much to see in the Canyon territory."
"And I wish in time to see it all," he said. "But my heart is set on seeing the great cities before Gasam destroys them all. Besides," he said, an idea forming in his mind, "if the situation in those lands is precarious, ail the more reason for one loyal to my father to observe and report to him."
"That is true," the Elder said. "But there is no hurry. Tarry a while here with us."
He looked from her to Fyana. This, at least, was an easy decision to make. "That I shall."
TWO
King Gasam sat on the terrace of his palace in the city of Hima. He had chosen this beautiful mountain resort as his capital because it was so beautiful, and because he had utterly destroyed the old capital in his conquest of Chiwa. In the broad plaza that stretched before his terrace, a contingent of the native slave-troops .drilled. The company he now watched was drawn from the wild jungle tribes of the southern hills, men clad in colorful skins, heavily tattooed, armed with flint-tipped spears and hide shields. He liked their looks and spirit. The peasant-conscripts drawn from the nearby villages were obedient and militarily valuable, but they were not true warriors and tfcey filled him with contempt. He had made a practice of forming as many units as possible from the most ferocious warrior peoples in his broad dominions. War, after all, was not simply a process aimed solely at success. It was an enterprise to be enjoyed, savored for its beauty as well as its excitement.
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He breathed deep of the incense smoke wafting from the braziers set atop the stone rail. Behind him stood his queen, kneading the heavy muscles of his shoulders and neck. He sighed with contentment, then winced as something plucked at his hair.
"Another one!" Queen Larissa said triumphantly, holding a long, gray hair before his eyes.
"My queen," he said, patiently, "how often have I told you that a few gray hairs are no disgrace when one has achieved elder's years? I am not yet forty years of age, and decrepitude is still many years away."
"Nonetheless," she maintained, "our people look up to us as idols of perfection. We cannot appear to be less."
He sighed. "You still do not understand the beauty of absolute power. The greatest satisfaction is in knowing mat, even when you are old, ugly and diseased, people still must crawl before you and worship you as a god."
"You will see," she said, unanswerably. The queen walked to the railing and looked out over the city, where smoke rose from the high temples. The king had allowed the human sacrifices to continue, as long as none of his truly valuable human livestock was wasted and he was among the gods thus worshipped. He admired his queen's graceful beauty, although he deplored what he considered to be her obsessive concern with her appearance. This, morning she wore a wrap of scarlet silk from armpits to knees. Just a few years before, she seldom bothered to wear clothing, considering her dazzling beauty to be raiment enough. Now she fretted over the tiniest evidence of sagging or wrinkling, imperfections invisible to him and, he was sure, to anybody else. She was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
"I received another letter from Queen Shazad," she informed him.
"Ah. How fares our esteemed neighbor of the north?" The formidable queen of Neva had provided him with a long
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and amusing struggle for domination of the coastal nations. Her naval reforms and diplomatic maneuvers had kept him confined to the south for years.
"Sublimely polite, as always," Larissa said. "She calls me 'sister queen' and gushes on as if we were the oldest and best of friends."
"In a way you are," Gasam said. "Enemies make the most interesting of friends. Yours has been a complicated relationship. She was once your slave, after all."
"I no longer remind her of that. It was a circumstance of war, and she never thought herself a slave, only a prisoner." The queen rested her elbow on the railing, cupped her chin in a palm and stared into the distance. "She was such a lovely creature. I wish I could have kept her."
"So do I," Gasam said, ruefully. "Between them, that woman and my wretched foster-brother, Hael, have prevented me from ruling the world by now."
"Perhaps," the queen said, still dreamily abstracted. "But the world has turned out to be a far larger place than we had imagined, when we started out."