"Christopher Rowley - Bazil 03 - Dragons of War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rowley Christopher)

gods if he thought it would give him strength. After what he'd seen
through his service to the Masters, however, the magician could no longer
believe in gods. Gods would have stopped the Masters, before they became
veritable gods themselves. And no thing, no one, could stop them now.

His horse continued down the slope on the great road. Nine of these
roads converged here, two hundred feet wide, all running perfectly
straight across the valley and up to the Square. Caravans of camels and
mules, bearing tribute from half the world to the buried city of the
Masters, crowded these roads.

Thrembode approached the East Gate. A long line of slaves trudged
ahead of him, Ourdhi men, chained at the neck, driven by the lash of burly
imps in the black uniform of Padmasa. Slaves were necessary to every
function within the strange city of the Square. It was, indeed, a city like no
other in the history of the world Ryetelth, for it was city as ideological fact,
with no natural reason for its existence in this cold desert.

On either side, before the gate, stretched row upon row of gibbets. Most
were empty, but on a few set close to the road, rotting bodies swayed in
the chill wind, a constant reminder that in Padmasa the punishment for
most crimes was death. Drawn up by the gate was a regiment of
savage-looking imps, armed with scimitars and shields. These imps had
the heads of apes, squat manlike bodies and powerful legs. Lurking
nearby, he knew, were teams of great, nine-foot-tall trolls, ready to back
up the imps in moments if required.

Thrembode was waved through the great gate and into the teeming
world of the Square where his pass was stamped as obsequious officials
bowed. He was a magician, an Adept and a member of the inner
hierarchy. Passed through the security screen, the magician went on down
the central internal avenue of the Square.
 Above the avenue, the roof rose two hundred feet high and the walls on
either side were filled with windows. On the street were shops and
storehouses. It was a bustling scene, filled with hundreds of thousands of
busy workers, attending to countless menial and clerical tasks. They
provided the support structure, even the very feeding, for the real city,
which lurked below, far underground. Thrembode's business lay there, in
the cold warrens of the Tetralobe.

In the heart of the Square was an empty space open to the sky. In the
center were the statues of the Great Ones, the Five. Each was a hundred
feet tall and sculpted as a giant of heroic build and noble visage. They
dominated the space, ruling it just as they ruled everything in Padmasa.

At the corners of the open space were four distinct towers, each
connected to the main structure at every floor by covered corridors that
stuck out like ribs joined to a backbone. These were the staircases to the
underground city.