"Sheri S. Tepper - The True Game 2 - Necromancer Nine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tepper Sherri)

"What do they want, you want, Riddle? The Immutables?"
"We want what any people want, Peter. We want to feel secure, to live. We want to be free to
admire the work of our own hands. Even Gamesmen do the same. Why else their 'schools' and their
'festivals'? The Gamesmen depend upon the pawns for labor, for the production of grain, fruit, meat. If
we were numerous enough to protect the pawns, and if they came to us, then . . . then the Gamesmen
would fight, even without their help."
"They could till the soil themselves," I offered, somewhat doubtfully.
"Would they?" asked Riddle. Both he and I knew the answer to that. Some few would. Some few
probably did, out of preference. As for the others in their hundreds of thousands, they would rather die in
battle than engage in "pawnish" behavior.
So we rode together, I in the circle of his protection, he in the circle of fear which came with the
Necromancer's garb. No one bothered us. There was little traffic upon the road in any case, and those
we encountered left a long distance between themselves and us.
"The things you found in Bannerwell," I asked. "Why are you so curious about them?"
"I am curious about anything subtle and secret, Peter. It is difficult to keep secrets among
Gamesmen. A powerful Demon can learn almost anything one knows, can dig out thoughts one does not
know one has. How then are secrets kept? You would not deny that they are kept?"
"One has one's own Demons to guard against thought theft by outsiders. One stays in one's own
purlieus, in one's own Demesne. .
"Ah, but walls of that kind can be breached, or sapped. No. Sometimes secrets are kept, even by
those who go about the world in the guise of ordinary Gamesmen. There were secrets kept in
Bannerwell. Someone there knew things that others do not. Huld, it seems. How did he manage that. . .
"Do you know,"' he went on, suddenly confidential, "as a child I envied the Gamesmen. Yes. I was
much enamored of Sarah. A Seer. How wonderful to see the invisible, the inscrutable, the future ... how
wonderful to know everything!"
"I don't think that's quite how it works," I said, remembering old Windlow and his frustration at
partial visions of uncertain futures.
"Perhaps not. Still. There are many things I want to know. For example, does the name 'Barish'
mean anything to you?" His tone was casual, but he watched me from the corner of his eye.
I took a deep breath, hiding it, wondering what to say. "Barish? Why, it's a name from religion. A
Wizard, wasn't he? Did something very secret and subtle-I forget what." I waited, scarcely able to
breathe. "Is it a name I should know?"
"Secret and subtle." He mused. "No. Everyone knows that much, and seemingly no one knows
more than that." He smiled. "I am merely interested in secret and subtle things, and I ask those who may
know. I have heard, recently, of this Barish."
I turned my hand over to let his words run out. "I do not know, Riddle. You riddle me as you must
riddle others. Do you always ask such questions?"
"I talk to hear my voice, boy. I tie words on a journey as a woman ties ribbons on her hat."
"Do they?" I asked, interested. "I have only seen ribbons on students' Tunics, come Festival."
"Oh, well, Peter. You have not seen much." And with that, he lapsed into along, comfortable
silence. It had rained betimes and we found lung-mushrooms all along the sides of fallen trees. Riddle cut
away a nice bunch of them, glistening ivory in the dusk, and rolled them in meal to fry up for our supper.
He told me about living off the countryside, more even than Yarrel had done. Riddle spoke of roots and
shoots, berries and nuts, how to cook the curled fronds of certain ferns with a bit of smoked meat, how
to bake earth-fruits in their skins by wrapping them first in the leaves of the rain-hat bush, then in mud,
then burying the whole in the coals at evening to have warm and tender for the morrow's breakfast.
Our road cut across country between loops of the River until the land began to rise more steeply.
Then the River ran straight or in long jogs between outcroppings, plunging over these in an hysteria of
white water and furious spray. Our horses climbed, and we strode beside them for part of each morning
and each afternoon so they would not tire or become lame. Stone lanterns along the way began to