"Tepper, Sheri S - A Plague Of Angels - plangel4" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tepper Sherri)

It was Tom who spoke. "She said you would want to know, Arakny. She told me to tell you. Yes, she answered the questions Hunagor and Werra asked her. Who she was, and who they two were. What the three thrones are, and who the four families are who chewed at them. She foresaw the five armies of champions; she knew of the six set upon salvation, and from
both champions and earth-menders she took her hope and her resolution." "And the seventh question?" Oracle demanded.
Abasio raised his head, his face haggard and drained of all emotion.
Tom paused, his voice doubtful, "She said--the thrones wanted to know
·.. if she considered her life well spent. She told them yes, she did." From Abasio, a wordless howl of rejection.
"We spoke of that once," the Farmwife mused, tears in her eyes. "We spoke of people finding out who they are. And was she only for this, then? What was the purpose of it all?"
The old man said softly, "The purpose of it all was to reverse the chain of events that began when Jark the Third uncovered a cavern full of bionic warriors, made by man during the Age of Great Wars. With that discovery, a chain of probability was rejoined, a chain we Gaddirs were seeking to disrupt, a chain begun by man that would have ended all life on earth."
"We are only just saving it from the time before," Arakny said. "We're just getting it growing again!"
"Ellel was that dangerous?" asked the Farmwife. "One woman?"
His Wisdom nodded slowly. "Had she returned from her voyage with weapons from the space station, yes. Had she sent someone else to get them, yes. Had she remained here even without them, yes. To interrupt the chain of events, she had to leave her army and take with her all the Ellels who
might rise up in her place. Yes, she was very dangerous.""Why didn't you just kill her!" cried Abasio.
The old man sighed. "Natural law, my boy. When a tyrant is simply killed, another rises up. The very act of violence causes them to copse, like trees. Quietly, quietly, one has to dig out the root."
"Did you know all this?" Qualary asked Tom. "Did you'?"
"Only bits and pieces of it," he said, with a flush and a shrug. "His Wisdom knew all of it."
"Is that why we were friends? Just so~"
"Just so nothing," said His Wisdom, firmly. "Tom was assigned to get to know you, yes. He was not assigned to lie to you or mislead you. His feelings for you, whatever they may be, are his own, and I know him to be a sincere and honest man."
Qualary flushed in turn. ~


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS 407

"And now?" asked the Griffin.
"And now what?" Abasio cried in an anguished voice. "What's left!"
"And now, I have an errand down below," said His Wisdom. "Because
you are a collector of information, Arakny, you should come." Slowly, unwillingly, she nodded. "I, too," said the Griffin.
"Yes," said His Wisdom. "And you, Abasio."
Abasio shook his head. He wanted nothing more to do with these people who had let Oily go, or this place that had swallowed her up.
"Oily asked me to take you," said the old man, his eyes fixed on Abasio's huddled form. "Come, now."
Abasio rose, unable to resist the adamantine will in the old man's voice, unwilling to resist any request Oily had made.
Tom rose to accompany them, but His Wisdom smiled. "No, Tom. You don't need to come along. You and Qualary see to our other guests. We won't be long."
The old man's chair whirred out into the corridor, and then went swiftly, by ways wide enough and ramps easy enough for the Griffin's wings and claws, to an enormous lift that Abasio knew he had never seen before, thence downward, arriving in mere moments near to the vaultlike door Abasio so well remembered.
The old man opened it, taking far less time than Tom had done. The pillars stood as they had stood before. The tracks leading among them showed faintly in the dust, winding as before. When they came at last to the open space before the dais, Abasio and Arakny saw that the light was dimmer than it had been. The thrones should have been harder to see, except that they glowed with a pale light of their own. The woman who sat on the lefthand throne smiled a slow welcome as they arrived, as did the man on the center throne.
"Hunagor," said the old man, nodding to the left-hand figure. "Werra," as he nodded to the center figure. "Some friends have come to see me off."
"Librarian," the thrones said, a word that took forever, nodding in their turn, a nod that took even longer. "Great One," and a nod to the Griffin. And then, while both of them looked at Abasio, Hunagor spoke alone: "Great-grandson."
Abasio shuddered, started to speak, stopped, unable to form words. He stood paralyzed as all the creatures on the stone, in the stone, making up the stone, seemed to greet him, to nod and smile or speak, though Abasio could not tell whether they had actually done so or merely intimated it in some fashion.
"Well," sighed the old man. "It's done."
"Old friend," they said. "Welcome."


408 Sheri S. Tepper

All the creatures on the thrones echoed welcome.
Seoca leaned forward, struggling to get his legs under him and rise from the chair that had carried him so long. Arakny came to help him, and at a commanding glance from her, Abasio supported his other side. There was sweat on her forehead, and her hands were clammy when he touched them. They half-lifted the old man onto the low dais and helped him walk to the right-hand throne, where he sat down with a sigh that seemed to breathe throughout the hall for long moments after it was done, a little wind, a dying wind.
"Look at us," the old man whispered. "Don't turn your head away. Hunagor is your great-grandmother. Werra is Olly's father. She wanted you to know about us. Look at us!"
Reluctantly, backing away slow step by slow step, Abasio forced himself to look at them. From the backs and arms and bases of the thrones, the carved creatures returned his gaze. Tentacled creatures and winged ones. Creatures with many legs. Bloblike things with no discernible features. Lizardlike beings. All of them watching him as he watched them, each of them seeming to say, "Look at me. See me. Understand me. You are of our
kindred. She you loved understood me. Now you too.""So you begin again," chanted His Wisdom softly.
The Griffin quoted: "'Now are sent monsters and heroes abroad upon the earth; now are sent the inhabitants of faery and the beings of fable; now a new age of legends is ushered in. Now may the thrones depart.'"
Abasio barely heard, for the creatures on the thrones still held his eyes, willing him to understand. Understand what'?
He met Hunagor's eyes. She looked up, lifting his gaze to the back of the throne, above her head, where her name was carved. Hunagor. And above the man's, Werra. And above the old man's, Seoca.
Hunagor. Werra. Seoca. The words writhed and twisted like snakes, reforming before his eyes.