"Jack Vance - The Demon Princes - complete" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

Smade nodded politely to indicate that the gossip had reached
to the allowable limits of particularity. He indicated the tavern
clock: "Our local time; better set your watch. Supper at seven
o'clock, just half an hour."

Gersen climbed stone stairs to his room, an austere cubicle con-
taining bed, chair and table. He looked through the window, along
the verge of heath between mountain and ocean. Two spacecraft
occupied the landing field: his own and another ship, larger and
heavier, evidently the property of the Star King.

Gersen washed in a hall bathroom, then returned to the down-
stairs hall, where he dined on the produce of Smade's own gardens
and herd. Two other guests made their appearance. The first was
the Star King, who strode to the far end of the room in a flutter
of rich garments: an individual with skin dyed jet black, eyes like
ebony cabochons as black as his skin. He was taller than average
height, and carried himself with consummate arrogance. Lusterless
as charcoal, the skin dve blurred the contrast of bis features, made
his face a protean mask. His garments were dramatically fanciful:

breeches of orange silk, a loose scarlet robe with white sash, a loose
striped gray and black coif which hung rakishly down the right side
of his head. Gersen inspected him with open curiosity. This was
the first Star King he had observed as such, though popular belief
had hundreds moving incognito through the worlds of man: cosmic
mysteries since the first human visit to Lambda Grus.

The second of the guests apparently had just arrived: a thin
middle-aged man of indefinite racial background. Gersen had seen
many like him, miscellaneous uncategorized vagabonds of the Be-
yond. He had short coarse white hair, a sallow undyed skin, an air
of diffident uncertainty. He ate without appetite, looking back and
forth between Gersen and the Star King in furtive speculation, but
it seemed as if presently his most searching glances were directed
toward Gersen. Gersen tried to avoid the increasingly insistent
gaze; the least of his desires was involvement in the affairs of a
stranger.

THE STAR KING

After dinner, as Gersen sat watching the play of lightning over
the ocean, the man sidled close, wincing and grimacing in sheer
nervousness. He spoke in a voice which he tried to keep even, but
which trembled nevertheless. "I assume that you are here from
Brinktown?"

From childhood Gersen had concealed his emotions behind a
careful, if somewhat saturnine, imperturbability; but the man's