"Lamentation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Scholes Ken)

Petronus

Petronus couldn’t sleep. He couldn_use He cou217;t fish or eat, either. For two days, he sat on his porch and watched the smoke of Windwir gradually dissipate to the northwest. Few birds came to Caldus Bay, but ships passed through daily on their way to the Emerald Coasts. Still, he knew it was too early for any word. And he knew from the smoke that there could be no good news, regardless.

Hyram, the old Mayor and Petronus’s closest friend from boyhood, stopped by each afternoon to check on him. “Still no word,” he told Petronus on the third afternoon. “A few City Staters said Sethbert marched north with his army to honor Entrolusia’s kin-clave. Though some are saying he started riding a full day before the cloud appeared. And the Gypsy King rallied his Wandering Army on the Western Steppes. Their quartermasters were in town buying up foodstuffs.”

Petronus nodded, eyes never leaving the sky. “They’re the closest of Windwir’s kin-clave. They’re probably there now.”

“Aye.” Hyram shifted uncomfortably on the bench. “So what will you do?”

“Do?” Petronus blinked. “I won’t do anything. It’s not my place.”

Hyram snorted. “It’s more your place than anyone else’s.”

Petronus looked away from the sky now, his eyes narrowing as he took in his friend. “Not anymore,” he said. “I left that life.” He swallowed. “Besides, we don’t know how bad things are.”

“Two days of smoke,” Hyram said. “We know how bad things are. And how many Androfrancines would be outside the city during the Week of Knowledgeable Conference?”

Petronus thought for a moment. “A thousand, maybe two.”

“Out of a hundred thousand?” Hyram asked.

Petronus nodded. “And that’s just the Order. Windwir was twice that easily.” Then he repeated himself. “But we don’t know how bad things are.”

“You could send a bird,” Hyram offered.

Petronus shook his head. “It’s not my place. I left the Order behind. You of all people know why.”

Hyram and Petronus had both left for Windwir together when they were young men. Tired of the smell of fish on their hands, eager for knowledge and adventure, they’d both become acolytes. A few years later, Hyram had returned home for a simpler life while Petronus had gone on to climb the ecclesiastical ranks and make his mark upon that world.

Hyram nodded. “I do know why. I don’t know how you stomached it for as long as you did. But you loved it at one point.”

“I still love it,” Petronus said. “I just love what it was… love how it started and what it stood for. Not what it became. P’Andro Whym would weep to see what we’ve done with it. He never meant for us to grow rich upon the spoils of knowledge, for us to make or break kings with a word.” Petronus’s words became heavy with feeling as he quoted a man whose every written word he had at one point memorized: “Behold, I set you as a tower of reason against this Age of Laughing Madness, and knowledge shall be thy light and the darkness shall flee from it.”

Hyram was quiet for a minute. Then he repeated his question. “So what will you do?”

Petronus rubbed his face. “If they ask me, I will help. But I won’t give them the help they want. I’ll give them the help they need.”

“And until then?”

“I’ll try to sleep. I’ll go back to fishing.”

Hyram nodded and stood. “So you’re not curious at all?”

But Petronus didn’t answer. He was back to watching the northwestern sky and didn’t even notice when his friend quietly slipped away.

Eventually, when the light gave out, he went inside and tried to take some soup. His stomach resisted it, and he lay in bed for hours while images of his past rode parade before his closed eyes. He remembered the heaviness of the ring on his finger, the crown on his brow, the purple robes and royal blue scarves. He remembered the books and the magicks and the machines. He remembered the statues and the tombs, the cathedrals and the catacombs.

He remembered a life that seemed simpler now because in those days he’d loved the answers more than the questions.

After another night of tossing and sweating in his sheets, Petronus rose before the earliest fishermen, packed lightly, and slipped into the crisp morning. He left a note for Hyram on the door, saying he would be back when he’d seen it for himself.

By the time the sun rose, he was six leagues closer to knowing what had happened to the city and way of life that had once been his first love, his most beautiful, backward dream.