"This Forsaken Earth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kearney Paul)

BAR HETHRUN’S CHILDREN

“The continent of Bion houses the most ancient of the Kingdoms of Men,” Canker said. If he did not relish their rapt faces, he was disguising it well. “The legends are well known. In the Goliad, the navel of the world, men woke from their sleep under stone and wandered the green plains while the angels watched.” He grinned, and caught Rol’s eye. “Angels, demons, Weres-they have many names, but we all know what they mean. Those who were here before us. Those who built the city in which we sit.

“Bion was the first chieftain of these men. The ancient city of Golgos was still inhabited then, and he went there to be instructed by the Ancients in all manner of disciplines and lore. It is even said he bedded the daughter of one of their lords in secret. In any case, he was quite a fellow, this Bion. He organized the scattered tribes of his people, and ruled them with a stern but kindly hand.” Canker flapped his own black-nailed appendage. “You all know the legends.”

“Then why are we listening to them twice-baked?” Elias Creed asked quietly.

“Because there is a new chapter being written,” Canker retorted, all geniality vanished.

“Go on, Canker,” Artimion said.

The King of Thieves collected himself. “It got to be that Bion’s son Golias resented his father’s stern but kindly hand, and decided to bring forward his own accession to the throne, as it were. Some would have it that this Golias had the blood of the Ancients in his veins, and was the result of Bion’s dallying with the Weren princess. The tribes split in civil war, but Golias won, in the end, and Bion fled north with a large host of refugees, across the Myconians. Other, smaller bands trekked west across the Golorons, or took to the Inner Reach in their canoes. Golias ruled the Goliad, hence the name, and Bion set up Bionar across the mountains. His second son, Mycos, who succeeded him, established Myconn itself, and later on the Bionari-or Bionese, as they are variously called-founded others of the great cities of the world. Phidon and Urbonetto, Arbion and Gallitras. Those who had fled the civil war set up other princedoms and cities across the continent. Perilar and Oronthir date from this time. Thus the world we know was set in train.

“But what of Golias? Well, it turns out that after his brief flash of ambition he was an indolent sort of fellow, after all. He created no cities, carved out no kingdoms. He and his people were content to be pastoral nomads roaming the wide plains of the Goliad, taking instruction from the dwindling Weres in Golgos, and generally living a quiet life. Until, that is, the Bionari decided that they must take back their ancestral homeland, and so began the series of invasions that reduced the Goliad to the parched desert it has become. The people of Golias were decimated, and became a hunted remnant, but even then the other kingdoms of the continent decided that they, too, had a right to the Goliad, and so made war across it-for if one is to attack Bionar by land, the only passes through the Myconians great enough to admit the passage of armies are in the northwest of the Goliad. And so for this reason also, the Goliad, that ancient paradise, became the battleground of the world.”

Canker paused. He sipped wine. “What is this to do with the present? I see you all wonder. I was once told by a wise man that we lay the bricks of our lives upon the bones of the dead, even if we know it not.

“Over thirty years ago now, the heir to the throne of Bionar was a fine, upstanding man named Bar Hethrun. He had a half brother, Bar Asfal. Their father, Bar Haddon, was a bookish sort who was fascinated by the legends surrounding the Goliad, and the Weren relics of Golgos and other places. It is said he led armies there simply to potter about the ruins. In any case, unlike his forebears, he held the scattered nomads of the Goliad in respect, and collected their stories and myths and oral histories as other men collect butterflies, or coins. He took one of these nomad women as a concubine and companion in scholarship, and Bar Hethrun was their issue. Haddon loved the boy, but the King of Bionar must needs have a consort more distinguished than some desert nomad, and so he made a political marriage, taking to wife a princess of Armidia, Bionar’s great rival for the sea-lanes of the Inner Reach. Their son was Bar Asfal, and he took after his mother-a conniving bitch, by all accounts. Nevertheless, Bar Hethrun was the official heir to the throne, though there were many of the Bionese nobility who muttered against it. He joined his father on the old King’s archaeological and military expeditions to the Goliad, and there he met a woman called Amerie, a raven-haired sorceress of remarkable wit and beauty, with the Blood strong in her. He took her to wife.

“The old King’s health failed, and he died. Bar Asfal seized the throne, usurping his elder half brother’s claim with the approval of most of the court. Bar Hethrun and Amerie took to the high seas with a band of followers, and came…here. Amerie brought her husband to this secret place, and in the ruined Weren city of Ganesh Ka they established a refuge, a word-of-mouth sanctuary for those fleeing the excesses of Bionar. But they did not stay here. They took to the sea again, and after many adventures and mishaps, they were finally hunted down by agents of the Bionese Crown, and murdered.” Once again Canker paused. His eyes were bead-bright and there was a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. Beyond the windows night had come upon the world. The lamps had burned dry and the only light in the room now was provided by the fitful flare of the fire.

“Before they died, Bar Hethrun and Amerie had two children, a boy and a girl. The girl is my mistress, Rowen Bar Hethrun, now fighting to reclaim the throne that is rightfully hers.” Canker licked his lips. “The boy was named Rol.”

His words produced a stunned silence. Rol stood at the mantel with the firelight below him, his shadow streaming out long and black across the room. He was remembering another evening such as this, similar words. Michal Psellos telling him of what might have been his heritage. Rowen knew better; she had not told Canker the whole truth.

“WhyCortishane?” Artimion asked. He was staring at Rol, his eyes full of the firelight, like two hellish little windows.

“It was my grandfather’s name,” Rol said mildly. Orr-Diseyn, Prince of Demons.

The fire spat and cracked to itself. Faint and far away the sea rushed and roared on the sea-cliffs of the Ka, in that clear, dark world beyond the windows. At last Gallico spoke up. “Rol, you knew all this?”

“Yes.”

“And to think we’ve pissed in the same pot!” Rol glanced up at the grinning halftroll, and in that moment he loved him. Creed’s eyes said the same thing. What of it? We are shipmates.

Rol spoke to Canker. “You’ve loosed your little broadside. Now, what’s the upshot of it all?”

“Your sister needs you, Rol.”

“Sincerity sits ill on your face, Canker. Why not be honest? You might find the change refreshing.”

“You must go to her. This war approaches a climax, and she would have her brother by her side to share in the final victory.”

Her brother.“I’ll write her a letter. Dear sister, have fun running the world. Will that suffice?”

Canker’s face darkened. “You damn fool; do you know what it has cost me to get here?”

“What’s wrong, Canker, the war effort tripping up a little? What need has Rowen of me when she can command armies?”

“She needs leaders, men she can trust. Do you think a woman like her-”

“Like what, Canker?” Rol advanced on the Thief-King, and as he left the hearth the light in his eyes quickened. His voice grew loud, ugly. “A woman who has prostituted herself to all and sundry-who fucks and murders her way through the world, whose carcass has been pimped out a thousand times. A woman like that? I can do without her favors-or her goodwill.”

Canker looked up at him calmly. “You love her,” he said.

Rol backed away as if he had been struck. Fleam leaped out of her scabbard and was in his fist like a flash of sea-lightning. The scimitar swept through the stool on which Canker had been sitting, cutting it in two and striking sparks from the stone floor below. The Thief-King had thrown himself aside almost as quickly as Rol’s arm had moved. He rolled across the floor like a ball. Gallico and Creed stepped over him. “Rol, no!”

It was there-he was on the cusp of it, so easy now. Gods in heaven, how good it would feel to let go of it.

The others in the room watched, horrified, as a vile brightness spilled out of Rol’s eyes. He seemed to rise up off the floor, and a clutch of luminous spears grew at his back, like the unfurling of great wings. The scimitar in his hand grew into a bar of unbearable bright light.

Gallico’s fist punched back Rol’s head, bursting open the lips on his maniac leer. The halftroll launched himself bodily at Rol and bore him against the far wall, crushing the air out of him.

For a moment Rol struggled. Fleam shrieked in his head, a woman’s voice that clawed across his brain. Gallico’s weight lay upon him like a hill, but the strength was in him to toss it aside, to rise up like…like…

And some form of sanity whispered in his ear, like the drunk’s sodden realization of what lies in wait for the morning. He threw the scimitar away, and the blade scored a long, smoking furrow in the solid basalt of the floor.

“Hold him down!” Artimion was yelling, and Miriam was clicking back the hammer on her musket. Creed clapped his hand across the lock and wrenched free the flint, scattered the powder in the pan. The two of them fought over the weapon like children with a favorite toy.

Gallico’s eyes, inhuman and yet compassionate, staring at him from six inches away. Rol fought for breath. The tears were trickling helplessly down the sides of his face, liquid fire. Within him, the white flame guttered, struggling against his will. For a moment, he thought he could see clear to the heart of it, and the room about him vanished, to be replaced by a fearsome landscape from another world. But it died before he could make sense of it.

His ribs creaked under Gallico’s bulk. “Get off me, you big green bastard.”

“That’s better.” The halftroll’s weight lifted fractionally.

“It’s all right, Gallico. I’m all right.”

Gallico stared at him a few seconds more, studying his eyes, then he nodded and got to his feet. Rol clutched his bruised ribs, blood pouring down his chin. It was Canker, of all people, who finally helped him up.

“You are full of surprises, Master Cortishane,” Artimion said.

“You have no idea,” Rol gasped, spattering blood. He saw Fleam lying on the floor and bent to retrieve her, but Elias Creed set a hand on his arm.

“Maybe it’s as better not,” he murmured.

“It’s a sword, Elias.”

“No. There’s more to it than that.”

Rol bent regardless, and set Fleam back in her scabbard. The steel was dead and cold.

“This has happened before,” Artimion said, looking at Gallico. The halftroll hesitated a second, then nodded.

Rol wiped blood from his chin and smiled bleakly. “My secret is out, it seems.”

“Remind me not to goad you again, Cortishane,” said Canker. Strangely, he seemed unfazed. In fact, he seemed more like a man satisfied with his work.

“You had some idea about this,” Rol accused him.

The Thief-King seemed about to deny it, then shrugged.

“What plots are you and Rowen hatching, Canker? I want no part of them, but if you persist, I’ll make it my business to put an end to them.”

Miriam spoke to Artimion as though they were alone in the room. “Whatever this thing is, we should not have it in the Ka. It is dangerous.”

“The thing has ears, Miriam,” Rol said wearily. He felt like a bear in the ring, beset and bewildered.

“There has been enough talk for one night,” Artimion said. “Cortishane, your friends will see you back to your chambers. Do me a courtesy and remain there until morning. Miriam, you will see Canker looked after. A room in one of the Towers, and two of your men at the door.” He smiled at the Thief-King. “Merely to see that you come to no harm.” Canker bowed.

“Nothing that has been said or seen in this room is to go beyond it.”

“Who’d believe it anyway?” Elias Creed asked wryly. He hoisted one of his captain’s arms over his shoulder, for Rol’s knees were buckling, and he and Gallico half carried, half dragged him from the room.

It was not a darkness like that of sleep, but rather some womb of starless night, black as the end of the world. He fought through it like a man struggling through deep water, but without direction or sense of progress.

A quicksilver light grew about him, and at last there was up and down, left and right. There was weight and air and all the things that made existence a rational thing. He stood with his feet planted firmly in black soil, and a wind was in his hair. There was water in the wind, a rushing moistness, a smell of rich, writhing, striving life so intense he felt it had entered his lungs and punched them wider in his chest, shocked the slow beat of his heart into something faster, stronger. He stood on a gray nightscape, drenched in starlight. A rolling plain dotted with drumlin-hills, rising up to vast mountains, and then the starfields blazing and wheeling above.

A woman stood beside him, nude and pale with a magnificent mane of black hair which fell down over the lush curves of her breasts. She turned to him and smiled, and he saw that her eyeteeth were fangs of bright silver.

“Fleam,” he said.

“That is what you have called me.” And she linked one arm in his, her satin-soft skin producing a jolt of fierce pleasure as it met his own.

“What is this place?”

“Give it a name. Any one you like.”

Rol looked at the walls of mountains about the horizon, the rolling grassland monochrome under the stars.

“It looks like-like the Goliad.”

“Then that is what it is.”

His bare toes dug into the moist black earth beneath him. “This is no desert.”

“This is the Old World, Orr-Diseyn. This is the shadow cast by the world men have made.”

“The world men have made.” He smiled, but there was no mirth in it. “Do men make things like this, outside of dreams?”

He began walking, mostly to feel the soft earth beneath his feet, the mud balling up between his toes. The woman he had called Fleam followed, her feet barely imprinting the ground. He felt heavy and leaden in comparison; but all the same, there was that exhilarating sense of well-being, of strength. It was as though something in the air and in the ground was nourishing him, making him grow like a light-starved plant brought into the sun. He marveled at it, and brought a hand up in front of his face to stare at his own palm as though he had never seen it before. It was his scarred palm, the mark set there by what might have been a god. More than ever, he felt that the wormed lines in its paleness were some form of ideograph, a message he must decipher; but that did not seem important now.

“Thisis a dream,” he said. It made things more understandable to say it.

“No, no, this is all real,” Fleam contradicted him. Her smile was both alluring and vicious. “It is time you stopped thinking like a mere man, a mortal thing, Orr-Diseyn.”

“I am a man.”

“You are nothing like. That carcass you haul around is a vessel, nothing more, as inessential as is a ship to its company.”

“Men at sea are wont to drown without their ship.”

“They do not feel pain when the ship’s hull is pierced. If it sinks, they will swim. They have a life beyond its wooden walls. Do you understand me? The body you inhabit will be cast off someday. You must prepare for that day.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She stopped before him, caressed his face. “You will, in time.” She pressed herself against him, and he moaned as her mouth reached up for his. He could feel the fangs against his lips, felt her tongue come questing into his mouth. It was cold and dry, like that of a reptile, but the rest of her was a glory of soft flesh and smooth skin. He dug his fingers into her buttocks and pulled her closer.

But then she wrenched herself out of his grasp as though she had been burned. She screamed, high and shrill.

“That’s enough,” a quiet voice said. “Leave him.”

And Fleam was gone. Rol fell to his knees, light-headed. Strong hands took his arms and lifted him to his feet again.

When the dizziness had passed, he found himself looking down into the face of an old man, dark-eyed and bearded, with broad peasant shoulders.

“You should be more careful of the company you keep,” the man said lightly.

The mud was cold now under Rol’s feet, the air chill. He looked up and saw that clouds had come across the stars and were building steadily over the mountains. The old man touched him lightly on his shoulder. On his other side, a small hand slipped into his and gripped it tightly. It belonged to a boy, not ten years old. There were tears coursing down his face.

“Why is he crying?” Rol asked the old man.

“He knows what is coming.”

Five