"Anthony Piers - Sos the Rope" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Piers)

"Come with me," Sav said.
Sos followed him into the forest, paying no attention to the direction. He felt as he had when Stupid perished in the snow. Here was a great, perhaps slow-witted but happy fellow-abruptly dead in a manner no one had wanted or expected, least of all Sos himself. Sos had liked the hearty clubber; he had fought by his side. By the definition of the circle, Bog had been his friend.
There were many ways he could have killed the man, had that been his intent, or maimed him, despite his power. Sos's efforts to avoid doing any real damage had been largely responsible for the prolongation of the encounter- yet had led to nothing. Perhaps there had been no way to defeat Bog without killing him. Perhaps in time Sos could convince himself of that, anyway.
At least he had seen to it that the man died as he might have wished: by a swift blow from the club. Small comfort.
Sav stopped and gestured. They were in a forest glade, a circular mound with a small, crude pyramid of stones at the apex. It was one of the places of burial and worship maintained by volunteer tribesmen who did not choose to turn over the bodies of their friends to the crazies for cremation.
"In the underworld-could they have saved him?" Sav inquired.
"I think so."
"But if you tried to take him there-"
"They would have blasted us both with the flamethrower before we got within hailing. distance of the entrance. I am forbidden ever to return."
"Then, this is best," Sav said.
They stood looking at the mound, knowing that Bog would soon lie within it.
"Sol comes to these churches every few days, alone," Sav said. "I thought you'd like to know."
Then it seemed, that no time passed, but it had been a month of travel and healing, and he was standing beside another timeless mound and Sol was coming to pray.
Sol kneeled at the foot of the pyramid and raised his eyes to it. Sos dropped to his own knees beside him. They stayed there in silence for some time.
"I had a friend," Sos said at last. "I had to meet him in the circle, though I would not have chosen it. Now he is buried here."
"I, too," Sol said. "He went to the mountain."
"Now I must challenge for an empire I do not want, and perhaps kill again, when all that I desire is friendship."
"I prayed here all day for friendship," Sol said, speaking of all the mounds in the world as one, and all times as one, as Sos bad done. "When I returned to my camp I thought my prayer was answered-but he required what I could not give." He paused. "I would give my empire to have that friend again."
"Why can't we two talk away from here, never to enter the circle again?"
"I would take only my daughter." He looked at Sos, for the first time since staff and rope bad parted, and if he recognized him as anything more than the heralded nameless challenger, or found this unheralded mode of contact strangh, he did not say. "I would give you her mother, since your bracelet is dead."
"I would accept her, in the name of friendship."
"In the name of friendship."
They stood up and shook hands. It was as close as they could, come to acknowledging recognition.
The camp was monstrous. Five of the remaining tribes had migrated to rejoin their master, anticipating the arrival of the challenger. Two thousand men spread across plain and forest with their families, sleeping in communal tents and eating at communal hearths. Literate men supervised distribution of supplies and gave daily instruction in reading and figuring to groups of apprentices. Parties trekked into the mountains, digging for the ore that the books said was there, while others cultivated the ground to grow. the nutritive plants that other books said could be raised. Women practiced weaving and knitting in groups, and one party had a crude native loom. The empire was now too large to feed itself from the isolated cabins of a single area, too independent to depend upon any external source for clothing or weapons.
"This is Sola," Sol said, introducing - the elegant, sultry high lady. He spoke to her: "I would give you to the nameless one. He is a powerful warrior, though he carries no weapon."
"As you wish," she said indifferently. She glanced at Sos, and through him. "Where is his bracelet? What should I call myself?"
"Keep the clasp I gave you. I will find another."
"Keep the name you bear, I have none better."
"You're crazy," she said, addressing both. .
"This is Soli," Sol said as the little girl entered the compartment. He picked her up and held her at bead height. She grasped a tiny staff and waved it dangerously.
"I'm a Amazon!" she said, poking the stick at Sos. "I'm fighting in circle."
They moved on to the place where the chieftains gathered: Sav and Tyl together, Tor and Tun, and Neq and three others Sos did not recognize in another group. They spread out to form a standing circle as Sol and Sos approached.
"We have reached a tentative agreement on terms," Sav said. "Subject to approval by the two masters, of course."
"The terms are these," Sol said, not giving him a chance to continue. "The empire will be disbanded. Each of you will command the tribe you now govern in our names, and Tot his old tribe, but you will never meet each other in the circle."
They stared at him uncomprehendingly. "You fought already?" Tun inquired.
"I have quit the circle."
"Then we must serve the nameless one."
"I have quit the circle too," Sos said.
"But the empire will fall apart without one of you as master. No one else is strong enough!"
Sol turned his back on them. "It is done," he said. "Let's take our things and go."
"Wait a minute!" Tyl exclaimed, running stiff-legged after them. "You owe us an explanation."
Sol shrugged, offering none. Sos turned about and spoke. "Four years ago you all served small tribes or traveled alone. You slept in cabins or in private tents, and you did not need anything that was not provided. You were free to go and to live as you chose.
"Now you travel in large tribes and you fight for other men when they tell you to. You till the land, working as the crazies do, because your numbers are too great for the resources of any one area. You mine for metals, because you no longer trust the crazies to do it for you, though they have never broken trust. You study from books, because you want the things civilization can offer. But this is not the way it should be. We know what civilization leads to. It brings destruction of all the values of the circle. It brings competition for material things you do not need. Before long you will overpopulate the Earth and become a scourge upon it, like shrews who have overrun their feed ing grounds.
"The records show that the end result of empire is-the Blast."
But he hadn't said it well.
All but Sav peered incredulously at him. "You claim," Tot said slowly, "that unless we remain primitive nomads, dependent upon the crazies, ignorant of finer things, there will be a second Blast?"
"In time, yes. That is what happened before. It is our duty to see that it never happens again."
"And you believe that the answer is to keep things as they are, disorganized?'