"Barnes,.Stephen.-.Kundalini.Equation.V0.9" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barnes Steven)

Two of the children were girls, both nearing woman-

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hood. The youngest was a boy, his initiate's robe ripped and muddied. Although his legs trembled, he stood tall and met the General's gaze squarely.
Silently, Jiarri chanted his admiration.
The General clapped his hands, and both girls were hurled to the ground. He twined his fingers into the hair of the eldest, and jerked her head up, laughing as he made a vulgar hand gesture.
"Just tell us," the spy said. "Tell us about the plates, and we will let your miserable village rot in peace."
The priest's lips trembled silently, a single tear rolling from beneath his sunken eyelids.
"Death holds few terrors for you," the spy whispered. "But these are just children. Children who need you to think clearly. Sanely." His voice was almost brotherly.
The eldest girl screamed piteously, fingernails ripping at the tiles beneath her. One of the soldiers knocked the boy to the floor. With a vicious laugh the spy raised the back of the stained robe.
The air hissed as a sliver of shadow flashed from above. Before the chunky figure could complete his action he was falling, gagging on his own blood, clawing at the feathered shaft which jutted from his throat.
Another hiss: a second arrow was through the priest's chest before anyone could turn. The General whipped his sword from its scabbard in a blur of iron, shattering one of the two torches. Shadows devoured the temple.
Jiarri cursed his own impetuousness, then let the third arrow fly in the direction of the General. He wiggled up through the rafters to the slit in the roof, and pushed out into the night.
The sunbaked brick walls of Kalirangpur were shattered, her woven reed buildings sputtering with flame. Sparks and bits of ash filled the air, spiraling like burning snow-flakes. Her people littered the streets, sad dark bundles drifting in the embrace of the river Ganges. Drunken soldiers reeled through the streets, backs and arms sagging with loot.
Jiarri clambered down the roof, sliding along one of the

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support poles until he reached the edge. He tightened his leg muscles, closed his eyes to blot out the light, and whispered, "Sun Eagle, your wings," before leaping seventeen feet to the next roof.
His feet struck the crude tile with a crunch. He skittered along the edge until he was once again in darkness. Soldiers streamed out of the temple, surrounding it, screaming up at the empty roof. Of course he had to be there. The leap to the next roof was impossible.
Jiarri smiled grimly. The night was his friend, his lover, and soon he was lost in its arms.
In the mountains north of Kalirangpur, hidden among the peaks like a gilded bird's nest, stood a city. Beyond its gold-veined walls were mirrored domes and jeweled spires that grazed the clouds, temples with arched roofs, houses of cut stone, granaries of kiln-cured brick. On the sheer granite wall behind the city, titanic bulls and tigers contorted in mortal dance.
On a platform atop the highest tower stood two men. The taller of them was also the elder. His face was graven with age, and seemed somehow an infinity of visages joined into one. All of the joy known to man was etched in that face; all of the sorrow, and all of the hope. Every fractional tilt of his head brought to life another combination of light and shadow and texture, another personality, such that his appearance changed subtly from moment to moment.
His name was Ahmara Khan. His forked beard was a pale fluttering wisp. The robe that rippled in the chill wind was undyed, extravagant only in the fineness of its weave.
His eyes were fixed on the southern ridge of mountains: a stubble, a ring of dead, broken teeth. Smoke curled over them poisonously, muddying the sky.
"Soon," Khan said quietly. As he spoke his face seemed that of the wisest and saddest of the gods. "Soon Pah-Dishah joins her sisters. Save yourself. We were fools." He drew his cloak more tightly across his shoulders. "These mountains will hide nothing but our bones."

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The younger man touched his grandfather's arm. It was thin and frail, but even here, at the top of the highest wind-whipped tower, it radiated soothing heat, as if he were burning with fever. It was, as always, strangely calming to Jiarri. "I am a Hunter. So long as the city lives, my duty is here."
Khan studied his grandson: the strong, proud jaw and dark eyes, the broad shoulders and wiry arms beneath a thin white tunic. He nodded, resignation and pride mingling in his smile, and turned to enter the temple. Together they wound their way down the staircase.
The air within was hazed with incense and fevered prayers, the floor beaded with kneeling worshipers. Somberly robed figures glided across the tiles, each ritual motion triggering an anguished cry from the faithful. The priests blended their voices in wordless song, their bodies in sacred dance. The tones were always precisely the same, and Jiarri supposed that the identical rhythmic call had echoed in domed temples since the beginning of time.
Theme interwove with theme, pitch and volume climbing until the ceiling hummed. Their feet blurred, robes swirling like storm-tossed leaves. The fluxing patterns of the dance, the cadence of the hymn, and the tang of the incense made his temples pound.
Ahmara Khan appeared on the spiral stairway. The chanting stopped, the final notes vibrating in the ceiling and floor like the last stroke of the gong. Jiarri stayed back, watching his grandfather descend step by slow step.
The worshipers watched him, blind to the frailty and indecision in his step. They saw only Ahmara Khan, their one remaining hope, the high priest who had grown ancient in service to Pah-Dishah. The holiest of men, whose labyrinthine mind might yield one final miracle.
He was joined at the foot of the steps by his eldest priest, who bowed low. The Elder's eyes were deeply ringed. He trembled from weariness and lack of sleep. Perhaps it was the perspiration that steamed from his skin and clothes, or the pools of oil that burned atop their braziers, but the Elder's skin glowed, shone golden. His

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eyes were vast and dark, his breath sour and strangely sweet at the same time. He pressed his lips against Ahmara Khan's feet, his tears moistening the ground.
Ahmara Khan stared unblinkingly into the haze, as if blinded by the weight of his knowledge. "There is smoke over the mountains, carrion birds above Kalirangpur. She is dead."
An acolyte peeled away Khan's outer garments, slipping on a darkly purple ceremonial robe. Jiarri shuddered as he watched the youngster dress his grandfather, and thought of the boy in the temple of Kalirangpur. Surely dead, or worse, by now.
Shakily, the elder priest rose to his feet. "Perhaps the Northerners will be satisfied. Will see that they have raped our land until it bleeds. Perhaps they will search elsewhere. Perhaps they will not learn of us."
"You dream," Ahmara looked out over the congregation. They knelt on the marble floor, praying. As he stood there, gathering their image in his mind, he squared his shoulders. In the manner that Jiarri did not understand, but had seen so often, the lines in Ahmara's face caught the light differently now. He was no longer the coldly mega-lithic figure: towering, solitary even in the midst of his brothers. He was the man they had known and trusted all of their lives, their breathing link to a time when Pah-Dishah was not alone, was not the only city with walls of marble rather than mud; which traded in art and science, rather than fish and grain.
Slowly, reverently, as a man who can smell and taste the nearness of death, Ahmara Khan lifted his voice in prayer.
Jiarri held his breath and knocked at his grandfather's door. Before the high priest could answer he entered, and with him the two Elders in whom he had confided.
It was mere hours before the dawn, and the flames guttered in the butter lamps. Coiled parchments, jars of powdered incense, busts and carvings and hanging murals mazed the room. Khan was angled over his desk, poring

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over scrolls that had been ancient and crumbling before Pah-Dishah's walls parted the mountain wind.
Jiarri bowed humbly, and spoke. "Grandfather, forgive me, please. I am unable to sleep. I must ask you again: Is there no way that Pah-Dishah might be saved?"
One of the Eiders stepped forward. As if the ravages of time carved identical runes on those of the priesthood, their faces were remarkably alike. In the shadows of night it was not the skin that shaped the appearance, but rather something in the character. There was fire in the Elder's eyes. His face seemed more than ever a wooden mask, but behind it was a visage graven on a live coal.
"We must speak," the Elder said softly.