"Debra Doyle & James MacDonald - Mageworlds 03 - By Honor Betray'd" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doyle Debra)

Prologue; galcen nearspace: sword-of-the-dawn

THE HEARTWORLD of the Republic hung against the darkness of space like an enormous,
glittering opal, swirled with bright green and deep blue and white streaks of cloud. Looking out from the
observation deck of his flagship, Grand Admiral Theio syn-Ricte sus-Airaalin knew that he had
accomplished the impossible. He had brought a warfleet through hyperspace to strike without warning,
and all the enemy’s inmost citadels lay under his hand. He called the roll of them in his mind: Galcen
Prime Base; Galcen South Polar; the Grand Council of the Republic; the Adepts’ Retreat.
Knowledge of his victory brought sus-Airaalin no special pleasure. Now, and not the long years
of preparations or the desperate battle just past, was the period of greatest danger. Having done the
impossible, he would have to do more-hold what he had gained, and bring the outlying sectors of the
Republic securely under control.
We can do it, he thought. With luck, and with the aid of the Circles. If we don’t lose too
much of the fleet in any one action, or if we can augment our forces somehow . . . we’ve spent too
much already, in ships and in lives, when we had little enough to begin with.
The commander of the Resurgency’s warfleet was a realist, or as much a realist as any man could
be and hope to bring back the old ways and the old knowledge. sus-Airaalin had understood from the
beginning that his only chance for success lay in throwing massive strength into a single unexpected blow,
crushing the head of the serpent while it slept. But the broken pieces of this particular serpent could still
fight; and if they should rejoin, like the braidworm of legend that made one beast out of many, then what
the Adept-worlds had done to the Circles thirty years before would pale beside their vengeance now.
He would stop that, if he could, for the sake of a generation not yet born when the Old War
ended in crushing defeat and systematic, relentless destruction. The young men and women who crewed
the ships of sus-Airaalin’s fleet and worked in his new-formed Mage-Circles were children of poverty
and repression. They had never known the former days of power and vainglory, when Eraasian warfleets
raided the Adept-worlds at will and broke whole planets for daring to resist. For them-and not for the
Resurgency-sus-Airaalin would do whatever must be done.
Even now, he thought. Even to this.
Straightening his shoulders, he turned from the viewport and left the Sword’s observation deck,
making his way through the narrow passageways to the detention area at the heart of the ship. Outside
the door of the deepest cell, he paused for a moment to gather his resolve, then laid his hand on the
lockplate. The door opened. He stepped inside, and the door closed again behind him.
There was no light in the cell. sus-Airaalin touched a control near the door, and the ceiling panels
began to emit a pale, dingy glow. The man who lay on the narrow metal bunk stirred briefly and opened
his eyes; then, with an effort, he sat up, although his hands were manacled and chained to the wall behind
him.
The prisoner was not a fearsome man to look at. He was scarcely taller than sus-Airaalin,
without the Grand Admiral’s compact sturdiness; his black hair hung lank around features made haggard
by captivity. Not, one might think, a particularly threatening figure, but sus-Airaalin knew better. This was
Errec Ransome, Master of the Adepts’ Guild: the Breaker of Circles.
He regarded his visitor without surprise.
“My lord sus-Airaalin,” he said.
The Grand Admiral inclined his head in the barest shadow of a formal bow. “Master Ransome.”
“Your personal attention . . . honors me.”
Although dried blood stained the pale skin around Ransome’s mouth, still the Adept Master
seemed amused. sus-Airaalin let the faint mockery go past unremarked. He had his own reasons for not
giving Errec Ransome into the hands of the Resurgency’s intelligence wing, reasons that had nothing to do
with either Ransome’s honor or sus-Airaalin’s pleasure.
I ought to kill him now, sus-Airaalin thought. The longer he’s a prisoner, the greater the
danger to all of us.