"Dave Duncan - The Seventh Sword - 2 - The Coming Of Wisdom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Dave)

"I am sure I can find a cart, my lord," Quili said. A cart for a lord of the
seventh rank? And would there be any men left to harness the horse? She had
watched it being done often enough...
"That would do very well," Shonsu said cheerfully. They had reached the land,
where the jetty stood above dry shingle. Quickly he spread the tarpaulin over
the planks, then he jumped down and put the pallets below it. As his companions
arrived, he reached up and lifted them down effortlessly. "We shall be
comfortable enough in here until you return."
"I shall be as quick as I can, my lord."
"There's no hurry. I need to have a private talk with Nnanji, and this seems
like a good chance." He flashed that heart-melting smile again.
Confused and unhappy, Quili mumbled something—she was not sure what—and headed
for the road. As she entered the
22 THE COMING OF WISDOM gorge, the sun tucked itself up into the clouds, and
the World became gloomier and more drab. She had not lied, but she had left
these swordsmen in ignorance of their danger. She must try to prevent bloodshed.
Merciful Goddess! Whom was she supposed to shield—the workers, or the sorcerers,
or the swordsmen?
ttt
Wallie paced slowly back along the jetty, gathering his thoughts. His boots made
hollow drum noises on the weathered planks, and beside him Nnanji's kept time.
Nnanji was waiting in excited silence to hear what revelations the great Lord
Shonsu was about to impart.
The jetty was stained with cattle dung—probably the estate exported cattle to
the nearest city, Ov. The River was very wide, the far shore a faint line of
smudge, and no sails marred the empty expanse of gray and lifeless water. At
Hann the River had been about the same width, yet Hann lay a quarter of a World
away. The River was everywhere, Honakura had said, and in a lifetime of talking
with pilgrims in the temple, he had never heard tell of source or mouth.
Apparently it was endless and much the same everywhere, a geographical
impossibility. The River was the Goddess.
No sails... "The ferry's gone!"
"Yes, my lord." Nnanji did not even sound surprised.
Wallie shivered at this evidence of divine surveillance, then
forced his mind back to the matter at hand. Twice before he had
told his story, but this time would be harder. Honakura had
accepted it as an exercise in theology. Believing in many worlds
and a ladder of uncountable lives, he had been puzzled only that
the dead Wallie Smith should have been reincarnated as the adult


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Shonsu, instead of as a baby. That was a miracle, and priests could
believe in miracles, Honakura had wanted to hear about Earth and
Wallie's previous existence, but those would not interest Nnanji.
Jja had not cared about the mechanism or the reason. She
was content to know that the man she loved was hidden inside
the swordsman, an invisible man with no rank or craft, as alien-