"Stephen Goldin - Storyteller" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goldin Stephen)

time.

Now, as an outcast from his home and his land, Prince Ahmad had come to Sarafiq to learn of his fate,
accompanied by his surviving guardsmen and servants. Here, too, had come Jafar al-Sharif, the
storyteller from Durkhash who was pretending a claim to wizardry, hoping to learn the antidote to Akar's
curse so he could free his daughter Selima from its effects.

And here it was that both men received the prophet's vision for the two of them, that their destinies were
intertwined and the fate of all Parsina rested upon their backs. And both men accepted that burden,
though with differing degrees of willingness.
 On the evening of the day he received the vision from the prophet Muhmad, Prince Ahmad Khaled bin
Shunnar el-Ravani, still a few months shy of his eighteenth birthday, assembled his guards and his
servants in the sahn of the temple of Sarafiq, under the open sky. It was summer and the sun was late in
setting; the sky ranged from dark blue in the east to pinks and oranges in the west, and only the brightest
stars were making their appearance. The sky was free of clouds; it was destined to be one of those nights
when a person could look straight up into the heavens and half expect to see the face of lord Oromasd
himself.

Prince Ahmad stood at the top of the alabaster minbar, a tall, straight-backed young man with the rich
beginnings of a still-forming beard framing his broad, handsome face. His black eyebrows grew together
to form a single line across his forehead, and the somber eyes below them showed a combination of
determination and intelligence. Wearing his cloth-of-gold kaftan and wine red zibun, he made a noble
figure standing above the group he was to address.

He looked out from his vantage point over the perplexed faces of his followers, lit by the last rays of the
setting sun and the flickering light of torches around the sahn. Of the original complement that had left
Ravan with him on his ill-fated journey, less than half remained alive. These were his most loyal, devoted
subjects, and the message they were about to hear was a particularly bitter one. Prince Ahmad tried to
gauge their love and dedication, knowing that this speech could well be the most significant in his life.

Young Prince Ahmad was not an accomplished orator. Though he'd studied speech and rhetoric at the
madrasa in Ravan, his skills had never been fully tested by reality. He prayed now for Oromasd to make
his words both moving and fluent, worthy of his royal heritage.

He took a deep breath, and inhaled with it the sweet scent of the flowers in the oasis's garden. For a
brief instant his mind filled with images of the royal gardens in Ravan, the most beautiful gardens in the
world. The thought that he might never see them again almost made him waver in his resolve. But he
steeled himself, as a true prince should, and began the speech he'd been rehearsing for an hour in his
mind.

“My faithful servants, all of you,” he said. “We sit here in this peaceful oasis tonight largely because of
you. You've proven your loyalty through steel and blood—you and your unfortunate comrades who fell
in the forest at the hands of those brigands. You make me proud to number you in my retinue, for no
prince, no king, ever had a more honorable following.

“Your valor makes it even harder to speak the words I must say, to tell you we have all been betrayed.”
He had to pause here as a shocked murmur ran through the crowd. Ahmad waited for it to die before
continuing. “Betrayed not by any of our number, but by treachery done against us from those we thought
were our friends."