"Gray, Julia - Guardian 01 - The Dark Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gray Julia)

'Perhaps it's a good thing the conjunction might come sooner than expected,' Kamin remarked, only half joking. 'Many of us don't live to be seventy-five, and even if he did, Jax would be an old man by then. Batou's only seventy-one, and he doesn't exactly cut a heroic figure.'
'You don't think Shahan might be right?' Fauria prompted.
'About the twin, you mean?' Mirival answered. 'No. You saw the baby. How could we show people that, and tell them he was their saviour?'
Shahan had shared his theories with only a few people, all of whom had rejected them outright.
'He's probably been dead long since,' Kamin added.
'Has there been any word on Shahan's whereabouts?' Fauria asked. 'Or on what he's doing?'
'Not yet,' Mirival replied. 'But I wouldn't put it past the old cretin to be looking for the twin.'
'If the twin was still alive,' Kamin ventured, 'do you think bringing him back to Makhaya might make Jax buck his ideas up a bit? Perhaps the two of them combined somehow make up the Guardian. We still haven't explained the double birth, after all.'
Mirival thought about this idea for a few moments. It had some attractions, but in the end they were far outweighed by the disadvantages.
'No. Forget him,' he said. 'Can you imagine what Adina would say if we even suggested it?'
The three men laughed uneasily.
That evening Fauria slipped quietly through the maze of darkened corridors that linked the various apartments of the inner palace, until he reached the quarters of the Empress Adina. He was ushered inside, without any need of knocking, by her personal chamberlain. As Mirival had predicted many years earlier, Remi had risen rapidly through the court ranks and was now the senior aide of the most powerful woman in the Empire. Some said Adina was even more powerful than the Emperor himself.
'Go right in, Seer,' Remi told Fauria. 'She's waiting for you.'
As always when summoned to Adina's presence, Fauria experienced a not unpleasant tremor of fear. She was indeed as formidable as she was beautiful, attributes which had caused one court wit to remark, 'She's like the sun. It's best not to look at her for too long.' The Emperor had taken no more wives, and there had been no more children since the birth of Jax and his twin. As tradition and augury decreed, Dheran's offspring from his earlier marriages had long been discounted in the matter of court power and politics, and Adina's ambitions for her son had not been dented by his unremarkable talents.
'It's good of you to come and see me in person, Fauria,' the Empress said in greeting. So much of their communication was, by necessity, carried out through discreet messengers.
'It is always a pleasure, Your Majesty.'
'Tell me, what did you and Mirival talk about after the council?'
From the blunt nature of the question, Fauria assumed that Adina had already been briefed on the debate in the Seers' Chamber, and that she probably had a fairly good idea of the topics that would have arisen afterwards.
'The specifics of practical measures to be taken now,' he replied.
'And do any of these concern my son?'
'Naturally. As Guardian, the Prince is central to our plans.'
'And no one is being swayed by Shahan's preposterous ideas?'
'No, Ma'am.' Then, choosing his words carefully, he told the Empress about Kamin's half-hearted suggestion concerning the missing twin, and Mirival's reaction to it.
Adina's face darkened.
'You say Mirival hesitated before rejecting this idea?'
'For a few moments only,' Fauria replied blandly, knowing that this would be enough to set her blood boiling. Publicly she had never even acknowledged the existence of Jax's brother, but in private it was another matter. Fauria's own clandestine alliance with the Empress allowed him to see the hidden side of her nature - which added to the risks and to the possible rewards of their relationship.
'Mirival is the only one who could possibly know where the twin is, and after all this time I doubt he could find the boy even if he tried,' he said now.
'But Shahan is trying anyway?'
'So it would seem.'
Adina did not respond immediately. After a few moments' thought, she spoke again.
'Do you still harbour the ambition to be named Mentor?'
'It would be an honour, Ma'am,' Fauna replied smoothly, 'but destiny will choose the right man.'
The Empress smiled, knowing that they understood one another.
'Of course.'
A short while later, after Fauria had left and Remi was pouring her another glass of wine, Adina looked up at her chamberlain.
'Tell me, Remi. Where in the Code does it say that the Mentor has to be a man?'
The next day, Makhaya was shaken by several unexpected earth tremors. None was particularly strong, and little damage was done, but the cumulative effect was to raise the level of apprehension in the city. Almost all the seers had been involved in furious calculations during the night, but even taking into account the putative new orbit of the Dark Moon, these quakes could not be explained. News also reached the city that day from Vadanis's central mining district. It had apparently been hit by a similar series of tremors, which had seriously disrupted operations. No one there could find any explanation for what was happening.
Evening found Mirival at the end of a largely unproductive tutorial with Jax. He was about to bring the lesson to an end when Dheran entered the room unannounced. The Emperor had a vague, unworldly air about him these days, and he just waved a hand as his Chief Seer rose in greeting.
'Carry on, carry on.'
'We've finished,' Jax said, and stared defiantly at Mirival, daring his tutor to contradict him.
No wonder no one has yet laid claim to the title 'Mentor', Mirival thought wearily. If they knew what I have to put up with, no one would even want to. Even so, he knew many seers who still aspired to an important role in history, while others - perhaps with better judgement - sycophantically declared that the Mentor must be the Emperor Dheran himself, the Guardian's father. Looking at the two of them now, Mirival could not help feeling doubtful about either's claim. But what were the alternatives?
'Bad business, this. With the Dark Moon, I mean,' Dheran remarked. 'Complicates things.'
Mirival was saved from having to respond to this fatuous comment by the entrance of a servant who announced that there was a Captain Yesko outside, waiting to have a word with the Chief Seer.
'Can't you see I'm in the middle of an audience?' Mirival said, irked by the soldier's presumption - and by his timing.
'Yes, Seer, but the captain said it was urgent.'
'Oh, let him in, Mirival,' the Emperor said. 'I'm not going to stand on ceremony.'
The seer nodded his assent and the servant left, to be replaced a few moments later by the captain, who bowed low before the Emperor.
'Am I to assume you have located Seer Shahan?' Mirival enquired.
'Yes, Seer.' The officer's colourful uniform was stained from several days' hard riding, and his face bore the signs of worry and fatigue.
'Where is he now?'