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

'In the garrison quarter-room. He's dead.'
'Dead?' Mirival exclaimed.
'One of my men was forced to shoot him as he tried to escape.'
'What?
'And what was Shahan doing gallivanting off round the country?' Dheran asked.
'He was on a wild-goose chase, Sire,' Mirival replied. 'Following some heretical beliefs he'd been deluding himself with. It seems he has paid for them with his life. Where did you catch up with him, Captain?'
'At a madhouse in Saefir Province.'
At this Mirival could not help stiffening a little in surprise. Behind him, interest sparked in Jax's eyes.
'You may go now, Captain,' Mirival said, recovering his self-possession, 'but I shall expect a full report in the morning.'
'Yes, Seer.' Yesko bowed again and departed, leaving Mirival to his own thoughts.
Before she retired for the night, Adina went, as always, to bid goodnight to the prince. He was lying on his bed, still fully clothed, with a satisfied expression on his round face. When the Empress enquired about what had pleased him so, he told her about Shahan's death.
'That's good, isn't it, Mother?'
'Yes, it is,' she replied, smiling sweetly. 'Very good.'

Chapter Ten

Terrel woke to the acrid scent of dried sweat mingled with fear - the smell that always pervaded his cell now.
The last few days had been among the most unsettling of his life. Not only did he now have to share his sleeping quarters with two strangers, but when he had last seen Alyssa and Elam it had been for no more than a few moments - and that had been more than two days ago. With the coming of the new regime, the inmates had been spending much more time locked up, and most of the freedoms they had enjoyed had been revoked. It was only now that they had gone that Terrel realized just how valuable they had been.
The new Head Warden was a man called Aylor - a man who already commanded both fear and hatred. He was a captain of the provincial militia and, although small in stature, his air of self-confidence and ruthless determination meant that his authority was unquestioned. Ziolka had disappeared, and no one knew whether he had been sent packing or had left of his own volition. He had last been seen engaged in a heated argument with Aylor, and there were several rumours circulating about his fate. Even though Ziolka had been his gaoler, Terrel found that he missed his reassuring presence. Some of the old staff remained on duty, but the majority had been replaced by soldiers of the captain's troop. Many of these men clearly regarded the inmates with disgust, treating them as no better than animals, and there had been several violent incidents. Terrel had even heard a rumour that some inmates had been killed, as well as reports of beatings and the rape of some of the female prisoners. He had managed to avoid any direct confrontation himself, but was almost frantic with worry about Alyssa, imagining all sorts of unbearable horrors being inflicted on her fragile body and gentle mind. He was worried about Elam too. His friend's headstrong nature and acerbic tongue had often got him into trouble in the past - and it did not take much to provoke the soldiers to anger. The fact that Elam still seemed to be suffering from the after-effects of his fall from the observatory roof only made him more vulnerable. Terrel wished that his friends could have been the ones to share his cell. He found that not knowing what was happening to them was the hardest thing to bear.
The reason for the arrival of the soldiers, and the subsequent upheaval, had been a sudden influx of new prisoners - many of whom were no more insane than Terrel, but who were all obviously terrified. This in turn had led to considerable overcrowding in the cells, which was why Toresh and Rian had been billeted in Terrel's room. They were both older than him, though still young, and although they displayed a certain amount of bravado when none of the militiamen was around, it was obvious that they were frightened and bewildered by what was happening to them.
As far as Terrel could tell from the little they had said so far, their only 'crime' was to have unwittingly broken one of the astrologically defined taboos, but it wasn't clear why such a minor infringement should have merited such severe punishment. They both protested their innocence, and Terrel could not help wondering whether the mysterious alteration in the orbit of the Dark Moon was making such legal matters even more complicated than usual. This might go some way to explaining why so many more 'lunatics' had been committed to the haven recently.
Terrel sat up in bed now and glanced at the two newcomers, who still lay on thin blankets on the floor, twitching occasionally in their sleep. He would have been no match for either of them in a fight, but they seemed afraid of him - in awe of his strange eyes, his twisted limbs and his supposed madness. This was why Terrel had not lost the use of his bed, as many of the other long-term inmates had done.
Toresh groaned and clenched his fists, his eyes moving rapidly beneath his still-closed lids. Terrel wondered what he was dreaming about. Rian stirred, opened his eyes and looked around in confusion, as if he did not know where he was. Then his gaze fell upon Terrel and he grew still as the demoralizing memories of the last few days came back to him.
'Will we get any breakfast?' he asked.
'I'm not sure,' Terrel replied. Food had been in short supply recently and meals, such as they were, had come at odd times. All the inmates were constantly hungry now.
Toresh muttered something in his sleep, and Rian glanced at him anxiously.
'He's dreaming again. Ever since . . .'He left the thought unfinished, rubbing absently at the crudely daubed mark on the back of his hand. It was an indication of the haste with which events were moving that there had been no time for proper tattoos.
'Do you know what he dreams about?' Terrel asked curiously.
'It doesn't make any sense,' Rian replied. 'We've never even seen the sea.'
'Neither have I, but I still dream about it.'
'Do you see waves the size of mountains, and all the, islands breaking into pieces and sinking?' Rian asked, a haunted look in his eyes.
Terrel did not know what to say to that.
'It's all because of those stupid rumours,' Rian went on. 'He's been having the same nightmare ever since they began.'
'What rumours?'
'Someone said Vadanis has changed course, that we're going to collide with one of the barbarian lands. It's nonsense, of course, but there are so many strange things happening nowadays . . .' His voice trailed off again, leaving Terrel to contemplate his own recent dreaming.
He too had seen horrors, though nothing on such a scale. His dreams had been more personal, constantly replaying the scenes of Shahan's death and reminding him of what Alyssa had said about his own part in the murder. That was something she had not been able to explain properly. She had become confused when he tried to question her, and Terrel had been left to hope that it simply wasn't true. Even so, he was plagued by vicarious guilt; and kept wishing that the old man would return to Havenmoon - alive and well. In his heart he knew he was wishing in vain.
Toresh gasped and woke up, his ruddy face sheened with sweat and his eyes full of terrors.
'Moons!' he breathed. 'When is this going to stop?'
'It's all right. It will all be sorted out soon and we'll be able to go home,' Rian told him with patently false optimism. 'You'll be fine then.'
Toresh looked at him with a mixture of scepticism and hope, then shook his head in despair.
'We're never going to get out of this place,' he said. 'Never.'
Aylor gazed out over the hastily assembled throng, not bothering to hide his contempt, and cursed the day he had drawn this assignment. Where was the honour in standing guard over this mismatched collection of criminals and madmen? Most of the faces that looked back at him were fearful, though a few were so addle-witted that their expressions were merely curious or completely vacant. Aylor would soon change that. Even a lunatic could learn the meaning of fear.
'Things are going to be different here from now on,' he declared, wondering how many of his wretched audience could even understand what he was saying. 'I've no time for shirkers. You either earn your keep or you get thrown in the dungeons with nothing to eat but the rats. Unless they eat you first, of course.' Several of the soldiers who were standing guard around the edges of the courtyard grinned at this, but Aylor's face remained coldly malevolent. 'We have another consignment of misfits and freaks arriving tomorrow,' he went on, 'and we have to make space for them - unless you want to sleep six to a room. So the first thing we're going to do is clear out the north wing. Get to work!' The new Head Warden turned on his heels and strode back through the haven's main entrance, leaving his deputies to organize their conscripts.
Until that moment Terrel had been feeling better than he had done for some time. When he and his cell mates had been summoned to the gathering, he had correctly assumed that this would be his chance to see Alyssa and Elam again. When he had located his friends among all the other inmates in the courtyard he had been overjoyed to find them both unharmed and in reasonably good spirits. They had not been able to exchange more than a few words, but their mere presence had done wonders for his own state of mind. Now, however, the news of yet more prisoners, and the opening up of the previously abandoned north wing had made the day seem less bright. His library, with all its treasures, was in the north wing.
'Come on, come on. Stop slacking. Get a move on there!' The shuffling procession of inmates ignored Ingo's exhortations. Even though it was only a few hours old, the operation to clear out the north wing had already degenerated into a shambles. A generally unwilling and inept work force, together with the nature of the old building -with its narrow passages and doorways, its steep staircases and sloping floors - had combined to produce chaos. A great deal of uncoordinated effort had produced endless delays and only limited progress, and Terrel had begun to hope that the library might be safe for a while yet. The second floor had hardly been touched so far, because even the relatively accessible first storey was proving to be so much more trouble than expected. Doors were locked, with no sign of any keys; others were so warped or swollen that they could not be opened; and the rooms they managed to reach proved to be cluttered with so much junk that each one took an age to empty. Thick dust, grime and cobwebs made the job dirty and unpleasant, and falling debris had already caused many delays and a few injuries. Although the soldiers didn't seem to care about any of this, Ingo was obviously trying to curry favour with his new masters and kept shouting and urging his charges on, waving his arms about and offering unwanted advice.
'Turn it sideways, you morons!' he yelled. 'Or do I have to throw you in the dungeons?'
Terrel and Elam, who were labouring to manoeuvre a three-legged table down a twisting flight of stairs, took no notice of the warden's threat, knowing that he was no longer in a position of power. The soldiers clearly regarded him as something of a joke.
'We could break off the other legs,' Elam suggested. 'They're half rotten, and the table's already useless. It'd be easier to carry then.'
'Keep moving!' Ingo shrieked. 'And no talking.'
Elam shrugged, biting back a sarcastic retort, and the two boys continued their slow and awkward journey. When they finally reached the ground floor, they were directed towards one of the doors at the rear of the house, only to find the way blocked by others who were waiting to go the same way. Eventually their intermittent progress took them close to Ahmeza's kitchens and it was there, as they waited in line, that they could not help but overhear an argument between the cook and Aylor.