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

'No. Mirival arranged all that. I thought it best to keep out of the way. Maybe I should have spoken up.'
'I'm sure you and Mirival did what was best for Vadanis,' the prince said. Not that you had much choice, he added silently. Adina had told Jax about his twin - and had made it perfectly plain that it was her influence that had ensured the exile of the deformed infant.
'I suppose so,' Dheran responded quietly.
'Just as I will when my turn comes,' Jax said, hoping that this loyal statement of intent would satisfy his father.
'It weighs heavily sometimes,' Dheran said portentously.
'What does?' the prince asked, then wished the words back as soon as he had uttered them.
'The imperial crown. Ruling all this.' The Emperor spread his arms wide, indicating the panorama before them.
Having learnt his lesson, Jax chose not to comment, and contented himself with looking suitably solemn. Inside he was railing against such morbid thinking. What was the point of ruling all this if you never did anything? His father just moped about the palace, making everyone miserable. He did not deserve to be Emperor. For a moment Jax considered pushing Dheran over the parapet, but it was only a fleeting impulse. He would not reach the legal age for inheritance for another two years, and the prince shuddered at the thought of Mirival as Regent.
'Excuse me, Your Majesty.'
The timid voice belonged to a young maidservant. As the Emperor and his son turned to see what she wanted, she curtseyed stiffly, looking down at the floor.
'What is it, my dear?'
'Chamberlain says the papers are ready for your signature, Your Majesty, and cook says your breakfast is ready now.'
The girl curtseyed again, obviously nervous. She was one of the many servants who had been sent to look for the Emperor, and she had not really expected to find him here.
'I'll be down presently,' Dheran told her, smiling to reassure the shy creature.
Jax smiled at her too, though for different reasons. She was one of the pretty ones, and he was imagining what she would look like with no clothes on.
'You see, Jax,' Dheran said when the maid had left. 'You're not the only one who is forced to complete mundane but necessary tasks. There have been so many new decrees recently my wrist aches from signing them all. Will you join me for breakfast?'
'No, thank you, Father,' the prince replied, thankful for the interruption. 'I think I'll stay up here a bit longer.'
When he was alone again, Jax tried to concentrate on some of the things he had learnt that morning, but his mind refused to cooperate. He kept thinking of the maidservant. After all, he was nearly a man now, he told himself. It was time to complete the transition. He knew Adina was already making plans for his marriages once he came of age, but in the meantime . . . What was the point of being in a position of wealth and power unless you could use it to enjoy yourself? He wondered idly if he could get away with ordering one of the younger maidservants to come to his rooms. Or maybe, he thought, his pulse quickening at the idea, he might even be able to find one with a mind like Marik's.
'Go away!'
Mirival waited patiently as Lathan's servant knocked again at the door of his master's study.
'Chief Seer Mirival is here to see you, sir.'
'Well, tell him to go away.' Lathan's voice cracked halfway through the sentence so that the last two words were little more than a croak.
The servant glanced nervously at Mirival, who decided to take matters into his own hands.
'Open the door, Lathan. If you don't I shall bring the guards to break it down.'
There was silence for a few moments, then the two men heard the sounds of footsteps shuffling across the room and bolts being drawn back. However, Lathan did not open the door but retreated again, so that by the time Mirival had turned the handle himself and entered the chamber, he was slumped at his desk once more.
'Come to gloat?' he muttered venomously.
'No,' Mirival replied briskly. 'I have a job for you.'
Lathan grunted in disbelief, and turned to face his unwanted visitor for the first time. The seer's face was puffy, and his eyes were red-rimmed from lack of sleep, but it was the despair Mirival saw within those eyes that caused him the most alarm. Lathan's belated acceptance of the facts had shaken him deeply, as Mirival had known it would, but it was also clear that the very foundations of Lathan's world had crumbled to dust, leaving him almost broken. This was a waste of talent the Chief Seer could not allow.
'As you can see, I am fit for nothing,' Lathan announced with evident self-loathing. He gestured round the room, at the desk that was littered with papers covered in much amended calculations, at the untidy pile of books and the shelves cluttered with various chronometers and optical instruments of all kinds. It was the den of a recluse, a fanatic - and of someone who had reached the end of his tether.
'You've always been the best mathematician on the council,' Mirival stated firmly. 'That hasn't changed.'
'I thought so once,' Lathan mumbled despondently. 'But now . . .'He picked up some of his workings, crumpled them into a ball and tossed it casually across the room.
Mirival knew that his fellow seer had finally confirmed to his own satisfaction that the Dark Moon had changed orbit, and - even more mystifyingly - that it had actually increased in diameter. However, no one had yet come up with a feasible explanation for why - or how - these events had occurred.
'We're all confused,' the Chief Seer admitted. 'You're not alone in that.'
'Confused? Confused!' Lathan exclaimed bitterly. 'Either we're all insane, or the heavens themselves have gone mad. Which do you prefer?'
'We're making progress,' Mirival declared. 'We'll understand it eventually.'
The first part of this statement was indeed true. The immediate consequences of the change had been calculated with reasonable accuracy and, through the network of underseers and with the help of the army, these had now been proclaimed in all the provinces. What had once seemed a hopeless task, with administrative chaos just around the corner, was now at least under control - and those local authorities who had overstepped the mark in dealing with the situation on their own had been reined in. In addition, estimates of the timing of the next four-moon conjunction were now being refined. Although the calculations varied, it was reasonably certain that it would take place some sixty-four years after the last one, eleven years earlier than expected and fifty years from now. Rein-terpretations of various relevant sections of the Tindaya Code were also well under way and, reassuringly, the early results indicated that disruption to the prophecies would be minimal.
The one area in which the seers' combined efforts had met with almost no success was in evaluating the movements of the Floating Islands. According to all their calculations, the alterations in size and movement of the Dark Moon should have had an almost negligible effect on the islands' course - far less than had actually taken place. It was this worrying discrepancy that Mirival wanted Lathan to work on.
'However,' the Chief Seer went on, 'we only have a chance of understanding it if we all work together.'
Lathan shook his head, but he looked weary now rather than incredulous.
'What do you want me to do?' he asked, a small measure of his professional pride resurfacing.
'Make some accurate observations about the course of the islands. The ones we're getting now are contradictory, and it's vital we clear up the mess.'
'You trust me to do that?'
'I do. Pick your own team. Travel wherever you need - the Imperial Guard will provide transport. But you must move quickly. Ludicrous rumours are already beginning to spread, and we must stop them. Will you do it?'
Lathan hesitated for only an instant before nodding.
'Good. I'll let you get on then.' Mirival turned to go, but the other man's voice halted him in his tracks with an unexpected question.
'You weren't at Shahan's funeral, I noticed. Why was that?'
'I had pressing issues of state to attend to.'
Shahan had been buried with no ceremony and little fuss. He had had no family, and many of his fellow seers had felt it politic not to attend, preferring to disassociate themselves from the dead man's rumoured heresies -although no one seemed to know exactly what these were. Others, including Lathan, had felt that they should pay their respects to a senior colleague.
'A sad end for a man of his learning, don't you think?' he said now. 'To be murdered like that.'
'Sad indeed,' Mirival agreed. 'But murder is too harsh a word. The court martial found his killer guilty only of a lesser crime.'