"Thomas Harlan - Oath of Empire 1 - Shadow of Ararat" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harlan Thomas)

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1376 AB URBE CONDITA
SOUTH OF PANOPOLIS, THEME OF EGYPT:

A boy walked in darkness, his head outlined against the sky by the dim radiance of the River of Milk. His skinny
legs were barely covered by a short kilt of rough cotton homespun. He scrambled to the crest of the dune. Beyond it
the western waste spread before him cold and silver in the moonlight. A chill wind, fresh with the bitter scent of the
desert, ruffled his shirt and blew back the long braids from his face. Breathing deep, he felt his heart fill with the
silence. He smiled, broad and wide, in the darkness. Laughing, he spread his arms and spun, letting the huge vault of
heaven rotate above him. The great moon, a dazzling white, filled the sky. The river of stars, undimmed by clouds,
coursed above him, the Zodiac forming in its eddies and currents.
He sighed deep and laughed again. He sprinted along the ridge, feeling his muscles surge and thrust as he hurtled
forward. Gaining speed, he lengthened his stride and kicked off hard as he reached the curling lip of the dune. For a
moment, the wind rushing past, he was suspended in the
starry dark. His long braids lashed back as he fell through deep shadow.
The water was a slapping shock as he struck the surface. He plunged through broiling murk and felt his feet strike
against the sandy bottom. Surging upward, he breached, throwing his head back. The stars glittered down through the
arching palms, and Dwyrin rolled over and stroked easily to the reed-strewn shore. Gripping a low branch, he pulled
himself from the inlet of the Father Nile. He squeezed muddy water from his braids and coiled them at his shoulder. His
tunic, sodden and caught with long trails of watercress, he stripped off. Cold wind brushed over him but he did not
feel it.
Pushing through the tall cane break at the edge of the inlet, he looked for a moment out across the broad surface of
the Nile. Near a half mile of open water, running silent under the moon, to the far bank. There he could pick out the
lights of the village, dim and yellow in the night. His right hand checked absently to see if the oranges were still secure
in his cord bag. They were and he took to the trail leading south along the margin of the river.
Beyond the narrow strip of fields and palms, stones and boulders rose from a long tongue of hills that arrowed out
of the waste into the Nile. Here, where the river had long ago curved about an outcropping, men of the Old Kingdom
had raised a siege of pillars and great monoliths. Dwyrin clambered up through the debris that marked the fallen
northern wall of the temple. A looming shape hung over him, ancient face blurred by the desert wind. Swinging over
the massive stone forearm, Dwyrin squeezed through a small space beneath the fallen statue. Within the ancient
temple, long rows of pillars arched above him. The wide stone passages between them were littered with blown brush
and sand. Dwyrin picked his way to the great platform that fronted the temple. From it three great seated figures stared
north, down the Nile, to the distant delta and their realm of old.
At the center reigned the bearded king, his arms crossed upon his chest, broken symbols of divinity and rule held
in massive sandstone hands. His eyes were dark as he looked to the north and the havens of the sea. To his left sat
the languid cat-queen, his patroness, her face still and silent in an ancient smile. One great pointed ear was sheared off,
showing dark-grained stone beneath the smooth carving.
Her, Dwyrin avoided, for her long hands were tipped with claws and she always seemed cool and aloof. Instead, he
turned to the rightmost statue, that of the mightily thewed man with the head of a hawk. He climbed up, over the pleats
of the old god’s kilt, and sat in the broad curving lap, his legs swinging over the edge. Beneath him the Nile gurgled
quietly.
He sat and peeled his oranges, one by one, and waited for the return of Ra from the underworld. He ate them all,
juices staining his fingers and lips. They were tart, and sharply sweet.
Dwyrin reached the edge of the school grounds with his breath coming in long ragged gasps. His sandals, tied
around his neck by their thongs, bounced against his back. He vaulted the low fence bordering the vegetable plots
without breaking stride and rounded the corner into the sta-bleyard. Distantly, over the whitewashed rooftops of the
school, he could hear the morning chanting of the monks. Ra was only just over the horizon, but he had lingered too
long at the old temple, skipping broken pieces of shale from the platform into the dark green-brown waters. The stable
boys looked up in amusement as he ran across the hard-packed mud of the yard to the rear garden gate.