"Fritz Leiber - Gather, Darkness!" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leiber Fritz)

Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
 Chapter 1
BROTHER JARLES, priest of the First and Outermost Circle, novice in the Hierarchy,
swallowed hard against his churning anger; bent every effort to make his face a mask—not only to
the commoners, for that was something every member of the Hierarchy was taught to do, but to his
brother priests as well.
Any priest who hated the Hierarchy as he did during these frightening spasms of rage must be
mad.
But priests could not go mad—at least, not without the Hierarchy knowing of it, as it knew of
everything else.
A misfit then? But a priest was fitted to his job with infinite precision and foresight, the very
outlines of his personality measured as if with an atomic probe. A priest could not hate his work.
No, he must be mad. And the Hierarchy must be concealing the fact from him for its own
inscrutable purposes.
Or else—everything to the contrary—he was right.
At the touch of that sickening thought, the Great Square of Megatheopolis seemed to haze and
bloat before his eyes. The commoners became drab blurs; the priests here and there, scarlet ones,
topped with the healthy pink of well-fed faces.
Fighting for composure and vision itself, he forced himself to focus on the yearstone of a
recently built dwelling in the commoners’ section. The inscription read, “139 G. G.”
He sought to maintain calm by a calculation. The year 139 of the Great God would be the year
206 of the Golden Age, except that Golden Age dates were not recognized. It would also be the
year 360 of the Atomic Age. And finally the year 2305 of the Dawn Civilization and—what was
the god called?—Christ.
“Hamser Chohn, Commoner of the Fifth Ward! Stand forward, my son.”
Brother Jarles winced. In moods like this, that reedy voice grated unendurably on him. Why had
he been paired with Brother Chulian! Why, for that matter, must priests never work alone, but
always by twos!
But he knew the reason. It was so they might spy on each other, make detailed reports on each
other. So that the Hierarchy would know of everything.
Fighting every instant to maintain the mask, he turned back. His eyes automatically dodged the
fourth face in the queue of commoners lined up before himself and Brother Chulian.
That fat, blue-eyed, soft-cheeked, shaven priest was consulting the work lists, which were
printed in primitive style for the benefit of the commoners, who did not know —and were not
supposed to know—anything of reading tapes. Really, there was no reason to hate Brother Chulian
especially. Just a rank-and-file priest of the Second Circle. Just a bloated baby.
But you could hate a bloated baby when he exercised over adult commoners the powers of
schoolmaster, minister, and parent.
Only one good thing—this particular job, so distasteful to Jarles, tickled Brother Chulian’s sense
of self-importance so much that he was willing to do it all by himself.
The little fat priest looked up from the work lists at the stalwart young commoner nervously
twisting a shapeless hat in big, horny hands, pausing every second to wipe one of them against a
home-woven smock.
 “My son,” he piped benignly, “you are to work for the next three months in the mines. That will
reduce your contribution to the Hierarchy to a mere half of your private earnings. You will report
here to the appropriate deacon at dawn tomorrow. Hamser Dom!”
The young commoner gulped, nodded twice, and quickly stepped aside.