"Holly Lisle - Secret Texts 2 - Vengeance Of Dragons" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lisle Holly)

against us in our absence.

We’ve spent a thousand years in the planning of ourreturn, Mellayne said quietly. If we don’t
know what wehope to do now, will we ever?

At the last moment things change, Dafril said. Andthis has become the last moment. We could
only speculate before nowabout the kind of world we’d find when we returned — nowwe know
what we face. We could only guess what sort of people wouldinhabit it. And we never expected
betrayal by one of our own —yet we must assume, since Luercas has disappeared, he has done
soin order to oppose us.

I thought the Mirror would only wake us when they’drebuilt a real civilization, Shamenar said. I
cannot believethe primitive conditions we face. The filth of even their greatestcity stuns the mind.
Raw sewage in the gutters; animal waste in thestreets; slaughtered animals hanging in open-air
markets; rooms litonly by fire. And the sicknesses of the people . . .worms and boils and rickets
and yaws, influenza and diabetes andrat plague and things I haven’t even heard names forbefore.
They’re ignorant, Tahirin added. Superstitious,cruel, violent, dishonest — and as brutal as their
short,uncomprehending lives, most of them. How can we work with thesepeople?

Dafril drew energy from the Veil and grew more luminous, to givehis people courage. This is the
world we come into. This is thelot we’ve drawn. They’ve built what they could — nowwe make it
better. Only we can return civilization to our home. Wecan cure their diseases; we can improve
their city; we can teachthem and set them on a new path. The white cities will rise again,and we
will ride through their streets in skycarts and breatheperfumed air and feast on wondrous food.
The wind will once moreplay the White Chimes, and a hundred thousand fountains will singand
cool the breezes, and coldlamps will illuminate the darkestcorners. Remember. Remember what
we did before, and know that wecan do it again.

I wish I could be so sure, Werris said.

Dafril felt their fear. A thousand years of passive waiting laybehind them, and that time had
weight. In it, his people had grownaccustomed to the limitations of bodilessness and fearful
ofchange, challenge, and danger. Now they faced all three, and hesensed in many of his followers
a desire to continue as they were,to cling to the known. He felt the same fear and in some small
waytasted the same desire, but he also recalled the hunger he’dbrought with him from life.

Life was the only game worth playing.

More than a million people inhabit Calimekka, he remindedthem. And the city grows daily. You
can bring civilization to amillion souls far more easily than you can to a hundred, becauseyou
have more people to work with. We shall . . . taxthem. We’ll apply a fair tax equally to every soul
in thecity. With that little tax, we give them the good things theyhaven’t the talent or the
intelligence or the imagination orthe ambition to give themselves. We will have our civilized
city,and they will live healthy lives protected from violence in a worldthat no longer knows war,
famine, or pestilence. What could be morereasonable?

Well. Yes. Why would anyone object to our making their livesbetter? Except Solander, of course,
Sartrig said. And hisFalcons. And evidently Luercas.

Dafril felt the stab of truth there. Solander, who had fouledtheir work so completely a thousand