"Charles Stross - Duat" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

"Come now. My judgements are nothing if not fair."

"I wouldn't presume upon your mercy," she muttered. "What is in the balance?"

"Your soul." Anubis raised one hand: the balance swung wildly, the pan containing the
feather rising. "Your ba. If it outweighs the feather of the law --"

Oshi stared at the offal in the lower pan with queasy fascination.

" -- you will be found guilty. But if you are innocent --"

"No," said Oshi, her voice husky with emotion. "No!" I didn't come all this way to have
my heart ripped out by a mad Superbright!

"I urge you to reconsider," hissed the dog-head. "If you are innocent you will join me
here, in the redoubt. I can show you things --" The floor below her turned to glass. She
was looking down on herself, as she had been -- hairless and emaciated, skin soiled from a
ride through the midnight forest, lying on a rough stone floor somewhere. The window
misted back into stone before she could see any more of her circumstances. "I can expose
the truth that lies within you. I am the only God of these western lands. If you do not
choose to follow me, all other ways are sterile."

Oshi backed away from the throne. Contorted shapes tugged at her peripheral vision;
mummified bodies racked and hung between the pillars to either side, their chests hanging
open and empty where once their hearts had been. Doors bulked in the shadows behind
them. "Let me go," she mumbled. Somewhere deep inside, she winced at the tremor in her
voice. "This is nothing to do with me."

"Oh, but it is," snarled Anubis, lurching to his feet. "Respect!" he barked, eyes suddenly
wide and furious: "Anubis demands Respect!" There was a rattling and hissing from
behind the curtained entrance. "Respect for his Dignity and Moral Primacy! The agencies
of false gods hold no sway here! They sent Anubis here to rot so they can go and rot too,
for all the good that this will do them! Respect, I say!"

Oshi stared. Cold sweat trickled across her forehead, matting her eyebrows together. "I
see. Of course. Is that your final word?"

file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Stross,%20Charles%20-%20Duat%20(ss).html (32 of 103)4-7-2007 2:25:58
2: In the Duat



Anubis became abruptly calm, as if posessed by a different personality. "Yes, Anubis
believes it is," he said, scratching behind one long ear with a humanoid hand. "Respect!
Damn all false gods!"

"But there's a war situation; Ultrabrights are attacking --"

"There is no war!" He clapped his hands. "Leave me now. Must think. Guards!" The