"Charles Stross - Examination Night" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

elegant of habits in polite society." She twisted her scabbard round across her thighs and
swung her legs back and forth. "What steps you have taken to identify the miscreant, and
what success have they met with to this date?"
"I've taken every step, my lady – and to no avail. The witnesses to the death of
Kerein – "here Vargas' eyes swept across to Sebastian, and focussed unblinkingly upon him
for a while – "were not able to spin a right consistent tale. Frankenburg died unwatched and
alone. And there's the matter of the Royal charter, which has absorbed so much of our
energies of late –"
"The charter. You are aware that the interventions of my agency take precedence?
Even over Royal fiat?" Her expression was one of mild curiosity, as if she failed to
comprehend the dangers of Vargas notorious ill-temper.
Sebastian steeled himself for an explosion, but it failed to materialise; instead,
Vargas bowed his head in meek acknowledgement. "Were it not for your agency, there would
be no empire to trouble us with it's decrees," he said gravely. "We deeply appreciate the vital
nature of your mission to seek out and destroy the taint of Darkness wherever it lingers.
Nevertheless, you must understand that with two members of the hidden faculty elsewhere,
pursuing the whims of a princess in search of a dragon –" he snorted. "You must excuse me,
though, for there is one matter in which I can and must make further enquiries. Now!" He
turned to glare furiously at Sebastian. "You dissolute rascal! What have you got to say for
yourself? Five years of study and then you refuse your obligation and spit on your tutor's
honour! Explain yourself, pray, to this humble servant. What the fuck do you think you're
doing?"
Sebastian had been steeling himself for this moment ever since Anya forced him to
attain sobriety; even so, he was unable to manage even the appearance of contrition. "I'm
staying alive, old man. The curse that has descended upon this academy won't be cast out by
the immolation of one more drudge who, born the second son to a lord, is forced to earn his
bread as a grinder of inks and a cleaner of floors! You've treated me like shit these past four
years, and I'm not about to stake my life on your good nature. Send me down, see if I care!
My devotion to my art is such that no gown can make me more than I already am; why should
I suffer for your profit? That's all there is to it! As you have sown, so you are about to harvest
in bloody spades. It looks to me very much as if there's a Dark Pretender aspiring to
immanence, and I'm not about to involve myself in that!"
A deathly silence descended within the room. Anya looked at Sebastian and shook
her head: something approaching admiration could be seen in her expression, but there was
also a judgement there – and it was not favourable. Vargas, for his part, also stared at
Sebastian, but there was something in his gaze that wholly unnerved the apprentice.
"I think it would profit you mightily to think longer on that issue, and decide whether
you mean it before I decide whether to take it seriously," Vargas finally said. "I smell
insubordination in your anger: do you truly think I have mistreated you like that? After all this
time?"
Sebastian shrugged his shoulders. It's all over now, that's for sure. "I never asked to
be adopted as your apprentice," he snapped, careless of his discretion. "You have a certain
reputation among the students, my lord. After you whipped my predecessor Zevon around the
quad with lashes of frozen storm, after you had the scholars Quayle and Azmar expelled from
the conclave for moral corruption, and after you announced that true enlightenment could
only come through diligent study and self-mortification, and in view of your marked prejudice
towards those less skilled than yourself ..." he shrugged again. "Once, I wanted to study
here," he concluded.
"Then you shall study here no more," Vargas said casually. He reached into the bowl
on his desk and pulled out a walnut and the brass calipers he had been using when