"Van Lustbader, Eric - Pearl 01 The Ring of Five Dragons(eng)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Van Lustbader Eric)

"You will not go back," Giyan said firmly. "Stogggul's pack of Kha-gggun has joined with those Haaar-kyut who follow Morcha. They control the palace now. Everyone loyal to your father lies in a pool of blood—except you and me."
"But I have a duty—"
"Listen to me, Annon, at this very moment they are scouring the palace for us. The Prime Factor is desperate to destroy you because you are the only person standing in his way."
"My sisters?"
"Dead. As well as their children. All dead." Her eyes leveled on him, and he could feel that intensity she brought to his lessons. "Your duty now is to stay alive."
"All of them dead?" He turned this way and that. Tears stood quivering in the corners of his eyes, and he was shamed. He turned to her. "Remember the seer?" He saw her look. "The old V'ornn on the street corner. He said I that I should beware. That I was marked by the Ancient One."
"Nonsense. I told you."
"Maybe he saw all this." His eyes were open wide in shock and fear. "What am I to do? This is all happening too fast."
"Shock tactics. A key part of Stogggul's plan," Giyan whispered.
"What about the Gyrgon?" Annon said. "They must be my allies. By law I replace my father as regent when he dies."
Giyan put her hand over his okummmon. "Do not be so certain. Have you been Summoned? Have the Gyrgon contacted you as they should have?" His silence goaded her on. "The only way to defeat Stogggul is to escape the palace and the city. To gain time to consider your options, to discover who may still be loyal to the Ashera, to discover from which quarters help may come. You cannot do this yourself. Please, Annon, you must believe me."
Believe a Kundalan, he thought. Everyone is mad, including me.
"All right," he said at last. "Lead the way."
Sudden light flared and Annon shaded his eyes, squinting, his hearts racing. Had they been discovered so soon? But no, he saw as his eyes adjusted, Giyan had lighted the remnant of an old pitch torch with a firestick. The thing coughed and sputtered and threatened to extinguish itself, but Giyan cupped her hands, shielding it from a draft and it regained life. She stood before him, dressed oddly for her in Tusku-gggun robes complete with the traditional sifeyn, the cowl that covered her head.
He looked around, saw how V'ornn technology had carved out a series of saclike cells in this section of the bedrock. He peered inside, already knowing what he would find.
"How long did Kundalan prisoners last in there?" Giyan stared at the strange and eerie scalpels, clamps, wires, spadelike blades and pincers that protruded from the curved walls and ceiling like pustules on someone dying of duur fever. "Typically."
Annon poked his head into the second cell. It smelled very bad. "It depended on how willing the prisoner was to speak."
"What you really mean is that it depended on the form of torture the interrogators used."
Annon turned to her, but ignored her accusation. "Why are we lingering here?" He stamped first one foot, then another. "You said yourself—"
Giyan shoved her left palm toward him. "We will not get far no matter where we go or how cleverly we hide, when I have this."
"The okuuut!"
She nodded. "My identity implant. With this, they can track me anywhere we go." Her eyes were large, catching the bright yellow spark of the pitch torch. "We must be rid of it."
"But how?"
She produced Kurgan's bolt, held it out to him haft first.
"No," he said, his stomachs lurching. "You cannot mean—!"
"Annon, it must be done." When she saw him backing away, she said: "Listen to me, it is your duty—your first duty as the new regent. You must protect yourself. At all costs."
"But it will hurt so much!"
She smiled. "Not so much as you fear. I will guide you every step of the…"
Her words trailed off. Annon saw her staring at him. "What is it?"
"Annon, in Mьna's name!" She pointed at his bare torso.
He looked down at his chest, his ribs—his ribs! There were no wounds, just a small discoloration. He pressed his fingers to his rib cage. No pain, so soreness, not even the hint of an ache. And the peculiar throbbing of the gyreagle talon was gone.
He looked back at her in wonder and started to tell her what had happened, but stopped as she thrust the haft of the bolt into his hand.
"There's no time," she whispered. "Tell me as you work. It will serve to distract me."
The best place for her to sit was inside one of the cells. He chose the least foul-smelling one and, taking the lighted torch, squatted beside her. But when he examined the four-tined point of the bolt he shook his head.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
"This will never work."
"But you've got to—"
He held up a hand as he rose. He went over to the wall full of interrogation implements, chose the sickle-bladed scalpel, and returned with it. He thrust the blade into the flame, cleansing it. Giyan watched the thing as if it were a poison-adder.
He held the glowing edge of the curved scalpel over the okuuut, waiting only for it to cool sufficiently.
"This is ironic, don't you think?" She looked straight into his eyes, would not look at the V'ornn-made horrors of their surroundings.
"I don't know where to begin," Annon said.
"Begin at the moment you left my chambers."
He knew that she had deliberately misunderstood him, and he was curiously grateful for that. He spoke at the same moment the scalpel penetrated her skin. She sucked in her breath, the blood commenced to flow.
"Deeper," she said, gritting her teeth. "You must get underneath it."
She put her back against the wall, spread her legs and braced herself, but as Annon held her left hand in his, as he continued to carve into her while he told her everything that had occurred since he had left her, he felt a kind of lassitude flow through her like a current of syrup, slowing her pulse, her heartbeat, even, if he could believe his senses, the very flow of her blood.
When he came to the part about the feeling that had come over him on the spiral stairwell, her glassy-eyed stare fixed on him, and she said in a strangely deep voice: "How are you doing?"
"Okay, I think."
"Are you underneath the okuuut?"
"Yes." Her blood dripped slowly between her spread fingers, ran down the side of his hand, dripped off his wrist.
"You will feel three threads, like wires," she said after a moment. "You must find the thinnest one and sever it. You must sever it first." Her voice seemed weird, slurred, but he dared not look up, break his concentration. He felt divided. He wanted to work as fast as he could to spare her more pain but he was afraid he would make a mistake, cut a nerve or artery, damage her permanently. For an instant, he was as aware as she was of every clever instrument of torture that surrounded them. Then, he set his fear aside and concentrated on recounting his story.