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

"You yourself have made a deal with my father to bring Great Caste status to the Khagggun. It is my belief that in the coming years the Khagggun will play a larger role in V'ornn governance. That is what I want."
"No, I think what you want is what you want."
Kurgan smiled a secret smile. "As do we all, Line-General. However, what I just said is not a lie."
At last, Kinnnus Morcha sat back. He looked into his goblet and downed its contents in one swallow. His head came up, and he pointed a murderous stare at Kurgan. The boy drained his portion of numaaadis in one swallow and with a fierce will held his stomachs still when they threatened to rebel.
"You swear you have seen Annon Ashera?"
"Yes."
"On which floor is he hiding?"
"He has already escaped the palace grounds."
The Line-General slammed his fist onto the tabletop. "This is bad news, indeed."
"Only if you do not know where he is headed."
Kinnnus Morcha cocked his head. "And you do, I gather."
"I can make an educated guess. And that, Line-General, is far more than anyone else can do."
Kinnnus Morcha's eyes were slits as a plan took shape in his mind. "I could send Rekkk Hacilar on this mission," he mused. "It would be a test, yes. If he has been allied, as I have heard, with Eleusis Ashera, he will show his traitorous colors in going after the son. And, after all, I have Olnnn Rydddlin to ensure nothing goes wrong." All at once, he sat forward on the chair so that their knees were almost touching. He extended his arm, and Kurgan took it. Kurgan felt a thrill shoot through him.
The Line-General held Kurgan's arm in a painful grip. "Kurgan Stogggul, if you are correct, if we find Annon Ashera, then you have my word. Everything you desire shall be yours."
Eleana
Came the deluge. Annon, who had been keeping an eye on the thick strata of cloud that had obscured the moon, felt the sudden sharp bite of the west wind, saw the brushy tops of the blesson firs whip this way and that, then bow before the downpour. The bleak sky opened up, and rain cascaded down with uncommon fury.
Within seconds they were soaked. Fifteen kilometers north of Axis Tyr, bent low over the sweat-slick backs of their galloping cthauros, they felt the rain as if it were a weight upon them. The world closed in until they could see no farther than several meters in any given direction.
By this time, they had joined with the river, which at this point ran almost due north into the heart of the Djenn Marre. But they could no more see the mountain range ahead of them than they could the silhouette of Axis Tyr behind them. They had come through the low plains, which, to the west below the point where the Chuun River turned, became marshland, dangerous and difficult to traverse not only for its uncertain footing but also for the creatures inhabiting it. Though they had intended to put as much distance between them and the city, wherever possible they had tried to keep clear of the small clots of the outlying villages that had sprung up like satellites to Axis Tyr's sun. The fewer people who saw them, the better. Even if it was mainly Kundalan who lived here, you never knew who might be in the pay of the V'ornn, for it was a well-known fact among the underground that the V'ornn were experts in co-opting Kundalan, preying upon their dissatisfaction, their petty rivalries, jealousies, and their level of poverty. It was said that the V'ornn paid well for their prying eyes and ears.
The banks along the Chuun now began to rise as they made their way out of the lowlands upon which Axis Tyr had been built. On either side of the river, what had once been oat grass and ammonwood fields had been supplanted by vast orchards of genetically engineered laaaddis trees, from whose fruit the potent V'ornn drink numaaadis was made. Hordes of Kundalan farmers had had their lands usurped by the mammoth V'ornn earthmovers, their crops plowed under to make room for the Gyrgon-created mutations. These same farmers were then indoctrinated in the care of the laaaddis orchards, reduced to serfs under the yoke of the invaders. Once, fifty years ago, the underground had set fire to some of these orchards. The V'ornn response had been swift and murderous. Kundalan children had been killed in front of their parents, then husbands killed before the horrified eyes of their wives. Only the women were left with the backbreaking burden of replanting the vat-grown young laaaddis, restoring the orchards to their former growth levels. To this day, no Kundalan could pass by these lands without an anguished heart.
For an hour or more, they plodded past these neatly turned rows of alien trees. The serrated leaves rustled like armor in the night wind, the corkscrewlike limbs growing heavy with the blackish fruit whose musty odor was so offensive to the Kundalan.
At long last, they reached the northern edge of the orchards. All at once, scruffy stands of evergreens—feathery blesson firs, grey-blue Marre pines, along with scrub-wood and curly-bark river lingots—overtook the almost obsessively geometrical patterns of the laaaddis, and gradually the small villages were reduced to a scattering of farmhouses. The well-trammeled earthen path they followed wound in and out of these forests, taking them first away from the churning Chuun, then back again. In the pounding rain, no creature stirred or hunted. In any event, the drumming sound of the rain mingling with their cthauros' hoofbeats drowned out everything but the rapid firing of their hearts.
Annon's mind was still abuzz with the horror of recent events. He wished that he had been able to see his father one last time, but perhaps it was better that he hadn't. From what he had managed to pry out of Giyan, his family's deaths had been horrific. Still, his mind's eye opened like an iris, his imagination providing the images his eyes had not seen. He wept to think of his father so ignominiously beheaded—and by the commandant of the Haaar-kyut, the very Khagggun sworn to protect him with his life! His fists tightened in the cthauros' thick mane, his teeth ground together. If it was the last thing he did, he swore to himself, he would avenge his father's death and the deaths of all the Ashera. Rage boiled up in him, almost unseating him in its intensity. He threw his head back and wailed into the howling of the storm. His mouth filled with rainwater and he spat it out, imagining that it struck Kinnnus Morcha's and Wennn Stogggul's decapitated heads. He would live to see that sight, he vowed. If it took the rest of his life, he would make it happen.
He missed Kurgan, missed his hard practicality, the razor-sharp clarity of his thoughts. Kurgan might be impulsive, but he was a genius at long-range planning. Annon could use those abilities now. Kurgan despised his father, but Annon had little idea of his loyalty to his family. Annon resolved to contact his best friend when the time was right. But not now. In the meantime, though, what was he to do? Even if they successfully fled to the mountains, then what? To whom could he turn? Who would help him?
More questions continued to plague him. He had no idea how they had gotten past the Khagggun manning the North Gate to the city. Astonishingly, they had had no trouble at all. It was as if all the guards had seen was a V'ornn Tuskugggun with her son. They had pulled up in front of the guard post and the markings on his tender parts had begun to itch as the Khagggun had emerged to confront them. Then something he still could not explain had happened. Giyan began to speak but in a language he had never heard before. Instantly, his eyelids had become heavy and he had observed the rapt faces of the Khagggun through the slitted lids of someone so exhausted he was asleep on his feet. Nevertheless, he was certain that the Khagggun had listened to Giyan's alien words as if they understood her perfectly. Then they had nodded, opened the gates, and waved them through. There had been no time to ask her what had happened, no time since then, either, since they had mercilessly spurred their mounts on without surcease from that moment on.
Now the land began to rise in earnest. It became rockier and rougher. Quite soon, the lowland forests gave way to stands of ammonwood, heartwood, and stone-oak—hardwoods that thrived in a climate farther away from the sea, in land where the water table was higher. Great swaths had been cut in these beautiful forests, as the V'ornn's ravenous thirst for raw materials increased the logging industry out of all pro­portion. Annon knew that there were many V'ornn-mandated strip mines in the foothills of the Djenn Marre, extracting from Kundala every carbon-based and silicon-based ore they could find, plus some substances pulled from deep within the magma of the planet unknown even to the Kundalan. It was hinted that the Gyrgon studied them in their secret laboratories.
Annon felt more comfortable in these hardwood forests not only because it meant that they were farther from Axis Tyr and therefore farther from detection, but also because the huge, majestic trees served as the best natural screening for their headlong flight.
Sorcery. Of course Giyan had used her Kundalan sorcery to somehow convince the Khagggun guards that she was Annon's mother. In her Tuskugggun robes and sifeyn she had only to conjure a V'ornn face for them to become convinced. But if that was what happened, why hadn't he been affected? True, he had felt a deep lassitude come over him, but for him her appearance had never altered. He saw her face during the exchange and it was the one he had always known. He shook his head. Even when one mystery was solved, it spawned another, more vexing than the first.
Annon judged it to be three sidereal hours before dawn when Giyan slowed their pace to a trot, then a walk, and finally halted beneath the thick canopy of a heartwood. By this time, the river was some few kilometers to the east, as the path there had widened to a road along which there was sure to be traffic, even at this late hour. The V'ornn had dictated that their rape of the planet continue night and day without letup. Logging wagons used that road; it would be far too risky to be spotted as lone travelers heading north. The forest trail Giyan had found slowed them, but afforded far more security.
The sweet smell of damp decay mingled with the storm's ozone-edged frenzy as they dismounted.
"What is it?" he asked, coming around as she knelt at the side of her cthauros.
Giyan touched the beast so that he raised one of the hind legs. She inspected the sole of the hoof. "He picked up a stone," she said, using the head of Kurgan's bolt to pry it out. "He is so valiant that he didn't let me know until it pained him overmuch. Only then did I feel the change in his gait." She dug in her bag, massaged something into the cthauros' hoof. "It is quite sore and will take some hours to heal." She looked up at him as she dropped the hoof. "If I continue to run him, he will surely pull up lame and be of no further use to us."
Annon nodded. "I could use some rest." He put his hands on his own cthauros. He thought of what Giyan said about her mount, that he was valiant. Curious. He had seen these beasts many times, had even on occasion been near them. And yet he had never thought of them as being valiant creatures. Until now. Giyan was right. He stroked the heaving, steaming flanks, wiping down the sweat as he had seen the Kundalan drovers do. The cthauros turned its head, nuzzled the crook of his arm.
"My father used to ride cthauros, remember?" He turned to her, saw that she was weeping.
"Oh, Mьna, they slaughtered him as if he were a beast, as if his life meant nothing, as if he were not beloved."
He moved nearer but did not touch her. The world outside the heart-wood canopy was grey, shapeless, steaming with rain. He stood over her while she buried her face in her hands, while her shoulders shook and she sobbed.
What am I to do? he wondered. He felt the loss of his family but, curiously, it was at a remove. It was as if he and the memory of them were separated by a sheet of V'ornn crystal. Truth to tell, it was Giyan with whom he had grown up—Giyan, Kurgan, and all the others from hingatta lьina do mori. It was not that he hadn't loved his father—of course he had! It was more thafhe had had precious little experience with that love. He could count on the fingers of his hands the times he had seen his father in the last six months. And as far as his sisters were concerned, he had seen them only on occasions of state when custom demanded all the children be present at the palace. Meanwhile, his life had gone on; so had Eleusis', but they had been in separate orbits, coming in contact infrequently and for short periods of time. In consequence, Annon found that though there was a hole inside him, he did not know who it was that he was missing.
At last, he bent and took Giyan by the arm.
"Let's move out of the rain."
She rose, allowed him to guide her deep into the dense tangle of the heartwood branches. Owing to its thick root system, the ground beneath the massive tree was raised, making it drier than the ground around it.
"There," he said, sitting down beside her. "There."
And she looked at him, wiped her eyes, and said: "I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"For not being strong enough."
"I don't understand."
"To protect your father." She looked at him with sorrowful eyes. "You were right to question my motives for publicly challenging Kurgan." She gave him a wan smile. "Sometimes, I used to think that you were too smart for your own good, but now I'm glad of it." The smile, what there was of it, faded. "The contest was a public warning to those who wished your father ill, to show that my sorcery would protect him." She shook her head, dark, shadowed inside the sifeyn. "I failed. I swear T will not let that happen with you."
He stared out at the rain. He heard it drumming against the ground, watched it form rivulets and run off to low spots it began to fill. It pattered down upon the leaves of the heartwood, dripping here and there where there were gaps in the structure. It began to grow colder, and he shivered a little, despite the Khagggun cloak Giyan had procured for him from one of the stupefied guards at North Gate.
"You must be hungry," she said, and rose to her feet. "I will fetch us something."
"There was no time to bring anything with us. Where will you find—"
"I can always find food," she said.
She turned to go, but he reached up, held her wrist so that she turned back, stared down at him.