"Lawrence Watt-Evans - War Surplus 01 - The Cyborg And The Sorcerers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

representative of the city than were the walls.

The streets were paved, and as if that were not remarkable enough, they were paved with stone and
equipped with gutters and sidewalks, all spotlessly clean and apparently dead level. This was not at all
usual on the less-civilized worlds Slant had seen. No garbage was visible anywhere, and neither his eye
nor his nose could detect sewage. Could it be that this primitive culture had underground sewers? If not,
at least they had something that seemed to serve about as well. It was an accepted fact on some planets
he had visited that cities stank, and he had expected the same here. Teyzha was a pleasant surprise.

He sniffed the air; there was not the slightest trace of foulness, but only fresh air, the sweat of his
companion and himself, the odor of their horse, and a faint whiff of incense and cooking odors from
buildings nearby.

The buildings were another surprise; he had expected sagging half-timbered structures scattered more or
less randomly about the streets, interspersed, perhaps, with ones of brick or wood or stone. Instead, the
street before him was lined with tidy stone structures, of cut and polished blocks and trimmed with ornate
carvings. The structural stone was granite, or something very similar, but the carvings, sills, cornices, and
so forth were of varying materials—mostly colored marbles, but he spotted malachite adorning the
windows of one house, and lapis lazuli inlays on another.

Or at least there were ornaments of stones that resembled these; he knew well enough that minerals
varied from world to world, and one could never be sure just what one was seeing.

Many buildings sported such luxuries as glass windows and brass hinges—though those were scarcely
universal, of course. He was quite impressed.

The truly remarkable thing about the city, though—or at least about the avenue he and Silner were riding
along— was that it appeared to be the work of a single architect, built all as a unit. Every building was in
harmony with its neighbors, and all were graceful and elegant, with a pleasing repetition of detail. Not that
all the buildings were the same; on the contrary, they varied greatly. The variations, however, were never
of style, but of detail, size, purpose, and arrangement
If it had been the work of a single architect, Slant decided, he or she had been a singularly gifted one. He
had rarely seen such a beautiful city street, even on Old Earth.

Silner and the occasional pedestrian they encountered along the avenue showed no signs of appreciating
the beauty of the city; doubtless they were used to it.

Perhaps a kilometer from the gate they emerged from the broad avenue into an even broader plaza, a
square paved with three colors of stone in spiral patterns, with a fountain bubbling at its center. Silner
halted his horse and dismounted; Slant followed his example and swung to the ground. He discovered
that he was stiff from his long ride, and that a great many parts of his body were slightly painful. He
performed a curious stretching exercise he had been taught back on Mars, designed to loosen the
muscles in preparation for hand-to-hand combat, and felt the tension and discomfort fade.

He noticed Silner staring at him and decided not to repeat the motion; the warrior's expression betrayed
hostile astonishment, as if Slant's stretching offended him in an entirely new and original way.

When he was sure he had the stranger's attention, Silner turned and marched across the plaza to an
especially large and elegant building that occupied most of one side, and up the steps that led to its
entrance. Slant followed obediently, slinging the submachine gun on his shoulder as he did.