"Arthur C. Clarke. The fountains of paradise" - читать интересную книгу автора

"I will show you my real wealth," he told his son. "Give me a chariot,
and I will take you to it."
But on his last journey, unlike little Hanuman, Paravana rode in a
decrepit ox-cart. The Chronicles record that it had a damaged wheel which
squeaked all the way - the sort of detail that must be true, because no
historian would have bothered to invent it.
To Kalidasa's surprise, his father ordered the cart to carry him to the
great artificial lake that irrigated the central kingdom, the completion of
which had occupied most of his reign. He walked along the edge of the huge
bund and gazed at his own statue, twice life-size, that looked out across
the waters.
"Farewell, old friend," he said, addressing the towering stone figure
which symbolised his lost power and glory, and which held forever in its
hands the stone map of this inland sea. "Protect my heritage."
Then, closely watched by Kalidasa and his guards, he descended the
spillway steps, not pausing even at the edge of the lake. When he was waist
deep he scooped up the water and threw it over his head, then turned towards
Kalidasa with pride and triumph.
"Here, my son," he cried, waving towards the leagues of pure,
life-giving water, "here - here is all my wealth!"
"Kill him!" screamed Kalidasa, mad with rage and disappointment.
And the soldiers obeyed.

So Kalidasa became the master of Taprobane, but at a price that few men
would be willing to pay. For, as the Chronicles recorded, always he lived
"in fear of the next world, and of his brother". Sooner or later, Malgara
would return to seek his rightful throne.
For a few years, like the long line of kings before him, Kalidasa held
court in Ranapura. Then, for reasons about which history is silent, he
abandoned the royal capital for the isolated rock monolith of Yakkagala,
forty kilometres away in the jungle. There were some who argued that he
sought an impregnable fortress, safe from the vengeance of his brother. Yet
in the end he spurned its protection - and, if it was merely a citadel, why
was Yakkagala surrounded by immense pleasure gardens whose construction must
have demanded as much labour as the walls and moat themselves? Above all,
why the frescoes?

As the narrator posed this question, the entire western face of the
rock materialised out of the darkness - not as it was now, but as it must
have been two thousand years ago. A band starting a hundred metres from the
ground, and running the full width of the rock, had been smoothed and
covered with plaster, upon which were portrayed scores of beautiful women -
life-size, from the waist upwards. Some were in profile, others full-face,
and all followed the same basic pattern.
Ochre-skinned, voluptuously bosomed, they were clad either in jewels
alone, or in the most transparent of upper garments. Some wore towering and
elaborate head-dresses - others, apparently, crowns. Many carried bowls of
flowers, or held single blossoms nipped delicately between thumb and
forefinger. Though about half were darker-skinned than their companions, and
appeared to be hand-maidens, they were no less elaborately coifed and