"Henry Lion Oldie. Fragments of novels in english translation" - читать интересную книгу автора

Some of them were somewhat curved but with both their sides
sharpened, and their hilts were adorned with beautiful ornaments. They
possessed Carriers who were in personal service of the Carrier Chan. All
others were just short and wide daggers with plebeian manners. Their duty
was to control a variety of petty but important things. For example, they
used to shut the windows to keep the air in the rooms dry and warm (or,
more exactly, they controlled the corresponding movements of their
Carriers), or to put at the table the jugs full of thick red fluid. They
call it "wine". Similar fluid folws in the veins of the Carriers and
then it is called "blood". When the blood was spilled it meant that a
Carrier was spoiled. It was an unforgivable blunder for a Brilliant. But
the spilling of wine was necessary from time to time, although it could
cause the Carriers to lose self-control and to become drunken. A
Brilliant would never take a drunken Carrier to a tournament or even an
ordinary Debate. However it wasn't forbidden. It was good that it wasn't
forbidden. I'll return later to the question of drinking and I'll explain
why do I, the Unicorn of Maylane, prefer the House of Unkors from Whay to
all other Houses of Carriers.
But this is altogether another story.

[.....................................................................]


4.

The humming noise of the spectators became distant, the figures of
people standing by became dim -- and we were left alone, face to face.
No-Datchi and I.
The final Debates of the tournaments aren't the place for lazy
meditations or self-analysis. There's no time for it. In these short
moments you feel especially sharply your own existance and you're ready
to exclaim proudly before the whole world: "Here I am!" Indeed the
ancients were quite right saying that in such moments one should obviate
duality and let only the sword stand against the sky.
Against the sky where there's only one more solitary shining beam:
No-Datchi, and it cuts all threads of unnecessary reflections in my mind.
Oh, my rival wasn't now the polite and self-confident Brilliant that
Gwenil has recently presented to me. Now it was attentive and cautious,
its Carrier, bare-footed, held the hilt tightly with both hands over his
head as if No-Datchi was going to pierce a cloud. In this position it
stood still, the two-hand sword that I liked more and more; it stood
still as a spire over a motionless tower of its Carrier.
In Kabir such introductions to the Debate were rare, but I had grown
up not in Kabir! And I knew perfectly well that the position of No-Datchi
meant a challenge that one might meet or not.
I met it.
Keeping a distance that made it impossible to strike without
stepping ahead, I slid out of my scabbard and slowly shifted the right
hand of Carrier Chan down, to the back and then up pointing with my edge
the face of the Carrier of No-Datchi. Then I strained myself -- and Chan