05 - A Pride of Princes (b)

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05 - A Pride of Princes (b), książki, po angielsku, r
 
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PrologueThe cavern was dense with smoke. The woman steppedthrough and dutifully it followed, purling in her wake. Itgathered along the hem of her skirts like puppies on abitch, suckling at her feet.She walked from shadow into glare, into the pureclean light of godfire as it leaped from a circular rent inthe stone floor. A hole, like a wound in the earth itself,bleeding flame.Sparks issued forth, fell, formed a glowing necklet onthe nap of her velvet gown. But she did not flinch as theydied; the fire�like the sparks�was cold,Beyond the flame, she saw her brother. Standing as hestood so often, for hours on end, and days, at the rim ofthe netherworld. Godfire bathed his face in its luridlavender glare, limning the magnificent planes of hisbones. A beautiful man, her brother; she might havebeen jealous, once, but she knew she claimed more power.He saw her. He smiled. In the light his eyes weremirrors.Briefly the flame died back; was sucked down, with-drawn, like a tongue into a mouth. But the afterglowremained, shrouding him in light. A transcendent lumi-nescence that made her want to squint.Beneath her feet, the floor was hard and sharp. Theentire cavern was formed of black, glassy basalt, facetedas a gemstone. There were no torches in deference to thegodfire', there was no need for manmade light when theSeker lent them his.2 Jennifer RobersonAll around her columns gleamed. Slow spirals mim-icked blown glass, delicately fluted; twisted strands, oddlyseductive, stretched from floor to ceiling. Light lost itselfin endless glassy whorls. The world ran wet with fire.She crossed, hearing the echoes of her steps and thechime of girdle, silver on black, nearly lost in the weightof velvet. As always, she smetled the breath of the god.But to her, it was not unpleasant. The promise of powerwas a heady scent that set her flesh to tingling.She paused on the brink of the orifice. "How long hasit been since you ate?"He smiled. Trust you to concern yourself with thingssuch as food.""How long, Strahan?" ^He shrugged; smoke shrugged with him. "A day, two, |&"three�what does it matter, Lillith? I will hardly waste fc.away in the service of the god." l|Briefly she glanced down. They stood but six feet apart;between them lay a world. The world of Asar-Suti.They had only to open the Gate�Not yet. There was time. ^Time for the fruition of their plans. H"Come up," she said. "You should eat." ^His hair, like hers, was black. And it flowed back from I"a brow as smooth and unlined as a girl's, though therewas nothing girlish about him. It cloaked his shouldersand reached beyond, bound back by a silver fillet wroughtwith Ihlini runes. In the glare of the godfire his graysuede leathers were dyed an eerie lilac, glowing purple inthe creases. The doublet hung open from throat andchest, and in the gap she saw the white edge of a linentunic. Soft gray boots stretched to his thighs. His widebelt was clasped with a two-headed silver serpent.Lillith sighed as he did not answer. She was his sister,not mother or father. But both parents were long dead,and so this fell to her. "Will you come up?""I am hungry," he admitted, "but for something morethan food. And I am thirsty, also, but the wine I want isblood. The blood of NialFs sons."His eyes were alight with something more than re-A PRIDE OF Piimcss 3fleeted glare. One brown, one blue; even she had diffi-culty looking past the mismatched pairing to the emotionsin their depths. But she looked, and she saw, and knewhis patience was nearly ended."A little longer," she said. "Surely you can wait.""No. I have waited- I am done with waiting." Hesmiled his beautiful, beguiling smile. "Lillith�I amhungry.""Time," she said. "We have all the years of our lives.""They do not. They are human, even if Cheysuli. Theydie. They live seventy, eighty years, and they die. Whilewe are still but children.""You are still a child." Lillith laughed, and the girdlechimed. "The last time I counted mine, my years werenearly two hundred."He grunted, unimpressed; he was young in years, com-pared to her, but his power grew every day. "I have needof them, Lillith. The sons are no longer infants, nolonger boys. They are men. Warriors. If we wait muchlonger�""But we will." Lillith shrugged naked shoulders. "Wewill wait as long as we must, and longer. Until the time isright.""Twenty years, Lillith!" His shout reverberated in thehidden shadows of the cavern. "Twenty years since Niallthwarted me.""Twenty years is but half a day to us." But she saw hisfrustration and felt a measure of her own. "I know. Iknow, Strahan ... I weary of it, also. But we are close.The game begins�all of the pieces are in place. As yousay, now they are of an age to make a difference.""Of an age to serve me well." In the light, his mis-matched eyes were eerie. "I want them. I want themhere, within the walls of Valgaard, so I may make themmine. Mine to rule, as I will have them rule." He laughedsuddenly, and their eyes locked in perfect accordanceacross the Gate of Asar-Suti. "When they are mine,Niall's sons, I will set them on their thrones, all three ofthem ... I will take their lir and take their minds, allthree of them, making them faithful Ihlini minions�" He4 Jennifer Kobersonbroke off a moment, considering his words; continued inquiet, abiding contentment, "�and then / shall rulethrough their empty bodies in the name of Asar-Suti."Lillith smiled, nodded, sketched an idle rune in the airbetween them that pulsed with purple godfire. It spun,whirled, twisted; tied itself in knots, was gone. "Of course.It is to be expected; we have laid our plans." She paused.'Wow will you come up?""Up," he echoed. "Aye. In a moment- There is some-thing I must do."And in the eerie lurid light, Strahan the Ihlini knelt indeep obeisance to the god of the netherworld.OneThe sun hung low in the west, painting the city rose-red,ocher-gold, russet-brown. Sunlight, trapped and multi-plied by mullioned glass, made mirrors of countless win-dows. Mujhara was ablaze with gilded glory.The one-eyed man stood alone upon the curtain wallsurrounding the massive palace of Homana-Mujhar. Spill-ing in all directions from the battlements was the royalcity, home of kings and queens; home of the Mujhars ofHomana. Home to countless others of lesser birth aswell; he could not even begin to estimate Mujhara'spopulation. He knew only that the number had increasedone hundredfold, perhaps one thousandfold, over thepast two weeks. The festival was even larger than hisbrother had predicted."Everyone will come, lan had said, from everywhere,even the other realms. Scoff if you like, Nialf, but itis past time the Homanans paid homage to their Mujhar.More than past time they showed their gratitude for twentyyears of peaceful rule."Twenty years. It seemed longer than that. And then,at times, it seemed only days since he had assumed theLion Throne from his Cheysuli father, Donal, who hadgiven himself over to the death-ritual on the plague-boradeaths of his lir. With Taj and Lorn gone, there had beennothing left for Donal, save madness. And no Cheysuliwarrior willingly gave himself over to madness. Not whenthere was a choice. Not when there was the death-ritual,which was surely more merciful than madness.S Jennifer RohersonNiall sighed deeply, frowning down at the street farbelow the curtain wall, and the smooth earthwork ridgethat girded the lower portions of the thick wall. He couldhear the distant sounds of celebration: faint ringing tam-bors of the street-dancers; cries of stall-merchants; shoutsand screams of children in their finery, turned loose toplay in crowded streets and alleys.Dead so long, my jehan. He readily acknowledged thestill familiar pain. There was grief. Regret. Even bitter-ness, that a man so strong and healthy as his fathershould throw his life away.Homanan thinking, he told himself wryly, made awareyet again of the division in his attitudes; how pervasivethat division could be. Have you forgotten the oaths youmade when you accepted the responsibilities of the lir-bond before Clan Council?No. Of course he had not forgotten. But it was difficultto be two men at once: one, born of a Homanan mother,who was the daughter of a king; the other born of aCheysuli shapechanger, a warrior with a lir, and claimingall the magic the gods had given the race.Automatically he looked for Serri, but the wolf wasnot with him. His lips tightened in annoyance. Howcould he have forgotten Serri was in the royal apartments?Because, he told himself ironically, in a spasm of de-fensiveness, with all the toasting going on, it is fortunateyou can remember your own name, let alone Serri'swhereabouts.Still, it displeased him that he could forget for even amoment, A sign of age, he wondered?Niall abruptly laughed aloud. Perhaps. No doubt hischildren would agree he was aging, but he thought not. Atforty, there were decades ahead of him still.And then he recalled that his own father had not beenso much older than forty when the loss of his lir hadended his life. His mother as well was gone; Aislinn,Queen of Homana, had died ten years after Donal. Somesaid of grief that grew too strong.He stopped the laughter. Memories welled up. Most ofthem Niall had believed buried too deeply to troubleA PRIDE w PRWCES... [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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