The Mad God's Amulet
- Автор: Муркок Майкл
- Серия: The History of the Runestaff #2
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Фэнтези
Электронная книга - «The Mad God's Amulet». Краткое содержание книги:
"It is the future that troubles me, Oladahn. If D'Averc was right and Count Brass lies wounded, with von Villach dead and the Kamarg under powerful siege, then I fear we shall return to find nothing but the ashes and mud Baron Meliadus once promised he would make of the Kamarg."
"Let us wait until we get there," Oladahn said with attempted cheerfulness, "for it is likely that D'Averc only sought to make you gloomy. Almost certainly your Kamarg still stands. From all you have told me of the great defenses and the mighty valor of the province, I do not doubt that they still hold against the Dark Empire. You will see…"
"But will I?" Hawkmoon's gaze dropped to the darkening ground. "Will I, Oladahn? D'Averc was almost certainly right when he spoke of Granbretan's other conquests. If Sicilia is theirs, then so must be parts of Italia and Espanyia. Don't you see what that means?"
"Outside of the Bulgar mountains, my geography is weak," Oladahn said embarrassedly.
"It means that all routes to the Kamarg-by both land and sea-are blocked by the Dark Empire's hordes. Even if we reach the sea and find a ship, what chance will we have of passing unharmed through the Sicilian channel? The waters there must be thick with Dark Empire ships."
"But do we have to travel that way? What about the route you used to reach the East?"
Hawkmoon frowned. "Much of that territory I flew across, and it would take twice the time to go back that way. Also Granbretan has already made extra gains there."
"But the territories under their control could be circumnavigated," Oladahn said. "At least on land we should stand some chance, while on sea, from what you say, no chance at all"
"Aye," said Hawkmoon thoughtfully. "But it would mean crossing Turkia-a journey of several weeks. But then, perhaps, we could use the Black Sea, which, I hear, is fairly free of Dark Empire ships still."
He consulted the map. "Aye-the Black Sea across to Romania-but then it would become increasingly dangerous as we neared France, for the Dark Empire's forces are everywhere thereabouts. Still, you are right -we would have a better chance by that route; might even slay a couple of Granbretanians and use their masks as disguises. One disadvantage that they have is that their faces cannot be recognized as those of friend or foe. If it were not for the secret languages of the various orders, we could travel safely enough if tricked out in beast masks and armor."
"Then we change our route," Oladahn said.
"Yes. We go north in the morning."
For a number of long days they followed the Euphrates north, crossing the borders between Syria and Turkia and coming at length to the quiet white town of Birachek, where the Euphrates became the Firat River.
In Birachek a wary innkeeper, suspecting them as servants of the Dark Empire, told them at first that there were no rooms, but then Hawkmoon pointed to the black jewel in his forehead and said, "My name Dorian, last Duke of Koln, sworn enemy of Granbretan," and the innkeeper, even in this remote town, had heard of him and let them in.
Later that night they sat in the public room of the inn, drinking sweet wine and talking to the members of a trading caravan that had arrived in Birachek shortly before them.
The traders were swarthy men with blue-black hair and beards that gleamed with oil. They were dressed in leather shirts and brightly colored divided kilts of wool; over these clothes they wore woven cloaks, also of wool, in geometric designs of purple, red, and yellow. These cloaks, they told the travelers, showed that they were the men of Yenahan, merchant of Ankara. At their waists were curved sabers with richly decorated hilts and engraved blades, worn unscabbarded. These traders were as used to fighting as they were to bartering.
Their leader, Saleem, hawk-nosed and with piercing blue eyes, leaned forward over the table to speak slowly to the Duke of Koln and Oladahn.
"You have heard that emissaries of the Dark Empire pay court to the Calif of Istanbul and pay that thriftless monarch to let them station a large force of bull-masked warriors within the city walls?"
Hawkmoon shook his head. "I have little news of the world. But I believe you. It is the way of Granbretan to take with gold rather than take with force.
Only if gold is no longer of use will they produce their weapons and armies."
Saleem nodded. "As I thought. You would not, then, think Turkia safe from the Western wolves?"
"Not any part of the world, even Amarehk, is safe from their ambition. They dream of conquering lands that might not even exist, save in fables. They plan to take Asiacommunista, though they must find it first.
Arabia and the East are mere camping grounds for their armies."
"But could they have such power?" Saleem asked, astonished.
"They have the power," Hawkmoon said with confidence. "They have a madness, too, which makes them savage, cunning-and inventive. I have seen Londra, capital of Granbretan, and its vast architecture is that of brilliant nightmares made solid. I have seen the King-Emperor himself, in his throne globe of milky fluid-a wizened immortal with the golden voice of a youth. I have seen the laboratories of the sorcererscientists-innumerable caverns of bizarre machines, many whose functions have yet to be rediscovered by the Granbretanians themselves. And I have talked with their nobles, learned of their ambitions, know them to be more insane than anything you or any other normal man could imagine. They are without humanity, have little feeling for each other and none at all for those they regard as lower species-that is, all those not of Granbretan. They crucify men, women, children, and animals to decorate and mark the roads to and from their conquests…"
Saleem leaned back with a wave of his hand. "Ah, come now, Duke Dorian, you exaggerate…"
Hawkmoon said forcefully, glaring into Saleem's eyes, "I tell you this, trader of Turkia-I cannot exaggerate the evil of Granbretan!"
Saleem frowned then and shuddered. "I-I believe you," he said. "But I wish that I could not. For how can the little nation of Turkia withstand such might and cruelty?"
Hawkmoon sighed. "I can offer no solution. I would say that you should band together, do not let them weaken you with gold and gradual encroachment in your lands-but I would waste my rhetoric if I tried, for men are greedy and will not see the truth for the gleam of coin. Resist them, I would say, with honor and honest courage, with wisdom and with idealism.
Yet those who resist them are vanquished and tortured, see their wives raped and torn apart before their eyes, their children become playthings of warriors and heaped on fires lit to burn whole cities. But if you do not resist, if you escape death in battle, then the same could still happen to you, or you and yours become cringing things, less than human, willing to perform any indignity, any act of evil, to save your skins. I spoke of honesty-and honesty forbids me to encourage you with brave talk of noble battle and warriors' deaths. I seek to destroy them-I am their declared enemy-but I have great allies and considerable luck, and even I feel that I cannot forever escape their vengeance, though I have done so several times. I can only advise those who would save something to resist the minions of King Huon-use cunning. Use cunning, my friend. It is the only weapon we have against the Dark Empire."
"Pretend to serve them, you mean?" Saleem said thoughtfully.
"I did so. I am alive now and comparatively free…"
"I will remember your words, westerner."
"Remember them all" Hawkmoon warned him.
"For the hardest compromise to make is when you decide to appear to compromise. Often the deception becomes the reality long before you realize it."
Saleem fingered his beard. "I understand you." He glanced about the room. The flickering shadows of the torches seemed to take on a sudden menace. "How long, I wonder, will it be?… So much of Europe is already theirs."