[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

odd choice for a rendezvous-far better for an ambush.
Pandaras clearly felt the same thing, for his sleek head
continually turned this way and that as they went down the
atrium. The reddish light, alive with swirling motes of dust,
fell on a waist-high wall of undressed stone which ringed a
wide hole that plunged down into darkness. It was the well,
the shaft the fallen machine had melted. The wide coping on
top of the wall was covered in the ashy remnants of incense
cones, and here and there were offerings of fruit and flowers.
A few joss sticks jammed into cracks in the wall sent up curls
of sweet-smelling smoke, but the flowers were shrivelled and
brown, and the little piles of fruit were spotted with decay.
"Not many come here, " Pandaras said. "The ghost of the
machine is powerful, and quick to anger."
Yama gripped the edge of the coping and looked into the
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/McAuley,%20Paul%20J%20-%20Confluence1%20Child%20of%20the%20River.txt (466 of 508)10-12-2006 21:55:17
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/McAuley,%20Paul%20J%20-%20Confluence1%20Child%20of%20the%20River.txt
depths of the well. A faint draught of cold, stale air blew up
around him from the lightless depths. The walls of the shaft
were long glassy flows of once-melted rock, veined with impurities
, dwindling away to a vanishing point small as the
end of his thumb. It was impossible to tell how deep the well
really was, and in a spirit of inquiry Yama dropped a softening
pomegranate into the black air.
"That isn't a good idea, " Pandaras said uneasily.
"I do not think a piece of fruit would wake this particular
machine. It fell a long way as I recall-at least, it was two
days in failing, and appeared in the sky as a star clothed in
burning hair. When it struck the ground, the blow knocked
down thousands of houses and caused a wave in the river
that washed away much of the city on the farside shore. And
then the sky turned black with smoke from all the fires.
"There might be other things down there, " Pandaras said.
"Bats, for instance. I have a particular loathing of bats."
Yama said, "I should have thrown a coin. I might have
heard it hit."
But a small part of his mind insisted that the fruit was still
falling through black air toward the bottom, two leagues or
more to the keel. He and Pandaras walked around the well,
but apart from the smoking joss sticks there was no sign that
Tamora or anyone else had been there recently, and the
hushed air was beginning to feel oppressive, as if it held a
note endlessly drawn out just beyond the range of hearing.
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/McAuley,%20Paul%20J%20-%20Confluence1%20Child%20of%20the%20River.txt (467 of 508)10-12-2006 21:55:17
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/McAuley,%20Paul%20J%20-%20Confluence1%20Child%20of%20the%20River.txt
Pandaras said, "We should go on, master. She isn't here."
He added hopefully, "Perhaps she has run off and left us."
"She made a contract with me. I should think that is a
serious thing for someone who lives from one job to the next.
We will wait a little longer." He took out the paper and
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/McAuley,%20Paul%20J%20-%20Confluence1%20Child%20of%20the%20River.txt (468 of 508)10-12-2006 21:55:17
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/McAuley,%20Paul%20J%20-%20Confluence1%20Child%20of%20the%20River.txt
read it again. " 'The man you want I wonder what
she meant."
"It'll be dark soon."
Yama smiled, and said, "I believe that you are scared of
this place."
"You might not believe in ghosts, master, but there are
many who do-most of the people in the city, I reckon."
"I might have more cause to believe in ghosts, because I
was brought up in the middle of the City of the Dead, but I
do not. Just because a lot of people believe in ghosts does
not make them real. I might believe that the Preservers have
incarnated themselves in river turtles, and I might persuade
a million people to believe it, too, but that does not make
it true. "
"You shouldn't make jokes like that, " Pandaras said. "Especially
not here."
"Surely the Preservers will forgive a small joke."
"There's many who would take offense on their account, "
Pandaras said stubbornly. He had a deep streak of superstition
, despite his worldly-wise air. Yama had seen the care
with which he washed himself in a ritual pattern after eating
and upon waking, the way he crossed his fingers when walking
past a shrine-a superstition he shared with the citizens
of Aeolis, who believed that it disguised the fact that you
had come to a shrine without an offering-and his devotion
at prayer. Like the Amnan, who could not or would not read
the Puranas and so only knew them secondhand through the
preaching of priests and iconoclasts, Pandaras and the countless
millions of ordinary folk of Ys believed that the Preservers
had undergone a transubstantiation, disappearing not into
the Eye but dispersing themselves into every particle of the
world which they had made, so that they were everywhere
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/McAuley,%20Paul%20J%20-%20Confluence1%20Child%20of%20the%20River.txt (469 of 508)10-12-2006 21:55:17
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/McAuley,%20Paul%20J%20-%20Confluence1%20Child%20of%20the%20River.txt
at once, immortal, invisible and, despite their limitless power,
quick to judge and requiring constant placation. It was not
surprising, then, that Pandaras believed in ghosts and other
revenants.
Pandaras said, "Ghosts are more like ideas than you might
think. The more people believe in them, the more powerful
they become. Listen! What was that?"
"I heard nothing, " Yama said, but even as he said it there
was a faint brief rumble, as if the temple, with all its massy
stones, had briefly stirred and then settled again. It seemed
to come from the well, and Yama leaned over and peered
into its depths. The wind which blew out of the darkness
seemed to be blowing a little more strongly, and it held a
faint tang, like heated metal.
"Come away, " Pandaras pleaded uneasily. He was shifting
his weight from foot to foot, as if ready to run.
"We will look in the apses. If anything was going to happen
, Pandaras, it would have happened by now."
"If it does happen, it'll. be all the worse for waiting."
"You go left and I will go right, and if we find nothing I
promise we will go straight out of this place."
"I'll come with you, master, if you don't mind. I've no
liking for being left alone in this hecatomb."
The archway which led into the apse to the right of the
well was curtained by falls of fine black plastic mesh. Beyond
was a high square space lit by shafts of dim light striking
through knotholes that pierced the thick walls just beneath
the vaulted roof. There was a shrine set in the center of the
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/McAuley,%20Paul%20J%20-%20Confluence1%20Child%20of%20the%20River.txt (470 of 508)10-12-2006 21:55:17
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/McAuley,%20Paul%20J%20-%20Confluence1%20Child%20of%20the%20River.txt
space, a glossy black circle like a giant's coin or eyeglass
stood on its side.
Statues three times the height of a man stood in recesses
all around the four walls, although they were not statues of
men, and nor were they carved from stone, but were made
of the same slick, translucent stuff as ancient armor. Yama
could dimly see shapes and catenaries inside their chests
and limbs.
Pandaras went up to a statue and knocked his knuckles [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]