Читать книгу The Raven's Warrior - Vincent Pratchett - Страница 18

In The Eyes Of An Emperor

In the aftermath of battle the monk was nowhere to be found. This ruined monastery was now a place of fear and phantom. In great haste what remained of the battalion left the mountaintop. The dead, even their own, were left where they had fallen, and the living were gone before the sun had set. They tied their wounded general securely to his horse, and for the next three days and nights he slipped fitfully in and out of consciousness. The image of the fearless monk never left his mind. It haunted him in his delirium—the specter of his own inadequacy.

While this young general lay recovering from his open wound, the emperor’s own men had reported that the scrolls had not been found. There may have once been a library, but a pile of bodies and barren shelves were all that remained. The empty structure was carefully combed from floor to ceiling for any clue, but the timeless collection of sacred knowledge had vanished as though it had never been. The black feather of a nameless bird went unnoticed by the men who searched unsuccessfully for scroll, silk, and parchment.

The vision of the Son of Heaven does not compare to the sight of an ordinary man. For the sake of a people, it must be clear from western desert to eastern ocean and from icebound northland to wild and humid southern jungles. The emperor stared through the wounded soldier that lay before him. He assessed the condition of the butchered general, and with his mind’s acumen he surveyed the success and failure of the mission.

The monks were dead. The threat of their great metal was now removed. The method of its making destroyed beyond any skill of resurrection. The loss of this art was a regrettable casualty of war, but the security that it afforded balanced well against the deficit. The mind of the emperor did not stop there. It browsed within the missing library, and it hungered.

Throughout the ages its secrets had been guarded by the cloistered hands that held it, its reputation grown freely in rumor. This was not just the usual collection of monastic sutras and scripture. It was so much more. In reverent tones it was said to hold the wisdom of the ages, from both this land and places far away. Its fading pages were thought to have descended from the time of the First Emperor. It was whispered that among its yellowed parchments, the arts of war rested peacefully beside the way of enlightenment, and that even the enigma of immortality was recorded on its pages. Like the methods of their metal this treasure, too, was gone, but this loss could never find a balance.

The general moaned, fighting his way to consciousness only to feel the sting of his emperor’s words. “You are an efficient killing machine, but much was trampled in the fray.” The swollen eyes of the general blinked slowly as the emperor continued. “You are now the Supreme Commander, but do not dare think this a promotion for a job well done. It is not. Consider it merely a gift from the times. The people need heroes, and luckily your face destroyed in the service of your emperor has made you one.”

It was officially recorded as a successful completion of mission, but it had taken one hundred and seventy three lives to do it. More accurate but unrecorded was the truth that under the direction of an ambitious and untested leader, the strength of the enemy had been grossly underestimated, and that the value of what had not been recovered far outweighed the measure of anything that had been gained.

The pain of the emperor’s harsh rebuke and the emptiness of his movement up the ranks did not fade with the healing of his wounds. The commander, however, embraced the power of his title despite its dubious origin. When the wounded leader had healed enough to slur an order, a permanent sentry was posted at the site, but no order for search or salvage was ever issued.

The presence of a guard assured the new commander that the cinders of truth would never again be stirred, and he hoped that by taking no plunder he might seal up the ghosts of his past. For the next twelve years, the commander’s man on the mountain had nothing of any consequence to report.