[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

continue until noon. At this time is the pause. There will be a rumor-passing,
and you will be expected. You will appear wearing Black.
You will speak." Palafox handed Beran a sheet of paper. "These few sentences
should be sufficient."
Beran dubiously glanced down the lines of script. "I hope events work out as
you plan. I want no bloodshed, no violence."
Palafox shrugged. "It is impossible to foretell the future. If things go well,
no one will suffer except Bustamonte."
Page 40
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
highest prestige.
Long before dawn, on the Eighth Day of the Eighth Week of the Eighth
Month, Festival Fields began to fill. Small fires flickered by the thousands;
a susurration rose from the plain.
With dawn came throngs more: families gravely gay, in the Paonese fashion. The
small children wore clean white smocks, the adolescents school uniforms with
various blazons on the shoulders, the adults in the styles and colors
befitting their place in society.
The sun rose, generating the blue, white and yellow of a Paonese day.
The crowds pressed into the field: millions of individuals standing shoulder
to shoulder, speaking only in hushed whispers, but for the most part silent,
each person testing his identification with the crowd, adding his soul to the
amalgam, withdrawing a sense of rapturous strength.
The first whispers of the drone began: long sighs of sound, intervals of
silence between. The sighs grew louder and the silences shorter, and presently
the drones were in full pitch--not-quite-inchoate progression, without melody
or tonality: a harmony of three million parts, shifting and fluctuating, but
always of definite emotional texture. The moods shifted in a spontaneous but
ordained sequence, moods stately and abstract, in the same relationship to
jubilation or woe that a valley full of mist bears to a fountain of diamonds.
Hours passed, the drones grew higher in pitch, rather more insistent and
urgent. When the sun was two-thirds up the sky, a long black saloon-flyer
appeared from the direction of Eiljanre. It sank quietly to a low eminence at
the far end of the field. Those who had taken places here were thrust down
into the plain, barely escaping the descending hull. A few curious loitered,
peering in through the glistening ports. A squad of neutraloids in magenta and
blue debarked and drove them off with silent efficiency.
Four servants brought forth first a black and brown carpet, then a polished
black wooden chair with, black cushioning.
as all who could do so squatted to the ground.
Bustamonte grasped the arms of his chair to rise. The crowd was in its most
receptive state, sensitized and aware. He clicked on his shoulder microphone,
stepped forward to speak.
A great gasp came from the plain, a sound of vast astonishment and delight.
All eyes were fixed on the sky over Bustamonte's head, where a great rectangle
of rippling black velvet had appeared, bearing the blazon of the
Panasper Dynasty. Below, in mid-air, stood a solitary figure. He wore short
black trousers, black boots, and a rakish black cape clipped over one
shoulder. He spoke; the sound echoed over all Festival Field.
"Paonese: I am your Panarch. I am Beran, son to Aiello, scion of the ancient
Panasper Dynasty. Many years I have lived in exile, growing to my maturity.
Bustamonte has served as Ayudor. He has made mistakes--now I
have come to supersede him. I hereby call on Bustamonte to acknowledge me, to
make an orderly transfer of authority. Bustamonte, speak!"
Bustamonte had already spoken. A dozen neutraloids ran forward with rifles,
knelt, aimed. Lances of white fire raced up to converge on the figure in
black. The figure seemed to shatter, to explode; the crowd gasped in shock.
The fire-lances turned against the black rectangle, but this appeared
impervious to the energy. Bustamonte swaggered truculently forward.
"This is the fate meted to idiots, charlatans and all those who would violate
the justice of the government. The impostor, as you have seen..."
Beran's voice came down from the sky. "You shattered only my image,
Bustamonte. You must acknowledge me: I am Beran, Panarch of Pao." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]