Guy Gavriel Kay – Lord of Emperors (страница 1)
Lord of Emperors
GUY GAVRIEL KAY
Copyright
Published by HarperCollins
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2000
Copyright © Guy Gavriel Kay 2000
Guy Gavriel Kay asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
HarperCollins
Source ISBN: 9780007342099
Ebook Edition © 2011 ISBN: 9780007352074
Version: 2014-12-03
Contents
Copyright
Map
Part One: Kingdoms of Light and Dark
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Part Two: The Ninth Driver
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by the Author
About the Publisher
PART ONE
KINGDOMS OF LIGHT AND DARK
Chapter I
Amid the first hard winds of winter, the King of Kings of Bassania, Shirvan the Great, Brother to the Sun and Moons, Sword of Perun, Scourge of Black Azal, left his walled city of Kabadh and journeyed south and west with much of his court to examine the state of his fortifications in that part of the lands he ruled, to sacrifice at the ancient Holy Fire of the priestly caste, and to hunt lions in the desert. On the first morning of the first hunt he was shot just below the collarbone.
The arrow lodged deep and no man there among the sands dared try to pull it out. The King of Kings was taken by litter to the nearby fortress of Kerakek. It was feared that he would die.
Hunting accidents were common. The Bassanid court had its share of those enthusiastic and erratic with their bows. This truth made the possibility of undetected assassination high. Shirvan would not be the first king to have been murdered in the tumult of a royal hunt.