The Pyramids of London

Начало книги

This book is in Australian English. A character list and glossary are included at the back.

Sunlight picked out motes of dust, and burnished mellow wood to match Arianne Seaforth’s hair as she strolled through the Southern Nomarch’s library. Heavy bookcases jutted from the inner wall, stopping short of the many-paned windows, and Rian walked along a corridor formed by the gap, watching a drama of wind.

A rope had snapped. The First Minister’s airship canted to one side, and then the ballonet bounced, threatening to smash the gondola onto Sheerside House’s sweeping back lawn. The very problem First Minister Aquila had come to discuss was likely to strand her in Prytennia’s battered south.

Rian had travelled to Sheerside by train, not airship, and even heavy iron had shuddered beneath the morning windstorm. The journey had shown her a landscape scoured: trees and crops stripped by weeks of gusting onslaught, animals all either hiding or huddled in protective masses. Occasionally a roofless house displayed its innards.

Читать дальше →