The Last Ring-bearer - Kirill Yeskov [3]
...And Haladdin was walking the streets he had known since childhood – from the three worn stone steps of his parents' house in the cul-de-sac beyond the Old Observatory, past the plane trees of the King's Boulevard, which ends at the ziggurat with its Hanging Gardens – towards the squat building of the University. It was there that his work had several times granted him a moment of the highest happiness known to man: when you hold like a hatchling in the palm of your hand a Truth so far revealed only to you, and it makes you richer and more magnanimous than all the rulers of the world... And a bottle of fizzy Núrnen wine was making rounds to the din of many voices, foam sliding down the sides of mismatched mugs and glasses to the merry oaths of the drinkers, and the entire April night was still ahead, with its unending arguments over science, poetry, cosmology, and science again… And Sonya was looking at him with those enormous dry eyes – only the Trollish girls' eyes sometimes have this fleeting shade of color – dark gray? transparent brown? – and making a valiant effort to smile: "Halik, dear, I don't want to be a burden" – and he wanted to cry from the tenderness overflowing his soul.
But the wings of the dream were already carrying him back to the night desert, amazing to any novice with the improbable diversity of its inhabitants, who literally drop through the earth with the first ray of the sun. Tzerlag had told him that this desert, like any other, had been forever divided into plots: every bush, every patch of prickly grass, every spot of edible lichen (manna) had its owner. The Orocuen easily named the clans owning the dells through which they were making their way now, and could precisely detect their boundaries, clearly relying on some clues visible only to him, rather than the little abo stone pyramids. The only property held in common in these parts were the cattle watering holes – large depressions in the sand filled with bitter, salty, but still potable water. Haladdin was most amazed by the tzandoi system of adiabatic water collectors, which he had only read about before. He admired the unknown genius who had first figured out that one scourge of the desert – the nightly cold – can overcome the other one – aridness: quickly cooling stones act as condensers, 'squeezing' water out of seemingly dry air.
Of course, the sergeant did not know the word 'adiabatic' (he did not read much, not finding it much use or fun), but some of the collectors they passed were his handiwork. Tzerlag had built his first tzandoi when he was five; devastated when it had not a drop of water the next morning, he had figured out the problem himself (the stone pile was too small) and first felt the pride of a Master. Strangely, he felt no inclination to tend cattle and did it only when he had to, whereas it was nearly impossible to drag him away from tackle shops and such. The relatives would shake their heads in disapproval – "just like a towner!" – but his father, observing his constant tinkering, made him learn to read. That was how he got to be a mantzag – a traveling craftsman; moving from camp to camp, in two years he could make anything. Once in the Army (nomads were usually assigned either to light cavalry or ranger units), he fought as meticulously as he used to build tzandois or put together bactrian tackle.
To be honest, he was sick and tired of the war. Sure, the Throne, the Motherland and all that… but the generals kept doing things whose stupidity was obvious even to a sergeant. One needed no time in a military academy to understand that; the common sense of a craftsman (so he thought) was quite enough. For example, after the rout at Pelennor his scouting company was assigned, among other units that could still fight, to cover the retreat (the headlong flight, rather) of the main forces. His scouts were told to make their stand without long spears in the middle of a plain, and the elite rangers, each with at least two dozen successful missions in enemy territory under his belt, died senselessly