"Chalker, Jack L - Rings 1 - Lords Of The Middle Dark" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

he even be believed? Would he believe this sight if he weren't now seeing it,
and would he believe an account of it if teller and listener were reversed?
Now what?
He needed something tangible to take from this place. He needed more than just
this bizarre vision.
He needed to go down there.
But could he? Was there any place here to fasten a rope securely? Was his rope
long enough and strong enough to bear him down and back out again?
He walked carefully around the crater until he spied something sticking out of
the ground perhaps a meter and a half from the rim. He went to it and then
stopped.
It was a metal stake. A piton, driven expertly into the rock and still
containing the rotting remains of the rope knot, although not the rope itself.
He was not the first to make it up here, that was clear, and he was not the
first to consider the descent into that place.
The piton had not been traded from one of the metal-working nations: Although
rusted, it was too smooth, too regular, too exact, and too strong. This was a
thing of machines, of Council origin or higher. The rope, too, seemed strange
and far too thick and complex to be handmade.
He flattened himself, crawled along the line to the edge, and looked down
between the old man's face and the face of the woman with the strange-looking
eyes. What had happened? Had the rope rubbed against the crater rim and worn
through? He thought again of the indistinct litter on the mesh floor below and
sighed.
Rope. Rope remains -- and human remains as well. Skeletal remains. All the others
who had made it this far were still here.
This place, then, was some sort of trap. No, traps had been set, but this was
far too elaborate to be established simply as a trap. These faces, then,
represented the spirits set to guard whatever was down there. What powerful
thing could be down there that would make people take such a risk?
He peered down, straining to see. Nothing on the grating, certainly; either the
object of his search was below that grate, or there was some way in -- a door or
something. He saw what looked like a fresco, a design built into the wall at
about a meter and a half above the grating. He made his way carefully around the
rim, but there was only this one thing on the walls, nothing more. Otherwise,
the pit was plain and featureless.
The faces were not to be trusted. Their features could hide almost anything; the
eyes might open to reveal ports for weapons. However, the one who'd been able to
use the piton had also thought of this and have descended quite clearly between
two faces. Something had still cut the rope and dropped him to the grate below.
The pit represented power -- but the pit was also death. He was smart enough to
know that going down in ignorance was no test of honor or courage, just
stupidity. He backed off, then lay there and relaxed for a while and checked his
provisions. There was little left, despite his careful rationing. It had taken
five careful days to get this far, but it might well take two equally careful
days to get back down.
He knew, though, that he would not tempt the pit. Perhaps others, someday,
hearing of it, would explain it to him or give him its mysterious key, but he
did not have it. To descend to the grate was death, either quick from falling or
slow by being trapped down there with only corpses and statue faces for company.