"Avram Davidson - Bumberboom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davidson Avram)

but out of mere curiosity and interest-- how do you propose to do this?"
Mallian's fingers stroked the left and then the right tip of his short beard, through which a slight smile
peeped deprecatingly. "To reveal this before an agreement has been reached would perhaps be out of
keeping with the traditions of negotiating. I point this out, not from suspicion, fie upon the thought, hem
hem, but simply because I have been very traditionally reared and do not desire to cast reflection upon
my upbringing by departing therefrom even in trifles."
After another silence, Durraneth said, with something like a frown, "Would it be untraditional for you
to indicate by which route you intend for yourself and them to depart, and your destination as well?"
Mallian said it would not. Logic, he pointed out, would indicate a departure by the shortest route
(other than the one back into the near-lying Section of the Dwerf Kings' dominions) out of Elver State,
and to show his perfect good will and trusts in the matter he would entreat the advice of the company as
to a good route to achieve this purpose-- accompanied, perhaps, by a map-- and, as for his destination,
well:
"I am a hill man by origin, and lonely therefore. Nevertheless there is nought of the hermit in my
background or makeup; I admire also the proximity of fair lowlands and goodly towns to which one may
conveniently descend to purchase merchandise with the modest yield of the hills. And therefore-- "
Durraneth cleared his throat and cast a slant glance at his fellows. "And therefore-- inform me if I
understand you arightly, Mallian son Hazelip-- and therefore you desire information about a place lying
outside of Elver State and situated upon a hill overlooking fair lowlands and goodly towns, or perhaps at
least one goodly town. Is it so?"
Mal frankly admitted that the conjecture was correct. "At least one goodly town," he murmured,
"although two or even three would be better."
The guard-lodge had a stark neatness about it which Mallian, familiar with the companionable disorder
of Qanaras and the opulent show of the Dwerfs, found a bit chilling. There were, to be sure, many
contrivances visible which seemed both curious and interesting, as well as an entire shelf bearing nought
but books, which much impressed him. "'Where are much books is much medicine,'" he quoted,
reverently.
The Elver Guards gave but a nod or two at this and began to spread a table with maps and to
converse in low tones among themselves, paying to Mal's thoughtfully-pointed-out observation that it was
now high noon and mealtime, inattention to which the very best of wills could only call coarse. He
therefore did not feel a compunction at devoting himself forthwith to the smoked pullets and dried fruits
with which his budget had thoughtfully been filled by old Ronan's. And when the guard Naccanath said,
over his shoulder, "Attend hither, profugitive," he replied that he in no wise feared that Elver folk would
work him a malignancy via use and medicine of his own and proper name, and therefore he would
cheerfully respond to it, which was Mallian, son Hazelip High Man to the Hereditor of Land Qanaras.
"But at the moment I eat," he pointed out. He raised his brows and bit and chewed.
The Crewmen's supply had all been eaten to a faretheewell, and they sat or lay about snoring or
scratching or simply staring about them as Mal approached. He had come quite near before it occurred
to them to stare at him. He was already among them before any of them had made up their minds that he
perhaps ought not to be. But it was not until he had begun to make a circuit of the ponderous engine that
anything like concern began really to make itself evident. The sight of Bumberboom at close up proved
interesting enough even to banish the train of thought caused by the sight of the Crew close up. The same
near-idiot face repeated over and over again in varying stages of grime, the same snaggle and snarl of
pale hair and small, vacant, pale blue eyes-- what did it mean?
It scarcely could mean that the same moron Crew which was now attached to Bumberboom had
created it in the first place. They could never have fashioned those immense and massy wheels of stout
wood reinforced with iron and rimmed with broad iron ties. Never could they have founded that gigantic
tube whereon, in the casting, figures of beasts and monsters had been fixed, never have devised that
ornate breech in the shape of a bearded face with lips puckered as though whistling, nor the even more
ornate and in fact rather frightening face which terminated the great tube's other end, mouth distended