"Gardner Dozois - Strangers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dozois Gardner)

They talked for a while. She tried to explain some of the ceremony to
him. "It is also called the Opening-of-the-Gates-of-D├╗n," she said. "D├╗n is
the otherworld, the Other Place, and it lies out there, deep below Elder
Sea. The bones of the Ancestors rest there, naked, on the floor of Ocean,
the Place of the AfflictionтАФbut it is not just that, not just the bottom of
the water, n├л? It is a world in its own right, the place where some of the
dead go, but more than thatтАФ there are demons, and People of Power,
and opein, and they live there in D├╗n." She shrugged, and smiled her
somber smile. "Al ├а ntene marks the end of the Summer World, the heat,
the growing things, the reign of the Warm People who govern in that
season. It is the end of the yearтАФafter Al├аntene is the Winter, the snow,
the ice, the withering of life, the reign of the Cold People at the start of a
new year. The Gates of D├╗n open then, under Elder Sea. Then the ghosts of
those who died in the old year, and who are to go into D├╗n, they rise up
then on the wind and go into D├╗n, for the Gates are open and the
otherworld is touching this Earth. And also, those demon and opein who
wish to come into the world of men, they come in then. And the Cold
People come up through the Gates, and the Fertile Earth dies and turns to
frozen ash, for the House of D├╗n holds influence during this season. And
so, the Al├аntene."
"That'sтАФnot quite what I expected," Farber said, a little dismayed. "In
fact, it's kind of frightening. Why inтАФ" he had been about to say hell,
realized that the only possible equivalent would be D├╗n, "тАФthe world do
you have a festival, a holiday, for such a thing? A ceremony I could see,
maybe, but a celebration?"
She shrugged again. "For all the cold and death to come, at least the old
year is gone, drowned, taking all its old problems and sorrows with it. An
old year gone, a new year bornтАФhowever malign. That is something to
celebrate perhaps, n├л?" She looked intently at Farber. "And time does not
exist, during Al├аntene. It is the pause between the fading of one rhythm
and the beginning of another, the motionless unmoved center, the still
place wherein the syncopations of the World wind up and wind down.
Uncreated and eternal. So we are told. N ├л, would you like that? It means
that we two have always been here together, talking on Al├аntene, and
always will be here. No matter where else we have been on Al├аntene in
other yearsтАФwe are there too, always, yes, but we are here too, always.
Yes! Do you find that pleasant?" And she laughed, her face somber and
set, her eyes unfathomable.
 It was impossible for Farber to determine how much of this she took
seriously; every time he thought that he had pinned down her mood it
would shift dramatically, or seem to, and the words she was speaking, and
had spoken, would be open to a new interpretation. It was also impossible
for her to tell him more than the barest surface of the Mode, and not all of
that. Time and again she would lose him in trails of allegory and language
and symbolism that he could not follow, and she would have to shrug and
smile and say that he did not know enough to know. They fell silent for a
while, until finally she said, speaking to her reflection in the window: "The
opein come into the world at Al├аntene. They are spirits who possess men
and drive them to evil deeds. Or they take the shape of men themselves,
and walk abroad in the World in flesh, or what seems to be flesh. You