"Julia Gray - Guardian 02 - The Jasper Forest" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gray Julia)

THE JASPER FOREST
Book Two of The Guardian Cycle
JULIA GRAY
Copyright ┬й 2001 by Julia Gray
Prologue
The mountain was still growing.
Although the movement could no longer be seen by the naked eye, Kerin Mirana
could still feel the earth's adjustments through the soles of his well-worn
boots. He had jasper feet - an invaluable asset for a traveller in the stone
forests. He felt the rock grinding beneath him, and was aware of even the
smallest variations, while his eyes could only measure the mountain's progress
from one hour to the next.
Even in Macul, a land where - as Kerin knew better than most - little could be
taken for granted, there had never been anything like this before. Earthquakes
were common enough, even in the country's most stable regions. In certain
areas the land rose or fell steadily -though gradually - so that where a man
had once fished, now his grandson planted crops. Rivers changed course, broke
their banks or dried up; victims of the movements of the earth, the vagaries
of the weather and, closer to the
coast, the suddenly unpredictable tides. Subsidence and avalanches altered the
shape of the landscape. Little remained static. During his travels, Kerin had
witnessed much that had left him in a state of wonder. He had seen many
awe-inspiring sights, but this . . .
Little more than one long month ago, this had been a valley, with a small
lake, recently increased in size and fed by several streams from the
surrounding hills. From where Kerin stood, he would have looked down over
gentle green slopes to the placid surface of the water. Now he had to tip his
head back in order to glimpse the upper reaches of the new-born mountain. The
distant summit was too high to be seen, and the black rock towered over
everything around it. And the forces that had created its unnatural bulk were
driving it still. Before the prospector's disbelieving eyes, the mountain was
growing higher yet.
The dark extrusion had erupted from the earth like a gigantic creature
emerging from its chrysalis, splitting the skin of soil and vegetation and
slewing it aside like an old husk as the black mountain made its shuddering
reach for the heavens. It brought to mind ancient legends - of dragons and
giant worms who lived beneath the world of men, in caves deep inside Nydus,
and who came to the surface every so often, breathing flame and smoke into the
air and making rocks flow in red waves or explode into the sky. But no one
believed in those tales any more. In any case, there had been no fire here.
The mountain's rise had been astonishing but, by human standards, its movement
had been almost stately. Nevertheless, it was still an unprecedented event тАФ a
geological disturbance so vast that the term 'earthquake' hardly seemed
adequate.
The few people who had been nearby had fled in terror as the upheaval
devastated the valley and shook the land for miles around.
There had been no warning. There had not even been a major conjunction of the
moons during the time of its growth. Kerin glanced at the sky reflexively,
even though he knew what he would see. No traveller in such inhospitable
regions could afford to be ignorant of the prevailing lunar influences. The