"M. John Harrison - Viriconium 1 - The Pastel City" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison John M)

Cromis was out of the high room, and, cloak
streaming about him, was descending the spiral
staircase at the spine of the tower.
At first, he thought the entire wood had caught
fire.
Strange, motionless pillars of flame sprang up
before him, red and gold, and burnished copper.
He thought, "We are at the mercy of these old
machines, we know so little of the forces that
drive them." He threw up his arm to guard his
face against the heat:
And realised that most of the flames he saw
were merely autumn leaves, the wild colours of
the dying year. Only two or three of the rowans
were actually burning. They gave off a thick
white smoke and a not-unpleasant smell. So many
different kinds of fire, he thought. Then he ran on
down the white stone path, berating himself for a
fool.
Unknown to him, he had drawn his sword.
Having demolished a short lane through the
rowans, the launch lay like an immense split fruit,
the original rent in its side now a gaping black
hole through which he could discern odd
glimmers of light. It was as long as his tower was
tall. It seemed unaffected by its own discharges,
as if the webs of force that latticed the crystal
shell were of a different order than that of heat;
something cold, but altogether powerful. Energy
drained from it, and the discharges became fewer.
The lights inside its ruptured hull danced and
changed position, like fireflies of an uncustomary
colour.
No man could have lived through that, Cromis
thought. He choked on the rowan smoke.
He had begun to turn sadly away when a figure
staggered out of the wreckage toward him,
swaying.
The survivor was dressed in charred rags, his
face blackened by beard and grime. His eyes
shone startlingly white from shadowed pits, and
his right arm was a bloody, bandaged stump. He
gazed about him, regarding the burning rowans
with fear and bemusement: he, too, seemed to see
the whole wood as a furnace. He looked directly
at Cromis.
"Help!" he cried, "Help!"
He shuddered, stumbled, and fell. A bough
dropped from one of the blazing trees. Fire licked
at the still body.