"Gwyneth Jones - Red Sonja and Lessingham in Dreamland" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jones Gwyneth)

RED SONJA AND LESSINGHAM
IN DREAMLAND
by Gwyneth Jones
____________________________________
Taken from: Year's Best SF 2
Edited by David G. Hartwell
Copyright ┬й 1997 by David G. Hartwell
ISBN 0-06-105746-0

eBook scanned & proofed by Binwiped 11-01-2002 [v1.0]




The earth walls of the caravanserai rose strangely from the empty plain. She let the black stallion slow his
pace. The silence of deep dusk had a taste, like a rich dark fruit; the air was keen. In the distance
mountains etched a jagged margin against an indigo sky; snow streaks glinting in the glimmer of the
dawning stars. She had never been here before, in life. But as she led her horse through the gap in the
high earthen banks she knew what she would see. The camping booths around the walls; the beaten
ground stained black by the ashes of countless cooking fires; the wattle-fenced enclosure where travelers'
riding beasts mingled indiscriminately with their host's goats and chickens . . . the tumbledown gallery,
where sheaves of russet plains-grass sprouted from empty window-spaces. Everything she looked on
had the luminous intensity of a place often visited in dreams.
She was a tall woman, dressed for riding in a kilt and harness of supple leather over brief
close-fitting linen: a costume that left her sheeny, muscular limbs bare and outlined the taut, proud curves
of breast and haunches. Her red hair was bound in a braid as thick as a man's wrist. Her sword was
slung on her back, the great brazen hilt standing above her shoulder. Other guests were gathered by an
open-air kitchen, in the orange-red of firelight and the smoke of roasting meat. She returned their stares
coolly: she was accustomed to attracting attention. But she didn't like what she saw. The host of the
caravanserai came scuttling from the group by the fire. His manner was fawning. But his eyes measured,
with a thief's sly expertise, the worth of the sword she bore and the quality of Lemiak's harness. Sonja
tossed him a few coins and declined to join the company.
She had counted fifteen of them. They were poorly dressed and heavily armed. They were all friends
together and their animalsтАФboth terror-birds and horsesтАФwere too good for any honest travelers'
purposes. Sonja had been told that this caravanserai was a safe halt. She judged that this was no longer
true. She considered riding out again onto the plain. But wolves and wild terror-birds roamed at night
between here and the mountains, at the end of winter. And there were worse dangers; ghosts and
demons. Sonja was neither credulous nor superstitious. But in this country no wayfarer willingly spent the
black hours alone.
She unharnessed Lemiak and rubbed him down: taking sensual pleasure in the handling of his
powerful limbs; in the heat of his glossy hide, and the vigor of his great body. There was firewood ready
stacked in the roofless booth. Shouldering a cloth sling for corn and a hank of rope, she went to fetch her
own fodder. The corralled beasts shifted in a- mass to watch her. The great flightless birds, with their
pitiless raptors' eyes, were especially attentive. She felt an equally rapacious attention from the company
by the caravanserai kitchen, which amused her. The robbersтАФas she was sure they wereтАФhad all the
luck. For her, there wasn't one of the fifteen who rated a second glance.
A man appeared, from the darkness under the ruined gallery. He was tall. The rippled muscle of his
chest, left bare by an unlaced leather jerkin, shone red-brown. His black hair fell in glossy curls to his
wide shoulders. He met her gaze and smiled, white teeth appearing in the darkness of his beard. "My
name is Ozymandias, king of kings . . . look on my works, ye mighty, and despair . . . Do you know