"Tim Lebbon - Dusk" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lebbon Tim)

IT WAS WAY past midnight by the time Rafe crested the mountain pass and started to make his way
down into the next valley. Pavisse sat like a glinting gem in the distance, spread across the valley floor
and creeping up its slopes where mines sank wounds deep into the land of NoreelaтАЩs skin. Fires flickered
in the night, street lamps scored lines of light into the landscape, the bustling noise of the town reached
him even this far up. He guessed it was still a few hoursтАЩ walk, but at least the lights would guide his

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 Dusk

way.

He had heard many stories about Pavisse but had never actually been there. They ranged from the gentle-
but-firm advice of his mother to stay away (ItтАЩs a hole, Rafe, a pit full of everything that isnтАЩt good in the
land), to excited babbling amongst his friends about how there were naked women in the streets,
warriors in the bars and an ancient wizard who had forgotten his own name living on the edge of town.
But any past misgivings had been thrust aside by the deaths of his parents. Dangerous and unseemly
Pavisse might be, but tonight it was safety, a light in the dark, a balm to RafeтАЩs grief. Something to aim
for now that murder had made him aimless.

Already he could smell the town. A giddying mix of stenches wafted up from the valley, helped on its
way by a steady breeze coming down from the north. Some he recognized: the warm smell of just-
cooked bread, rich and comforting; horse crap sweating in the heat; freshly turned earth, either from the
fledge and coal mines that honeycombed the hills, or the fields on the flood plains. Stale beer too,
reaching him even this far out. How much spilled ale, he wondered, to make such a stink? HeтАЩd heard
the tales of bar fights and muggings in gloomy byways, but Rafe had faced a greater danger today and
survived. Drunken miners did little to scare him.

But there were other smells he could not identify, however hard he tried. A rich, acidic sting, vaguely
earthy, that may be something to do with the mines. A perfume that reminded him of rot. And an odor
that was undoubtedly food, but no food he had ever tasted. Spice-rich, hot, even the smell promised a
tortured stomach.

This high up in the mountains the land was completely untamed, and Rafe had to move cautiously to
avoid stepping in a hole and breaking his ankle. Rocks hid among the sparse, low heathers, ready to trip
him and send him stumbling. Melt trace as well, low ridges of loose stones left here after the last Age of
Ice, virtually untouched since then except by the seasonal caresses of nature itself. Some of them were
obvious, dark lines of shadow twisting along the hillside. Others were hidden by shrubs or long grasses,
like snakes awaiting a catch. These were more dangerous.

The life moon was out, lending a three-quarter light to his trek, affording him a silvery touch reserved
only for the innocent and pure. But there were many definitions of pure, and Rafe suspected it was
simply another legend left over from the time when magic was still alive. The sheen of moonlight on his
skin gave him a sense of calm, because being good and pure was something his parents had so often told
him was important. Wish for whatever you will, his father had said, but yearning is different from
having. To have impurely is worse than never having at all.