"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 14 - The Temples of Ayocan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

between him and the mountains that made them look so close. In fact they must be forty or fifty or even
more miles away. It was hard to tell how high their summits rose into the flawless blue sky, but some of
them must be close to twenty-five thousand feet. From one jagged peak a long white plume of snow
whipped out in the wind, like a feather in a lady's hat.
Slowly, flexing each limb to see if it still worked, Blade rose to his feet. He was as naked as ever, but
apparently uninjured. He went through a quick series of exercises to make absolutely sure, and to work
some of the tension out of his mind. Physical activity had always helped him relieve mental strain.
Even a short spurt of physical exercise made his breath come short, quick, and hard. This was
something he hadn't anticipated while he lay resting. Even the place where he stood must be at a fairly
high altitude, ten or twelve thousand feet above sea level at least. Air this thin would not hold heat very
well.
For the moment it seemed to be near noon, for the sun blazed hotly almost straight down from the
clear sky. But it would be cold at nightтАФcolder than Blade wanted to face naked and unequipped.
Now he made a more careful survey of his surroundings. All around him was a level blue-gray
plainтАФhard, dusty earth with patches of gravel and boulders. There was not a tree in sight, and precious
little vegetation of any sort.
Far to the south a glimmer of darker blue broke the monotony of the plain. Blade narrowed his eyes
against the glare of the sun from the miles of bare rock and examined the south still more carefully. The
blueness might be just a miles-wide outcropping of another kind of rock, darker that that of the plain. But
the way it gleamed? Everything in Blade's survival training and field experience shouted (or whispered)
"Water!" Certainly there was nothing else within sight that looked as much like water. Even more
certainly, there was nothing here offering a better chance of survival than a large body of fresh water.
Probably there would be fish and vegetation, perhaps human settlements along its shores. Certainly any
human settlements he was likely to find within easy walking distance would be along the lake.
Unless the water was brackish? He swore mentally at his ingrained habit of considering all the
possibilities, even the worst ones. Then he firmly pushed the thought down. Where else in all this endless
plain did he have any chance of finding what he needed to survive? When his conditioned pessimism was
finally silent, he headed south.
He moved along briskly, trying not to exert himself enough to work up a sweat. There was no point
in wasting any moisture if he could avoid it. Distances were deceptive on this high plain, as he already
knew. That glimmer of water might have come from twenty miles away.
He loped onward, his shadow black against the lighter blue-gray of the earth at his feet. Sun and
wind had powdered a thin layer of that earth, and as he moved along he left footprints and kicked up
dust. Under that thin layer the earth was nearly as solid as the rocks that lay in large patches everywhere.
It was a drab land. The only color nearer than the mountains was occasional patches of white gravel
and even rarer patches of scrubby black-green bushes and vines. These were mostly huddled in the lee
of the larger rocks. Not surprising, in this land where a wind from those mountains could sweep fifty miles
unchecked, stripping the land bare, grinding down even boulders with clouds of wind-driven dust. This
was a land that had been here long before menтАФif indeed there were any in this dimension. And it would
be here long after they had gone, if they ever came, and it would show no signs of either their coming or
their going.
The blue on the horizon spread wider and wider as Blade moved south, and the sun began to creep
down from overhead, toward the mountains. By the time it was halfway down in the sky, Blade knew
that the blueness must indeed be water. By the time the sun hovered just above the highest peaks, Blade
was within a mile of the shore of the lake. And by the time darkness was falling, he was standing by the
water's edge.
Seen close up, the water was an incredibly rich blue. It was impossible for Blade to judge how far it
stretchedтАФneither to the south nor to the east could he see any shore. At this altitude it had to be a lake,
but a lake the size of an inland sea. And it was fresh water. One taste reassured Blade on that point.
Whatever he might die from in this new dimension, it would not be thirst.