"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 25 - Torian Pearls." - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

The western horizon was beginning to swallow the glowing ball of the setting sun. Blade noticed for the
first time the incredible colors spreading across the sky. The sun itself was a raw red-orange with a faint
tinge of gold and a stronger tinge of purple. Long streaks of crimson, purple, and salmon stretched along
the horizon, layer on layer of color rising steadily upward. Everywhere Blade saw hints of other, less
common colors-a rich mahogany tinged with red, an unmistakable shimmering green. The few clouds that
hung in the western sky were tinged blue and pink-not a delicate blushing pink, but a raw, almost bloody
color. Behind everything swirled a dozen shades and mixtures of gold and orange. The sky was so
beautiful that it was almost frightening.

Blade stared at the western sky until he found the display of colors growing hypnotic. With a painful
effort he lowered his gaze to the line of the horizon itself. That line showed humps and waverings, black
against the flaming sky. It did not look like much-perhaps only a line of hilltops not drowned quite so
deeply as the rest of the land around here. But it was certainly more than Blade could see in any other
direction. If dry land lay anywhere within sight, it lay off toward that impossible and monstrously beautiful
sunset.

Blade wasted no time in setting off. He had no idea how far he might have to go and he suspected that
darkness would come fast when the sun vanished. He walked up over the crest and down the other side
of his own hill. Before he'd gone a hundred yards the water was up to his knees. He picked up a floating
branch and used it to feel his way along. Another two hundred yards and the water was up to his waist.
A few yards more and the bottom became so oozy that he found it easier to start swimming.

Blade set an easy stroke, one he knew he could keep up all night and most of the next day if he had to.
Every few minutes he stopped briefly, treading water as he looked around him to take his bearings. The
last thing he wanted to do was end up swimming in circles as darkness swallowed up the swamp. Each
time he looked, the wavering line of dark humps was still there. At least it wasn't an optical illusion.

Once when Blade stopped he raised his eyes to look again at the display of colors in the sky. They were
slowly fading, some lingering longer than others. The whole display was still something to take a man's
breath away, and Blade found himself wondering what might be the cause. He remembered that volcanic
dust in the atmosphere often led to such unnaturally colorful sunsets.

As he watched, he suddenly saw five lean winged shapes glide across the sky, black silhouettes against
the blazing colors. They soared lightly and easily, sweeping upward from the horizon and losing
themselves in the twilight that was spreading from the east. Blade watched them until they faded from
sight, and did not much care for their looks. He had an impression of twenty-foot wings, long beaks, and
spiked tails. Birds, bats, or giant reptiles of some sort? Certainly they looked like meat-eaters. Blade
hoped they weren't hungry.

He swam on. He'd covered about a mile when he felt his feet strike into sticky mud. A few more strokes
and he was able to walk again. He strode forward, water and mud and trailing weeds dripping from him,
until the water was no more than knee deep. He passed a clump of trees with wilted green leaves still
hanging from their branches. A few birds twittered cheerfully to themselves in the branches as they settled
down for the night. Their sound made Blade feel better. They were the first healthy living things he'd seen
or heard in a Dimension that otherwise seemed to be almost nothing but water and mud and weirdly
glowing sky.

Blade walked through the knee-deep water across what once must have been level ground for nearly a
mile, past several more clumps of trees. Far off to the left he saw what looked like the ruins of farm
buildings. In the gathering twilight he could not be sure, and he had no time to spare for side trips.