"Eric Van Lustbader - Sunset Warrior 4 - Beneath an Opal Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lustbader Eric van)

men and women and children, fat and thin, large
and small, young and old, ugly and fair, as he
passes the bursting shops, stalls, stands with
striped awnings, the tangled buildings with their
dense cluster of swinging signs advertising the
tempting wares within, he realizes that never
before has he felt such an apartness from the
warmth of.the family of man. And this peculiar
alienness suffuses him with such completeness
that his body begins to quake as if he is ill.

He digs his bootheels into the flanks of his
mount and shakes the reins, abruptly anxious to
reach his destination. Through this vast kinetic
sea he jounces, metal jangling, dusty leather
creaking, the grime of travel heavy upon him. A
torrent of filthy children, their torsos ribbed like
corpses, brush against his legs like a separate
eddy in this fetid surf and he is obliged to press
his boots tightly against the stallion's flanks lest,
howling, they pull them from his feet. He extracts
a copper coin from his wide sash and flings it
high into the air so that it catches the oblique
light. As it disappears into the swirling mass of
pedestrians on his left, the children abandon him,
rushing to follow the flight of the spinning coin.
They plow through the crowd, tenaciously
searching on hands and knees in the slime and
offal of the street.

BENEATH AN OPAL MOON 3

He moves on, turning a corner at an acute angle,
following the street. He inhales the rich musk of
coriander and limes, the heavy incense of charring
meat, the somewhat lighter scents of fresh fish and
vegetables flash-cooked in hot sesame oil. As he
passes the opening of a dark alley, the thick sweet
smell of the poppy resin for which Sha'angh'sei is
so famous, hits him with such intensity it takes his
breath away and he is dizzied.

The din of the city, after so long on the road,
alone with himself, is claustrophobically
overpowering, a constant harsh cacophony
consisting of wails, shrieks, cries, shouts, laughter,
whispers, chanting, a glorious babble of voices,
testament to the indomitability of man.

Within the deep shadows of the felt hat, the