"Julian May - The Golden Torc" - читать интересную книгу автора (May Julian)

humans were made of tougher
stuff).
At this point, a personage named Fitharn Pegleg arrived
within the hollow tree. Resembling a short, sturdy human,
he proved to be a Firvulag capable of assuming a monstrous
shape, one of the Little People who had originally befriended
Madame Guderian in the Pliocene. As she explained her plan
to liberate enslaved humanity, Madame asked Fitharn to recite
an ancient lay traditional among his people. It told of the
original arrival of Tanu and Firvulag on Earth in a gigantic
living spaceship that had as its spouse Brede, a woman from
the exotic galaxy. In making the incredible journey across
millions of light-years, the Ship was fatally strained. Tanu,
Firvulag, and Brede escaped from the hulk in small flyers
and watched the remains of the huge organism crash upon
Pliocene Europe, forming a crater "too wide to see across."
To consecrate the Ship's Grave, a ritual battle was fought
by two heroesтАФSharn of the Firvulag and Lugonn of the
TanuтАФthe former armed with a photonic weapon called the
Sword, the latter using a similar laser-type projector called
the Spear. Sharn was defeated. The victor, Lugonn the Shining
One, had the honor of receiving a blast from his own Spear
between his eyes. Laid out in his golden glass armor, Spear
at his side, Lugonn was left at the Ship's Grave to "captain
it upon its final flight."
After a thousand years had passed, the remote location of
the Ship's Grave had faded from the memory of Tanu and


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Firvulag alike. But the legend had sparked hope in Madame Guderian. The Sword of Sharn was now in
Tanu hands,
serving as a trophy awarded to the winner of the annual Grand
Combat religious war. But the Spear of Lugonn must still be
there beside the crater lake, together with the gravo-magneti-cally
powerful flying machines that had carried the exotics from
their dying Ship. If the Lowlives could secure the photon weapon
or a flying machineтАФor bothтАФthey would gain an unprece-dented
advantage over the metapsychic barbarians who con-stituted
the Tanu chivalry.
Lowlives and friendly Firvulag had searched in vain for the
Ship's Grave. But now Claude, knowledgeable in future ge-ology,
told them where it must be. Only one astrobleme in
Europe fit the description, a crater called the Ries that lay some
300 kilometers to the east, on the northern shore of the Danube
River..Jubilation greeted this intelligence, and it was decided to
mount an expedition at once. With luck, the searchers might
return before the end of the month. Then Firvulag would join