"Ardath Mayhar - Khi to Freedom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mayhar Ardath)

have missed the village on their outward sweep and might even now be
finding it. I shuddered, thinking of that busy and happy community
burned from its trees by the weapons with which I was too familiar. But
neither of my guides seemed distressed. Indeed, both had an amused
expression, as if watching something truly funny.
I looked into the sky. As I gazed, itтАж wrinkledтАжfor a split instant. The
forest-edge seemed to shimmer its graying reaches, a quiver so swift that I
doubted that it had really taken place. The two Varlian nodded slowly,
chattered a burst of talk at each other, and turned again into the
now-dark valley. They took a hand on either side of me and tugged me
along between them.
The guide in my head now dimmed to a comfortable purr, as if we had
all but arrived at our destination. But unless our would-be hosts had
learned to build invisibly, no roof or doorway awaited us. Still, the green
people walked confidently down the track, passing trees that were now
dark shapes against a slightly paler sky. At the bottommost curve of the
cup, they turned aside and made for one of the sculptured piles of stones.
As we approached, a golden light began to glow, lighting the entire thing
with a dim and firefly brilliance.
In the midst of that tenuous light, there was a shape standing, waiting.
Into my mind came a deliberate flow of nicely-paced Varlian, formed by
no lips and tongue but by a shaping thought.
тАЬWelcome to our place, Hale Enbo. Well it is that you have spoken with
the Varlian of other worlds, for it gives us a way in which to greet you. The
shaping of forms and actions in the mind of an alien being is no easy
matter, if communication is to be thorough. Come, now, with your
companions into the place of the Khi. Know that few of your kind have
ever encountered us and none have come here before.тАЭ
Gaping with astonishment, I looked down at that shape. It was golden,
like the light. I felt, after a moment, that the light had come from it. The
being was small, though not so small as the Varlian. It came to my
collarbone, though for some reason when I looked down at it I had the
feeling that I was actually looking upward. It was shaped in pleasing
curves above and below a small neat waist, though those curves were in no
way those which decorate a human woman. They were, instead,
continuous and regular as though metallic golden flesh had been turned
on a lathe, shaping a somewhat human-like form. The legs and arms were
slim and finely shapedтАж and when I glanced at its feet I was puzzled to
notice that the grasses on which they rested were standing upright as
though nothing weighed upon them. All in all, I realized that none of the
unusual or exotic beings I had encountered in the past had approached
the degree of strangeness the Khi possessed.
As if amused by my reaction, the creature glowed more brightly and
said, тАЬTruly, we of the Khi are unlikeтАФmost unlikeтАФthose who now walk in
flesh upon the worlds. Ages upon ages ago, we roamed the vastnesses,
looking with childish eyes upon their wonders, grasping with infant greed
those things that glittered most brightly. Now we are content to dream
upon one world, when we must incarnate, looking afar only at need.тАЭ
It moved one shining hand. A buttress of stone shimmered away,
showing a passage that led downward. The Varlian stepped forward and