"Dwellers In The Mirage" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merritt Abraham)

DWELLERS IN THE MIRAGE

BOOK OF KHALK'RU

CHAPTER I

SOUNDS IN THE NIGHT

I RAISED my head, listening,-not only with my ears
but with every square inch of my skin, waiting for
recurrence of the sound that had awakened me. There
was silence, utter silence. No soughing in the boughs of
the spruces clustered around the little camp. No stirring
of furtive life in the underbrush. Through the spires of
the spruces the stars shone wanly in the short sunset to
sunrise twilight of the early Alaskan summer.

A sudden wind bent the spruce tops, carrying again
the soundЧthe clangour of a beaten anvil.

I slipped out of my blanket, and round the dim
embers of the fire toward Jim. His voice halted me.

"All right, Leif. I hear it."

The wind sighed and died, and with it died the hum-
ming aftertones of the anvil stroke. Before we could
speak, the wind arose. It bore the after-hum of the anvil
strokeЧfaint and far away. And again the wind died,
and with it the sound.

"An anvil, Leif!"

"Listen!"

A stronger gust swayed the spruces. It carried a
distant chanting; voices of many women and men sing-
ing a strange, minor theme. The chant ended on a
wailing chord, archaic, dissonant.

There was a long roll of drums, rising in a swift cres-
cendo, ending abruptly. After it a thin and clamorous
confusion.

It was smothered by a low, sustained rumbling, like
thunder, muted by miles. In it defiance, challenge.

We waited, listening. The spruces were motionless.
The wind did not return.