"03 - The Sailor On The Sea of Fate" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

BOOK ONE

SAILING TO THE FUTURE

... and leaving his cousin Yyrkoon sitting as Regent upon
the Ruby Throne of Melnibone, leaving his cousin Cymoril
weeping for him and despairing of his ever returning, Elric
sailed from Imrryr, the Dreaming City, and went to seek
an unknown goal in the worlds of the Young Kingdoms
where Melniboneans were, at best, disliked.

- The Chronicle of the Black Sword

1

It was as if the man stood in a vast cavern whose walls and
roof were comprised of gloomy, unstable colours which
would occasionally break and admit rays of light from the
moon. That these walls were mere clouds massed above
mountains and ocean was hard to believe, for all that the
moonlight pierced them, stained them and revealed the
black and turbulent sea washing the shore on which the
man now stood.

Distant thunder rolled; distant lightning flickered. A
thin rain fell. And the clouds were never still. From dusky
jet to deadly white they swirled slowly, like the cloaks of
men and women engaged in a trancelike and formalistic
minuet: the man standing on the shingle of the grim beach
was reminded of giants dancing to the music of the far-
away storm and felt as one must feel who walks unwittingly
into a hall where the gods are at play. He turned his gaze
from the clouds to the ocean.

The sea seemed weary. Great waves heaved themselves
together with difficulty and collapsed as if in relief,
gasping as they struck sharp rocks.

The man pulled his hood closer about his face and he
looked over his leathern shoulder more than once as he
trudged closer to the sea and let the surf spill upon the toes
of his knee-length black boots. He tried to peer into the
cavern formed by the clouds but could see only a short
distance. There was no way of telling what lay on the other
side of the ocean or, indeed, how far the water extended.
He put his head on one side, listening carefully, but could

hear nothing but the sounds of the sky and the sea. He
sighed. For a moment a moonbeam touched him and from
the white flesh of his face there glowed two crimson,