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

surviving was to go north, following the coast in the trust
that sooner or later he would come upon a port or a fishing
village where he might trade his few remaining belongings
for a passage on a boat. Yet that hope was a small one for
his food and his drugs could hardly last more than a day or
so.

He took a deep breath to steel himself for the march and
then regretted it: the mist cut at his throat and his lungs
like a thousand tiny knives. He coughed. He spat upon the
shingle.

And he heard something: something other than the
moody whisperings of the sea; a regular creaking sound, as
of a man walking in a stiff leather. His right hand went to
his left hip and the sword which rested there. He turned
about, peering in every direction for the source of the
noise, but the mist distorted it. It could have come from
anywhere.

Elric crept back to the rock where he had sheltered. He
leant against it so that no swordsman could take him
unawares from behind. He waited.

The creaking came again, but other sounds were added.
He heard a clanking; a splash; perhaps a voice, perhaps a
footfall on timber; and he guessed that either he was
experiencing a hallucination as a side effect of the drug he
had just swallowed or he had heard a ship coming towards
the beach and dropping its anchor.

He felt relieved and he was tempted to laugh at himself
for assuming so readily that this coast must be uninhabited.
He had thought that the bleak cliffs stretched for miles -
perhaps hundreds of miles - in all directions. The
assumption could easily have been the subjective result of
his depression, his weariness. It occurred to him that he
might as easily have discovered a land not shown on maps
yet with a sophisticated culture of its own: with sailing

ships, for instance, and harbours for them. Yet still he did
not reveal himself.

Instead he withdrew behind the rock, peering into the
mist towards the sea. And at last he discerned a shadow
which had not been there the previous night. A black,
angular shadow which could only be a ship. He made out
the suggestion of ropes, he heard men grunting, he heard
the creak and the rasp of a yard as it travelled up a mast.
The sail was being furled,