"Corum - 01 - The Knight Of The Swords" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

MICHAEL MOORCOCK

The Knight of the Swords
Volume First of The Books of Corum

BOOK ONE

In which Prince Corum learns a lesson
and loses a limb

INTRODUCTION

In those days there were oceans of light and cities in the skies and wild flying
beasts of bronze. There were herds of crimson cattle that roared and were taller
than castles. There were shrill, viridian things that haunted bleak rivers. It
was a time of gods, manifesting themselves upon our world in all her aspects; a
time of giants who walked on water; of mindless sprites and misshapen creatures
who could be summoned by an ill-considered thought but driven away only on pain
of some fearful sacrifice; of magics, phantasms, unstable nature, impossible
events, insane paradoxes, dreams come true, dreams gone awry, of nightmares
assuming reality.
It was a rich time and a dark time. The time of the Sword Rulers. The time when
the Vadhagh and the Nhadragh, age-old enemies, were dying. The time when Man,
the slave of fear, was emerging, unaware that much of the terror he experienced
was the result of nothing else but the fact that he, himself, had come into
existence. It was one of many ironies connected with Man (who, in
those days, called his race `Mabden').
The Mabden lived brief lives and bred prodigiously. Within a few centuries they
rose to dominate the westerly continent on which they had evolved. Superstition
stopped them from sending many of their ships towards Vadhagh and Nhadragh lands
for another century or two, but gradually they gained courage when no resistance
was offered. They began to feel jealous of the older races; they began to feel
malicious.
The Vadhagh and the Nhadragh were not aware of this. They had dwelt a million or
more years upon the planet which now, at last, seemed at rest. They knew of the
Mabden but considered them not greatly different from other beasts. Though
continuing to indulge their tradiнtional hatreds of one another, the Vadhagh and
the Nhadragh spent their long hours in considering abstracнtions, in the
creation of works of art and the like. Rational, sophisticated, at one with
themselves, these older races were unable to believe in the changes that had
come. Thus, as it almost always is, they ignored the signs.
There was no exchange of knowledge between the two ancient enemies, even though
they had fought their last battle many centuries before.
The Vadhagh lived in family groups occupying isolated castles scattered across a
continent called by them Bro-anнVadhagh. There was scarcely any communication
between these families, for the Vadhagh had long since lost the impulse to
travel. The Nhadragh lived in their cities built on the islands in the reas to
the north west of Bro-anнVadhagh. They, also, had little contact, even with
their closest kin. Both races reckoned themselves invulnerable. Both were wrong.
Upstart Man was beginning to breed and spread like a pestilence across the