"Andre Norton - Darkness and Dawn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

MachinesтАФnot in one and twos or even in tens, but in hundredsтАФwere packed as they
must have crashed and telescoped into one another, driven by men who feared some
danger behind enough to drive in crazy flight. The bridge was now one gigantic crack-up.
Fors might be able to scramble across but the mare could not. It would be best to descend
into the valley and cross thereтАФbecause as far as he could see the other bridges were also
choked with rust-eaten metal.
There was a side road down into the valley, and machines filled it too. Men had taken
that same trail when the bridge jammed. But the three of themтАФhorse, cat and manтАФ
worked their way through to reach the river level. Tracks were rust-red lines and on them
were trainsтАФthe first he had ever seen. Two had crashed together, the engine of one
plowing into the other. Those who had tried to escape by train had been little better off
than their brothers in the stalled cars above. It was difficult for Fors to imagine what that
last wild day of flight must have beenтАФthe trains, the machines. He knew of them only
from the old books. But the youngsters of the Eyrie sometimes stirred up nests of black
ants and watched them boil up and out. So this city must have boiledтАФbut few had been
able to win out.
And those who hadтАФwhat became of them in the end? What could help a handful of
panic-stricken refugees scattered over a countryside, perhaps dropping dead of the plague
as they fled? Fors shivered as he picked his way along beside the wrecked trains. But
finding a narrow path through the jumble proved lucky. There had been barges on the
river and they had drifted and sunk to form a shaky bridge across the water. Horse, man,
and cat started over it, testing each step. There was a gap in the middle through which the
stream still fought its way. But the mare, under the urging of Fors' heels in her ribs,
jumped it and Lura went sailing over with her usual agility.
More dark streets with blank-eyed buildings lining them, and then there was a road
leading up at a sharp angle. They took it to find themselves at last close to the towers.
Birds wheeled overhead, crying out in thin sharp voices, and Fors caught a glimpse of a
brownish animal slithering out of sight through a broken doorway. Then he came up to a
wall which was part glass, miraculously unbroken, but so besmeared by the dust and
wind-driven grime of the years that he could not see what lay behind it. He dismounted
and went over, rubbing his hands across that strange smoothness. The secret of
fashioning such perfect glass was goneтАФwith so many other secrets of the Old Ones.
What he saw beyond his peephole nearly made him retreat, until he remembered the
Star Men's tales. Those were not the Old Ones standing within the shadowed cavern, but
effigies of themselves which they put up in shops to show off clothing. He pasted his
nose to the glass and stared his fill at the shapes of three tall women and the draperies of
rotting fabric still wreathed about them. None of that would, he knew, survive his touch.
It always turned to dust in the grasp of any explorer who tried to handle it.
There were other deep show windows about him but all had been denuded of their
glass and were empty. Through them one could get into the stores behind. But Fors was
not yet ready to go hunting, and probably there would be little there now worth carrying
away.
The building to his left was topped with a tall tower which reached higher into the
heavens than any other around it. From the top of that a man might see the whole city, to
measure its size and environs. But he knew that the Old Ones had movable cars rising in
such buildings, the power for which was dead. There might not be any stepsтАФand if there
were his lame leg was not yet ready for climbing. Maybe before he left the cityтАФIt would
be a workmanlike project to make a sketch of the city as seen from that towerтАФan
excellent embellishment to a formal report.
That was the nearest he came to admitting even to himself that he had hopes of a