"Andre Norton - Here Abide Monsters" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

They closed ranks, the bike between them. Lung lunged to the full length of
his leash, set up a frenzied barking, not unlike that with which he had chal
lenged Rufus. It was plain what he saw he resented.
Where it had come from was a minor mystery. For it was such a shimmering,
dazzling white in this greenish gloom that it caught and held the eye almo
st at once. Yet they were so suddenly aware of it that it might have emerg
ed from the tree against whose bark it was now framed.
"I-don't-believe-" Linda's voice trailed away. She saw it, Nick saw it. And so
did Lung, still dancing on two hind feet at the farthest reach of his leash,
jerking the strap in her hands, waving his forepaws in the air with his furiou
s desire to be at this new enemy.
"What do you see?" Nick's wrist was still in her tight grasp. They had both t
aken knocks back there in their rough transition into this alien world. Perha
ps this was a collective hallucination. Only-would the dog share it?
"A unicorn," she answered. "Don't-don't you see it, too?"
The creature was about the size of a large pony, not a horse, Nick thought.
Its coat was that dazzling white, almost a source of light. The mane and tai
l were also white. But that single spiraled horn set just between and above
the creature's wide dark eyes was golden. And it, too, glowed. This was cert
ainly the fabled unicorn, as Nick had seen it in reproductions of medieval p
aintings.
It stared back at them and then tossed its head, so that the forehead fringe
of mane about the base of the incredible horn lifted. Then the creature pawed
the earth with one slender hoof, lowered its head, and snorted at Lung as if
replying to the Peke's shrill challenge. To all appearances, Nick thought it
real enough.
Once more it tossed its head and then turned and paced away among the tree
trunks, its white glow speedily lost.
"But unicorns-they are not-they never were alive," Linda said in a voice har
dly above a whisper.
Something he had read came to Nick's mind then. All the old legends of drag
ons and griffins, the People of the Hills, the very core of folklore and my
th-men had believed in them for a long time, had sworn oaths in court that
they had seen such, had had converse with the more humanlike figures of an
unnatural, magical world. Could it have been that, just as he, Linda and Lu
ng had been caught up in some force that had deposited them here, some of t
he creatures native to this world had been dropped into theirs? But a unico
rn! Now that it was gone Nick had already begun to doubt what he had seen,
to try to rationalize it.
"Wait here!" he ordered Linda and started for the place where the animal h
ad stood. There he went down on one knee to examine the thick leaf mold. T
hen he wished he had not, for it was cut and patterned by tracks. Somethin
g had been there, unicorn or not.
Nick hurried back to Linda and the bike. They must get out of these woods a
s quickly as they could. For that sensation, which had come upon him earlie
r was back full force. They were under observation-by the unicorn? It did n
ot matter. Nick was aware they were invaders in this place. And sometimes i
ntruders meet with active retaliation.
"I did see a unicorn," Linda was repeating, apparently to herself. "It was ri
ght there, under that tree. I have to believe that I saw it-believe that or-I