"Andre Norton - Yurth Burden" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

Now the pastures disappeared; she entered the foothills of the mountains. Th
e way was rough, but to Elossa it was familiar. She threw off the last of th
e shadow which had troubled her since she had come through the town. Luting
her head, she allowed the hood of her cloak to slip back so that the wind mi
ght run fingers through her pale, fine hair, bring fresh breath to her lungs
.
She found faint traces of paths. Perhaps the townspeople came hunting here or
they fed their stock among these hills. Yet there was no sign that such trai
ls had been recently used. Then, upon climbing the top of one ascent, she sig
hted something else, a monolith taller than she when it stood upright, as it
must once have been. It was not native to this place, for the rock was not th
e dull gray of that which surfaced here and through the scanty soil, rather a
red, like the black-red of blood which had congealed in the sun.
Elossa shivered, wondering why such a dark thought had crossed her mind whe
n she sighted that toppled stone. She shrank from it, so with the disciplin
e of her kind she made herself approach closer. As she drew near she saw th
e rock had been carved, though time and erosion had blunted and worn those
markings. What was left was only the suggestion of a head. Yet the longer E
lossa stared at it, the more that same stifling uneasiness which had ridden
her in the town arose to hasten her breathing, make her want to run.

The face was Raski in general outline, still it held some other element which
was alien, dreadfully alien-threatening in spite of the veil the wearing of
time had set upon it A warning? Set here long ago to turn back the wayfarer,
promising such danger ahead that its marker had been able to give it that dis
tinctly evil cast?

The workmanship was not finished, smoothly done. Rather the rugged crudene
ss of its fashioning added to the force of the impression it made upon the
viewer. Yes, it must be most decidedly a warning!

Elossa, with an effort, turned her back upon the thing, surveyed what lay be
yond. With eyes taught by all her mountain training to study and evaluate te
rrain she caught another remnant of the far past: there had once been a road
from this point on.

Stones had been buried by landslips, pushed aside by stubborn growth of bus
h and small tree. But the very grading which had been done for the placemen
t of those stones had altered the natural contours of the land enough for h
er to be sure.

A road of stone? Such were only found near the cities of the King-Head. Labo
r in making such was very hard and would not have been wasted to fashion the
entrance into the mountains, in the normal course of events. Also this was
very, very old. Elossa went to the nearest of the stones, its edge upthrust
as it lay nearly buried in the grass. She knelt and laid her hand upon it, r
eaching with thought to read. . . .

Faint, too faint to make any clear impression for her. This had returned to t