"Stephen Palmer - The Green Realm Below" - читать интересную книгу автора (Palmer Stephen)

He seemed not to have heard her. "I am ashamed to admit that in my youth I
did eat plants. But now I am wholly carnivorous. The destruction of Kray,
which is the final city of humankind, is an end I pray for every night.
Ah, yes."
Kytanquil cringed and took a step back. Time to depart.
"But there is need of you," Awanshyva said, his voice suddenly loud, "for
you wear the bracelet of-"
"This bracelet?" Kytanquil interrupted, raising her arm. "You know what it
is?"
"Not yet. Now is the time to find out. Follow me."
He turned, and like a zombie began to trudge deeper into the greenhouse.
Kytanquil hesitated, then gripped tight the handle of her dagger and
followed, thinking that they would go deeper into the Garden. Thus she was
surprised when he stooped to pull up a metal cover in the earth, then drop
into the chamber below. She was left peering down into the pale green
gloom, in which Awanshyva stood like a troglodyte, his wraparound shades
reflecting the peppermint light provided by countless tiny fungi.
"Come," he said.
Kytanquil felt torn. Afraid of the man, yet impelled by the curiosity in
her drifting spirit, she hesitated on the brink of the hole, before
gripping her dagger still tighter and jumping down. "Don't even think of
touching me," she warned. "I was trained in steel combat by Oq-Ziq, my
mother."
"That is a lie," Awanshyva countered.
Shocked by his certainty, Kytanquil found no reply.
"Dead, you are useless," Awanshyva remarked. "Now follow me, and please do
not fear."
So Kytanquil followed. At the end of the chamber stood the remains of a
door, which Awanshyva smashed aside with his fists. He led the way into a
tunnel that after a hundred yards opened out into a chamber filled with
rotten wood. Luminous orange and green fungi lit the place. At the further
end lay another manhole cover, which Awanshyva prised open. A ladder of
rusting iron led the way down into blackness. Kytanquil took a flashlight
from her kit and peered into the depths, but it was too deep for her weak
beam to penetrate. A claustrophobia born in the bottomless pit enveloped
her.
Without a word Awanshyva began to clamber down the ladder, leaving
Kytanquil no option but to follow. She descended miner style: one hand
behind, one hand in front of the ladder. Occasionally she would stop to
close her eyes and draw a few deep breaths. The cold was intense.
After some time she heard boots striking a wet floor. She pointed the
flashlight down, to see a wide ledge damp with slime. Stepping off the
ladder, she kept hold of one rung, for the lip of the ledge was a sheer
drop into blackness that even Awanshyva avoided.
"Are we here?"
Her voice reverberated in discrete echoes.
"No."
Slowly Awanshyva walked along the ledge. Rusting shards of metal stuck out
from the wall, here and there plastered with red algae and the pale eggs
of some subterranean crustacean. Slime dripped upon them from stalactites