"Emil Petaja - The Prism" - читать интересную книгу автора (Petaja Emil)

тАЬOf course, Gold Dorff. Sena, we are boring our illustrious guest.тАЭ
тАЬFatherтАФplease? Pretty please?тАЭ
 ***

Climbing, Kor felt the warmth of her mind clinging to his, the way that
his fingers reached out and clung to the projecting bits of rock-shard. He
didn't understand. He never did. But the warmth was there, and behind it a
compelling tug. тАЬCome, Kor! I need you!тАЭ
There were times when the molecules of his body resented the whole
thing, when the lithe cord-like muscles gave way and the entirety of his
neural structure screamed for him to let go and die and be done with it. It
was too much to take. He dared not look up or down either. It was some
comfort to find himself actually within the shrouding fogs so that he
couldn't tell how the cliff beetled out except by the unnatural tortures his
back was enduring. The tendrils of wet fog cut the rivers of sweat, too.
Miraculously his fingers found cracks; once, when his sandaled feet shot
away and left him dangling he called out her name in prayerful invocation.
тАЬKor!тАЭ her mind called back across unguessable reaches. тАЬHold on! I
need you! You must not die!тАЭ
He yelled out to defy gravity and when he could force away the
petrifying fear that glued him against the rock and make himself move
again, his floundering feet did find a mere toe-niche. He cried out again
when, suddenly, the rock to which his fingertips clung gave way. When it
seemed that the universe had run out of miracles his wildly flailing hands
clawed up and outтАФ and out was where they encountered roots like snakes,
a musty tangle of earth and rope-like tendril. He grabbed, held, sobbed. His
fingers inched upward, agonizingly slow between the slippings of wet clods
and the blood-freezing times when dirt rained down in his face. But finally
his frantic upgrips brought him to all-topsoil, to grass, and then his elbows
walked up, crooked, and pivoted Kor around and to normal lateral being.
He lay there. He sobbed in great gulps of air. He clung against the
planet as if it might teeter again and drop out from under him. Finally, he
sat. Fog swirled moistly around him on every side so that first he could see
nothing. Then he saw what made him scream-sob and leap away: the
projection of clayey loam at the cliff's edge was giving under his weight.
He jumped wildly, grabbing for safe ground as the projecting headland
snapped and fell.
Every muscle hurt. Every cell of his six-foot-six body screamed for
oxygen, for sustenance, for exile from heroic duty. For a while that was all
too brief he lay there, gulping in the thin windy air, denying the call that
plagued him on. It was agony to wrench up on his feet, to force one foot
ahead of the other, away from the cliffs edge. There was no telling which
way would bring him to the castle's entrance, but for the moment he didn't
much care.
He had made it! Nobody else had, ever. At least not within memory of
the ancient song-stories told around the fires at night between flagons of
beer and charred haunches of selki meat. Nobody! Triumph put a new edge
on his stamina. His nerves and the death-release-wish within his mind was
silent, stifled.
Yet, as life played itself on in the Purple Forests, triumph was all too