"Roberts, John Maddox - Stormlands 03 - The Poisoned Lands UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Roberts John Maddox)

He longed to take some game with his bow, but he was unsure whether some local landlord might object. The thought of going back on preserved rations irked him, but he knew he had best proceed cautiously. The first night, he camped by the tittle river and watched the black-scarred face of the moon rise over the low mountain range to the east. Through his mind went the chant of apology to the moon that his father recited most evenings at moomise, but he did not voice it aloud. Men had wounded the moon long ago, in tile days of the fiery spears. Those had been times of great and terrible sorcery, and men had been struck (town
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for their presumption. Each people had a different tradition concerning how this had come about, but all agreed that men had brought the terrible times upon themselves, bringing an end to what had been a golden age of wealth and plenty.
The night grew chill as the heat of the day dissipated into tbe cloudless air, but he did not bother to build a fire. The stars were brilliant, the fixed stars and the wanderers and the ones that rose and sped across the sky and set at odd intervals. It was held by some that these latter were man-made, that in the days before the fiery spears people had actually lived on these tiny islands in the sky. Of all the old legends he found this one the most difficult to credit, but if men had truly been able to assault the moon with fiery spears, perhaps they had been able to build villages in the sky as well. The world was full of mysteries and he knew he would not solve this one. After a last check to make sure all was well with his cabo, he rolled into his blankets and slept.
His dreams were troubled, with vague, menacing faces, flashes of lurid fire and boundless, roiling waters. He woke once sweating, then slept again. By morning he remembered little of his night-visions, but he was uneasy as he rose and saddled his animal.
By his fourth day of lone travel, he was in high, forested land. There was little cultivation, but peasants grazed flocks of a sort of dwarf curlhorn, and wild game abounded. It was a place of astonishing beauty, its craggy hills and gullies revealing brilliant colors laid on in wide, horizontal streaks. The day before, there had been a brief but intense rain, and this day the ground was a carpet of riotous wild-flowers that had appeared as if by magic. The sky was a blue even deeper than usual, and the clouds formed towers and ramparts of the purest white. It was a setting to put song in a man's heart and in his voice, so he sang as he
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rode, a wandering-lay of his mother's people, far more melodious than the Amsi chants.
As his surefooted cabo picked its way daintily along a trail with a high rock on one side and a precipitous gorge on the other, Ansa realized that he was singing a duet. Shocked, he stopped in midnote. The other voice continued for another two notes, then trailed off. The only direction that made sense was up, so he craned his neck and saw a vague shape on the rock above him. With the sun behind it he could make out no details.
"Who are you?" he demanded, chagrined that he had come so near another human being without noticing. He soothed his vanity with the thought that mis was unfamiliar
terrain.
"Oh, don't stop singing, please! It's such a pretty song.'*
The muscles of his back unclenched and his hand dropped away from his spearshaft. It was a feminine voice, youthful but beautifully modulated.
"You still haven't told me who you are," he reiterated.
"Why should I?" she said. "This is my land, not yours." Her accent was strange, but he had no trouble understanding her.
"You are right." He smiled, but the effect was marred by the way he was forced to squint. "I'm Ansa, from the northern plains. But you have me at a disadvantage. I can't see you up there."
"We can remedy that. Ride on another hundred paces, until you are off the path and in a little meadow. I'll join you there. Don't try to ride farther without me." Then the shape was gone.
He rode on, and a few minutes later the path ascended slightly, leaving the cliffside and entering the level, grassy meadow the woman had described. He halted and let his cabo graze the soft, luxuriant grass. His expert eye told him that nothing had grazed this place in quite some time. There
were marks of many animals, but most of them were browsers or predators.
A few minutes later the woman joined him. She, too, was mounted, but not on a cabo. His own animal shied and made hoarse grunts of dislike as the other beast approached. It was a humper, a superlatively ugly beast, foul-smelling, ill-tempered and graceless, but strong and tremendously enduring. They were far better adapted for desert travel than cabos.
The rider was swathed in a gray robe, her head covered by its hood and her face veiled. She halted a pace from Ansa and lowered her hood and veil. Her face was long and fine-boned, as beautiful as he had been led to expect, but he found that the reality was far more striking than even his expectations. Her skin was a delicate shade of blue, her eyes had violet irises, rimmed with emerald. Her hair was white, not the white of great age but rather an almost metallic silver-white. The hands with which she pushed back the hood were thin and elegant, the fingers impossibly long.
"I am Fyana, of Alta and the Canyon." Her wide, full-lipped mouth formed a smile, and he smiled in return. "I had watch duty on this trail this morning, but I don't think I need to raise an alarm for you."
"No, I assure you I'm not that dangerous. But, do your people usually entrust a sentry-post to a single woman?''
"I have more resources to call on than you might think," she said. "Besides, that little path is not much of an invasion route.''
' 'I can vouch for the truth of that,'' Ansa said. ' 'But then, why keep watch over it at all?"
"We don't like to be surprised, even by friendly visitors," Fyana told him. This was valuable information, although she might not think so. The Canyoners were not all-seeing, as some people thought. He wanted very much to know their limitations.
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"We see few plainsmen this far south," she said, "and never wandering alone. Have you lost your way?"
"Not at all. I was bored at home and wished to see new lands. MyЧking doesn't discourage foreign travel, as long as his warriors do not take warlike service with other kings. All my life I have heard of the southern lands, and of the Canyon. I resolved to visit some of these places before war or old age put an end to all travel for me."
"Here comes my relief." Fyana pointed to the other end of the little meadow. Another rider came into sight, this one mounted on a cabo. As the rider drew near, Ansa saw that it was a young man. His hair was darker than Fyana's, and his eyes were yellow, but the resemblance was otherwise so great that they might have been twins. The voluminous robe he wore left only head and hands exposed. It was by his bearing that Ansa knew him to be a man rather than a woman. He balanced a long lance in a stirrup socket as he drew rein a few paces from them.
"Who is this?" he asked, eyeing Ansa from head to foot.
"A visitor from the north," she informed him. He showed none of her open friendliness. "He is no threat."
"Best he were not." He rode past them, to take up his sentry-post.
Inwardly, Ansa fumed. At home, he would have called the youth out for such insolence. Here, he knew, he had no such right. "Is he so hospitable to everyone?" he asked.
"Pay him no heed," she advised. "That is Elessi. He is a new-made warrior, and wants everyone to know how fierce he is."
"You have that sort here, too? Then I'll give the matter no more thought. Junior warriors new to their arms can be a nuisance, but they always attack from the front, else how are they to build a reputation? Now, will you guide me to your village? Or had you further business out here in the wilderness?"
"Nothing of importance. Just follow me." She turned
the bumper and set off at a stately, racking gait. Ansa's cabo, full of suspicion, followed the larger animal at a distance Ansa could not force it to reduce, no matter how hard he tried.
A ride of less than an hour brought them to a small valley, its floor patterned with tilled fields, neatly bordered by low stone walls. Lovingly tended orchards ranked their trees on sloping ground, some fruiting, others in full blossom. Ansa had a low opinion of agriculture, but he could not deny the beauty of the scene. The air was fragrant as well, a welcome change from the dry sterility of the desert.
At the far end of the valley, he could see a cluster of buildings erected up the sides of the narrowing gorge, whence issued a small but swift-flowing stream. The structures blended naturally with the canyon, but the walls were white, and the roofs of baked red tile. It was tar more attractive than the mud-walled villages he was used to.
They passed a few outlying farmhouses. Apparently, there were some who were willing to trade the safety of town walls for the convenience of living near their fields. Then Ansa noticed that the village had no surrounding wall. For whatever reason, these people were extremely confident in their safety from attack.
Diminutive livestock scattered before them as they rode into the dusty streets of the village; tiny, domestic quil, poultry and a fat, bipedal lizard raised for its meat. All were scavengers and they helped to keep the village clean. Vil-lagers regarded the newcomer with curiosity, but he saw no hostility in their looks.
"I will take yOu first to the Elder," Fyana said. "It's customary. She will grant you the freedom of the village and then you may come or go as you like."