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

"This place is so vast that sometimes I think all the people in the world could be crowded into one of its gorges and you wouldn't be able to see them from most spots on the rim," she answered. "There are many towns, but they blend in with the terrain. Some are even dug into the walls. There are fields down along the river, but most of the people live by herding."
The path proved to be well-beaten but narrow, with heart-stopping drop-offs along much of its length. It zigzagged down the canyonside, with switchbacks every few hundred yards. At intervals it opened onto one of the broad ledges and on these they would rest. Throughout the descent; Fyana entertained him with explanations of what they saw and a recitation of the Canyon's wonders.
"Plants grow here that grow nowhere else," she said. "There are medicinal plants, plants that induce visions, plants to weave into cloth and others with which to dye the cloth. The growth on these ledges differs greatly from one level to another as we descend."
They came to a ledge where strange animals browsed on the branches, lifting heads crowned with palmate horns to gaze at the intruders. The creatures had short bodies and
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slender legs tipped with clawed feet. Their hides were splotched tan and russet, the colors of the nearby cliff walls.
"Those are climbers," Fyana explained. "They are always found near this level, never up on the rim or down in the bottom. They can climb on slopes too steep for any other animal. That is what they use the claws for."
"They seem fearless. Does no one hunt them?"
"Animals are never hunted in the Canyon. Here they are . . . different. It is not just that they look different from other beasts, although no animal native to the Canyon is quite like any other outside it. Many of them have powers, and there is a tradition that great misfortune befalls one who kills them, and that deadly sickness follows eating their flesh. At any rate, there is plenty of game outside the Canyon, so nobody risks hunting these beasts."
Ansa pondered this. "When my father speaks of animals, he often mentions their spirit-force. It is something that few people can feel, save spirit-speakers. But he says that the spirit-force was far stronger in the islands of his birth. There it was so palpable that the beasts could actually be ranked according to the force they made evident. The little, burrowing creatures had almost none. The big cats and the longnecks had a great deal."
"We have longnecks in this territory," she said. "They are rare, but they wreak havoc among our herds."
"In the islands there is a giant breed, many times the size of the ones we know. He says that their spirit-force is so great that a whole body of ritual law and tabu surrounds them. He killed one once, single-handed. That had never been done before in all the history and legends of his people."
"So he became a great hero?" she asked.
"No, he became an exile. The beast was so sacred that there could be no excuse for killing one, even to save your own life, or the life of a tribesman." He shrugged. "That is what my father says, at any rate. Something about this
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place put me in mind of my father's old stories, of which I tired while still very young."
"Why does the Canyon make you think of his stories?" she prodded, gently.
Ansa struggled to articulate his thoughts. He was not used to analyzing his feelings, but there was something about this uncanny place, with its great beauty and its air of brooding mystery, that turned his thoughts in the direction of supernatural matters.
"I think," he said at last, "that it has something to do with the Time of Catastrophe, and the hard ages just after. Everyone has legends about those times. The stories differ widely, but all agree that men brought some terrible disaster .upon themselves, and that in the time of tribulation that followed most men and animals died, and those that survived were all changed in some fashion. Spirits came back into the world at that time, according to many." He paused.
"I have heard many tales of this sort. Go on, please," she prodded.
"I think that much of the world has emerged from those times. Spirit-power is important mainly to eccentric old men or visionaries like my father. In the lands of the great cities, so I hear, the spirits are ignored entirely. Instead they have what they call religion, in which a class of professional priests act as intermediaries between the gods and men, and perform all the rituals."
He scanned the Canyon on all sides. "I think that there are some parts of the world where the time of tribulation lingers. In my father's islands, and here in the Canyon, there is still strong magic. Here men and animals and the land itself have an ... an affinity for one another.''
"You may well be right," she said, looking upon him with a more sympathetic interest than she had previously shown. "These are deep thoughts for.an independent young warrior. But then, you are your father's son."
"There have been times when I wished I was not," he
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said. They were near the canyon floor now, and he saw a pack of very strange creatures climbing in a stand of stunted trees and scrambling about on the ground beneath them. He thought at first that they were deformed men, small and. hairy. Then he saw their vestigial tails and their long, be-fanged muzzles. At the approach of the riders the creatures ceased their play to chatter and hoot at the intruders. Their motions seemed so human that Ansa could not determine their nature.
"Are they men?" he asked.
"No. These are called hanumas. They are the most manlike of creatures, but they have no power of speech. They can be dangerous if you get too close or threaten them, but they will not trouble you otherwise."
"In the coastal areas, I hear there is a creature called man-of-the-trees, but they are said to be tiny. These are half the size of a large man." He laughed as the strange beasts made gestures intended to be threatening but which succeeded only in looking comical.
"They are pests and great raiders of crops and stores, but we tolerate them. Even at their worst, they are entertaining. The infants are especially fun to watch."
He saw what she meant. The fearless little creatures scampered about among the feet of their elders, tussling and playing in total disregard of the adults' alarm. With their snouts as yet unformed, the young had faces that were uncannily human, with bright, round eyes and tiny noses. Their faces were hairless and had a pinkish color.
As they rode past, the hanumas ceased their unfriendly demonstrations, but watched warily. Ansa was astonished by the intelligence in their dark eyes. They might not be men, he thought, but they were close.
The valley floor had appeared to be flat when seen from the rim, but it was rugged when they got there, scored with deep gullies, rocky and hard. The cabos had to pick their way warily among the stones and the innumerable burrows
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of the underground dwellers. Once, a tiny nosehorn poked its head out of its hole and studied them, the tiny eyes unblinking behind the short, forked horn that sprouted from its diminutive snout. Ansa pointed at it.
"A nosehorn! You said that the Canyon animals were unlike those outside. IVe seen this fellow's like everywhere I have traveled."
"They look similar," she maintained, "but these climb out of their burrows each day at sunset and the whole colony of them sing in unison. Do the ones you have seen do that?"
"No," he admitted. "They just dig holes and mind their own business. The only sound I have ever heard them make is the cry that tells the others that a predator is near."
"These do that, too. And they are just as much a pest as the ordinary kind. They are just Canyon nosehoms, that is all."
As they neared the river the land flattened into a narrow floodplain. Here the soil was far richer, supporting an abundant growth of thorny brush, stunted trees and colorful, flowering plants. All of the vegetation swarmed with bird and animal life, as if most of the Canyon's life concentrated near the water. Here and there he saw fields that had once been cultivated. They were outlined by low, irregular walls of piled stone. He asked Fyana about these.
"Fields are usually fanned for a year or two, then left fallow for three or four. These have been out of cultivation for at least three years.''
Ansa surveyed the enclosed fields disdainfully. "I have never understood how people could spend their days grubbing in the dirt and then call it a life." He sensed that she might resent this and added: "But then, you said the Can-yoners live mainly by herding. That is a far better life."
' 'They will doubtless rejoice to hear of your good opinion," she said dryly.
"! didn't mean it that ..." He cut off abruptly. "What is that?"
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