"Richard Paul Russo - The Second Descent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russo Richard Paul)

тАЬDead. You donтАЩt remember? He died on the first descent. Dropped
into a crevasse when we werenтАЩt roped up. All we were able to recover was
his ice axe.тАЭ

Rafael sat on the edge of a black boulder. Her words rang true, and a
brief, sharp image rose before him, a narrow jagged opening and blue ice
turning darker until it finally became black.

тАЬYouтАЩre using his ice axe now,тАЭ Iliana added. тАЬYou lost yours.тАЭ

Rafael looked down at the ice axe hanging from his belt and gripped it
with his gloved hand. There was nothing unusual in its feel; heтАЩd expected
some strange warmth, or an electric shock, or perhaps Yusuf appearing
before him once more. He looked up at Iliana.

тАЬBut you were talking to Yusuf,тАЭ she said.

тАЬYes.тАЭ

She nodded. тАЬLetтАЩs go. We need to reach Camp Seven and the
cache before dark.тАЭ

****
 The next night they looked down on the lights of Kuma-Shan, knowing
that none of them would ever walk through any of the cityтАЩs arched and
torch-lit gates, never walk along the streets of painted stone with open
metal vehicles hovering in the air along with the pulsing dragon lamps and
the sparkling crimson message streamers. The smells of grilling spiced
meats and mulled wine and tendriling incense wafted within those walls,
denied to them as was the warmth of hearth fires and heated beds and the
company of men and women who seemed to come from other timesтАФthe
future and the pastтАФas well as from other places. The city itself appeared
to have materialized from some other reality.

Perhaps none of that was true, perhaps the stories told on the
mountain were fabrications or fevered imaginings or simply the confused
perceptions of those miraculous few who had somehow gained entrance
and survived their evictions. Yet what little they could see from their vantage
pointтАФthe colored lights moving through the air in beautiful complex
patterns, the water spray at the tops of enormous fountains, the candle-lit
windowsтАФgave every indication that the stories were accurate, that
Kuma-Shan was everything it was fabled to be.

Iliana turned away from the lights and trudged toward the tents,
leaving Rafael and the priest alone.

тАЬCanтАЩt we try to enter?тАЭ Rafael asked.

тАЬWe can try,тАЭ answered the priest, тАЬand we will try.тАЭ He glanced at the