"S. P. Somtow - The Fallen Country" - читать интересную книгу автора (Somtow S. P)

"He cannot be killed. He slips from world to world as easily as you have done." Again the pitiful
whinebuzz that passed for a roar. "But we can work against him. Slowly, slowly we can sap him of
his strength. Your anger is powerful here. Your anger can build bridges, can burn pathways through
the snow. Try it, Billy."

Billy clenched himself, feeling the rage course through him, and when he opened his eyes he saw
greenery poking through the snow for a few seconds, but then it was misted over by white again.
"Do you see?" the dragon said. "You are Binder."

"That's my name," said Billy, "butтАФ"

"Your roots are in the fallen country. That is why you have never felt truly at home in your world,
why you have been tossed from household to household, taking only the name Binder with you."

Thunder shuddered through the cloud-haze. For a moment the sky parted. A whip cracking, halving
the sky, retracting into the greyness, a burst of sound that could have been applause or a circus
band starting up or a crowd deriding a fallen clownтАФ

"Pete!" he blurted out.

"No," said the dragon, "only the shadow; the Ringmaster has a thousand shadows, and it is only a
shadow of his shadow that has followed you all the way to your distant world."

Billy nodded, understanding suddenly.

Then he saw a red weal open on the dragon's neck, blood trickling in slow motion onto the snow,
blood that stained the whiteness like a poppy-duster тАФ "He's hurt you!" he said. They were akin
then, he and this alien creature. Both were at the mercy of тАФ "Can't you cry out?" he cried into the
howling wind, "Can't you feel anything?"

"No." The dragon's voice did not change. "Here one need feel no pain at all. It's better to feel
nothing; isn't it? Come now. Ride me."

He extended a wing; it fanned out into a diamond-speckled staircase. When Billy stepped onto it he
realized that he felt no cold at all. He should be freezing to death through his worn sneakers, but he
felt only numbness. It was less real than a dream.

"LetтАЩs go now. We'll have adventures, rescuing princesses, fighting monsters and such. Isn't that
what every child wants to do? A lot of children find their way into the fallen country. And they find
a use for themselves here ... one day we'll have a whole army of them."

"But I want to find the Ringmaster himself! I don't want him to hurt you and me anymore. I want to
kill him."

The dragon only laughed, a wretched ghost of a laugh. Billy clambered up the wing.

"Every child who comes here dreams of reaching the Ringmaster. Of shaping his anger into a bridge
that will touch the very heart of the Ringmaster and topple the circus where he wields his whip.
They learn better, Billy."