"Somtow Sucharitkul - The Fallen Country" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sucharitkul Somtom)

walked this far, through the trudge-thick snowdrifts, in only
a few minutes. Perhaps time was different here. He knew
that time was different in different countries.

The dragon said, "You are here because you are full of
anger. Billy Binder. In the fallen country we need such
anger as yours. Anger is strength here . . . if 1 could feel
such anger, such love, such hatred as you can feel, I would
die. Billy. . . ."

Wrenching his feet out of the knee-deep coldless snow.
Billy forced himself to walk toward the dragon. Even the
dread he had been feeling had passed away now. "But
who has done this to you? Who has stolen your feelings?"

"You know. You have touched his shadow. His shadow
has come pursuing you. The Ringmaster. With his whip of
burning cold."

Pete.' "You should kill him!" Whiteness burned all
around him, making the tears run.

"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 bum
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 pok-
ing 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 mo-
ment 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