"Jack Vance - The Dying Earth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

study.
A few days later he raised his head from his work.
"Pandelume! Are you near?"
"What do you wish, Turjan?"
"You mentioned that when you made T'sais, a flaw warped her brain. Now I
would create one like her, of the same intensity, yet sound of mind and
spirit."
"As you will," replied Pandelume indifferently, and gave Turjan the
pattern.
So Turjan built a sister to T'sais, and day by day watched the same
slender body, the same proud features take form.
When her time came, and she sat up in her vat, eyes glowing with joyful
life, Turjan was breathless in haste to help her forth.
She stood before him wet and naked, a twin to T'sais, but where the face
of T'sais was racked by hate, here dwelt peace and merriment; where the eyes
of T'sais glowed with fury, here shone the stars of imagination.
Turjan stood wondering at the perfection of his own creation. "Your name
shall be T'sain," said he, "and already I know that you will be part of my
life."
He abandoned all else to teach T'sain, and she learned with marvelous
speed.
"Presently we return to Earth," he told her, "to my home beside a great
river in the green land of Ascolais."
"Is the sky of Earth filled with colors?" she inquired.
"No," he replied. "The sky of Earth is a fathomless dark blue, and an
ancient red sun rides across the sky. When night falls the stars appear in
patterns that I will teach you. Embelyon is beautiful, but Earth is wide, and
the horizons extend far off into mystery. As soon as Pandelume wills, we
return to Earth."
T'sain loved to swim in the river, and sometimes Turjan came down to
splash her and toss rocks in the water while he dreamed. Against T'sais he had
warned her, and she had promised to be wary.
But one day, as Turjan made preparations for departure, she wandered far
afield through the meadows, mindful only of the colors at play in the sky, the
majesty of the tall blurred trees, the changing flowers at her feet; she
looked on the world with a wonder that is only for those new from the vats.
Across several low hills she wandered, and through a dark forest where she
found a cold brook. She drank and sauntered along the bank, and presently came
upon a small dwelling.
The door being open, T'sain looked to see who might live here. But the
house was vacant, and the only furnishings were a neat pallet of grass, a
table with a basket of nuts, a shelf with a few articles of wood and pewter.
T'sain turned to go on her way, but at this moment she heard the ominous
thud of hooves, sweeping close like fate. The black horse slid to a stop
before her. T'sain shrank back in the doorway, all Turjan's warnings returning
to her mind. But T'sais had dismounted and came forward with her sword ready.
As she raised to strike, their eyes met, and T'sais halted in wonder.
It was a sight to excite the brain, the beautiful twins wearing the same
white waist-high breeches, with the same intense eyes and careless hair, the
same slim pale bodies, the one wearing on her face hate for every atom of the