"Jack Vance - The Loom of Darkness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

The Loom of Darkness
Jack Vance
Jach vance's work combines elzments of the mystery, fantasy, and science fiction gmres into a
adamture-filled styrc that is ail his own-. His strengths lie in creating detail'ed, imaginatiue, yet
plausibtc societies, complete uith a noti,ceablc lack of altruism. Along the way to garnering
accotad,is such as the Edgar, Hugo, and Nebula awards, he has examined iuch far ranging topics
a_s the power of language and the concept and, price of freidom and independ'ence. Notablz
noaek incrude The Languug.r of pao, The Dragon Masters, and To Live Forever.

Thnoucn rhe dim forest cevr Lrann rnr Werrannr, passing along the shadowed glades with a prancing
light-footed gait. He whistled, he caroled, he was plainly in higtr spirits. Around his finger he twirled a bit
of wrought bronzeтАФa circlet graved with angular crabbed characters, now stained black.

By excellent chance he had found it, banded around the root of an ancient yew. Hacking it free, he had
seen the characters on the inner 5u1f26s * r''de forceful syrnbols, doubtless the cast of a powerful
antique rune. .. . Best take it to a magician and have it tested for sorcery.

Liane made a wry mouth. There were objections to the course. sometimes it seemed as if alr riving
creatures conspired to exasperate him ' only this morning, the spice ms1strzn1тАФwhat a tumurt he had
made dyrng! How carelessly he had spewed blood on Liane ,s cockscomb sandals! still, thought Liane,
every unpleasantness carried- with it compensation. while digging the grave he had found the bronze ring.

And Liane's spirits soared; he laughed in pure joy. He bounded, he leapt. His green cape flapped behind
him, the red feather in his cap winked and blinked. . . . But stillтАФLiane slowed his stepтАФhe was no whit
closer to the mystery of the magic, if magic th- ring possessed.

Experiment, that was the word!

He stopped where the ruby sunlight slanted down without

212 тАФ The Laom of Darkness

hindrance from the high foliage, examined the ring, traced the glyphs with his fingernail. He peered
through. A faint fihn, a flicker? He held it at armt length. It was clearly a coronet. He whipped off his cap,
set the band on his brow, rolled his great golden eyes, pr..rr.d himself.. .. odd. It slipped down on his
ears. It tipped u.tos his eyes. Darkness. Frantically Liane clawed it off ' ''' A bronze ring, a hand's-breadth
in diameter. Queer '

He tried again. It slipped down over his head, his shoulders. His head was in the darkness of a strange
separate sPace. Looking down, he saw the level of the outside light dropping as he dropped the ring.

slowly down, . . . Now it was around his anklesтАФand in sudden panic, Liane snatched the ring up over
his body, emerged blinking into the maroon light of the forest.

He saw a blue-white, green-white flicker against the foliage. It was a Twk-man, mounted on a dragon-fly '
and light glinted from the dragon-fly's wings.

Liane called sharply, "Here, sir! Here, sir!"

The Twk-man peiched his mount on a twig ' "\N'ell, Liane, what do you wish?"