"Joan D. Vinge - The Storm King" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vinge Joan D)

He stood still. тАЬThat will take me to the dragon?тАЭ

тАЬOnly part way. But itтАЩs easier by half. IтАЩll show you.тАЭ She jerked a brand out
of the fire and started into the maw of darkness.

He went after her with only a momentтАЩs uncertainty. He had lived in fear for
too long; if he was afraid to follow this witch-girl into her GoddessтАЩs womb, then he
would never have the courage to challenge the Storm King.

The low-ceilinged cleft angled steeply upward, a natural tube formed millennia
ago by congealing lava. The girl began to climb confidently, as though she trusted
some guardian power to place her hands and feet surelyтАФa power he could not
depend on as he followed her up the shaft. The dim light of day snuffed out behind
him, leaving only her torch to guide them through utter blackness, over rock that was
alter-nately rough enough to flay the skin from his hands and slick enough to give
him no purchase at all. The tunnel twisted like a worm, widening, narrowing,
steepening, folding back on itself in an agony of contortion. His body protested its
own agony as he dragged it up handholds in a sheer rock face, twisted it, wrenched
it, battered it against the unyielding stone. The acrid smoke from the girlтАЩs torch
stung his eyes and clogged his lungs; but it never seemed to slow her own tireless
motion, and she took no pity on his weakness. Only the knowledge of the distance
he had come kept him from demanding that they turn back; he could not believe that
this could possibly be an easier way than climbing the outside of the mountain. It
began to seem to him that he had been climbing through this foul blackness for all of
eternity, that this was another dream like his dream last night, but one that would
never end.

The girl chanted softly to herself now; he could just hear her above his own
labored breathing. He wondered jealously if she was drawing strength from the very
stone around them, the body of the Earth. He could feel no pulse in the cold heart of
the rock; and yet after yesterday he did not doubt its presence, even wondering if the
Earth sapped his own strength with preternatural malevolence. I am a man, I will be
a king! he thought defiantly. And the way grew steeper, and his hands bled.

тАЬWaitтАФ!тАЭ He gasped out the word at last, as his feet went out from under him
again and he barely saved himself from sliding back down the tunnel. тАЬI canтАЩt go
on.тАЭ

The girl, crouched on a level spot above him, looked back and down at him
and ground out the torch. His grunt of protest became a grunt of surprise as he saw
her silhouetted against a growing gray-brightness. She disappeared from his view;
the brightness dimmed and then strengthened.

He heaved himself up and over the final bend in the wormhole, into a space
large enough to stand in if he had had the strength. He crawled forward hungrily into
the brightness at the cave mouth, found the girl kneeling there, her face raised to the
light. He welcomed the fresh air into his lungs, cold and cleansing; looked past
herтАФand down.

They were dizzyingly high on the mountainтАЩs side, above the tree line, above a