"Stanley G. Weinbaum - Margaret Of Urbs 01 - The Black Flame" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weinbaum Stanley G)

THE BLACK FLAME
STANLEY G. WEINBAUM


CHAPTER ONE

THE WORLD

HULL TARVISH LOOKED backward but once, and that only as he reached the elbow of the
road. The sprawling little stone cottage that had been home was visible as he had seen it a thousand
times, framed under the cedars. His mother still watched him, and two of his younger brothers stood
staring down the mountainside at him. He raised his hand in farewell, then dropped it as he realized that
none of them saw him now; his mother had turned indifferently to the door, and the two youngsters had
spied a rabbit. He faced about and strode away, down the slope out of Ozarky.

He passed the place where the great steel road of the Ancients had been, now only two rusty
streaks and a row of decayed logs. Beside it was the mossy heap of stones that had been an ancient
structure in the days be-fore the Dark Centuries, when Ozarky had been a part of the old state of
M'souri. The mountain people still sought out the place for squared stones to use in building, but the
tough metal of the steel road itself was too stub-born for their use, and the rails had rusted quietly these
three hundred years.

That much Hull Tarvish knew, for they were things still spoken of at night around the fireplace. They
had been mighty sorcerers, those Ancients; their steel roads went everywhere, and everywhere were the
ruins of their towns, built, it was said, by a magic that lifted weights. Down in the valley, he knew, men
were still seeking that magic; once a rider had stayed by night at the Tarvish home, a little man who said
that in the far south thesecret had been found, but nobody ever heard any more of it.

So Hull whistled to himself, shifted the rag bag on his shoulder, set his bow more comfortably on his
mighty back, and trudged on. That was why he himself was seeking the valley; he wanted to see what
the world was like. He had been always a restless sort, not at all like the other six Tarvish sons, nor like
the three Tarvish daughters. They were true mountainies, the sons great hunters, and the daughters stolid
and industrious. Not Hull, however; he was neither lazy like his brothers nor stolid like his sisters, but
restless, curious, dreamy. So he whistled his way into the world, and was happy.

At evening he stopped at the Hobel cottage on the edge of the mountains. Away before him
stretched the plain, and in the darkening distance was visible the church spire of Norse. That was a
village; Hull had never seen a village, or no more of it than this same distant steeple, shaped like a
straight white pine. But he had heard all about Norse, because the mountainies occasionally went down
there to buy powder and ball for their rifles, those of them who had rifles.

Hull had only a bow. He didn't see the use of guns; powder and ball cost money, but an arrow did
the same work for nothing, and that without scaring all the game a mile away.

Morning he bade goodbye to the Hobels, who thought him, as they always had, a little crazy, and set
off. His powerful, brown bare legs flashed under his ragged trou-sers, his bare feet made a pleasant
soosh in the dust of the road, the June sun beat warm on his right cheek. He was happy; there never was
a pleasanter world than this, so he grinned and whistled, and spat carefully into the dust, remembering
that it was bad luck to spit toward the sun. He was bound for adventure.
 Adventure came. Hull had come down to the plain now, where the trees were taller than the scrub of