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

Hull made no answer, for Ormiston was at hand. The village was much like Norse save that it
huddled among low hills, on the crest of some of which loomed ancient ruins. At the near side his
companion halted, and Hull thanked him as he leaped to the ground. "Where to?" asked the farmer. Hull
thought a moment. "Selui," he said. "Well, it's a hundred miles, but there'll be many to ride you."

"I have my own feet," said the youth. He spun sud-denly about at a voice across the road: "Hi!
Mountainy!"

It was a girl. A very pretty girl, slim waisted, copper-haired, blue eyed, standing at the gate before
a large stone house. "Hi!" she called. "Will you work for your dinner?"

Hull was ravenous again. "Gladly!" he cried.
 The voice of the farmer sounded behind him. "It's Vail Ormiston, the dotard eldarch's daughter. Hold
her for a full meal, mountainy. My taxes are paying for it."

But Vail Ormiston was above much converse with a wandering mountain-man. She surveyed his
mighty form approvingly, showed him the logs he was to quarter, and then disappeared into the house. If,
perchance, she peeped out through the clearest of the ancient glass fragments that formed the window,
and if she watched the flexing muscles of his great bare arms as he swung the axeтАФ well, he was
unaware of it.

So it happened that afternoon found him trudging to-ward Selui with a hearty meal inside him and
three silver dimes in his pocket, ancient money, with the striding figure of the woman all but worn away.
He was richer than when he had set out by those coins, by the blunt pistol at his hip, by the shiny steel
bow and arrows, and by the memory of the copper hair and blue eyes of Vail Ormiston.



CHAPTER TWO

OLD EINAR

Three weeks in Selui had served to give Hull Tarvish a sort of speaking acquaintancy with the place.
He no longer gaped at the skypiercing ruins of the ancient city, or the vast fallen bridges, and he was
quite at home in the town that lay beside it. He had found work easily enough in a baker's establishment,
where his great muscles served well; the hours were long, but his pay was munif-icentтАФfive silver
quarters a week. He paid two for lodg-ing, and foodтАФwhat he needed beyond the burnt loaves at hand
from his employmentтАФcost him another quarter, but that left two to put by. He never gambled other
than a wager now and then on his own marksmanship, and that was more profitable than otherwise.

Ordinarily Hull was quick to make friends, but his long hours hindered him. He had but one, an
incredibly old man who sat at evening on the step beyond his lodging, Old Einar. So this evening Hull
wandered out as usual to join him, staring at the crumbling towers of the An-cients glowing in the sunset.
Trees sprung on many, and all were green with vine and tussock and the growth of wind-carried seeds.
No one dared build among the ruins, for none could guess when a great tower might come crashing
down.

"I wonder," he said to Old Einar, "what the Ancients were like. Were they men like us? Then how
could they fly?"