"Gene Wolfe - New Sun 1- The Shadow of the Torturer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

lantern moving to the left and the other to the right. We went up the center
path (the one we always took in returning to the fallen section of the Citadel
wall) with the remaining volunteers.
It is my nature, my joy and my curse, to forget nothing. Every rattling chain
and whistling wind, every sight, smell, and taste, remains changeless in my
mind, and though I know it is not so with everyone, I cannot imagine what it can
mean to be otherwise, as if one had slept when in fact an experience is merely
remote. Those few steps we took upon the whited path rise before me now: It was
cold and growing colder; we had no light, and fog had begun to roll in from
Gyoll in earnest. A few birds had come to roost in the pines and cypresses, and
flapped uneasily from tree to tree. I remember the feel of my own hands as I
rubbed my arms, and the lantern bobbing among the steles some distance off, and
how the fog brought out the smell of the river water in my shirt, and the
pungency of the new-turned earth. I had almost died that day, choking in the
netted roots; the night was to mark the beginning of my manhood.
There was a shot, a thing I had never seen before, the bolt of violet energy
splitting the darkness like a wedge, so that it closed with a thunderclap.
Somewhere a monument fell with a crash. Silence then . . . in which everything
around me seemed to dissolve. We began to run. Men were shouting, far off. I
heard the ring of steel on stone, as if someone had struck one of the grave
markers with a badelaire. I dashed along a path that was (or at least then
seemed) completely unfamiliar, a ribbon of broken bone just wide enough for two
to walk abreast that wound down into a little dale. In the fog I could see
nothing but the dark bulk of the memorials to either side. Then, as suddenly as
if it had been snatched away, the path was no longer beneath my feet - I suppose
I must have failed to notice some turning. I swerved to dodge an oblesque that
appeared to shoot up before me, and collided full tilt with a man in a black
coat.
He was solid as a tree; the impact took me off my feet and knocked my breath
away. I heard him muttering execrations, then a whispering sound as he swung
some weapon. Another voice called, "What was that?"
"Somebody ran into me. Gone now, whoever he was."
I lay still.
A woman said, "Open the lamp." Her voice was like a dove's call, but there was
urgency in it.
The man I had run against answered, "They would be on us like a pack of dholes,
Madame."
"They will be soon in any case - Vodalus fired. You must have heard it."
"Be more likely to keep them off."
In an accent I was too inexperienced to recognize as an exultant's, the man who
had spoken first said, "I wish I hadn't brought it. We shouldn't need it against
this sort of people." He was much nearer now, and in a moment I could see him
through the fog, very tall, slender, and hatless, standing near the heavier man
I had run into. Muffled in black, a third figure was apparently the woman. In
losing my wind I had also lost the strength of my limbs, but I managed to roll
behind the base of a statue, and once secure there I peered out at them again.
My eyes had grown accustomed to the dark. I could distinguish the woman's
heart-shaped face and note that she was nearly as tall as the slender man she
had called Vodalus. The heavy man had disappeared, but I heard him say, "More
rope." His voice indicated that he was no more than a step or two away from the