"Gene Wolfe - New Sun 4 - The Citadel of the Autarch" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

at.
I continued to stand there for a watch or more, rewarded from time
to time with these mysteries of light. At last, having satisfied myself
that they were a great way off and came no nearer, and that they did
not appear to change in frequency, coming on the average with each
five hundredth beat of my heart, I lay down again. And because I
was then thoroughly awake, I became aware that the ground was

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shaking, very slightly, beneath me.
When I woke again in the morning it had stopped. I watched the
horizon diligently for some time as I walked along, but saw nothing
disturbing.
It had been two days since I had eaten, and I was no longer hungry,
though I was aware that I did not have my normal strength. Twice
that day I came upon little houses falling to ruin, and I entered each
to look for food. If anything had been left, it had been taken long
before; even the rats were gone. The second house had a well, but
some dead thing had been thrown down it long ago, and in any case
there was no way to reach the stinking water. I went on, wishing for
something to drink and also for a better staff than the succession of
rotten sticks I had been using. I had learned when I had used
Terminus Est as a staff in the mountains how much easier it is to
walk with one.
About noon I came upon a path and followed it, and a short time
afterward heard the sound of hoofs. I hid where I could look down
the road; a moment later a rider crested the next hill and flashed past
me. From the glimpse I had of him, he wore armor somewhat in the
fashion of the commanders of Abdiesus's dimarchi, but his wind-
stiffened cape was green instead of red and his helmet seemed to
have a visor like the bill of a cap. Whoever he was, he was
magnificently mounted: His destrier's mouth was bearded with foam
and its sides drenched, yet it flew by as though the racing signal had
dropped only an instant before.
Having encountered one rider on the path, I expected others. There
were none. For a long while I walked in tranquillity, hearing the

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calls of birds and seeing many signs of game. Then (to my
inexpressible delight) the path forded a young stream. I walked up a
dozen strides to a spot where deeper, quieter water flowed over a
bed of white gravel. Minnows skittered away from my boots--
always a sign of good water--and it was still cold from the
mountain peaks and sweet with the memory of snow. I drank and