"Gene Wolfe - The Boy Who Hooked the Sun" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

THE BOY WHO HOOKED THE SUN
by Gene Wolfe

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On the eighth day a boy cast his line into the sea. The Sun of the eighth day was just
rising, making a road of gold that ran from its own broad, blank face all the way to
the wild coastline of At-lantis, where the boy sat upon a jutting emerald; the Sun was
much younger then and not nearly so wise to the ways of men as it is now. It took
the bait.

The boy jerked his pole to set the hook, and grinned, and spat into the sea
while he let the line run out. He was not such a boy as you or I have ever seen, for
there was a touch of emerald in his hair, and there were flakes of sun-gold in his
eyes. His skin was sun-browned, and his fingernails were small and short and a little
dirty; so he was just such a boy as lives down the street from us both. Years ago the
boy's father had sailed away to trade the shining stones of Atlantis for the wine and
ram skins of the wild barbarians of Hellas, leaving the boy and his mother very poor.

All day the Sun thrashed and rolled and leaped about. Sometimes it sounded,
plunging all the Earth into night, and sometimes it leaped high into the sky, throwing
up sprays of stars. Sometimes it feigned to be dead, and sometimes it tried to wrap
his line around the moon to break it. And the boy let it tire itself, sometimes reeling in
and sometimes letting out more line; but through it all he kept a tight grip on the pole.

The richest man in the village, the money-lender, who owned the house where
the boy and his mother lived, came to him, saying, "You must cut your line, boy,
and let the Sun go. When it runs out, it brings winter and withers all the blossoms in
my orchard. When you reel it in, it brings droughty August to dry all the canals that
water my bar-ley fields. Cut your line!"

But the boy only laughed at him and pelted him with the shining stones of
Atlantis, and at last the richest man in the village went away.

Then the strongest man in the vil-lage, ths smith, who could meet the charge
of a wild ox and wrestle it to the ground, came to the boy, saying, "Cut your line,
boy, or I'll break your neck."

But the boy only laughed at him and pelted him with the shining stones of
Atlantis, and when the strongest man in the village seized him by the neck, he seized
the strongest man in return and threw him into the sea, for the power of the Sun had
run down the boy's line and entered into him.

Then the cleverest man in the vil-lage, the mayor, who could charm a rab-bit
into his kitchen -- and many a terrified rabbit, and many a pheasant and partridge
too, had fluttered and trembled there, when the door shut be-hind it and it saw the
knives -- came to the boy saying, "Cut your line, my boy, and come with me!
Henceforth, you and I are to rule in Atlantis. I've been conferring with the mayors of
all the other villages; we have decided to form an empire, and you -- none other! --
are to be our king."