"Dunsany, Lord - Time and the Gods" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dunsany Lord)

were angry with Their traitorous streams.
Then Slid ceased from singing the song that lures the
world, and gathered up his legions, and the rivers lifted up
their heads with the waves, and all went marching on to
assail the cliffs of the gods. And wherever the rivers had
broken the ranks of the cliffs, Slid's armies went surging
in and broke them up into islands and shattered the islands
away. And the gods on Their hill-tops heard once more the
voice of Slid exulting over Their cliffs.
Already more than half the world lay subject to Slid, and
still his armies advanced; and the people of Slid, the
fishes and the long eels, went in and out of arbours that
once were dear to the gods. Then the gods feared for Their
dominion, and to the innermost sacred recesses of the
mountains, to the very heart of the hills, the gods trooped
off together and there found Tintaggon, a mountain of black
marble, staring far over the earth, and spake thus to him
with the voices of the gods:
"O eldest born of our mountains, when first we devised
the earth we made thee, and thereafter fashioned fields and
hollows, valleys and other hills, to lie about thy feet.
And now, Tintaggon, thine ancient lords, the gods, are
facing a new thing which overthrows the old. Go therefore,
thou, Tintaggon, and stand up against Slid, that the gods be
still the gods and the earth still green."
And hearing the voices of his sires, the elder gods,
Tintaggon strode down through the evening, leaving a wake of
twilight broad behind him as he strode: and going across the
green earth came down to Ambrady at the valley's edge, and
there met the foremost of Slid's fierce armies conquering
the world.
And against him Slid hurled the force of a whole bay,
which lashed itself high over Tintaggon's knees and streamed
around his flanks and then fell and was lost. Tintaggon
still stood firm for the honour and dominion of his lords,
the elder gods. Then Slid went to Tintaggon and said: "Let
us now make a truce. Stand thou back from Ambrady and let
me pass through thy ranks that mine armies may now pass up
the valley which opens on the world, that the green earth
that dreams around the feet of older gods shall know the new
god Slid. Then shall mine armies strive with thee no more,
and thou and I shall be the equal lords of the whole earth
when all the world is singing the chaunt of Slid, and thy
head alone shall be lifted above mine armies when rival
hills are dead. And I will deck thee with all the robes of
the sea, and all the plunder that I have taken in rare
cities shall be piled before thy feet. Tintaggon, I have
conquered all the stars, my song swells through all the
space besides, I come victorious from Mahn and Khanagat on
the furthest edge of the worlds, and thou and I are to be