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

equal lords when the old gods are gone and the green earth
knoweth Slid. Behold me gleaming azure and fair with a
thousand smiles, and swayed by a thousand moods." And
Tintaggon answered: "I am staunch and black and have one
mood, and this -- to defend my masters and their green
earth."
Then Slid went backward growling and summoned together
the waves of a whole sea and sent them singing full in
Tintaggon's face. Then from Tintaggon's marble front the
sea fell backwards crying on to a broken shore, and ripple
by ripple straggled back to Slid saying: "Tintaggon stands."
Far out beyond the battered shore that lay at Tintaggon's
feet Slid rested long and sent the nautilus to drift up and
down before Tintaggon's eyes, and he and his armies sat
singing idle songs of dreamy islands far away to the south,
and of the still stars whence they had stolen forth, of
twilight evenings and of long ago. Still Tintaggon stood
with his feet planted fair upon the valley's edge defending
the gods and Their green earth against the sea.
And all the while that Slid sang his songs and played
with the nautilus that sailed up and down he gathered his
oceans together. One morning as Slid sang of old outrageous
wars and of most enchanting peace and of dreamy islands and
the south wind and the sun, he suddenly launched five oceans
out of the deep all to attack Tintaggon. And the five
oceans sprang upon Tintaggon and passed above his head. One
by one the grip of the oceans loosened, one by one they fell
back into the deep and still Tintaggon stood, and on that
morning the might of all five oceans lay dead at Tintaggon's
feet.
That which Slid had conquered he still held, and there is
now no longer a great green valley in the south, but all
that Tintaggon had guarded against Slid he gave back to the
gods. Very calm the sea lies now about Tintaggon's feet,
where he stands all black amid crumbled cliffs of white,
with red rocks piled about his feet. And often the sea
retreats far out along the shore, and often wave by wave
comes marching in with the sound of the tramping of armies,
that all may still remember the great fight that surged
about Tintaggon once, when he guarded the gods and the green
earth against Slid.
Sometimes in their dreams the war-scarred warriors of
Slid still lift their heads and cry their battle cry; then
do dark clouds gather about Tintaggon's swarthy brow and he
stands out menacing, seen afar by ships, where once he
conquered Slid. And the gods know well that while Tintaggon
stands They and Their world are safe; and whether Slid shall
one day smite Tintaggon is hidden among the secrets of the
sea.