"David Eddings - The Dreamers 01 - The Elder gods" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

ones who’d stayed awake went to sleep. There was one that never slept,
though. That one’s very ugly, isn’t it?’
‘Indeed it is, child,’ Zelana replied with a shudder. ‘It’s an outcast, and
we don’t even like to think about it. What happened next?’
‘There were a lot of things with fur wandering around, and there were
birds and bugs, too, but then some things who walked on their hind legs
came along. They didn’t look at all the way we do, though. Their skin
was scaly, like the skin of large fish - or maybe snakes, and their eyes
were huge and stuck way out in front of their faces. That went on for
quite a long time, and then everything was all covered with white, and it
got very cold. Mother Sea seemed to shrink, and she ran away from her
shore. Then the white went away, and Mother Sea came back. That’s
when the man-things who look like me arrived. They didn’t look exactly
like me, though. They wrapped themselves up in animal skins for some
reason, and you and I don’t do that, do we?’
‘It isn’t necessary for us, Eleria. The skins help the man-things stay
warm, and they’re ashamed of their bodies.’
‘How peculiar,’ Eleria said, frowning slightly. ‘That was about all
there was, Beloved, except that the awful-looking watcher was still way
off at the edge of my dream, and I don’t think it likes me very much. I get
the feeling that it’s afraid of me for some reason.’
‘If it has anything like good sense, it is,’ Zelana said. ‘Do you think
you’ll be able to manage here by yourself for a few days? There are some
things I need to attend to. I won’t be gone for long.’
‘Can’t I go with you?’
‘I’m afraid not, Eleria. I have to go by myself this time. Maybe you can
come along next time. We’ll see.’
 3



Zelana swam out of her hidden grotto and onto a nearby gravel beach
where the waves rolled in and then receded with a mournful sound that
seemed filled with regret. Then she raised her face to the sky to search for
one of those winds that rushed far overhead in perpetuity, streaming
eternally above the clouds and weather. She encountered several, but they
were not moving in the proper direction, so she continued her search.
Then at last she felt a wind that streamed northward toward the Domain
of her elder brother, and she rose up and up through the buffeting of those
winds which had not suited her until she reached that wind which rushed
northward along the outer edge of the sky, and she bestrode that wind,
and it obediently carried her toward the bleak Domain of her brother
Dahlaine.
Now Dahlaine dwelt in a cave deep in the bowels of the earth beneath
the crags and eternal snow of Mount Shrak, which the people of the
North believe is the tallest peak in all the world. And Zelana descended
from the dark outer edge of the sky to the forbidding mountain that
seemed almost to scowl down at her brother’s Domain with a bleak
expression of superiority. The mouth of Dahlaine’s cave was a deep
indentation in the north side of the mount, and Zelana entered there and