"David and Leigh Eddings - [Dreamers 04] - The Younger Gods" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

the fate of their companions, but continued their rush down the slope toward
that which only they could see.
And then it was that enormous amounts of water burst forth from the upper face
of the high hill above us, and Mother's warrior servants and the mindless
man-things alike were engulfed in water and carried down the slope to certain
destruction.
And Mother screamed in anguish even as those of us who live but to serve her
carried her back toward the safety of the nest, for it was now clear that water
could be as deadly as fire, and that the land of longer summers was now and
forever beyond our reach.


Great was the grief of our beloved Mother, but in time the seekers of knowledge
persuaded her that there were still two regions beyond the high hills that were
not now and forever blocked off from us. There was the land of the sunrise and
the land of shorter summers. Many were the arguments between those warrior
servants who favored the land of shorter summers and those who favored the land
of the sunrise, and those arguments became more heated until those who preferred
shorter summers and those who favored sunrise began to kill each other.
And finally, to prevent more of the killing, beloved Mother chose shorter
summers, and once she had chosen, the killing stopped.
The seekers were much interested in a low-tree that flickered and put out light
and dark clouds which lay close to the ground or rose high up into the sky, for
they saw that low-tree as a way to kill the man-things from a long way off, and
that would put none of the servants of our beloved Mother in peril.
And the seekers were much pleased when they discovered that the low-tree was
most generous, and freely it shared its flickers and clouds with other low-trees
of its own kind.
Now other seekers had gone into the high hills that blocked off the land of
shorter summers, and they soon found a narrow pathway that went through the high
hills and emerged in a well-concealed manner in the land of shorter summers.
Cautious was our beloved Mother, however, and she sent forth servants that could
make the noises of the man-things to deceive the man-things and to set them at
war one with the other, for it had come to the overmind that the man-things on
occasion hated each other even more than they hated us, and gladly would they
kill each other, and that would make things easier for Mother's warrior
servants.
We proceeded across the flat place where there are no things-to-eat and came at
last to the narrow pathway that led from Mother's region to the land of shorter
summers. Much were we discontented when we arrived there, however, for the
man-things had once more piled flat rocks on top of other flat rocks to block
our path.
We now had a means to drive them away, however. The seekers entered several
nesting places in the high hills below the flat rock-pile of the man-things,
there to make piles of the low-trees that flicker inside the nesting places, and
dense black clouds passed over their rock-pile, and then the man-things turned
and fled, leaving the pathway open to the warrior servants.
Beloved Mother rejoiced and told the warrior servants to move rapidly along the
narrow pathway toward the land of shorter summers, for now the low-trees—which
almost certainly loved Mother almost as much as do we who serve and protect