"C. S. Friedman - Coldfire 1 - Black Sun Rising" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friedman C. S)

it clear what she wanted. “Come with me.”
She urged him forward, and he went. Running by her side, down streets that
were suddenly filled with people. Dozens of people, in all stages of dress and
activity: working folk with their dinner plates in hand, children clutching at
homework sheets, women with babies nursing at their breasts - even one
woman with a hand full of playing cards, who rearranged them as she walked.
Pouring out of the houses and shops that lined Jaggonath’s narrow streets like
insects out of a collapsed hive. Which brought to mind other images.
He stopped, and forced her to stop with him. His eyes were still Worked
enough to let him see the current that swirled about their feet, though the image
was little more than a shadow of his former vision. He checked the flow again,
felt his heart stop for an instant. It had changed. He could see it. Not in
direction, nor in speed of flow, but in intensity . . . He gripped her hand tightly.
There was less of it than there should have been, less of it than any natural tide
could have prompted. It was as if the fae itself were withdrawing from this place,
gathering itself elsewhere to break, with a tsunami’s sudden force-
“Earthquake?” he whispered. Aghast - and awed - by the revelation.
“Come on,” she answered. And dragged him forward.
They ran until they reached the north end of the street, where it widened
into a sizable shopping plaza. She stopped there, breathless, and bade him do
the same. There were already several hundred people gathered in the small
cobblestoned square, and more were arriving each minute. The horses that were
tethered there pulled nervously at their reins, nostrils twitching as if trying to
catch the scent of danger. Even as Damien and Ciani entered the tiny square the
hanging signs of several shops began to swing, and a crash of glass sounded
through one open doorway. Shopkeepers exited the buildings hurriedly with
precious items clutched in their arms - crystal, porcelain, delicate sculptures - as
the signs above them swung even more wildly, and the panicked animals fought
for their freedom.
“You had warning,” he whispered. What an incredible concept! He was
accustomed to regarding Ernan history as a series of failures and losses - but
here was real triumph, and over Nature herself! Their ancestors on Earth had
had no way of knowing exactly when an earthquake would strike - when the
concentrated pressure that had built up over months or years would suddenly
burst into movement, breaking apart mountains and rerouting rivers before man
even knew what had hit him - but here, on Erna, they had warning sirens.
Warning sirens! And not on all of Erna, he reminded himself. Only in the east.
Not in his homeland. Ganji had nothing to rival this.
He was about to speak - to share his awe with Ciani - when a sound even
more terrible than the siren split the night. It took him a few seconds to realize
that its source was human; it was a voice racked by such pain, warped by such
terror, that Damien barely recognized it as such. Instinctively he turned toward
its source, his free hand already grabbing for a weapon . . . but Ciani grabbed
him by the arm and stopped him. “No, Damien. There’s nothing you can do. Let
it be.”
The scream peaked suddenly, a sound so horrible it made his skin crawl -
then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was cut short. Damien had fought some
grotesque things in his life, and some of them had been long in dying, but
nothing in his experience had ever made a sound like that.
“Someone Working when it hit,” she muttered. “Gods help him.”