"Julia Gray - Guardian 04 - The Red Glacier" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gray Julia)

making.
'Including me,' the merchant said, nodding.
They sat in silence for a while. Kjolur seemed perfectly at ease but Terrel
was nervous, not quite knowing what to say or where to look. He took note of
the few things he could see in the cabin, but knew it would be both pointless
and rude to enquire about the ledgers or the small casket that sat in one
corner.
'Well,' he said eventually, clearing his throat. 'You have my thanks. I'm in
your debt.'
'Few foreigners come to my homeland,' Kjolur responded. 'Most of my people
prefer it that way. Even Ostan and his crew won't venture more than a few
paces from the docks. For myself, I wish it were otherwise. Perhaps you're the
first of many visitors.'
From what he'd heard,' Terrel felt it unlikely that Myvatan would attract many
outsiders, but he chose not to say so. Instead he tried to bring the talk
around to the merchant himself.
'Do other Myvatanians travel as you do?'
'Very few. We're an insular breed in more than one sense. And for much of the
year our climate is not conducive to travel.'
'Is it true that the sun never rises in midwinter?' Terrel asked. It was one
of the tales told about the island that he'd found hard to believe.
'It's true,' Kjolur confirmed. 'Just as it's true that for two months at
midsummer the sun never sets.'
'Really?' Terrel breathed, his astonishment plain.
'You get used to it,' the islander said, smiling again. 'Of course, we sleep
through the darkest months anyway.'
'You actually hibernate':" Terrel was even more astonished now.
'For about two median months each winter,' Kjolur confirmed. 'If you'd made
this trip much earlier in the year, you'd have found us all asleep.'
This idea took a bit of getting used to. Although Terrel had come across
long-term sleepers of a quite different kind, the prospect of an entire
community deliberately falling asleep every year was bizarre.
'It's really a very practical arrangement,' the islander went on. 'We save on
supplies at the bleakest time of the year, and conserve our own energy for
when the light returns.'
Terrel nodded, even though he still felt that - practical or not - it was one
of the strangest things he'd ever heard.
'Do you do the same thing on your travels?' he asked.
'No. When there's light and warmth, I've no need to. My body adjusts. I might
feel weary, sometimes, but that's probably just old age creeping up on me.' He
grinned.
As far as Terrel could judge, Kjolur was probably about thirty. Old enough,
but hardly ancient. He grinned back.
'There's a story in here,' the merchant said, picking up his book, 'about
Savik's Whale. I reread it last night after our talk.'
'Will you read it to me?' Terrel asked eagerly.
'Not the whole thing. Our poets tend to be a little . . . overelaborate, shall
we say? But the gist of the tale is that it's more than just a sculpture. It's
a beacon, a marker for the gods. They take notice of anything that happens
there.'