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

Even from a distance it was an awe-inspiring sight. From close to, it would
have been terrifying.
'Nor me,' the seaman said. 'The captain wouldn't like it much either, and he's
kept us in clear water until now. Of course, one of them could break out right
in front of our bows. There wouldn't be much we could do about that.'
Terrel found this idea extremely alarming, but saw that Kahl was grinning now.
'Don't worry,' the sailor said, relenting. 'We've done this run a few times
now and no one's suffered so much as a singed beard.'
'Let's hope it stays that way,' Terrel replied, feeling the uneven stubble
that now covered his own chin.
'Mind you, it's not just the new islands that make navigation tricky,' Kahl
added. 'The fires under the water make their own currents too. Sometimes it's
difficult to tell what's going on, especially now the tides aren't reliable
any more.'
Terrel was already aware of that anomaly — and the reason for it. For several
years now the Dark Moon had been behaving erratically — in defiance of all the
precise astronomical laws laid down by the seers of his homeland — and
recently, it seemed that the changes in its speed and size had begun to affect
the orbits of the other three moons. This meant that predicting the rise and
fall of tides had become increasingly complex.
'Of course,' Kahl went on, 'once the fire-islands are in
place, they can actually help us, give us reference points when we're out of
sight of land — provided you can recognize them from one month to the next.'
'You mean they keep changing?' Terrel guessed.
'Sometimes. See those islands there?' He pointed further ahead, to where three
black mounds rose from the sea. 'They weren't even there two years ago, and
each time we come past they've got bigger. They still smoke sometimes too, so
we steer well clear.'
Terrel squinted into the distance, studying the irregular cone-shaped rocks,
and tried to imagine them growing out of the ocean.
'These are dangerous waters,' he commented.
Kahlshrugged.
'Any sea can be dangerous. This one more than most, maybe.'
'Then why do you cross it?'
'The usual reasons. Gold and adventure.' He grinned. 'But mostly the gold.'
'They have gold on Myvatan?'
'Loads of it. We wouldn't bother trading with them otherwise. They've got
precious little else we're interested in. I'm more interested in why you want
to go there.'
Terrel had several reasons, but none that would mean much to a practical man
like Kahl.
'I don't know, really. I've been travelling so long, it seemed like one of the
few places I hadn't been to yet.' This contained at least an element of truth.
'And I've heard it's different from anywhere else.'
'That's one way of putting it,' the seaman remarked. 'But there must be some
purpose to your travelling.'
'Not really.'
Although Kahl was clearly not convinced, he chose not to press the point.
'Well, a person with your talents is going to find a welcome in most places,'
he observed.