"George R. R. Martin - Dying of the Light" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

decade the city will go dark as a burnt-out ember."
"It doesn't look very big," Dirk said. "How many people did it hold?"
"A million, once. You're just seeing the tip of the iceberg. The city is built into the mountain."
"Very Kavalar," Ruark said. "A deep holding, a fastness in stone. But empty now. Twenty people, last count, us
including."
The aircar passed over the outer wall, set flush to the cliff on the edge of the wide mountain ledge, to make one
long straight drop past rock and glowstone. Below them Dirk saw wide walkways, and rows of slowly stirring
pennants, and great carved gargoyles with burning glowstone eyes. The buildings were white stone and ebon wood,
and on their flanks the rock fires were reflected in long red streaks, like open wounds on some hulking dark beast.
They flew over towers and domes and streets, twisting alleys and wide boulevards, open courtyards and a huge
many-tiered outdoor theater.
Empty, all empty. Not a figure moved in the red-drenched ways of Larteyn.
Gwen spiraled down to the roof of a square black tower. As she hovered and slowly faded the gravity grid to bring
them in, Dirk noted two other cars in the airlot beneath them: a sleek yellow teardrop and a formidable old military
flyer with the look of century-old war surplus. It was olive-green, square and sheathed in armor, with lasercannon on
the forward hood and pulse-tubes on the rear.
She put their metal manta down between the two cars, and they vaulted out onto the roof. When they reached the
bank of elevators, Gwen turned to face him, her face flushed and strange in the brooding reddish light. "It is late,"
she said. "We had all better rest."
Dirk did not question the dismissal. "Jaan?" he said.
"You'll meet him tomorrow," she replied. "I need a chance to talk to him first."
"Why?" he asked, but Gwen had already turned and started toward the stairs. Then the tube arrived and Ruark put
a hand on his shoulder and pulled him inside.
They rode downward, to sleep and to dreams.

Chapter 2

He got very little rest that night. Each time he started off to sleep, his dreams would wake him: fitful visions laced
with poison and only half remembered when he woke, as he did, time and time again throughout the night. Finally he
gave up. Instead, he began to rummage through his belongings until he found the jewel In its wrappings of silver and
velvet, and he sat with it in the darkness and drank from its cold promises.
Hours passed. Then Dirk rose and dressed, slid the jewel into his pocket, and went outside alone to watch the
Wheel come up. Ruark was sound asleep, but he had the door coded for Dirk, so there was no problem getting in or
out. He took the tubes back up to the roof and waited through the last dregs of night, sitting on the cold metal wing of
the gray aircar.
It was a strange dawn, dim and dangerous, and the day it birthed was murky. First only a vague cloudy glow
suffused the horizon, a red-black smear that faintly echoed the glowstones of the city. Then the first sun came up: a
tiny ball of yellow that Dirk watched with naked eyes. Minutes later, a second appeared, a little larger and brighter,
on another part of the horizon. But the two of them, though recognizably more than stars, still cast less light than
Braque's fat moon.
A short time later the Hub began to climb above the Common. It was a line of dim red at first, lost in the ordinary
light of dawn, but it grew steadily brighter until at last Dirk saw that it was no reflection, but the crown of a vast red
sun. The world turned crimson as it rose.
He looked down into the streets below. The stones of Larteyn had all faded now; only where the shadows fell
could the glow still be seen, and there only dimly. Gloom had settled over the city like a grayish pall tinged slightly
with washed-out red. In the cool weak light the nightflames all had died, and the silent streets echoed death and
desolation.
Worlorn's day. Yet it was twilight.
"It was brighter last year," said a voice behind him. "Now each day is darker, cooler. Of the six stars in the
Hellcrown, two are hidden now behind Fat Satan, and are of no use at all. The others grow small and distant. Satan