"Myst - 01 - The Book Of Atrus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Miller Rand)

exaggerated care, lowered the load from her shoulder.

"Here," she said quietly, aware of how far voices could travel in this exposed
terrain. "Take the salt and flour down to the storeroom."

Silently, Atrus did as he was told. Removing his sandals, he slipped them onto
the narrow ledge beneath the cleftwall's lip. Chalk marks from their lesson
earlier that day covered the surface of the outer wall, while close by a number
of small earthenware pots lay partly buried in the sand from one of his
experiments.

Atrus swung one of the three bone-white sacks up onto his shoulder, the rough
material chafing his neck and chin, the smell of the salt strong through the
cloth. Then, clambering up onto the sloping wall, he turned and, crouching,
reached down with his left foot, finding the top rung of the rope ladder.

With unthinking care, Atrus climbed down into the cool shadow of the cleft, the
strong scent of herbs intoxicating after the deserts parched sterility. Down
here things grew on every side. Every last square inch of space was cultivated.
Between the various stone and adobe structures that clung to them, the steep
walls of the cleft were a patchwork of bare red-brown and vivid emerald, while
the sloping floor surrounding the tiny pool was a lush green, no space wasted
even for a path. Instead, a rope bridge stretched across the cleft in a zigzag
that linked the various structures not joined by the narrow steps that had been
carved into the rock millennia before. Over the years, Anna had cut a number of
long troughlike shelves into the solid walls of the cleft, filling them with
earth and patiently irrigating them, slowly expanding their garden.

The storeroom was at the far end, near the bottom of the cleft. Traversing the
final stretch of rope bridge, Atrus slowed. Here, water bubbled up from an
underground spring, seeping through a tilted layer of porous rock, making the
ancient steps wet and slippery. Farther down a channel had been cut into the
rock, directing the meager but precious flow across the impermeable stone at the
bottom of the cleft into the natural depression of the pool. Here, too, was the
place where his mother was buried. At one end of it lay a small patch of
delicate blue flowers, their petals like tiny stars, their stamen velvet dark.

After the searing heat of the desert sand, the coolness of the damp stone
beneath his feet was delightful. Down here, almost thirty feet below the
surface, the air was fresh and cool, its sweet scent refreshing after the
dryness of the desert outside. There was the faintest trickling of water, the
soft whine of a desert wasp. Atrus paused a moment, lifting the heavy glasses
onto his brow, letting his pale eyes grow accustomed to the shadow, then went on
down, ducking beneath the rock overhang before turning to face the storeroom
door, which was recessed into the stone of the cleftwall.

The surface of that squat, heavy door was a marvel in itself, decorated as it
was with a hundred delicate, intricate carvings; with fish and birds and
animals, all of them linked by an interwoven pattern of leaves and flowers.
This, like much else in the cleft, was his grandmother's doing, for if there was