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

a clear surface anywhere, she would want to decorate it, as if the whole of
creation was her canvas.

Raising his foot, Atrus pushed until it gave, then went inside, into the dark
and narrow space. Another year and he would need to crouch beneath the low stone
ceiling. Now, however, he crossed the tiny room in three steps; lowering the
sack from his shoulder, he slid it onto the broad stone shelf beside two others.

For a moment he stood there, staring at the single, bloodred symbol printed on
the sack. Familiar though it was, it was a remarkably elaborate thing of curves
and squiggles, and whether it was a word or simply a design he wasn't sure, yet
it had a beauty, an elegance, that he found entrancing. Sometimes it reminded
him of the face of some strange, exotic animal, and sometimes he thought he
sensed some kind of meaning in it.

Atrus turned, looking up, conscious suddenly of his grandmother waiting by the
cleftwall, and chided himself for being so thoughtless. Hurrying now, stopping
only to replace his glasses, he padded up the steps and across the swaying
bridge, emerging in time to see her unfasten her cloak and, taking a long,
pearl-handled knife from the broad leather toolbelt that encircled her waist,
lean down and slit open one of the bolts of cloth she'd bought.

"That's pretty," he said, standing beside her, adjusting the lenses, then
admiring the vivid vermilion and cobalt pattern, seeing how the light seemed to
shimmer in the surface of the cloth, as in a pool.

"Yes," she said, turning to smile at him, returning the knife to its sheath.
"It's silk."

"Silk?"

In answer she lifted it and held it out to him. "Fed."

He reached out, surprised by the cool, smooth feel of it.

She was still looking at him, an enigmatic smile on her lips now. "I thought I'd
make a hanging for your room. Something to cheer it up."

He looked back at her, surprised, then bent and lifted one of the remaining
sacks onto his shoulder.

As he mad" his way down and across to the storeroom, he saw the rich pattern of
the cloth in his mind and smiled. There was a faint gold thread within the
cloth, he realized, recalling how it had felt: soft and smooth, like the
underside of a leaf.

Depositing the second sack, he went back. While he was gone, Anna had lifted the
two bolts of cloth up onto the lip of the cleftwall, beside the last of the salt
and flour sacks. There was also a small green cloth bag of seeds, tied at the
mouth with a length of bloodred twine. Of the final sack, the one he'd thought