"Karl Edward Wagner - Cold Light" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wagner Karl Edward)

there enough survivors to bury the dead. Demornte, where ghosts
stalk silent streets in step with the living, where the living walk
side by side with their ghosts. And a man must look closely to tell
one from the other.
Some few the plague had spared. Most of these gathered in
Sebbei, the old capital, and here a few hundred dragged out their
days where before 10,000 had bustled about their daily tasks. In
Sebbei the remnants of a nation gathered together to await death.
To Sebbei Kane came seeking peace. A deathless man in a
land of the dead, he was drawn by the quiet peace of the city.
Along overgrown roads his horse had carried him, past farms
where the forest was ineluctably obliterating all signs of min's
labors. He had ridden through debris strewn streets of deserted
towns, watched only by empty windows and yawning doorways.
Often he passed piles of bleached bones—pitiful relics of
humanity—and sometimes a skeleton seemed to wink and smile
knowingly, or rattle its bones in greeting. Welcome redhaired
stranger! Welcome you with eyes of death! Welcome man who
rides under a curse! Will you stay with us? Why do you ride by
so fast?
But Kane only stopped when he came to Sebbei. Through
gates left open—for who would enter? who would leave?—his
horse plodded, past rows of empty buildings and down silent
streets. But the streets were kept reasonably clear, and an
occasional house showed occupants—sad faces that stared at him
with little curiosity. None challenged him; no one asked him any
question. This was Sebbei, where one lived amidst death, where
one waited only for death. Sebbei with its few inhabitants living
in its silent shell—mice rustling through a giant's skeleton. To
Kane Sebbei seemed far more eerie than those towns peopled
solely by the dead through which he had ridden.
At the town's one operating tavern he had halted. Assailed for
a moment by the uncanny lifelessness of the city, he paused in his
saddle and licked his cold lips with tongue dry from travel. Over
his right shoulder protruded the hilt of the long sword he wore
slung across his back, and its scabbard rattled when he shook the
tightness from his corded muscles. Lightly he slid from the saddle
and entered the tavern, gazing speculatively at the incurious eyes
that greeted him. Eyes so dull, so lifeless, they seemed clouded
with corpselike glaze.
I am Kane, he had told those who drank there. His voice had
echoed loudly, for in Sebbei they speak in hushed whispers. I
have grown tired in crossing this desert, and I plan to stay here in
your land for a time, he had explained. A few had nodded and the
rest returned to their thoughts, Kane shrugged and began to ask
questions of some of the townsmen, who listlessly gave him the
answers he sought.
At length someone pointed out a faded old man who sat at a
table in one corner, his back straight but his face broken. Here
was one called Gavein, who served as Lord Mayor of Sebbei—a