"Gene Wolfe - Long Sun 1 - Nightside the long sun" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

he been shown the Fliers, among his myriad, leaping visions? He felt he had-- but he had been shown
so much!

The disproportionate, gauzy wings were nearly invisible in the glare of the unshaded sun, so that
it seemed that the Flier flew without them, arms outstretched, feet together, an uncanny figure
black against the burning gold.

"If the Fliers are human," Silk admonished his charges, "it would surely be evil to stone them. If
they are not, you must consider that they may be higher than we are in the spiritual whorl, just
as they are in die temporal." As an afterthought he added, "Even if rfiey are spying on us, which
I doubt."

Had they, too, achieved enlightenment, and was that why they flew? Did some god or goddess--it
would be Hierax, perhaps, or his father, sky-ruling Pas--teach those he favored the art of flight?

The palaestra's warped and weathered door would not open until Horn had wrestled manfully with its
latch. As always, Silk delivered die smaller boys to Maytera Marble first "We won a glorious
victory," he told her.

She shook her head in mock dismay, her smooth oval face, polished bright by countless dustings,
catching the sunlight from the window. "My poor girls were beaten, alas, Patera. It seems to me
that Maytera Mint's big girls grow quicker and stronger with each week that passes. Wouldn't you
think our Merciful Molpe would make my

14 Gene Wolfe

NlGHTSIDE THE LONG SuN

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smaller ones quicker, too? Yet it doesn't seem she does it."

"By the time they're quicker, they'll be the big girls, perhaps."

"That must be it, Patera. While I'm only a small girl myself, snatching at every chance to put off
the minuends and subtrahends for as long as possible, always willing to talk, never willing to
work." Maytera Marble paused, her work-worn steel fingers flexing the cubit stick while she
studied Silk. "You be careful this afternoon, Patera. You must be tired already, after scrambling
around up there all morning and playing with the boys. Don't fall off that roof."

He grinned. "I'm finished with my repairs for today, Maytera. I'm going to sacrifice after
manteion--a private sacrifice."

The old sib tilted her gleaming head to one side, thus lifting an eyebrow. "Then I regret that my
class will not participate. Will your lamb be more pleasing to the Nine, do you think, without
us?"

For an instant Silk was tempted to tell her everything there and then. He drew a deep breath
instead, smiled, and closed the door.