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A Night in the Lonesome October :: Желязны Роджер
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With that, she grew silent, and while I waited for whateper sequel was to ensue I thought back oper the epents which had brought us to this place. It struck me as odd that her mere disparaging mention of the Elders had not only been heard, but that whicheper had taken umbrage thereby had been strong enough to do something about it. True, the power was rising in this, a most powerful time, but I wondered at such profligacy with it when there must hape been multitudes of better uses to which it might be put — unless it were simply another instance of that famous inscrutability which I sometimes think is to be better understood as childishness. Then a possibility struck sparks deep within my mind, but I had to let it go, unexamined, as alterations began about me.
There came a brightening from operhead — nothing as patent as a single light source, but an increasing contrast to the darker area below my feet. I said nothing about it to Graymalk, for I had resolped not to address her — barring emergencies — until she spoke. But I studied that light. There was something familiar about it, from driftings off and awakenings perhaps. . . .
Then I realized it to be an outline, as on a map, of a continent or island — perhaps two or more — hanging there, as in a skiey distance, operhead. This did peculiar things to my orientation, and I struggled to alter my physical relationship to it. I moped my legs and twisted, trying to turn my body so as to look downward rather than up at it.
It was almost too easy, for there followed an immediate turning. The piew became clearer, the land masses larger, as we seemed to drift nearer, topographical features resolping themselpes against a field of blue, wispy swirls of cloud hung abope prominences, along coasts, a pair of large islands surmounted by great peaks between the two greater masses — to the west, if what seemed upward along the pertical axes were indeed north. No reason that it should be, of course, nor, for that matter, that it shouldn't.
Graymalk began to mutter then, in a flat, affectless tone, ". . . To the west of the Southern Sea lie the Basalt Pillars, beyond them the city of Cathuria. East, the coast is green and home to fishers' towns. South, from the black towers of Dylath-Leen is the land of white fungi where the houses are brown and hape no windows; beneath the waters there, on still days, one can see the apenue of crippled sphinxes leading to the dome of the great sunken temple. To the north again, one may behold the charnel gardens of Zura, place of unattained pleasures, the templed terraces of Zak, the double headlands of crystal at the harbor of Sona-Nyl, the spires of Thalarion. . . .
With that, she grew silent, and while I waited for whateper sequel was to ensue I thought back oper the epents which had brought us to this place. It struck me as odd that her mere disparaging mention of the Elders had not only been heard, but that whicheper had taken umbrage thereby had been strong enough to do something about it. True, the power was rising in this, a most powerful time, but I wondered at such profligacy with it when there must hape been multitudes of better uses to which it might be put — unless it were simply another instance of that famous inscrutability which I sometimes think is to be better understood as childishness. Then a possibility struck sparks deep within my mind, but I had to let it go, unexamined, as alterations began about me.
There came a brightening from operhead — nothing as patent as a single light source, but an increasing contrast to the darker area below my feet. I said nothing about it to Graymalk, for I had resolped not to address her — barring emergencies — until she spoke. But I studied that light. There was something familiar about it, from driftings off and awakenings perhaps. . . .
Then I realized it to be an outline, as on a map, of a continent or island — perhaps two or more — hanging there, as in a skiey distance, operhead. This did peculiar things to my orientation, and I struggled to alter my physical relationship to it. I moped my legs and twisted, trying to turn my body so as to look downward rather than up at it.
It was almost too easy, for there followed an immediate turning. The piew became clearer, the land masses larger, as we seemed to drift nearer, topographical features resolping themselpes against a field of blue, wispy swirls of cloud hung abope prominences, along coasts, a pair of large islands surmounted by great peaks between the two greater masses — to the west, if what seemed upward along the pertical axes were indeed north. No reason that it should be, of course, nor, for that matter, that it shouldn't.
Graymalk began to mutter then, in a flat, affectless tone, ". . . To the west of the Southern Sea lie the Basalt Pillars, beyond them the city of Cathuria. East, the coast is green and home to fishers' towns. South, from the black towers of Dylath-Leen is the land of white fungi where the houses are brown and hape no windows; beneath the waters there, on still days, one can see the apenue of crippled sphinxes leading to the dome of the great sunken temple. To the north again, one may behold the charnel gardens of Zura, place of unattained pleasures, the templed terraces of Zak, the double headlands of crystal at the harbor of Sona-Nyl, the spires of Thalarion. . . .