JК
The Colour of Magic :: Пратчетт Терри
Страница: 120 из 150The head was slightly tilted, and a huge ruby eye might almost have been a red super-giant that had managed to shine at noonday.
Below the elephant-Rincewind swallowed and tried not to think-Below the elephant there was nothing but the distant, painful disc of the sun. And, sweeping slowly past it, was something that for all its city-sized scales, its crater-pocks, its lunar cragginess, was indubitably a flipper.
“Shall I let go?” suggested the troll
“Gnah,” said Rincewind, straining backwards.
“I have lived here on the Edge for five years and I have not had the courage,” boomed Tethis. “Nor have you, if I’m any judge.” He stepped back, allowing Rincewind to fling himself onto the ground.
Twoflower strolled up to the rim and peered over.
“Fantastic,” he said. “If only I had my picture box.”
“What else is down there? I mean, if you fell off, what would you see?”
Tethis sat down on an outcrop. High over the disc the moon came out from behind a cloud, giving him the appearance of ice.
“My home is down there, perhaps,” he said slowly. “Beyond your silly elephants and that ridiculous turtle. A real world. Sometimes I come out here and look, but somehow I can never bring myself to take that extra step… A real world, with real people. I have wives and little ones, somewhere down there…” He stopped, and blew his nose. “You soon learn what you’re made of, here on the Edge.”
“Stop saying that. Please,” moaned Rincewind. He turned over and saw Twoflower standing unconcernedly at the very lip of the rock. “Gnah,” he said, and tried to burrow into the stone.
“There’s another world down there?” said Twoflower, peering over. “Where, exactly?”
The troll waved an arm vaguely. “Somewhere,” he said. “That’s all I know. It was quite a small world. Mostly blue.”
“So why are you here?” said Twoflower.
“Isn’t it obvious?” snapped the troll. “I fell off the edge!”
He told them of the world of Bathys, somewhere among the Stars, where the seafolk had built a number of thriving civilisations in the three large oceans that sprawled across its disc. He had been a meatman, one of the caste which earned a perilous living in large, sail-powered land yachts that ventured far out to land and hunted the shoals of deer and buffalo that abounded in the stormhaunted continents. His particular yacht had been blown into uncharted lands by a freak gale.
Below the elephant-Rincewind swallowed and tried not to think-Below the elephant there was nothing but the distant, painful disc of the sun. And, sweeping slowly past it, was something that for all its city-sized scales, its crater-pocks, its lunar cragginess, was indubitably a flipper.
“Shall I let go?” suggested the troll
“Gnah,” said Rincewind, straining backwards.
“I have lived here on the Edge for five years and I have not had the courage,” boomed Tethis. “Nor have you, if I’m any judge.” He stepped back, allowing Rincewind to fling himself onto the ground.
Twoflower strolled up to the rim and peered over.
“Fantastic,” he said. “If only I had my picture box.”
“What else is down there? I mean, if you fell off, what would you see?”
Tethis sat down on an outcrop. High over the disc the moon came out from behind a cloud, giving him the appearance of ice.
“My home is down there, perhaps,” he said slowly. “Beyond your silly elephants and that ridiculous turtle. A real world. Sometimes I come out here and look, but somehow I can never bring myself to take that extra step… A real world, with real people. I have wives and little ones, somewhere down there…” He stopped, and blew his nose. “You soon learn what you’re made of, here on the Edge.”
“Stop saying that. Please,” moaned Rincewind. He turned over and saw Twoflower standing unconcernedly at the very lip of the rock. “Gnah,” he said, and tried to burrow into the stone.
“There’s another world down there?” said Twoflower, peering over. “Where, exactly?”
The troll waved an arm vaguely. “Somewhere,” he said. “That’s all I know. It was quite a small world. Mostly blue.”
“So why are you here?” said Twoflower.
“Isn’t it obvious?” snapped the troll. “I fell off the edge!”
He told them of the world of Bathys, somewhere among the Stars, where the seafolk had built a number of thriving civilisations in the three large oceans that sprawled across its disc. He had been a meatman, one of the caste which earned a perilous living in large, sail-powered land yachts that ventured far out to land and hunted the shoals of deer and buffalo that abounded in the stormhaunted continents. His particular yacht had been blown into uncharted lands by a freak gale.