Alan Garner Classic Collection. Alan Garner

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ was the shallowest of valleys. They bounced over the edge, and were dropped by the storm as it leapt across the gap. Close to where they landed a fallen tree threw up soilclogged roots, a natural shield against the wind.

      “We shall fare no better than this,” said Fenodyree, “and we cannot battle with such a storm, so let us make the most of what we have.”

      At first it was enough to be out of the storm’s reach: the snow hissed past, and little settled. But the air was cruel; and behind the roots there was not much space for five people to move, so they crouched and stood by turns, and the breath froze on their lips, and their eyelashes were brittle with ice.

      The children pulled on all their spare clothing, and huddled to share the dwarfs’ cloaks. Gowther came off worst. He had to make do with sticking his feet into the rucksack, and wrapping himself about with the clammy, cold, rubber-scented groundsheets. It was then that Durathror spoke of the lios-alfar, and of his friendship with Atlendor.

      “But why should the elves leave here in the first place, and where did they go?” asked Colin when the tale was ended.

      “The lios-alfar,” said Durathror, “are the elves of light, creatures of air, the dew-drinkers. To them beauty is food and life, and dirt and ugliness, death. When men turned from the sun and the earth, and corrupted the air with the smoke of furnaces, it was poison to the lios-alfar; the scab of brick and tile that spread over this land withered their hearts. They had to go, or die. Wherever men now were, there were noise and grime; only in the empty places was there peace. Some of the lios-alfar fled to the mountains of Sinadon, some to the Isle of Iwerdon across the Westwater, and others past the Depths of Dinsel in the south. But most went north with Atlendor to far Prydein, even beyond Minith Bannawg, and there they dwell upon the high hills. Now some, at least, have come south, but to what end I cannot tell, nor why they are hidden from me. But there can be no evil in it, that much is certain.”

      During the afternoon the wind dropped, and the roots were now no shelter from the snow. It fell steadily, monotonously, so that it seemed to the half-frozen figures behind the tree as though they were on a platform that moved upwards through a white, beaded curtain. Reality, space, and time dissolved in the blank, soaring, motionless world. Only an occasional squall drew back the curtain for a second or two, and destroyed the hypnotic illusion.

      Towards nightfall Fenodyree made up his mind. Ever since the wind had ceased to clamp them behind the tree roots he had been weighing the advantages, and disadvantages, of moving on. As things stood, they were more than likely to lose their way, and they were dangerously close to Alderley, and to the Edge. No, that was a risk he did not want to take. But, on the other hand, it was becoming obvious that they could not survive the night in the open. Already they were experiencing the fatal, warm drowsiness of exposure, and the mesmerism of the snow was undermining their resistance to the peril. Both Gowther and Colin had had to be roused more than once.

      “We must move,” said Fenodyree. “If we do not find a roof for our heads we shall not have need of one by morning. I shall see if there is better cover downstream. The fewer tracks we make in this snow the safer we shall rest, but it would not be wise to go alone. Farmer Mossock, will you come with me?”

      “I will that!” said Gowther. “I’ve about had enough of this place!”

      Fenodyree and Gowther disappeared through the curtain.

      They followed the valley for a quarter of a mile, and came to a cart track near to where it joined the Congleton road on their right.

      “Hey!” said Gowther. “I know wheer we are! Straight on’ll be Redesmere, and theer’s some pretty thick woods just ahead: it’s mainly rhododendron again, but happen we con make ourselves summat out of it. It’s the best we’ll find round these parts.”

      “It may be better than you think, my friend!” said the dwarf, his eyes gleaming. “I had given no thought to Redesmere.”

      They retraced their steps. All the time, Gowther had been at pains to put his feet exactly in Fenodyree’s tracks, and his boots had blotted out the dwarf’s smaller prints. Going back, they trod the same tracks as on the outward journey, and the result would give any hunter much to think about.

      The snow was now a foot deep all over, and considerably more where it had drifted.

      “We shall cut branches here and there to make a thatch, if nothing better comes of Redesmere,” said Fenodyree. “But we must not waste a moment, since it is past sunset already, and that is danger even before the coming of night. If we are to … ah!!”

      “What …?”

      “Sh! Look!”

      In the time that had elapsed since they passed that spot on the way to Redesmere something had crossed their path, leaving tracks like nothing Gowther had ever seen in all his days. A shallow furrow, two yards wide, had been swept through the snow, and along the centre of the furrow ran the print of bare feet. Each foot was composed of a pointed big toe, divided by a cleft from the single wedge that filled the place where the other four toes would normally have been. The prints were evenly spaced – three yards apart.

      “Hurry!” gasped Fenodyree. “And may we come in time!”

      He did not draw his sword.

      “I’ve a real snow-thirst,” said Susan. “More than anything else at this moment I’d like a gallon of milk.”

      “Oh, don’t,” groaned Colin. “A gallon would only wet my lips!”

      The stream-water was too cold to drink: it numbed their throats, and made their teeth ache. And their mouths were dry and sweet with fatigue.

      They spoke little, for conversation had died long ago: it took too much effort. They moved only when cramp demanded.

      After Gowther and Fenodyree had been gone about twenty minutes, Susan, developing pins and needles in all her limbs, got up to stamp around and flap her arms. She was on the point of crouching down again when she heard a faint swishing sound, as of somebody wading through the snow. Thinking the others were returning, she stood on tiptoe to peer out of the valley. This brought her eyes just above ground-level; and at that moment a flurry of wind pulled aside the veil of snow. A second later the wind had gone by, and the veil fell back into place, but in that instant, Susan’s eyes had registered every detail of the thing that was passing within ten yards of where she stood.

      It bore some resemblance to a woman, an ill-proportioned woman, twenty feet high, and green. The long, thick-set trunk rested on massive legs with curving, bloated thighs. The arms were too short, muscular at the shoulders, but tapering to puny, indeterminate hands. The head was very small, elliptical, and scarcely broader than the neck on which it sat. There was no hair; the mouth was a shadowed line; the nose cut sharply down from the brow, between eyes that were no more than dark smears. It wore a single garment, a loose tunic that reached to the ground, and clung to the body in folds like wet linen. The flesh gleamed dully, and the tunic, of the same colour and texture, might have been of the same substance. A statue of polished malachite; but a statue that moved.

      Susan began to scream, but before the sound reached her lips, a rough hand was clapped over her mouth, and Durathror pushed her down into the snow.

      “Lie still!”

      For a time, above the beating of her heart, she felt the earth shake beneath a ponderous tread that died away.

      “Did СКАЧАТЬ