The Redemption of Althalus. David Eddings

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ apart until finally they petered out altogether, and Althalus found himself more or less alone in the wilderness of the far north. Then one night as he sat in his rough camp huddled over the last embers of his cooking fire with his new cloak wrapped tightly around his shoulders, he saw something to the north that rather strongly told him that he was getting closer to his goal. Darkness was just beginning to settle over the mountains off to the east, but up toward the north where the night was in full bloom, the sky was on fire.

      It was very much like a rainbow that had gotten out of hand. It was varicolored, not the traditional arch of an ordinary rainbow, but rather was a shimmering, pulsating curtain of multi-colored light, seething and shifting in the northern sky. Althalus wasn’t very superstitious, but watching the sky catch on fire isn’t the sort of thing a man can just shrug off.

      He amended his plans at that point. Ghend had told him about the edge of the world, but he’d neglected to mention anything about the sky catching on fire. There was something up here that frightened Ghend, and Ghend had not seemed to be the sort of man who frightened easily. Althalus decided that he’d continue his search. There was gold involved, and even more importantly, the chance to wash off the streak of bad luck that had dogged his steps for more than a year now. That fire up in the sky, however, set off a very large bell inside his head. It was definitely time to start paying very close attention to what was going on around him. If too many more unusual things happened up here, he’d go find something else to do – maybe over in Ansu, or south on the plains of Plakand.

      Just before sunrise the next morning he was awakened by a human voice, and he rolled out from under his cloak, reaching for his spear. He heard only one voice, but whoever was talking seemed to be holding a conversation of some kind, asking questions and seeming to listen to replies.

      The conversationalist was a crooked and bent old man, and he was shambling along with the aid of a staff. His hair and beard were a dirty white, he was filthy, and he was garbed in scraps of rotting fur-covered animal skins held together with cords of sinew or twisted gut. His weathered face was deeply lined, and his rheumy eyes were wild. He gesticulated as he talked, casting frequent, apprehensive glances up at the now-colorless sky.

      Althalus relaxed. This man posed no threat, and his condition wasn’t all that uncommon. Althalus knew that people were supposed to live for just so long, but if someone accidentally missed his appointed time to die, his mind turned peculiar. The condition was most common in very old people, but the same thing could happen to much younger men if they carelessly happened to miss their appointment. Some claimed that these crazy people had been influenced by demons, but that was really far too complicated. Althalus much preferred his own theory. Crazy people were just ordinary folk who’d lived too long. Roaming around after they were supposed to be lying peacefully in their graves would be enough to make anybody crazy. That’s why they started talking to people – or other things – that weren’t really there, and why they began to see things that nobody else could see. They were no particular danger to anyone, so Althalus normally left them alone. Those who were incapable of minding their own business always got excited about crazy people, but Althalus had long since decided that most of the world’s people were crazy anyway, so he treated everybody more or less the same.

      ‘Ho, there,’ he called to the crazy old man, ‘I mean you no harm, so don’t get excited.’

      ‘Who’s that?’ the old man demanded, seizing his staff in both hands and brandishing it.

      ‘I’m just a traveler, and I seem to have lost my way.’

      The old man lowered his staff. ‘Don’t see many travelers around here. They don’t seem to like our sky.’

      ‘I noticed the sky myself just last night. Why does it do that?’

      ‘It’s the edge of things,’ the old man explained. ‘That curtain of fire up in the sky is where everything stops. This side’s all finished – filled up with mountains and trees and birds and bugs and people and beasts. The curtain is the place where nothing begins.’

      ‘Nothing?’

      ‘That’s all there is out there, traveler – nothing. God hasn’t gotten around to doing anything about it yet. There isn’t anything at all out beyond that curtain of fire.’

      ‘I haven’t lost my way then after all. That’s what I’m looking for – the edge of the world.’

      ‘What for?’

      ‘I want to see it. I’ve heard about it, and now I want to see it for myself.’

      ‘There’s nothing to see.’

      ‘Have you ever seen it?’

      ‘Lots of times. This is where I live, and the edge of the world’s as far as I can go when I travel north.’

      ‘How do I get there?’

      The old man stabbed his stick toward the north. ‘Go that way for about a half a day.’

      ‘Is it easy to recognize?’

      ‘You can’t hardly miss it – at least you’d better not.’ The crazy man cackled. ‘It’s a place where you want to be real careful, ‘cause if you make one wrong step when you come to that edge, your journey’s going to last for a lot longer than just a half a day. If you’re really all that eager to see it, go across this meadow and through the pass between those two hills up at the other end of the grass. When you get to the top of the pass you’ll see a big dead tree. The tree stands right at the edge of the world, so that’s as far as you’ll be able to go – unless you know a way to sprout wings.’

      ‘Well then, as long as I’m this close, I think I’ll go have a look.’

      ‘That’s up to you, traveler. I’ve got better things to do than stand around looking at nothing.’

      ‘Who were you talking to just now?’

      ‘God. Me and God, we talk to each other all the time.’

      ‘Really? Next time you talk to him, why don’t you give him my regards? Tell him I said hello.’

      ‘I’ll do that – if I happen to think of it.’ And then the shabby old fellow shambled on, continuing his conversation with the empty air around him.

      Althalus went back to his camp, gathered up his belongings and set out across the rocky meadow toward the two low, rounded hills the old man had indicated. The sun rose, climbing above the snowy peaks of Kagwher, and the night chill began to fade.

      The hills were darkly forested, and there was a narrow pass between them where the ground had been trampled by the hooves of deer and bison. Althalus moved carefully, stopping to examine the game-trail for any unusual footprints. This was a very peculiar place, and it was entirely possible that unusual creatures lived here. Unusual creatures sometimes had unusual eating habits, so it was time to start being very careful.

      He moved on, stopping frequently to look around and listen, but the only sounds he heard were the songs of birds and the sluggish buzzing of a few insects just starting to come awake after the chill night.

      When he reached the top of the pass, he stopped again for quite a long time to look to the north, not because there was anything to see in that direction, but because there wasn’t. The game-trail went on down through a narrow patch of grass toward the dead snag the crazy old man had mentioned, and then it stopped. There wasn’t anything СКАЧАТЬ