The Unbeheaded King

Начало книги

A LARGE COPPER BATHTUB, ITS POLISHED SURFACE REDLY reflecting the light of the setting sun, soared above the snow-clad peaks of the Lograms. It wove around the loftiest summits and scraped over the lower ones, betimes with but a few cubits to spare.

"Gorax!" yelled one of the two men in the tub. "I have commanded thee not to miss those peaks so straitly! Wouldst stop my old heart from sheer fright? Next time, go around!"

"What's his answer?" asked the other man.

The first cocked his head as if listening. At last he spoke: "He says he is fain to get this journey over with. He also begs that I suffer him to alight on one of these mountains to rest; but I know better. Did I permit him, his last labor for me were completed. Away the fiend would flit to his native dimension, leaving us stranded on an icy mountain top."

The speaker was a small, lean, brown-skinned man in a coarse brown robe. The wind of the tub's motion rippled the silky white hair that hung down beneath his bulbous white turban and fluttered his vast white beard. He was Karadur, a seer and wizard from Mulvan.

Читать дальше →