Wagner Karl Edward - Two Suns Setting.pdf

(44 KB) Pobierz
161919582 UNPDF
eBook Version: 2.1 p.dummy {font-family:"Times New Roman";} h1.title { margin-top:2.5in;
margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:6.0pt; margin-left:0in; text-align:center; page-break-after:avoid;
punctuation-wrap:simple; text-autospace:none; font-size:48.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";
font-style : normal; font-variant : normal; font-weight : bold; white-space : nowrap; } h1.author {
margin-top:6.0pt; margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:1in; margin-left:0in; text-align:center;
page-break-after:avoid; punctuation-wrap:simple; text-autospace:none; font-size:26.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman"; font-style:italic; font-variant : normal; font-weight : bold; } h2.part {
margin-top:3in; margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:2in; margin-left:0in; text-align:center;
page-break-after:avoid; punctuation-wrap:simple; text-autospace:none; font-size:36.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman"; font-style:normal; font-variant : normal; font-weight : bold; vertical-align
: top; white-space : nowrap; } h2.chapter { margin-top:2in; margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:6.0pt;
margin-left:0in; text-align:center; page-break-after:avoid; punctuation-wrap:simple; text-autospace:none;
font-size:26.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; font-style:normal; font-variant : normal; font-weight :
bold; vertical-align : top; white-space : nowrap; } h2.chapterright { margin-top:2in; margin-right:0in;
margin-bottom:6.0pt; margin-left:0in; text-align:right; page-break-after:avoid; punctuation-wrap:simple;
text-autospace:none; font-size:26.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; font-style:normal; font-variant :
normal; font-weight : bold; vertical-align : top; white-space : nowrap; } h2.subchapter {
margin-top:6.0pt; margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:.5in; margin-left:0in; text-align:center;
page-break-after:avoid; punctuation-wrap:simple; text-autospace:none; font-size:22.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman"; font-style:italic; font-variant : normal; font-weight : bold; letter-spacing :
normal; white-space : nowrap; } h2.subchapterright { margin-top:6.0pt; margin-right:0in;
margin-bottom:.5in; margin-left:0in; text-align:right; page-break-after:avoid; punctuation-wrap:simple;
text-autospace:none; font-size:22.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; font-style:normal; font-variant :
normal; font-weight : bold; letter-spacing : normal; white-space : nowrap; } p { margin-top:6.0pt;
margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:6.0pt; margin-left:0in; text-indent:.25in; font-size:18.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman"; font-style : normal; font-variant : normal; font-weight : normal;
letter-spacing : normal; word-spacing : normal; white-space : normal; } p.version { margin-top:6.0pt;
margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:6.0pt; margin-left:0in; text-indent:0in; font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Ariel,Helvetica"; font-style : normal; font-variant : normal; font-weight : normal; letter-spacing
: normal; word-spacing : normal; white-space : normal; } p.indent { margin-top:6.0pt; margin-right:0in;
margin-bottom:6.0pt; margin-left:.25in; text-indent:0in; font-size:18.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";
font-style : normal; font-variant : normal; font-weight : normal; letter-spacing : normal; word-spacing :
normal; white-space : normal; } p.noindent { margin-top:6.0pt; margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:6.0pt;
margin-left:0in; text-indent:0in; font-size:18.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; font-style : normal;
font-variant : normal; font-weight : normal; letter-spacing : normal; word-spacing : normal; white-space :
normal; } p.quote { margin-top:6.0pt; margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:6.0pt; margin-left:.5in;
text-indent:0in; font-size:18.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; font-style : normal; font-variant :
normal; font-weight : normal; letter-spacing : normal; word-spacing : normal; white-space : normal; }
p.dedication { margin-top:2in; margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:2in; margin-left:1.5in; text-indent:0in;
font-size:18.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; font-style : normal; font-variant : normal; font-weight :
normal; letter-spacing : normal; word-spacing : normal; white-space : normal; } p.ltb { margin-top:1.5in;
margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:0in; margin-left:0in; text-indent:0in; font-size:18.0pt; } p.mtb {
margin-top:1in; margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:0in; margin-left:0in; text-indent:0in; font-size:18.0pt; }
p.stb { margin-top:.5in; margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:0in; margin-left:0in; text-indent:0in;
font-size:18.0pt; } p.alphamenu { margin-top:.25in; margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:0in; margin-left:0in;
text-indent:0in; font-size:14.0pt; font-style : normal; font-weight : bold; font-variant : normal;
letter-spacing : normal; line-height : normal; white-space : nowrap; vertical-align : top; text-align : center;
} td.contentsnum { margin-top:6.0pt; margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:6.0pt; margin-left:0in;
text-indent:0in; font-size:18.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; text-align : left; width : 80px;
vertical-align : top; font-style : normal; font-variant : normal; font-weight : normal; letter-spacing : normal;
 
word-spacing : normal; white-space : normal; } td.contentstext { margin-top:6.0pt; margin-right:0in;
margin-bottom:6.0pt; margin-left:0in; text-indent:0in; font-size:18.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";
text-align : left; font-style : normal; font-variant : normal; font-weight : normal; letter-spacing : normal;
word-spacing : normal; white-space : normal; } td.contentstitle { margin-top:6.0pt; margin-right:0in;
margin-bottom:6.0pt; margin-left:0in; text-indent:0in; font-size:18.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";
text-align : center; font-style : normal; font-variant : normal; font-weight : normal; letter-spacing : normal;
word-spacing : normal; white-space : normal; } --
Two Suns Setting
Karl Edward Wagner
I
Alone with the Night Winds
Sullen red disk, the sun was burying itself beneath a monotonous horizon of rolling gravel waste that
stretched behind him miles uncounted—and possibly untrod save by his horse's hooves. Long
before the sunlight failed, its warmth was snuffed out in the empty lifelessness of the desert, so that in its
last hour the sun shone cheerless as the rising moon. Crimson as it climbed, the full moon seemed a false
dawn to mock the dying sun, arriving prematurely, disrespectful as a greedy heir pacing in eager
impatience before the master's deathbed. For a space the limitless skies of twilight displayed two rubrous
globes low on either horizon, so that Kane mused as to whether his long journey across the desert might
not have led him to some strange dusk world where two ancient suns smouldered in the heavens. The
region seemed unearthly in its chill desolation, and certainly an aura of unguessable antiquity hung as a
grey shadow over each tumbled bit of stone.
Kane had left Carsultyal with no particular destination or goal other than to ride far beyond that city's
influence. There were those who said that Kane was driven from Carsultyal, his power there broken at
last by fellow sorcerers jealous of his long-held prestige—and alarmed by the bizarrely alien
direction his studies had taken in recent years. Kane himself considered his departure more or less
voluntary, albeit precipitous, arguing privately that had he really wanted to, he could have fended off the
attack of his former colleagues—even though he owed allegiance to neither god nor demon from
whom he might have sought intercession. Rather, mankind's first great city had grown stagnant over the
last century. The spirit of discovery, of renaissance that had drawn him to Carsultyal in its earliest years
was burned out now, so that boredom, his nemesis, had overtaken Kane once more. To be sure, he had
been restless, his thoughts drawn more and more to the world beyond Carsultyal—lands yet to
know the presence of man. But that he returned to his pathless wandering without much forethought
could be judged in that Kane had left the city with little more than a few supplies, a double handful of
gold coins, a fast horse, and a sword of tempered Carsultyal steel. Those who sought to seize his
relinquished power may have regretted their inheritance, but this minor vindication seemed pointless
now.
With dusk, the wind began to rise, a whining chill breath from the mountains whose rusted peaks still
burned with the final rays of the sun, now vanished beneath the opposite horizon. Kane shivered and
drew his russet cloak closer about his massive shoulders, regretting the warm furs that scavengers now
snarled over in Carsultyal. The Herratlonai was a cold, empty waste, where nights dropped to freezing.
With the mountain wind, his outfit of green wool shirt, dark leather vest, and pants was less than
adequate for the night.
 
The previous day he had eaten the last hoarded chips of dried fruit and jerky, after short rations for a
week or more. Of water luckily there was yet half a bag; he had filled the skins to bursting before
entering the desert, and a waterhole had providentially appeared along the ghost of a trail he followed. Or
thought he followed. The gravel waste southeast of Carsultyal's domains was reputed to border on one of
the prehuman realms of lost antiquity. There were tales of cities impossibly ancient buried beneath the
gravel dunes. Kane had come upon what he hoped might be traces of a forgotten path across the desert
to the fabled mountains of the eastern continent. He determined to follow this, and at times he discovered
sentinel boulders whose all but effaced hieroglyphs might resemble those glimpsed in books of elder
world lore—or might be the deluding artistry of wind and ice. Beyond this tantalization, Kane
found nothing further to disrupt the monotonous desolation but stray patches of sparse scrub and
gorgeous columns of agatized wood. The grass his mount cropped; for himself Kane had not seen even a
lizard in days. Perhaps it had been rash to attempt traverse of a desert whose limits no man had
knowledge of, at least without a packtrain of provisions. But Kane had not embarked under the brightest
of circumstances, nor had the years dulled his reckless whim. Philosophically he congratulated himself on
riding a course no enemy would care to follow.
Then the mountains had broken through the thin haze of the eastern horizon like a row of worn and
discolored teeth. Their presence gave some cause for optimism—at least he was across the
desert—but this hope was clouded when the late afternoon sun revealed the hills to be merely a
more vertical variation on the present terrain. Dry slopes of gravel and crumbling bluffs appeared lifeless
except for dark blotches of twisted underbrush. From the talus gleamed iridescent flashes of sunlight,
colored then flung back by mammoth slabs of petrified wood, strewn about like a giant's plundered jewel
hoard.
But with darkness had also come the startling smell of wood smoke in the mountain wind—a
familiar scent uncanny in this stark desolation. Kane brushed smooth the grimy beard that hung like rust
over coarse features, thumbed a few blowing strands of red hair back beneath a leather headband sewn
with plaques of lapis lazuli, and sniffed the night wind in disbelief. His mount paced onward, the night
deepened, and against the foot of the mountains ahead beckoned the light of a campfire. No, simply the
light of a fire, he mused—there was no reason to be more specific. At this distance it must be a
good-sized blaze.
He guided his horse closer, picking his way carefully over the gravel in the moonlight, With a twisting
ache in his belly, Kane recognized the odor of roasting meat within the smoke, and there was no longer
any doubt. Calculatingly he studied the still distant campfire. He had seen no evidence of habitation
against the slope, and in this emptiness such would seem an impossibility. Not that it seemed any more
probable, but indications were that he had chanced upon some other wanderer. As to who or what might
be camped beside the ridge, or what circumstances had brought about his presence, Kane was at loss to
conjecture. Nothing was known of those who might dwell beyond the settled northwestern crescent of
the Great Southern Continent, and in the dawn world more races than mankind walked the Earth.
Whoever had built the fire, he ate his meat cooked and so could not be hopelessly alien. From the size of
the campfire, Kane guessed it was a small party of nomads or savages—likely someone from
whatever lay beyond the mountains. The significant point was the roasting meat. Licking dry lips, Kane
unfastened his sword from the saddle and buckled it across his back, so that the familiar hilt protruded
reassuringly over his right shoulder. The scabbard tip he left untied, so that it would pivot freely on its
shoulder swivel when he grasped the hilt. Cautiously he approached the campfire.
 
II
Two Who Met by Firelight
His keen nostrils caught an animal smell, sour beneath the pungency of wood smoke and cooked flesh.
At first the crackling firelight screened the shape crouched beyond, so that Kane warily nudged his steed
toward another angle of vision to confirm his dawning suspicion. His face tightened at recognition. Only
one man squatted beside the blaze—if a giant might be termed "man."
Kane had seen—had spoken with—giants in the course of his wanderings, although in
recent decades they were seldom encountered. A proudly aloof, taciturn race he knew them to be. Few
in number and scornful of mankind's emerging civilization, they lived a semi-barbaric existence in lands
unfrequented by man. True, there abounded gruesome tales of individual giants who terrorized isolated
human settlements, but these were outlaws to their own race—or more often the monstrous hybrid
ogres.
This particular individual did not appear threatening. While he obviously had heard the clash of shod
hooves on stone, his attitude seemed curious rather than hostile as Kane approached. Not that someone
his stature need display an aggressive front at the appearance of a single horse and rider. In comfortable
reach lay a hooked axe whose bronze head could serve as a ship's anchor. Kane realized that from the
other's higher vantage point, his approach had been observed beyond the ring of firelight. Still the giant
showed no sinister action. Spitted over sputtering flames turned an entire carcass of what looked to be
goat. Hot, succulent meat...
Hanger overpowered caution. Poised to wheel and gallop away at the first sign of danger, Kane boldly
rode up to the fringe of firelit circle and halted.
"Good evening," he greeted levelly, speaking the language of the giant's race with complete fluency.
"Your campfire was visible at some distance. I wondered if I might join you."
The giant grunted and shielded his eyes with a hand larger than a spade. "Well, what's this here? A human
who speaks the Old Tongue. Out of nowhere, too—and in a land that even ghosts have
abandoned. This sort of novelty can't be ignored. Come on into the light, manling. We'll share hospitality
of the trail." His voice, though loud as a man's shout, had an even bass timbre.
Kane muttered thanks and dismounted, deciding to gamble on the giant's apparent goodwill. As he
stepped before the fire, he and his host exchanged curious inspection. At a bit over six feet and carrying
past three hundred pounds of bone, sinew, and muscle, Kane was seldom physically overawed. This
night he stood alone in the desert before one who could overpower him as if he were a weakling child.
He estimated the giant's height at somewhere around fifteen feet. It was difficult to tell, since he sat
crouched on the ground, knees drawn up, enswathed in a cloak of bearskins like a misshapen hairy tent.
Disregarding the matter of size, the giant's appearance was human enough—his proportions were
those of a man in his prime, though he seemed somewhat lanky from a slightly disproportionate length of
limb. Broadly muscled, his weight must be enormous. He wore rough boots the size of panniers, and
under the cloak a crudely stitched tunic and leggings of bide. Calves and arms were matted with coarse
bristles. Perhaps too bony to be called craggy, his features were not displeasing; his beard was shaggy,
brown hair drawn back in a short braid at the nape. Brown also were his eyes, set wide beneath an
intelligent brow.
Looking him over as a man might size up a stray dog, the giant glanced at Kane's face and gave an
interested grunt. He gazed thoughtfully into Kane's cold blue eyes for a moment—something few
 
cared to do. "You're Kane, aren't you?" he commented.
Kane started, then smiled bitterly. "A thousand miles from the cities of man, and a giant calls me by
name."
The giant seemed amused. "Oh, you'll have to wander far if you really seek anonymity. We giants have
watched the frantic history of your race. We recall when mankind aborted from its womb, pretending to
be adult instead of misbegotten fetus. To man these few centuries are time immemorial; to our race a
nostalgic yesterday. We remember well the Curse of Kane and still recognize his mark."
"That history is already garbled and distorted," Kane murmured, eyes for a moment focused beyond.
"Kane is becoming misty legend in the old homes of man—and lost in obscurity in the new lands.
Already I've travelled through lands where men did not know me for who I am."
"And you kept wandering, too—because they soon learned to dread the name of Kane,"
concluded the giant. "Well, Kane, my name is Dwassllir, and I'm pleased to find a legend joining me at
my lonely fire."
Kane shrugged an ironic acknowledgment. "What's that roasting in your lonely fire?" He looked hungrily
at the grease-dripping carcass.
"A mountain goat I dropped this afternoon—good game is scarce around here, I've found. Hey,
give that spit a nudge, will you?"
Kane heaved the spit to the rarest side. "You going to eat all of it?" be asked bluntly, too hungry for
pride.
Dwassllir might well have done otherwise, but the giant seemed glad for the companionship and tore off a
generous side of ribs that taxed even Kane's voracity. Again the image of stray dog occurred to Kane,
but the growling in his belly claimed first place in his thoughts. The goat was tough, stringy, half raw and
gamy in taste; it was ecstasy to devour. One eye still watching the giant warily, he gnawed on the ribs
with gusto, washing down the greasy flesh with mouthfuls of stale water from Dwassllir's canteen.
With a belch that fanned the flames, Dwassllir stood and stretched, licked his fingers, wiped face with
hands, then scrubbed his hands with loose gravel. When the giant was erect, Kane realized that his height
was closer to eighteen feet. Leisurely Dwassllir picked over the remains of the goat. "Want any more?"
he inquired. Kane shook his head, still struggling with the ribs. A short tug wrenched loose the remaining
hind leg, and the giant settled back with a contented sigh to gnaw the joint.
"Game is hard to run across in this range," he reflected, gesturing with the tattered femur. "Doubt if you'd
find anything in that stretch of desert yonder. Likely that horse will be the only meat you'll find until you
get into the plains cast of here."
"I thought about eating him," Kane conceded. "But on foot I'd stand little chance of crossing this waste."
Dwassllir snorted disparagingly. Because of their enormous size, giants looked upon a horse as only
another game animal. "The frailty of your race! Strip man of his crutches, and he's helpless to stand
against his world."
"Don't oversimplify," Kane objected. "Mankind will be master of this world. In only a few centuries I've
seen our civilization grow from a sterile paradise, from scattered barbaric tribes to a vast and expanding
empire of cities, villages, and farms. Ours is the fastest rising civilization ever to burst upon this world."
"Only because man has stolen his civilization from the ruins of better races who preceded him. Human
 

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika:

Zgłoś jeśli naruszono regulamin