Книга только для ознакомления
. Bits of
stone and showers of dust fell from the walls, and chunks of
rock parted from the ceiling to crash downward. A rattling,
bouncing flood of gravel buried the stew pot and the fire,
and there was a new sound above the rumbling - the high,
keening wail of stone splitting.
The cavern's entrance collapsed with a roar. Tons of
broken stone slid across the opening, burying it, sealing it.
Within, the rumbling and the rattle of rockfall were a chaos
of noise, but now the noise built in darkness, for there was
no light to see.
*****
The tunnel from the back of the cavern called This
Place wound deep into the capstone of the hill, bending and
turning, always angling upward. His Royalness Gorge III,
Highbulp and leader of clans, was somewhat to the rear of
his expedition when the rest of them rounded a bend in the
rising tunnel and saw the light ahead. Somewhere along the
way, Gorge had decided that his feet were sore, and had
taken to limping whenever he thought about it.
But when he heard the shouts and exclamations ahead
of him - cries of, "Hey! This pretty!" and "Nice stuff, huh?"
and "Where that light comin' from?" - he forgot his limp
and hurried to see what was going on. Rounding a bend, he
found a traffic tie-up in a well-lighted cave, where the light
seemed to grow brighter moment by moment. The first
arrivals there had stopped in awe; others had piled into them
from behind, and several had fallen down. Wading around
and through tangles of his subjects, Gorge pushed past them
and stopped
|
