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.Bleating, eyes rolling, the creatures had tried to resist, turning in the doorway as though tostruggle for freedom, but Paul and the other silent workers had forced them up over the thresholdand into the darkness.When all the animals were loaded, he had pushed the great door into placeand locked it.Then, as he stepped away, he had seen that the place of imprisonment was not somuch a ship as some kind of huge bowl or cup – no, a cauldron , that was the word, a thing forboiling and rendering.He could hear increasing noises of fear from within, and when he finallyawakened, he was still full of shame over this betrayal.The dream memories lingered.As he tracked along behind Gally, the huge cup-shaped thingshimmered in his mind’s eye.He felt he had seen it before in another world, another life.A head full of shadows.And all the sunlight in the world won’t drive them away.He rubbed athis temples as if to squeeze out the bad thoughts and almost walked into a swinging branch.Gally found a stream which ran past them all the way down to the great river beside theOysterhouse, and they followed its course upward, through sloping lands where the grass grewthick in the clearings and the birds made shrill noises of warning at their approach, flutteringfrom branch to branch ahead of them until the invaders were safely distant from hidden nests.Some of the trees were laden with blossoms, powdery flares of white and pink and yellow, andfor the first time Paul wondered what season it was.Gally did not understand the question.“It’s not a place, it’s a time,” Paul said.“When there are flowers, it should be spring.”The boy shook his head.He looked pale and incomplete, as though a part of him had beendestroyed with his tribe of fellow children.“But there are flowers here, governor.None near theBishop’s.Stands to reason all places couldn’t be the same, then everything would happen all inthe same spot.Confusion, y’see.Everyone’d be running into each other – a terrible mess.”“Do you know what year it is, then?”Gally looked at him again, this time with something almost like alarm.“Yee-ee-r?”“Never mind.” Paul closed his eyes for a moment to simplify matters.His mind seemed full ofcomplicated strings, all knotted together, the whole an insoluble tangle.Why should Gally notknowing something like what year or season it was, things which he himself hadn’t even thoughtof until just this moment, make him so uneasy?I am Paul, he told himself.I was a soldier.I ran away from a war.Two people.two things.are following me, and I know they must not find me.I had a dream about a big cup.I knowsomething about a bird, and about a giant.And I know other things that I can’t always putnames to.And now I am in the Eight Squared, whatever the hell that is, looking for a way out.It was not a satisfying inventory, but it gave him something to cling to.He was real.He had aname, and he even had a destination – at least for the moment.“Hard climbing now,” said Gally.“We’re near the edge of the square.”The slope had indeed changed, and now mounted upward steeply.The forest began to thin,replaced by low, scrubby bushes and moss-covered slabs of rock, bejeweled here and there withclusters of wildflowers.Paul was growing tired, and was impressed by his companion’s vigor.Gally had not slowed at all, even as Paul was forced to bend almost double against the risingangle of the ground.The whole world suddenly seemed to shimmer and blur.Paul struggled to find his balance, butin that moment there was neither up nor down.His own body seemed to grow insubstantial, todrift into component fragments.He shouted, or thought he did, but a moment later things wereordinary again, and Gally seemed not even to have noticed.Paul shivered, wondering if his ownweary body could have betrayed his mind.When they reached the top of the hill, Paul turned to look back.The land behind them seemednothing like the bishop’s grid – trees and hills ran seamlessly together.He could see the bend ofthe river sparkling blue-white in the sun, and the now sinister bulk of the Oysterhouse huddlingbeside it.He could see the spire of Bishop Humphrey’s castle through the woods, and fartheraway other towers jutting up through the great blanket of trees.“That’s where we’re going,” Gally said.Paul turned.The boy was pointing to a spot some milesaway, where a thickly forested ridge of hills descended almost to another curving stretch of theriver [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Bleating, eyes rolling, the creatures had tried to resist, turning in the doorway as though tostruggle for freedom, but Paul and the other silent workers had forced them up over the thresholdand into the darkness.When all the animals were loaded, he had pushed the great door into placeand locked it.Then, as he stepped away, he had seen that the place of imprisonment was not somuch a ship as some kind of huge bowl or cup – no, a cauldron , that was the word, a thing forboiling and rendering.He could hear increasing noises of fear from within, and when he finallyawakened, he was still full of shame over this betrayal.The dream memories lingered.As he tracked along behind Gally, the huge cup-shaped thingshimmered in his mind’s eye.He felt he had seen it before in another world, another life.A head full of shadows.And all the sunlight in the world won’t drive them away.He rubbed athis temples as if to squeeze out the bad thoughts and almost walked into a swinging branch.Gally found a stream which ran past them all the way down to the great river beside theOysterhouse, and they followed its course upward, through sloping lands where the grass grewthick in the clearings and the birds made shrill noises of warning at their approach, flutteringfrom branch to branch ahead of them until the invaders were safely distant from hidden nests.Some of the trees were laden with blossoms, powdery flares of white and pink and yellow, andfor the first time Paul wondered what season it was.Gally did not understand the question.“It’s not a place, it’s a time,” Paul said.“When there are flowers, it should be spring.”The boy shook his head.He looked pale and incomplete, as though a part of him had beendestroyed with his tribe of fellow children.“But there are flowers here, governor.None near theBishop’s.Stands to reason all places couldn’t be the same, then everything would happen all inthe same spot.Confusion, y’see.Everyone’d be running into each other – a terrible mess.”“Do you know what year it is, then?”Gally looked at him again, this time with something almost like alarm.“Yee-ee-r?”“Never mind.” Paul closed his eyes for a moment to simplify matters.His mind seemed full ofcomplicated strings, all knotted together, the whole an insoluble tangle.Why should Gally notknowing something like what year or season it was, things which he himself hadn’t even thoughtof until just this moment, make him so uneasy?I am Paul, he told himself.I was a soldier.I ran away from a war.Two people.two things.are following me, and I know they must not find me.I had a dream about a big cup.I knowsomething about a bird, and about a giant.And I know other things that I can’t always putnames to.And now I am in the Eight Squared, whatever the hell that is, looking for a way out.It was not a satisfying inventory, but it gave him something to cling to.He was real.He had aname, and he even had a destination – at least for the moment.“Hard climbing now,” said Gally.“We’re near the edge of the square.”The slope had indeed changed, and now mounted upward steeply.The forest began to thin,replaced by low, scrubby bushes and moss-covered slabs of rock, bejeweled here and there withclusters of wildflowers.Paul was growing tired, and was impressed by his companion’s vigor.Gally had not slowed at all, even as Paul was forced to bend almost double against the risingangle of the ground.The whole world suddenly seemed to shimmer and blur.Paul struggled to find his balance, butin that moment there was neither up nor down.His own body seemed to grow insubstantial, todrift into component fragments.He shouted, or thought he did, but a moment later things wereordinary again, and Gally seemed not even to have noticed.Paul shivered, wondering if his ownweary body could have betrayed his mind.When they reached the top of the hill, Paul turned to look back.The land behind them seemednothing like the bishop’s grid – trees and hills ran seamlessly together.He could see the bend ofthe river sparkling blue-white in the sun, and the now sinister bulk of the Oysterhouse huddlingbeside it.He could see the spire of Bishop Humphrey’s castle through the woods, and fartheraway other towers jutting up through the great blanket of trees.“That’s where we’re going,” Gally said.Paul turned.The boy was pointing to a spot some milesaway, where a thickly forested ridge of hills descended almost to another curving stretch of theriver [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]