Read Online The Visitor by Boris TZAPRENKO - Free Book Online Page B

finally arrived to slip outside the cage, the reward for his efforts was a complex mixture of various feelings each more inebriating than the other. Sweet intoxication of freedom. Satisfaction at having triumphed over the terrible lightning-slayer gods. And above all, rejoicing at the idea of finally being able to go back to Mahisa. A deep anxiety also mingled into this. Could braving gods holding such powers remain unpunished? Had he truly escaped their attention? Or were they already having fun at his expense, ready to pounce in any minute? He preferred to no longer think about that and in all haste to get out of there, before the hitherto only lenient lightning-slayer noticed. All his efforts had made him parched. So, despite the relative freshness that the night brought, thirst held him by the throat. While he was just about to move away, also without knowing what direction to take, he became interested in the mysterious thing in front of his cage that Gentle-Lightning had several times manipulated. It was a black object with amazing shapes, like all things related to lightning-slayers, in fact. It was placed on three branches perfectly straight and smooth, a bit like standing branches which circumvented his prison, except that these were thinner. Looking at the thing in its entirety, one would think that it was a big insect with three long stiff legs. He grabbed it, smelled it, licked it, nibbled it and put his index finger into a hole at the back of which we saw a substance transparent as water, but hard as stone. However, this seemingly comprehensive study was done hastily, because he didn’t forget that he had to leave before the return of Gentle-Lightning. As nice as it was, there was no reason to anticipate with certainty what would be its reaction. He decided to take the strange object as a souvenir and as testimony of his adventure in the lightning-slayer’s world. Also, the wooden tool he had made to catch the stone deserved to be shown to Mahisa; so he decided to take it too. After a last look of defiance directed at his former prison, that he suddenly humbled with a dismissive kick, he turned all around wondering what direction to choose. The distant wailing came again to him. He decided to go that way, which made him come out of the forest. Moonlight made him able to distinguish strange things. Wow! Definitely! The lightning-slayers’ world was a world of strangeness!
    Far before him, a little to the right, stood what looked like a very flat and low hill. Supernaturally flat!
    On the left, at three or four hundred paces was a kind of large rock made up of angles and plane surfaces. It was rather white, apparently, but the most surprising was what jumped out from this curious form, things that shined in the dim light; light was coming out of it.
    It was the first time that Etos saw a house. He was fascinated by the windows’ illumination. The fine rain that was beginning to fall looked like a curtain of twine in front of them.
    The sun shines inside this thing , he said to himself. It can be seen through these holes that shine.  
    He ran towards what was intriguing him. The cries of a hinec greeted his approach. Etos was surprised to find that this creature, that he didn’t recognize, was held back at the neck by a long thing that trailed behind it. He advanced some more, but the animal was becoming clearly threatening, growling and showing its teeth, he slowed down, hesitated more and more, and eventually stopped less than a hundred paces from the thing that encased the sun. To try to unravel its mystery, looking in through the light holes, he moved gently sideways, to one side then to the other, leaning his head right and left, seeking the best point of view, while the tethered animal expressed its rage more loudly.
    That’s when the unexpected occurred. A new bright hole appeared in the sun prison. Standing out against the light, the dark silhouette of a lightning-slayer appeared there. It had the