标题: 《The river and the dream 》作者：- Raymond F. Jones, Kelly Freas【EPUB】 [打印本页] 作者: zaq 时间: 2014-6-6 07:35 标题: 《The river and the dream 》作者：- Raymond F. Jones, Kelly Freas【EPUB】 Scanned by Highroller. Proofed by a proofpack proofer. The River And The Dream Raymond F. Jones INTRODUCTION Llanthor is a world on which no man would choose to be born — if he had a choice. Thesouth pole is aimed eternally at the sun. The southern third of the world is a furnace whereno life endures. The northern half is a frozen waste. Only in a semi-temperate belt south ofthe equator does Llanthor extend even the smallest kindness to the life it bears . How mancame or evolved there not even the wisest of Wise Men know. But man is there. He is in thenorthern waste. He is in the southern desert. And he is in the zone of temperance. Semi-barbaric tribes and groups inhabit the frozen lands. In the desert savage nomads reel to andfro in their eternal purgatory. In the temperate land man has some peace with Llanthor. Hereis a place where abundance can be had where there is time for man to think of thingsbeyond avoidance of death. The sun Detra is forever in the southern heavens. While the south knows no night thenorth has a feeble day by the light of the great moon lllam who circles Llanthor over bothpoles and whose plane of revolution moves exactly with the rotation of Llanthor. Hence theday and night of the north are constant and never varying which fact alone is perhapsresponsible for men existing in the frozen lands. Violent storms suck moisture from the southand feed it northward from whence it flows once again down Llanthors single mighty river and its numerous tributaries. The Great River has no other name by any of the peoples wholive along it. At its widest it stretches far beyond one horizon to another. And it is fearedby all who know it. Men do not sail upon it. Only a few of the bravest know what a boat canbe. In the deserts of the south the Great River dries up and it s moisture is returnedagain by the winds to the north. This is all of the moisture known to Llanthor for most ofthe planets water is locked