Speaking In Tongues
Guided by Voices
Translated by M.Levchin and D.Levchin
He walked for many hours. Trees parted to let him go through, making
a path in places, were there had been none, when they saw shine of the
Stone on his chest. Just once he was attacked by a yellow birdfish, most
ruthless and most stupid creature in the Forest. It was reduced to dust,
when the Stone touched it's pulps. He had not even looked at it. He was
tired. It's false that the people of their guild never became tired. Of
course, not so quickly as mere mortals, but many times more tired. When
he will take off the Stone... but he did not even want think about it now.
Bushes parted to the right and the left, and he went out to the Glade.
Cromlechs jutted up by it's perimeter and in the center raised half-destroyed
nurag -- small copy of that one, First Tower.
He stepped close and touched the nurag's wall with the Stone. Wall
let through and he stepped inside.
Stepped in -- and arrived at the beginning of his path. It had happened
three times before, so he did not wonder. He knew that sooner or later
he would win. Let Living In The Tower resist however much he could...
He went out to the Glade again and touched the Tower's wall with the
Stone.
This time Living In The Tower stepped out to him, and he felt an unknown
dread for the first time, because the power of the Stone is great, but
not endless, and for each power there is some anti-power...
And Living In The Tower laughed, and his laugh was not merry, and he
said that he should have thought about that earlier, and if he wanted to
destroy him so badly, that's the way it must be. But because the Glade,
and the Forest, and all this world and even he, Who Came, were created
by him, Living In The Tower, it would all disappear with him.
"Are you ready?" he asked, and Who Came did not know what
to say, he just touched the Stone. And Living In The Tower laughed shortly
again and waved like heated air. And Who Came looked at himself, because
he was not a coward, and saw that the something was happening to him. And
they both looked at the Forest to see destruction of this world.
But the Forest just moved closer to the Glade, because trees are curious
too and, unlike people and magicians, do not know the fear. And Living
In The Tower and Who Came turned into stones, which were no different from
other stones in the Glade, because when a magician destroys a world, what
he created, for everybody, except this magician it doesn't mean sure disappearing
of it.
.................................................................
And then I, the author, stepped out into the Glade and took the Stone
from a stone, which was closer to edge. It did not change color, and this
meant that stone's power was almost disappearing - young Stone would kill
me on the spot, and this story would never be finished.
Truly, for touching an old Stone you have to pay one day, but you have
to pay for everything. Well, we, the authors, know, how to avoid these
payments, and become useful that way, so we really wondered, when an upturned
account shows up.
And I brought the Stone to her, light of my breathing and air of my
eyes, but, certainly, I did not give it to her, and did not even let her
see it. I just kept it in my hand and asked her to make a wish quickly
(it's hard to carry the Stone, if You aren't a magician, but I wished just
one thing -- wish for me what I wish for you!)
However she -- and I could to expect that -- wished that I'd finish
this story.
And I -- what could I do! -- finished it, and a lot of others, and
got a Nobel Prize for them. (By that time inflation was so high that I
could buy just two scoops of ice cream with this money. But good that I
bought her favorite: strawberry.)
And payments came due in time, and I also became a stone. But it wasn't
so frightening. I was many times more frightened, when at young age I prophesized
that I would become a tree.
I'm happy now. When she is flying for her druntkens she rests on me.
I'm trying to say something to her, and she understands my language, even
though she cannot speak it. But, isn't that enough when you are understood?
And silence...