（外文电子版资料）Tanith Lee - Moonblind.pdf

by Tanith Lee, Yet once more, from an idea by John Kaline. To Hunt the Other you must become The Other. But if you lose your way back to yourself, what have you become? His mother kept the inn, and he was a child when he saw it first, the Hunt. Evading his chores, he had escaped into a high loft, from where he found it easy enough to climb out on the roof. He lay along the thatch, looking down into the stony yard before the inn-house. Sunset had begun, the sky that night red from end to end. As the riders and the dogs assembled, all redness fell and caught on them, as if they had been doused in a shower of freshest blood. There were 30 men, 30 horses, and 60 dogs. The inn-maids went round with the cups of drink, finest silver cups, somewhat dented, that the inn kept solely for those 12 nights. Even on the roof, the child could smell the strong wine, and the pungency of spice and herbs stirred in. He noted the powerful horses, and especially the dogs. These hounds were white and gray, long-haired, long-nosed, and bone-slim on long legs. All the men seemed loud and laughing, cracking jokes. Respected and revered, still they would boast of their participation in a Hunt. Already the child had heard how such men. wherever they went, whatever their birth or station in life, were treated like lords. Next the red sky changed to a clear plum darkness, and the moon came up over the woods, round and white, with freckles on her surface. The Hunt saluted the moon, standing in their stirrups. Then they slung the drained cups away, as if worthless, ringing on the stones, and turning their horses heads, at a sudden gallop raced from the yard, among a streaming torrent of dogs. It was as they left the light and shadow of the inn that the moonlight instead caught them. What had flashed and dripped scarlet a