"Barker, Clive - Weaveworld (b)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barker Clive)

The receptionist's eyes were not on him, however, but on Immacolata.

Touch of heat stroke, is it?Т he said.

'Maybe,Т said Shadwell. Immacolata had moved to the bottom of the stairs, out of the receptionist's enquiring gaze. Thank you for your concern. The receptionist made a face, and returned to his armchair. Shadwell went to Immacolata. She had found the shadows; or the shadows had found her.

'What happened?Т he said. 'Was it just the sun?Т

She didn't look at him, but she deigned to speak.

'I felt the Fugue...Т she said, so softly he had to hold his breath to catch her words '. . . then something else.Т

He waited for further news from her, but none came. Then, as he was about to break the silence, she said: 'At the back of my throat . . .Т She swallowed, as if to dislodge some remembered bitterness '. . . the Scourge . . .Т

The Scourge? Had he heard her correctly? Either Immacolata sensed his doubt, or shared it, for she said: 'it was there. Shadwell,' and when she spoke even her extraordinary self-control couldn't quite tame the flutter in her voice.

'Surely you're mistaken.Т

She made a tiny shake of her head.

'It's dead and gone,' he said.

Her face could have been chiselled from stone. Only her lips moved, and he longed for them, despite the thoughts they shaped.

'A power like that doesn't die,' she said. 'It can't ever die. It sleeps. It waits.Т

'What for? Why?Т

'Till the Fugue wakes, maybe,' she said.

Her eyes had lost their gold; become silvery. Motes of the menstruum, turning like dust in a sun-beam, dropped from her lashes and evaporated inches from his face. He'd never seen her like this before, so close to exposing her feelings. The spectacle of her vulnerability aroused him beyond words. His prick was so hard it ached. She was apparently dead to his arousal however; or else chose to ignore it. The Magdalene, the blind sister, was not so indifferent. She, Shadwell knew, had an appetite for what a man might spill, and horrid purposes to put it to. Even now he saw her form coagulating in a recess in the wall, one hunger from scalp to sole.

'I saw a wilderness,' Immacolata said, calling Shawl's attention from the Magdalene's advances. 'Bright sun. Terrible sun. The emptiest place on earth.Т

'And that's where the Scourge is now?Т

She nodded. 'It's sleeping. I think . . . it's forgotten itself.Т

'It'll stay that way, then, won't it?Т

Shadwell replied. 'Who the hell's going to wake it?Т

His words failed to convince even himself.

'Look he said, '- we'll find the Fugue and sell it before the Scourge can so much as roll over. We haven't come so far to stop now.Т

Immacolata said nothing. Her eyes were still fixed on that nowhere she'd sighted, or tasted - or both - minutes earlier.

Only very dimly did Shadwell comprehend what forces were at work here: Finally, he was only a Cuckoo - a human being - and that limited his vision; for which fact, as now, he was sometimes grateful.