"part1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Keith Brooke - Lord of Stone)
Lord of Stone - part 1 of a novel by Keith Brooke
1
'And out of the mayhem the Lords will arise ... '
- The Book of the World, ch.18, v.29.
The ragged people were all around him, staring and shouting and
waving their fists. Bligh looked down at the rounded stones lying
scattered in the fire. Had he kicked them there? He did not know.
He remembered hiding in the ruins, looking down at all these
people as they performed their calling to the Gods, the Prayer
of the Body.
Yet now he was here in their midst and the people were enraged
by his incursion.
"No!" he said, again. Nobody moved. The only other
noise was the incessant clatter of a small radio, tuned in to
a southern music station. "This is wrong," he cried.
"You can't do this. It's sick. Do you think that if
the Lords were among you they would recognise - " he gestured
" - this as anything but a cheap sham? Do you? There
is nothing Holy about this charade. Nothing! It's sick ... "
He was losing track. He did not know where he had found the words,
or even what they meant.
He looked around at the people in their filthy tatters, gathered
in the ruins where they were forced to make their home. These
poor people were desperate, they needed something to believe,
something to give their empty existences some kind of meaning.
As he studied their faces Bligh realised that the time for violence
had passed and he was safe, for now. The mood of the gathering
was returning to the passionate fervour of before, only now the
atmosphere had been subtly transformed.
The people moved away, found their drinks and started to talk
and laugh. Lila, kneeling at Bligh's feet, hooked her hand into
the waistband of his trousers and pulled him towards her. Her
cheeks were smeared with tears and dirt from the ground. Her daughter
was there too, pressing a jug of wine at him, small eyes pleading
with him to accept it.
He did not understand these people's response. He had wrecked
their ceremony but they hardly seemed to care any more. He drank,
long and deep, then passed the jug to Lila and watched as she
pressed it to her lips.
She paused to touch the corner of her mouth. It was swollen,
engorged with blood. He did not remember striking her - had it
been him?
Someone turned the radio up louder, its music insistent, shrill.
Bligh tried to come to terms with what was happening to him. The
steady pressure in his head was frightening, a sure sign that
he really was insane. He felt himself to be right on the edge
of some mental precipice. It would not take much ...
"I hear voices," he said quietly. He had to explain,
had to find the words from somewhere. "My head ... I can't
keep track of it all. I see bodies, too. All day, all night. They
talk to me." He drank more wine and focused on its heat in
his belly. "I'm mad," he said. "Mad."
He drank some more.
Later, the old man started his chant again. Nobody paid him any
attention at first, but gradually the people stopped talking and
silenced the radio. In their ones and twos they turned to watch,
then started to clap out his complex rhythm. Bligh felt no anger
now, only a mellow sense of well-being that centred in his gut
and rippled outwards.
He did not object when Lila rose from where she had been sitting,
head on his shoulder, hand on his thigh. He watched as she found
the movements of her dance once again, her eyes locked unblinking
on his. He drank some more from the jug of wine.
After a few minutes, she started to wail that twisting note that
had reached right inside Bligh earlier in the evening. She wrapped
her arms around her body, pulling at her clothes, teasing, and
all the time her eyes were fixed on Bligh's.
It crept up on him stealthily.
Sitting, watching, drinking ... then suddenly he was out in the
cleared dirt space with Lila, crying aloud, the old man's chant
pulling Bligh's body about as if he was a marionette jerked by
some mad puppeteer's wires. He clutched at his head, trying to
interrupt the pattern and stop, but still his body jerked and
twisted and that awful chant pounded through his head. All he
knew was the fire, the insane twitching of his body, the undying,
timeless rhythm battering the inside of his skull.
At some point - he knew no sense of time - things started to
change. A new rhythm, a new chant, supplanted the old. The voices
of the people all around, the people with whom he had shared this
grim little shanty town. All chanting a single word, over and
over again. "Who?" they cried. "Who? Who? Who?"
He did not understand, but he sensed that he did not have
to understand.
"Who? Who? Who?"
Somewhere in his head, the pressure, transforming. Rising through
the levels of his mind, bursting forth to take over his senses
and submerge all that he was, all that he had ever been.
"Who? Who? Who?"
Expanding, a force that would destroy him and know no different.
Rising up to take over.
"Who? Who? Who?"
He stood and spread his hands, and then there was sudden silence.
"Who?" said the old man, eventually, his chin glistening
with saliva and sweat.
"I am ... " said Bligh, who was no longer Bligh, in
a voice no longer Bligh's. "I am the second of the Lords
Elemental: I am Lord of Stone." Now, he smiled. "I am,"
he said, "your Saviour."
|
  
Lord of Stone
© Keith Brooke 1998.
For private non-commercial use only. Not to be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author's consent.
Careware: if you like this novel, give some money to Oxfam or Greenpeace.
Lord of Stone - part 1 of a novel by Keith Brooke
1
'And out of the mayhem the Lords will arise ... '
- The Book of the World, ch.18, v.29.
The ragged people were all around him, staring and shouting and
waving their fists. Bligh looked down at the rounded stones lying
scattered in the fire. Had he kicked them there? He did not know.
He remembered hiding in the ruins, looking down at all these
people as they performed their calling to the Gods, the Prayer
of the Body.
Yet now he was here in their midst and the people were enraged
by his incursion.
"No!" he said, again. Nobody moved. The only other
noise was the incessant clatter of a small radio, tuned in to
a southern music station. "This is wrong," he cried.
"You can't do this. It's sick. Do you think that if
the Lords were among you they would recognise - " he gestured
" - this as anything but a cheap sham? Do you? There
is nothing Holy about this charade. Nothing! It's sick ... "
He was losing track. He did not know where he had found the words,
or even what they meant.
He looked around at the people in their filthy tatters, gathered
in the ruins where they were forced to make their home. These
poor people were desperate, they needed something to believe,
something to give their empty existences some kind of meaning.
As he studied their faces Bligh realised that the time for violence
had passed and he was safe, for now. The mood of the gathering
was returning to the passionate fervour of before, only now the
atmosphere had been subtly transformed.
The people moved away, found their drinks and started to talk
and laugh. Lila, kneeling at Bligh's feet, hooked her hand into
the waistband of his trousers and pulled him towards her. Her
cheeks were smeared with tears and dirt from the ground. Her daughter
was there too, pressing a jug of wine at him, small eyes pleading
with him to accept it.
He did not understand these people's response. He had wrecked
their ceremony but they hardly seemed to care any more. He drank,
long and deep, then passed the jug to Lila and watched as she
pressed it to her lips.
She paused to touch the corner of her mouth. It was swollen,
engorged with blood. He did not remember striking her - had it
been him?
Someone turned the radio up louder, its music insistent, shrill.
Bligh tried to come to terms with what was happening to him. The
steady pressure in his head was frightening, a sure sign that
he really was insane. He felt himself to be right on the edge
of some mental precipice. It would not take much ...
"I hear voices," he said quietly. He had to explain,
had to find the words from somewhere. "My head ... I can't
keep track of it all. I see bodies, too. All day, all night. They
talk to me." He drank more wine and focused on its heat in
his belly. "I'm mad," he said. "Mad."
He drank some more.
Later, the old man started his chant again. Nobody paid him any
attention at first, but gradually the people stopped talking and
silenced the radio. In their ones and twos they turned to watch,
then started to clap out his complex rhythm. Bligh felt no anger
now, only a mellow sense of well-being that centred in his gut
and rippled outwards.
He did not object when Lila rose from where she had been sitting,
head on his shoulder, hand on his thigh. He watched as she found
the movements of her dance once again, her eyes locked unblinking
on his. He drank some more from the jug of wine.
After a few minutes, she started to wail that twisting note that
had reached right inside Bligh earlier in the evening. She wrapped
her arms around her body, pulling at her clothes, teasing, and
all the time her eyes were fixed on Bligh's.
It crept up on him stealthily.
Sitting, watching, drinking ... then suddenly he was out in the
cleared dirt space with Lila, crying aloud, the old man's chant
pulling Bligh's body about as if he was a marionette jerked by
some mad puppeteer's wires. He clutched at his head, trying to
interrupt the pattern and stop, but still his body jerked and
twisted and that awful chant pounded through his head. All he
knew was the fire, the insane twitching of his body, the undying,
timeless rhythm battering the inside of his skull.
At some point - he knew no sense of time - things started to
change. A new rhythm, a new chant, supplanted the old. The voices
of the people all around, the people with whom he had shared this
grim little shanty town. All chanting a single word, over and
over again. "Who?" they cried. "Who? Who? Who?"
He did not understand, but he sensed that he did not have
to understand.
"Who? Who? Who?"
Somewhere in his head, the pressure, transforming. Rising through
the levels of his mind, bursting forth to take over his senses
and submerge all that he was, all that he had ever been.
"Who? Who? Who?"
Expanding, a force that would destroy him and know no different.
Rising up to take over.
"Who? Who? Who?"
He stood and spread his hands, and then there was sudden silence.
"Who?" said the old man, eventually, his chin glistening
with saliva and sweat.
"I am ... " said Bligh, who was no longer Bligh, in
a voice no longer Bligh's. "I am the second of the Lords
Elemental: I am Lord of Stone." Now, he smiled. "I am,"
he said, "your Saviour."
|
Lord of Stone
© Keith Brooke 1998.
For private non-commercial use only. Not to be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author's consent.
Careware: if you like this novel, give some money to Oxfam or Greenpeace.
|