"Brunner,.John.-.Traveler.In.Black.V1 (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brunner John)

A little embarrassed, the company subsided into a period of asking each other with their eyes whether any was bold enough to claim progress in their central problem. At first they avoided looking at Meleagra; then, no other offer being forthcoming, they took that plunge and were rewarded with a sigh and a shake of the head.
"As I thought!" Vengis crowed in scorn. "You're overwhelmed with bright spectacle, and have forgotten the urgent purpose confronting us..Next time you go to conjure, ask yourselves first this: if I succeed, what comes by way of benefit? Can I eat it? Can I put in on my back, or mend my roof with it? In fine, how will it serve not only me, but the nobility and commonalty of Ys?"
He glared at the now fidgety assembly. "It's not going to be easy, I know that well. I've had no success to speak of, myself. But at least I haven't been diverted down superfluous by-ways!"
The one standing in shadow shook his head once more. Here truly was a company of fools, and chief of them their chief Vengis: a man of consuming arrogance and vanity, blind to his faults and proud beyond description. This being so...
He gave a gentle cough, and heads whisked to see from whom the noise issued. Vengis half-rose from his seat in astonishment.
"What are you doing here?" he thundered. "Who let you in without my leave?"
The traveler in black walked without a sound along the aisle dividing the company until he was face to face with Vengis, and there was that in his eyes which stifled further speech prior to the answering of that double question.
At last he said, "As to what I am doing here-why, I am listening to and pondering what you've said. As to the leave that was granted me to join you, I go where my presence is required, whether you wish it or no."
The ranked nobles of the city held their breath. This was the utterance of one holding an authority they dared not challenge.
"What-what do you want of us?" whispered Vengis when he had regained some of his composure.
"Say rather what you want of me," the traveler riposted with a sardonic cock of his head. "From the confusion of your meeting I've been unable to make it out. Put it in words for me. That is, if you have any clear idea of your ambitions. .. ?"
There was a gently insulting turn to that last phrase. Vengis bridled.
"Of course we do!" he blustered. "Have you not seen the pitiable pass to which our fair city is reduced?"
"I have," acknowledged the black-garbed intruder. "And as nearly as I can discern, you hold your ancestors to be to blame."
"We do so!" Vengis snapped. "And we crave to make them rectify their crime. We seek to call them back, that they may behold the ruin they've bequeathed us, and compel them to set matters right."
"Compulsion is no part of my nature," said the traveler. "I am acquainted only with free choice. Yet you say you have chosen-what then restrains you from action?"
"What do you think?" That was Bardolus, half-frantic with the tension of the moment. "We want the power to bring about this aim, and so far all we've managed to achieve is some minor manifestations and a few personal calamities!"
"Like the one which overtook Dame Seulte?"
"Ah .. . Well, yes, I suppose!"
"And is this the common desire of you all?" asked the traveler with very great sadness, casting his gaze to the furthest corners of the company..
"Aye!" came the chorus of replies.
"As you wish," said the traveler, "so be it." And he departed.

IV

Where he went, none of them saw. He passed from among them swiftly as thought, silently as shadows, and they had no more stomach for their consultations since he had spoken.
Yet they felt a lightness, a sense of promise, as they called the servants to unbar the doors and made their several ways towards their homes. The streets by which they passed seemed more crowded than of late, and not a few of them had the impression that they recognized among the throng a familiar face, a known gait, or a garment of distinctive cut. However, such fancies were of a piece with the general mood, and served only to heighten the taut anticipation they had brought away from the Hall of State.
"What think you of Dame Seulte's fate?" said the Lady Vivette to her companion-who was also her brother, but they had judged that an advantage in making their earlier experiments. She spoke as their carriage creaked and jolted into the courtyard of their ancestral home, a short ride only from the Hall of State; behind, the hinges of the gates complained of rust and lack of oil when the retainers forced them to.
"I think she was unwise," her brother said. His name was Ormond to the world, but recently he had adopted another during a midnight ritual, and Vivette knew what it was and held some power over him in consequence.
"Do you believe we have been gifted by this-this personage?" Vivette inquired. "I have a feeling myself that perhaps we have."
Ormond shrugged. "We can but put it to the test. Shall we now, or wait until after dinner?"
"Now!" Vivette said positively.
So, duly, they made their preparations: putting on fantastical garments which contained unexpected lacunae, and over these various organic items relinquished by their original owners, such as a necklace of children's eyes embedded in glass for Vivette and a mask made from a horse's head for Ormond. Arrayed, they repaired to a room in the highest tower of their mansion, where by custom deceased heads of their family had been laid in state for a day and a night before burial since untold generations ago.
There, in a pentacle bounded by four braziers and a pot of wax boiling over a lamp, they indulged in some not unpleasurable pastimes, taking care to recite continually turn and turn about a series of impressive cantrips. The room darkened as they went on, and great excitement almost interrupted their concentration, but they stuck at it, and .. .
"Look!" whispered Vivette, and pointed to the catafalque removed to a corner of the room. Under the black velvet draperies a form was lying-that of a man armed and armored.
"Why! Just so, in the picture downstairs, did Honorius our great-grandfather lie when he was awaiting burial!" Ormond snapped, and leapt to his feet to pull back the velvet.
Impassive, a steel visor confronted them. Vivette eased it open, and in the dark interior of the helmet eyes gleamed and a rush of foetid breath escaped. Stiffly, with effort, the occupant of the armor arose from the catafalque.
"Come, my descendants, let me kiss you both," said a rusty voice, and iron arms resistlessly encircled them, though they struggled to get away. "What, have you no affection to your own kinsman?"
There was a hollow hideous chuckle as the embrace grew tighter; the necklace of eyes cracked, like a handful of cobnuts, the horse-mask went thudding to the floor, and spittle-wet lips clamped first on one mouth, then the other.
Both fainted.
When they recovered, the figure in armor was gone, but where it had taken shape on the catafalque lay a manuscript book in bindings of leather and brass, open to the page recording the death of Honorius from a contagious fever against which no medicine was of use, in the three-and-thirtieth year of his age.

Dame Rosa, in her palanquin borne between two white female donkeys, passed the corner on which stood the house formerly owned by Dame Seulte, and drew aside the curtains to peer curiously upward. Sure enough, as her maid had declared, from the window of the room in which Seulte had been accustomed to conduct her experiments, a licking tongue of greasy black smoke had smeared the wall.
She clucked with her tongue. Poor Seulte! Had she but waited another day, she might have enjoyed the fruit of her efforts. That at least was Dame Rosa's belief; she trusted the promise the one in black had made, and looked forward with impatience to the earliest moment she could closet herself with her books and apparatus and rehearse with improvements the most relevant of her formulae.
Her family had in the past been counted among the most lascivious of Ys, and excessive indulgence by its womenfolk in the pleasures of the bed had often threatened to overpopulate the resources of their not inconsiderable estates. Accordingly there was a cellar where surplus children had for generations been discreetly disposed of, not by crude and brutal means but by consigning the problem of their nourishment to the fates. She entered this cellar by a bronze door, which she locked with a heavy key, and passed between rows of wooden stalls in each of which a set of rat-gnawed bones lay on foul straw, gyves about one ankle.
She had chosen this place after much thought. Surely, she reasoned, the point of departure to eternity of so many spirits must be imbued with a peculiar potency!
Her method of working involved feathers, four liquids of which the least noxious was fresh blood, and long silent concentration while seated on a stool of unique design with no other covering for her ample frame than her age-sparse hair could afford. Briskly she carried out the introductory rites; then she sat down and closed her eyes, shivering from excitement and not from cold.
She had, the books stated, to keep her eyes shut until she had completed the recital of a cantrip that lasted eight whole pages in minuscule script. There were two pages to go when she heard the first rustlings and clicketings behind her. There was one page to go when the first touch came on her fleshy thigh. Desperately wanting to know what marvels her work had brought about, she raced through the last page, and on the concluding word came the first bite.
Thirty starving children mad with hunger, their teeth as keen as any rat's, left gnaw-marks on her bones too.