"Camp & Lin Carter - Conan Of Cimmeria - 01 - The Curse Of The Monolith" - читать интересную книгу автора (Camp L. Sprague de)

playing upon it.

Through the shrill piping, a faint, squashy sound reached Conan's
ears. It seemed to come from above. The muscles of Conan's
bullneck stood out as he twisted his head to look upward; the
spired Turanian helmet grated against the stone as he moved.
Then the blood froze in his veins.

The mist that had obscured the top of the pylon was gone. The
rising half moon shone on and through and amorphous thing, which
squatted obscenely on the summit of the column. It was like a
huge lump of quivering, semitranslucent jelly and it lived.
Life throbbing, bloated life pulsed within it. The moonlight
glistened wetly upon it as it beat like a huge, living heart.

4.
As Conan, frozen with horror, watched, the dweller on the top of
the monolith sent a trickle of jelly groping down the shaft
toward him. The slippery pseudopod slithered over the smooth
surface of the stone. Conan began to understand the source of
the stains that discolored the face of the monolith. The wind
had changed, and a vagrant down-draft wafted a sickening stench
to Conan's nostrils. Now he knew why the bones at the base of
the shaft bore that oddly eaten appearance. With a dread that
almost unmanned him, he understood that the jellylike thing
exuded a digestive fluid, by means of which it consumed its prey.
HE wondered how many men, in ages past had stood in his place,
bound helplessly to the pillar and awaiting the searing caress of
the abomination now descending toward him.

Perhaps Feng's weird piping summoned it, or perhaps the odor of
living flesh called it to feast. Whatever the cause, it had
begun a slow, inching progress down the side of the shaft toward
his face. The wet jelly sucked and slobbered as it slithered
slowly toward him.

Despair gave new strength to his cramped, tired muscles. He
threw himself from side to side, striving with every last ounce
of strength to break the grip of the mysterious force. To his
surprise, he found that, in one of his lunges, he slid to one
side, partway around the column.

So the grip that held him did not forbid all movement! This gave
him food for thought, though he knew that he could not long thus
elude the monster of living jelly.

Something prodded his mailed side. Looking down, he saw the
rust-eaten dagger he had glimpsed before. His movement sideways
had brought the hilt of the weapon against his ribs.