"Cook, Glen - Call For The Dead" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cook Glen)

Glen Cook wrote "The Quiet Sea" (December 1978) and "Ghost Stalk" (May 1978); he is the author of two fantasy trilogies, DREAD EMPIRE, from Berkley, and THE STAR'S END TRILOGY, forthcoming from Avon. Here is another fine story about the crew of the Vengeful Dragon.

Call For The Dead

BY
GLEN COOK

I

The figure wore scarlet.
It had a small, hairless skull. Its face was as delicate as that of a beautiful woman. A rouge colored its lips. Kohl shadowed its eyes. Zodiacal pendants hung from its earlobes. Yet no observer could have sworn to its sex.
Its eyes were dosed. Its mouth was open.
It sang.
Its song was terror. It was evil. Its voice stunk with its own fear.
Its lips did not move while the words came forth.
A dark basaltic throne served as its chair. A pentagram marked the floor surrounding it. That Stygian surface seemed to slope away into infinity. The arms of the pentagram, and the cabalistic signs filling them, had been sketched in brilliant reds and blues,
yellows and greens. The colors rippled and changed to the tempo of the song. They surrendered to momentary flashes of silver, lilac, and gold.
Perspiration dribbled down the satin-smooth effeminate face. Veins stood out darkly at its temples. Neck and shoulder muscles became knots and cords. Small, slim, delicate hands clawed at the arms of the throne. The fingernails were long, curved, sharp, and painted the color of the fresh blood.
Torches surmounting the throne's tall back flickered, growing weaker and weaker.
The song faltered....
The figure surged, drew upon some final bastion of inner resource. A scream ripped from its throat.
The darkness gradually withdrew.
The figure slowly stood, arms rising, its song/scream transmuted into a cry of triumph.
Its eyes opened. They were an incredible cerulean blue, almost shining. And they were incalculably malevolent.
Then the darkness struck. A finger came from behind, swiftly, coiling round its victim like a python of night. Tendrils of the tentacle thrust into the sorcerer's nostrils and open mouth.

II

The caravel revolved slowly in an inperceptible current. The sea was cool and quiet, a plain of polished jade. Neither fin nor wind rippled its lifeless surface. It looked as unyielding as a serpentine floor.
I stared as I had for ages. It was there, but I no longer saw it.
Fog domed the place where Vengeful Dragon lay becalmed. It made granite walls where it met the quiet sea, but overhead it thinned. Daylight leaked through.
How many times had the sun come and gone since the gods had abandoned us to the spite of that Itaskian sorcerer? I had not counted.
Sometimes, when I tried hard enough, I drifted away from my body. Not far. The spells that bound us were of the highest order.
It pleased me that I had slain the spellcaster. If ever I escaped this pocket hell and encountered him in the afterworld, I would attack him again.
I could get free just enough to survey the scabby remnants of my drifting coffin.
Emerald moss clung to her sides. It crept a foot up from her waterline. Colorful fungi gnawed at her rotting timbers. Her rigging dangled like strands of a broken spider's web. Her sails were tatters. Their canvas was old and brittle and would crumble at the first caress of wind.
The decks were littered with fallen men.
Arrows protruded from backs and chests. Limbs lay twisted at odd, painful angles. Bowels lay spilled upon the slimy planks. Gaping wounds marked every body, including mine.
Yet there was no blood. Nor any corruption.
Not of the biological kind. Morally, Dragon had been the cesspool of the world.
Sixty-seven pairs of eyes stared at the grey walls of our tiny, changeless universe.
Twelve black birds perched in the savaged tops. They were as dark as the bottom of a freshly filled grave. There was no sheen to their feathers. Only the movement of their pupilless eyes betrayed their claim to life.
They knew neither impatience, nor hunger, nor boredom. They were sentinels standing guard over the resting place of old evil.
They watched the ship of the dead. They would do so forever.
They had arrived the moment our fate had overtaken us.
Suddenly, as one, twelve heads jerked. Yellow eyes peered into the thinner fog overhead. One short screech filled the heavy air. Dark pinions drummed a frightened bass tattoo. The birds fled clumsily into the granite fog.
I had never seen them fly. Never.
A shadow, as of vast wings, occluded the sky without actually blocking the light.
I suffered my first spate of emotion in ages. It was pure terror.