"Effinger, George Alec - Maureen Birnbaum 03 - Maureen Birnbaum at the Looming Awfulness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Effinger George Alec)

beyond our time and space. I wondered how we could possibly understand them --
and if we couldn't understand them, then how could we battle them? Were we
doomed to become slaves to their will?

No. I'll let you know that right up front, Bitsy. At this point in the
investigation, the manifold forms of The Great Old Ones did not possess us. We
had a means of escape. Let me tell you about it.

Rod had apparently studied many of the subtexts that dealt with the rites of The
Great Old Ones, as well as others that involved the Outer Gods and other alien
races and monsters.

There were, unfortunately, many, many classes of ancient, unknown, inhuman,
mind-numbing gods. The one encountered by me and good old Rod was called a Dark
Young of Shub-Niggurath. Though less formidable than some of the other Outer
Gods, it still appeared in a horrible, unspeakable, repellent form.

It was a gigantic, grasping thing, a hideous animated "tree" with poisonous
tentacles for branches; the tentacles ended in black hooves, and the creature
could shamble clumsily across the ground. It had many puckered mouths, each
dripping the same gruesome green slime we'd seen in Rod's Branford suite. The
Dark Young reeked like an opened grave, and it towered over us some fifteen feet
tall. I'll tell you at once, dear, it was certainly not pleasant in any respect.

Rod was prepared, however; he knew a brief can trip that freed us from the
horror of the Dark Young. I didn't understand a word of the spell, as it was
spoken in some lost language that delighted in words ending in -- vowel-t-h and
other vocabulary that was so guttural that you could get gall stones just
listening to it. My Greenberg School dabbling into European dialects was hardly
enough to keep me informed of what was happening.

Anyway, the Dark Young seemed to freeze. It became absolutely motionless, and
then began to shrink. To me, it looked like it was disappearing down a dark,
featureless tunnel. We didn't wait around long enough to see what would happen
next. "Follow me, sweetheart," I cried, and I led the way down the staircase and
out of the tower. You must know by now that I have no problem being decisive
and, anyway, I didn't want that green goo all over my trusty broadsword.

I realized that I'd been holding my breath, and it was good to inhale deeply in
the fresh, cold air of the Branford courtyard. "I'll see you back to the Taft,"
Rod goes. "First thing in the morning, we'll pay a call on the Sterling Library.
I believe they have some texts that will help understand what's happening here."

I nodded. Of course, I yearned to get into battle, but I was also wise enough to
realize that we had some homework to take care of first. "What about Sandy, your
roommate?" I go.

Rod rubbed his strong, square chin. "I think Sandy is the prisoner of some
greater, more grotesque evil. The Dark Young was there merely to stall us, or to
frighten us into giving up the chase."