"Flint, Kenneth C - Gods of Eire 02 - Champions of the Sidhe UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flint Kenneth C)

"We sail in a few moments, High-King Bres," he announced to the brightly dressed arrival. "The tide is nearly at its peak." "Very well, Captain," said the other in a voice edged with irritation. "I'll go aboard."

He went up the gangway but paused to look up toward the top of the Tower that loomed so far above him. Theret a wider band of glass marked the structure's highest level. As distant as it was, he was certain that he could detect the dark shape of the

BRES RETURNS 5

one who watched. He was even certain that he could feel the heat of that damned eye.

He was right. From far above, an eye was trained upon him. The crimson blaze of the single, fiery pupil was shuttered by its metal lid to a mere thread of ruby light as it stared down at the ship below, and at the tiny figure climbing into it.

The face in which the eye was set was really no face at all. It was a rounded surface of burnished black, featureless except for the heavy lid that hung before the eye like a visor on a helmet. The head itself was no more than a barrel of metal, fixed to a short, thick neck that rose from massive, squared shoulders.

The whole being was enormous, three times the height and girth of a normal man, all armored in the same smooth metal, fully jointed in the arms and legs, with hands like metal gauntlets. Standing there at the window, motionless, it might have been a lifeless object, like the ships below, save for the power of that eye.

And then a voice addressed it.

"Do you believe Bres can succeed in Eire alone, Commander Balor?" it asked, its tone hesitant.

There was no immediate response. Then, with an agonizing slowness and a faint, grating sound of metal on metal, the vast head began to move. It pivoted around on the neck, bringing the crimson eye from the window to those in the room.

The room was vast, befitting its main occupant. Three stories high, its outer wall was all glass, giving a view of the sea around the Tower to the distant horizon. Against the bright background of the dawn sky, the giant figure seemed all the more dark, all the more ominous to the three men who stood before it.

The narrow beam of light from the single eye played over them. All wore the grey uniform. The many bands on the sleeves of each spoke of their exalted rank. The eye shifted from one to another, finally fixing on the center one. From the figure a voice sounded, a deep and hollow and clanging sound, like a great gong echoing from the depths of some cavern of iron.

"It is necessary for him to succeed, Sital Salmhor. If he is unable to organize our occupying forces in Eire and crush this foolish uprising soon, it may spread to all the de Danann settlements."

6 CHAMPIONS OF THE SIDHE

Sital Salmhor stared up at the figure. As often before, he wondered if there was a living being there, behind that armored front. He steeled himself for another question.

"But shouldn't we send some support to him? Send some forces from the Tower? That would insure a victory."

"No!" the being thundered. "No forces from this Tower will be involved. Bres has the power to crush them if he acts quickly. And, remember, it is his own kingship over Eire that j he must regain." *

The offending officer held himself rigidly under the heat of the flaming eye. But the torture was short. The giant head turned slowly back toward the windows, the gaze of the eye shifting down toward the ship again.

It had put to sea by now and was gliding out past the sheltering peninsula. It moved along quite steadily, although no sail was up. But as it left the cove and the winds caught it, a field of brilliant white blossomed around its mast and it picked up speed quickly, soaring away with the grace of a great bird.

Until the ship faded into the haze of the southern horizon, the crimson eye stayed fixed upon its course.

The woman was thrown from the doorway of the house and staggered, falling heavily onto her knees in the muddy courtyard of the ringfort. A roar of coarse laughter went up from the circle of monstrous beings who watched.

They were vaguely like men, with men's shape and stature, but they were disfigured in ways so horrible that they seemed more like insane parodies of men.

No two of them were deformed alike. In many the limbs were twisted, distorted to resemble the claws of birds, the paws of beasts, even the fins offish. In some the limbs were missing altogether, replaced by crude appendages of metal and

wood.

More grotesque were the faces that were, indeed, a mockery of anything human, And here, again, many of the deformities looked like the product of some obscene coupling of men and