"Michael Flynn - Eifelheim" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flynn Michael)

the shadowed corner beside the church steps and, in the flickering light from his torch, he saw a
black and yellow dog cowering with its front paws crossed over its muzzle. The spots on its fur

blended into the shadows so that it looked like some mad creature, half dog and half Swiss

cheese. The cur followed Dietrich with hopeful eyes.
From the crest of Church Hill, Dietrich saw a lustrous glow, like the pale cast that bleached

the morning skies, suffusing the Great Woods on the far side of the valley. But it was too early тАУ

and in the wrong sky. Atop the church spire, blue-flamed corposants swirled around the cross.
Had even those asleep in the cemetery been aroused by the dread? But that sign was not

promised until the last days of the world.
He uttered a hasty prayer against occult danger and turned his back on the strange

manifestations, facing the church walls, seeking comfort in their familiarity.

My wooden cathedral, Dietrich had sometimes called it, for above its stone foundation St.
CatherineтАЩs oak walls and posts and doors had been whittled by generations of earnest woodsmen

into a wild congeries of saints and beasts and mythic creatures.
Flynn: Eifelheim Page 7 of 467



Beside the door, the sinuous figure of St. Catherine herself rested her hand upon the wheel
whereon they had thought to break her. Who has triumphed, her wan smile asked? Those who
turned the wheel are gone, but I abide. Upon the doorposts, lion, eagle, man, and ox twisted

upward toward the tympanum, in which the Last Supper had been carved.
Elsewhere: Gargoyles leered from the roofтАЩs edge, fantastic in horns and wings. In spring,

their gaping mouths disgorged the flow of melting snows from the steep-pitched tiles of the roof.

Under the eaves, kobolds hammered. On lintels and window jambs, in panels and columns, yet
more fantastic creatures were relieved from the wood. Basilisks glared, griffins and wyverns

reared. Centaurs leaped; panthers exuded their sweet, alluring breath. Here, a dragon fled from

Amaling knights; there, a sciopod stood on his single enormous foot. Headless blemyae stared

back from eyes affixed to their bellies.

The oaken corner-posts of the building had been carved into the images of mountain giants
upholding the roof. Grim and Hilde and Sigenot and Ecke, the villagers called them; and Ecke, at

least, seemed a proper name for a corner-post. Someone with a sense of humor had worked the