"Mike Jefferies - Hidden Echoes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jefferies Mike)

Hidden Echoes by Mike Jefferies

Scanned and pre-proofed by BW-SciFi
Released for proofing: April, 28th, 2003


A Mouthful of Waycake

THOLOCUS, the Clockmaster of Eternity, slowly rose from his chair at the head
of the gathering of Diviners whom he had summoned from the halls of the hours
to his tower on the rim of the City of Time. He spread his hands out in a
helpless gesture across the mountainous piles of parchments, manuscripts,
stone tablets and papyrus scrolls that littered the huge marble table, the
empty ornately carved chairs and the stone benches and had eventually spilt in
untidy waves across the floor. For a moment he surveyed the Diviners' solemn
impassive faces and listened to the rub of the wind against the tall crystal
windows and the persistent mumbling rhythm of the millions of clocks that
measured time in all the vast, echoing halls of the city. A dark specter of
chaos and devastation rose in his mind. What would come to pass if the walls
of reality were to wear thin and tear apart to reveal those ancient worlds
that lay parallel to the Earth? Worlds that they, in their wisdom, had so
carefully hidden in the dawn of time, whose savage beasts and wild peoples
they had banished into the realms of myth and fantasy.
Tholocus shuddered and pushed the thoughts aside. He had not summoned the
Diviners to share such speculation. It was true that once, an age of ages ago,
there had been DoorcracksтАФflaws and secret roads through the shrouds that hid
the earthтАФbut they had long been sealed up and the knowledge of them swallowed
by obscurity. No, the dark canker of disaster that threatened would not find a
way through the fabric of reality, their Paradise was safe from such an
invasion. But what form would the prophecies take? He leaned forward, resting
his hands upon the writings of Heraclitus and addressed the Diviners gravely.
"I fear that we stand upon the yawning brink of a catastrophe. All that we
have labored to achieve will fall into silent and everlasting shadows. I am
afraid that the hour-glass of Paradise is running out."
He paused and joined his long, thin, brittle fingertips together as he
frowned, his age-worn face crinkling into a maze of thoughtful wrinkles.
"This will happen unless with all this knowledge we can unravel the mysteries
and the meanings of those ancient prophecies and discover what might lie
beyond the destruction of Paradise."
"There can be nothing but black emptiness, ruin and desolation. Nostradamus
wrote it clearly," Fusca interrupted, pointing accusingly at a thick
leather-bound volume in front of him.
He rose unexpectedly from his chair, a thin, stunted Diviner in robes of livid
mauve, picked up the book and held it above his head. His quavering voice was
full of rancour as he continued, "Or have you forgotten, Clockmaster, that we
were forewarned against weaving the walls of reality and creating a world
apart, a Paradise called Earth?"
"Silence!" Tholocus snapped angrily, turning his piercing azure gaze upon
Fusca as he quelled all further accusations before continuing in a softer
voice.