"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 11 - Dimension of Dreams" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

and trying them on for size. He couldn't even get into the first two sets, but the third was a tolerable fit.
Sandals on his feet completed the outfit, and a spear completed his weaponry. Then he scrambled up the
rubble and began looking for a building that was reasonably intact. The darkness already seemed thicker
than before, and it was becoming more difficult to make things out. Another rumble of thunder, louder
than the first, indicated that the storm was moving in.
About three Home Dimension blocks away a relatively undamaged building rose a desolate twenty
stories above the piled rubble at its base. It looked like the best prospect within easy reach, and time and
weather were pressing. Blade began a lurching, scrambling advance toward the building, over the
treacherous heaps of debris.
It was a long and bruising struggle across the wide expanse of wreckage along the riverbank, but
finally Blade scrambled down the last slope into comparatively open street. The main door of the building
was half-blocked by the spilled and heaped fragments of its former neighbors. But Blade scrambled in
over the twisted metal and chunks of stone and plastic into what must have once been a lobby. A sudden
flash of lightning sent light glaring in through the high windows fifty feet above ground level, lighting up an
even higher vaulted ceiling, which was grimed with generations of dust. The glare also revealed the
entrance to a flight of stairs leading downward. Blade was about to step past them and look for a flight
upward; he had no desire to be trapped in a cellar by a band of the marauders. But as he passed the
head of the stairs, he felt an unmistakable current of warm air flowing up out of the stairwell. In the dank
lifeless chill of the building it was as unmistakable and as startling as a slap in the face.
 Blade sniffed the air. No sign of smoke. Probably not the marauders, then. A fire large enough to
produce that much heat would have been pouring out clouds of smoke. But he headed down the stairs,
ready with sword and spear in his hands and mace in his belt.
The stairs went down three full flights, each of twenty broad stone steps. The steps were padded
with accumulated dust that puffed up in clouds from under Blade's sandals and made him sneeze and
cough in spite of his desperate efforts to keep quiet. The noise reverberated in the stairwell, filling the
gaps between the thunderclaps that were now coming more and more frequently. As he descended
farther, he became aware that the darkness was giving way to a faint but unmistakable pinkish light and
that the air was definitely getting warmer. A moment later the spear he had been gently scraping along the
right-hand wall thrust out into empty air. With both weapons ready and all senses keyed up to the limit,
he slipped around the corner.
He was at one end of a vaulted corridor stretching into the pink-tinged gloom. The ceiling, covered
with red tile, rose to three times Blade's height. Along the walls at intervals of forty-odd feet were circular
recesses. As Blade stepped cautiously out into the corridor, he saw that in each recess was a featureless
circular metal door about six feet in diameter.
The floor of the corridor was deeply coated with dust, but the air was so warm that Blade knew
there must be a major heat source somewhere. An artificial heat source, almost certainly, and that meant
civilized people. Did they all lurk underground and leave the surface to the marauding barbarians? Did
these vaultlike metal doors lead to their living quarters? At any rate, there did not seem to be any
immediate danger, so Blade felt safe enough to strip off his clothes and let the warmth bake the night's
chill out of his naked body.
Suddenly a faint click floated down the corridor to Blade's ears, sounding as loud as an explosion in
the dusty stillness of the corridor. Blade started and looked down the corridorтАФthen hefted his weapons.
With a faint whispering of long-unused machinery, the door of one of the vaults was slowly swinging
open.


Chapter Five
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Short of ducking back up the stairs, there was only one hiding place that Blade could see in the long
corridor. Behind the opening door itself. He plunged down the corridor and dove behind the foot-thick