"Brian Lumley - Psychomech 01 - Psychomech" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

BRIAN LUMLEY
Psychomech

This one is for Francesco Cova,
GarrisonтАЩs Godfather
Prologue
Dark-haired, long-limbed, naked except for a towel wrapped about his middle, Garrison lay sleeping. It had been a
hard day, one of many, and he had been exhausted. A couple of brandies with friends in the camp mess had finished
him, put him down for what he had hoped would be a restful night. But to make absolutely sure he had also taken a hot
shower. Towelling himself dry always wearied him, had a sort of soporific effect which usually blended easily into
deep sleep. Tonight had been no exception, butтАФ
тАФNo sooner had he slept than the dream had been there, that same repetitive dream that had bothered him now for
some three weeks, almost every night, and which he could never bring back to mind in the world of waking reality,
except to say that it was a frightening thing which invariably left him drenched in his own perspiration, and that at its
climax he would leap screaming awake. The dream involved a silver car, a black dog (or rather, a bitch), two men (one
unseen), a beautiful girl (also unseen), a Machine and a man-God, in the reverse order of importance. And Garrison
himself. That much he could always remember quite clearly, but the dreamтАЩs finer details were always obscure. Except
for the sure knowledge that it was a nightmare.
Of those details, forgotten in his waking moments:
He rode the Machine.
It was not a motorcycle, not any sort of vehicle one might imagine, but he rode it. He rode through valleys and over
mountains and across oceans, through lands of weird vegetation and weirder, lizard-inhabited rock formations and
over primal seas where Leviathan and all his cousins sported and spouted. Behind him, seated upon her haunches
with one great paw upon his shoulder, the bitch whined and panted and occasionally nuzzled his neck. She was
worried for him. He understood her fear without knowing its source, as is often the way with dreams.
In his mind was the picture of a girl, one he knew intimately even though he had never seen her - which is also the
way of dreams. He wanted to find her, save her, kill her - but he did not know where she was, what he must save her
from (herself?), or why he must kill her. Indeed he prayed that perhaps he might not have to kill her, for he loved her.
Her face haunted him. It was a face he knew and yet had never seen; but if he closed his eyes she was there, misty in
his memory, but with huge dark eyes, small scarlet mouth, flat ears and hair which he painted shiny black without ever
having seen it. Or if he had seen her, then it had been in a dark room, or through curtains as a silhouette. Yes, he
remembered that, the darkness. But his hands knew her!
His fingers remembered her. He had never seen her, but he had touched her. He remembered her body, its feel. His
own body remembered it; and he ached with the thought that others - and one other in particular - also remembered
her. And the ache turned to anger. Feeling his rage, the black bitch howled where she clung to his shoulder.
Garrison rode his Machine harder, towards distant crags where a lone figure stood beside a silver Mercedes
impossibly perched upon a spike of rock. High over a mountain pass, the man and the car. Friends, both of them. The
man was large, squat, naked, crewcut and blond, with small hard eyes. But he was a friend and he beckoned Garrison
on, pointing the way.
The way to the black lake!
Garrison waved and rode the Machine through the pass, and the man and the car faded into distance behind him ...
Beyond the mountains a forest of dead, skeletal trees went down to a shore of pitch washed by a great black oily
lake. And in the middle of the lake a black rock loomed, and built upon it a black castle glittered like faceted coal of jet.
Garrison would have flown straight on across the lake, but here the Machine balked. Something - some invisible
thing - reached out from the black castle and touched the Machine. He could maintain control only if he drew back
from the lake, the castle, the Black Room.
The Black Room!
Somewhere in that castle, a Black Room, and in that room the girl with the face he had never seen. And a man, a tall
slender man with a voice that caressed,lulled,liedand cheated! And it was Ms Power that held off GarrisonтАЩs Machine.
But the castle, the room, the girl, all of these things were the things Garrison sought. The end of his quest. For he