"Brian Lumley - Titus Crow 1 - The Burrowers Beneath" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

if weirdly-inspired, logic.
We had also talked on the spread of Shudde-M'ell and his kin, and had given
more thought to the horror's release from the prison of the Elder Gods. Crow
was inclined to the belief that some natural cataclysm had freed the
horror-deity, and I could see no better explanation, but how long ago had this
convulsion of the Earth occurred - and how far had the cancer spread since
then? Wendy-Smith had seemed concerned with the same problem, but Crow had
seen Sir Amery's suggestions regarding a means of combating the creatures as
ludicrous.
'Think of it, de Marigny, ' he had told me. 'Just think of trying to destroy
the likes of Shudde-M'ell with flamethrowers! Why, these beings themselves are
almost volcanic. They must be! Think of the temperatures and pressures
required to fuse carbon and chrysolite and whatever else into the diamond-dust
composition of those eggshells! And their ability to burn their way through
solid rock. Flamethrowers? Hah! They'd delight in the very flames! It truly
amazes me, though, the changes these beings must go through between infancy
and adulthood. And yet, is it really so surprising? Human beings, I suppose,
go through equally fantastic alterations -infancy, puberty, menopause,
senility - and what about the amphibians, frogs, and toads . . . and the
lepidopter-ous cycle? Yes, I can quite believe that Sir Amery killed off those
two "babies" of his with a cigar - but by God it will take something more than
that for an adult!'
And on the secret, subterranean spread of the horrors since that tremendous
blunder of nature which he
believed had freed them, Crow had likewise had his own ideas:
'Disasters, Henri! Look at the list of disasters caused by so-called "natural"
seismic shocks, particularly in the last hundred years. Oh, I know we can't
blame every tremor on Shudde-M'ell - if he, or it, still survives as godhead
to its race - but, by heaven, we can certainly tag him with some of them! We
already have the list put together by Paul Wendy-Smith; not big stuff, but
costing lives nevertheless. Chinchon, Calahorra, Agen, Aisne, and so on. But
what about Agadir? My God, but wasn't that a horror? And Agadir is not far off
the route they took to England back in 1933. Look at the size of Africa,
Henri. Why! In the other direction the things could have spread themselves all
over that great continent by now -the entire Middle East even! It all depends
on how many they were originally. And yet, there couldn't have been too many,
despite Wendy-Smith's "hordes". No, I don't think that the Elder Gods would
ever have allowed that. But who knows how many eggs have hatched since then,
or how many others are still waiting to hatch in unsuspected depths of rock?
The more I think of it, the more hideous the threat grows in my mind.'
Finally, before I had left him, Crow had tiredly scribbled for me a list of
books he believed I should research. The Necronomicon of course headed the
list, for the connection of that book with the Cthulhu Cycle of myth was
legendary. My friend had recommended the expurgated manuscript translation (in
a strictly limited edition for scholarly study only), by Henrietta Montague
from the British Museum's black-letter. He had known Miss Montague personally,
had been by her side when she died of some unknown wasting disease only a few
weeks after completing her work on the Necronomicon for the Museum
authorities. I knew that my friend blamed that
work for her death; which was one of the reasons why he had warned me time and