"Lumley, Brian - Vampire World 2 - The Last Aerie" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

That night as the house slept, Nestor crept out into
the dark and took his leave of the Bereas. But trekking through the gloomy heart of the forest, he was never alone. Like a clot of blue ice frozen and glittering over the barrier mountains, the Northstar was both beacon and companion. For he knew that the star of ill-omen shone down not only on Sunside, but also on Starside and the last great aerie of the Wamphyri...
Towards dawn Nestor had found himself in the foothills - and in the presence of monsters/
A pair of Wamphyri Lords had come to fight a duel on Sunside, which Nestor witnessed. Wran Killglance was one (called Wran the Rage after his furies), and Vasagi the Suck the other. Vasagi's face was a nightmare in itself: with no mouth or chin as such, but a tapering trunk and flickering needle proboscis, like the siphon of some monstrous insect . .. but worse than a nightmare when Wran was done. For then Vasagi's face had looked like the hole which is left behind when a limb is wrenched from its socket, all bloody and dripping from its rim.
But Nestor had been more than just a witness; indeed, he had been part of the fight, and had probably saved Wran's life. For in his horror of the conflict - the animal ferocity which the enormously powerful combatants displayed - Nestor had temporarily forgotten his perverse desire to be a 'Lord' himself; and of the two who fought, Wran had at first seemed the least alien ...
... At first, aye.
Later, with the flush of a false dawn flowing like molten gold along the far southern horizon, Wran had dragged Vasagi to the hillside and pegged him down to await the sun's rising. And while he worked, so he questioned Nestor about his part in all this, and discovered his motive: that he would be Wamphyri. At that, a
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grimly ironic scheme had entered Wran's mind. Here was one vampire about to die - Vasagi, and his leech still in him - and here a Szgany youth just itching to take his place! And why not? Wran owed him that much at least. It would be such a simple thing to arrange.
It had been arranged! Wran had sent Nestor on some small errand, and in his absence opened Vasagi's spine through skin, flesh, muscle, and ribs to find and drain his leech. For to a vampire the blood is the life, and the best vessel from which to drink it is another vampire's parasite - preferably an enemy's!
Drained and dying, finally the Suck's leech had deserted him and issued its egg. As Nestor returned, Wran caught up the small, skittering, pearly spheroid into his hand, to stare at it in grim satisfaction. He knew that if he, Wran, were a suitable vessel, then that Vasagi's egg would soak like quicksilver through his skin and inhabit him; but he already had a mature parasite leech of his own, which would devour any intruder in a trice.
Then, opening his fist to show Nestor the naked egg, Wran had called him closer. And as if blowing a kiss, he'd sent the thing flying into the other's gawping face!
It had taken nothing more than that: it was the quickest, easiest way to become a vampire. Not the virulent bite, which brings about lethargy, death, and undeath; and not sex, which likewise transmits stuff of the vampire between bodies. For in cases such as these the transition is only gradual. The victim will become a vampire - always, invariably - but not always Wamphyri. Ah, but when the egg itself is passed on ...
The melding had caused Nestor such pain as he could never have believed possible without experiencing it. By the time he had recovered strength enough to
crawl, the sun was very nearly up. But there on a bluff, Vasagi's flyer had waited, its spatulate head nodding this way and that in a soughing breeze off Sunside's forests, and Nestor had known what he must do.
Making his way to the flyer, he passed close to Vasagi, who still clung to life despite his hideous wounds. Then the Suck had begged him to loosen the pegs which held him fast to the hillside. For after all, Nestor already possessed Vasagi's egg and would soon become heir to his flyer. So what more could he want? Surely he could afford to spare his life, what little of it remained, and not leave him to melt in the sun?
Nestor had been nai've in the ways of the Wamphyri. If his egg were a mature leech, doubtless it would have caused him to laugh. But with his own agonies so fresh in his mind, he could scarcely bear the thought of another's. And such agonies: to slump into gurgling glue, vaporize to roiling smoke and stench, and steam away to nothing, like a slug tossed into a campfire! And so he'd paused a moment to loosen and yank free the Suck's pegs, before carrying on towards the patiently waiting flyer.
Before, there'd been a crossbow bolt transfixing the V of muscle between Vasagi's neck and shoulder. Nestor knew, for he was the one who had put it there (Wran had pulled it out when he pegged Vasagi down, just for the pleasure it gave him). Now the ironwood bolt lay in the bloodied dust, and Nestor's empty crossbow swung at his hip. Automatically, he had taken up the bolt and clipped it into its housing under the crossbow's tiller. For if he was really on his way to Starside, it would be as well to take a weapon along -especially now that he knew what to expect there! The crossbow should provide some security at least. For in all Sunside there was no finer shot than Nestor. So they
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had used to say back in ... back in ... back where? But Nestor no longer remembered.
Then he'd found Vasagi's bloodied battle gauntlet hanging by a thong from the flyer's saddle, where Wran had' left it for him. But even then - with the deadly furnace sun so close to breaching the far horizon, and just as close to sending out its sighing, searing golden rays - still the flyer had known its would-be rider for a stranger and would not launch ...
... Until the crippled Vasagi sent a mind-call winging, to stir the beast to action: Aye, you were ever a faithful creature. When I told you to stay, you stayed. But now you belong to another - it pleases me to give you to him - for a while, at least. And now it's time to fly or die. So fly... fly!
Only then, on Vasagi's command, had the flyer extended its wings; and as alveolate bones, membrane and muscle stretched in metamorphic flux, so the creature had launched itself aloft! A moment more, and then -
- Wind whipping in Nestor's face as his mount glided out and turned in a rising thermal over Sunside! And as its arched manta wings formed vast scoops or air-traps, so the beast rose up towards the peaks, where soon the sun would strike with hammers of gold. But Nestor was no longer afraid, not of anything. For welling up from deep within his changeling's mind and body, he'd heard the first discordant notes of a strange, savage and wonderful song - Wamphyri!
And how that silent song of metamorphosis had thrilled in his contaminated blood, for at last he had known he was on his way.
To Starside!
To the last aerie!
Wamphyri! Wamphyyyyri. ..!
In Nestor's dream the past came alive with such immediacy and in such vivid detail, it was as if he lived it again. Indeed, as if it were happening even now:
With the reins trapped in his right hand, and gripping the left-hand horn of twin pommels in the other, he used his knees to cling tightly to the hump of the well-rubbed leather saddle; and flattening himself down out of the slipstream, he leaned a little forward into the force of the blast. But even lacking fear and feeling a wild exhilaration, still he hung on for dear life. The wind in his face snatched at his breath and struck cold against his clenched teeth; he found his position precarious, to say the least, and jammed his heels firmly up under the flyer's wings where they met its body, to give himself more purchase.
But at least he was airborne and Starside bound at last. And his weird mount, so heavy and unwieldy on the ground? Now it glided like some prehistoric bird, balancing itself on turbulent currents of air and steadily gaining altitude. Bravo! Ah, but while it knew how to fly, Nestor did not!
Perhaps he had known it, upon a time, but all long forgotten now. Vague memories, revenant of some elusive, shadowy past - of a flyer just like this one, all crashed and broken on Sunside, screaming in lethal sunlight as its skin cracked open to issue jets of steam, and its fluids dripping free like the juices of a pig on a spit - were all that remained. Maybe that was how he'd got himself marooned and lost his memory in the first place, by crashing his flyer on Sunside and banging his head. It was an explanation, at least. Well, and now he'd be a Lord again, and have new things to remember. Ah, but new things to learn first, like flying!
As the mountainside fell away, and the furious bluster slackened, he leaned forward between the jutting
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pommels and wiped at his streaming tears. And slitting his eyes, finally he could see again. Meanwhile in its search for thermals, the flyer had spiralled south; and there, far out across the furnace desert, Nestor spied a spear of yellow light lancing from the molten horizon, striking west upon the flanks of the gaunt grey mountains. Sunup, and Nestor's time on Sunside was at an end. 'North!' he shouted at his mount. 'North - Starside - the last aerie!'
From the west, all along the spine of the barrier range, the fan of fire crept closer and the mountains came alive with light. The yellow egg of the sun was set to hatch on the southern horizon, to let its golden bird of prey fly free!
But now, as if answering Nestor's cry however grudgingly, his flyer wheeled lumberingly north and seemed to hang there a moment in mid-air, suspended between the uppermost peaks. And as in a frenzy he cried, 'Faster, fly faster!', the beast commenced a leisurely drift inwards over peaks, ravines and plateau jumbles. Till finally, lowering its tapering neck and head, it slid gradually into a glide.
Nestor couldn't know it, but his mount found no great novelty in all this drama; it had flown this way before with Vasagi the Suck, and knew the route well enough; there was nothing new here except its rider, a feeble-seeming fellow at best. His thoughts were blunt as wedges, not needle-sharp, like the Suck's. He'd not once used his spurs, but sat there wan and wind-lashed in the saddle. Why he was here at all remained a mystery.
Perhaps Nestor sensed the flyer's slow, dull thoughts, and its low regard for himself. But with the sun at his heels he was done with gentling the beast! He snatched the dart from under his crossbow's tiller, leaned forward
between the pommel horns and tickled the creature's spine, then concentrated his thoughts in a stream of abuse along its leathery neck and into its head. And he finished with a threat:
Make haste, now, or I'll crawJ along your neck and stick this in your ear.' The beast heard him; more than that, it felt the first hot breath of the sun upon its hindquarters, put its nose down and glided into the shadows of a pass. And safe from the sun at last, it sped for Starside.
Nestor breathed a sigh of relief, and in the next moment heard guttural laughter and a ringing cry: 'Bravo!'
It was Wran. He launched his flyer from the shadows of a ridge and came up alongside. 'You made it by a breath! What? On a count of ten, your beast's wings would have blackened and crisped to dust! Aye, and it's a long way down, Lord Nestor of the Wamphyri...'
His words carried on the air, but they were also in Nestor's mind. It was an art of the Wamphyri; at close range like this they were thought-thieves to a man, but some much better than others. Vasagi had been a veritable master of telepathy, while Wran's talent was merely middling. Now it was Nestor's turn: