"Lumley,.Brian.-.Titus.Crow.3.-.Clock.Of.Dreams" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

I was more than three-quarters towards the eastern side of the bay when I heard far behind me a sound that stiffened the short hairs on the back of my neck and brought a chill sweat to my brow. It was the terrified cry of my yak, and following that single shrill scream of animal fear there came another sound - one which caused me to quicken my pace almost to a run as I emerged from the dunes to the washed pebbles of the shore - the horrid, ululant cry of alarm of the horned ones!
Stranded on the beach, its bottom festooned with barnacles, was a small one-man craft as used of old by the octopus fishers of Dylath-Leen. Frail and unsafe though this vessel looked, beggars cannot be choosers, and thus thinking I leapt within its tar-planked shell, offering up a prayer of thanks to the night skies when I found that the craft still floated. I found the old round-bladed paddle and, still chanting those mad words of Atal's deciphering, made strongly for the black outline of the far side of the bay. And, ungainly though my craft had at first looked, it fairly cleft the dark water as I drove furiously at the paddle.
By now there were squattish outlines on the shore behind me, dancing in anger at my escape to the sea, and I wondered if the horned ones had a means of communication with which more orthodox creatures such as men were unfamiliar. If so, then perhaps I would find monstrous welcomers awaiting my beaching on the western point.
Halfway across the bay things happened to make me forget the problem of what might wait for me on landing. I felt a tug at my paddle from the oily water and a dark mass rose up out of the depths before my boat. As that unknown swimmer came alongside and the thin moonlight lit on its sharp teeth, I lashed out with my paddle - taking a very deep breath when the horror turned slowly away and silently submerged.

I continued then with my frenzied paddling and chanting until the western point loomed out of the dark and the shallow keel of my boat bit sand. Leaping overboard into shallow, night-chilled water, I imagined soggy gropings at my legs and ploughed in an agony of terror for the pebbles of the beach - and in that same instant, as I touched dry land, there loped out of the dark from the direction of the city the squat forms of a dozen or so of those foul, horned creatures whose brothers dwell in nighted Leng! Before they could reach me, even as their poisonous paws stretched out for me, I raced across my starting point and there came a clap of magical thunder that hurled me down face first into the sand. I leapt up again, and there within arm's length, clawing at an unseen barrier - the merciful Wall of Naach-Tith - were those thwarted horned ones of elder dreams. Hateful their looks and murderous their strangled intent as they clawed with vile purpose at thin air, held back by the invisible spell of Naach-Tith's barrier.
Without pause I snatched out the second of those papers given me by Atal and commenced the invocation of the Fly-the-Light, the spell to draw forth the horror from the ruby. And as the first of those weird syllables passed my lips the horned ones fell back, unbelievable terror twisting their already awful features.
'Tetragammaton Thabaite Sabaoth Tethiktos -' As I chanted on, by the dim light of that thin-horned moon, the snarls of those creatures at bay turned to pleading mewls and gibbers as they began to grovel at the base of the Wall of Naach-Tith. And eventually I spoke the last rune, and there came a silence which was as that quiet that rules at the core of the moon.
Then, out of the silence, a low and distant rumble was born, growing rapidly in volume to a roar, to a blast of sound, to an ear-splitting shriek as of a billion banshees - and from the heart of Dylath-Leen a cold wind blew,

extinguishing in an instant the hellfires of the horned ones. And all the tiny red points of light went out in a second, and there came a loud, sharp crack, as of a great crystal disintegrating. And soon thereafter I heard the first of the screams.
I remembered Atal's warning 'not to watch,' but found myself unable to turn away. I was rooted to the spot, and as the screams from the dark city rose in unbearable intensity I could but stare into the darkness with bulging eyes, straining to pick out some detail of what occurred there in the midnight streets. Then, as the grovelers at the wall broke and scattered, It came!
It came - rushing from out the bowels of the terrified town - bringing with it a wind that bowled over the fleeing creatures beyond the invisible wall as though they had no weight at all... and I saw it!
Blind and yet all-seeing - without legs and yet running like flood water - the poisonous mouths in the bubbling mass - the Fly-the-Light beyond the wall. Great God! The sight of the creature was mind-blasting! And what it did to those now pitiful things from Leng. . . .
Thus it was.
Three times only have I visited the basalt-towered, myriad-wharved city of Dylath-Leen - and now I am glad that I have seen that city for the last time.

PART THREE 1
Shadow Over Dreamland
'And it is still your intention to enter Dylatb-Leen? Deliberately, despite all I have told you?' Grant Enderby's voice showed bis incredulity. He stood up to pace the floor of the room wherein he and Henri-Laurent de Marigny had so firmly cemented their friendship through the hours of darkness. Enderby's tale had taken until the wee hours in the telling, and since then the two men had talked of a variety of things. Their discourse had covered many subjects, some of them centering upon de Marigny's quest, others touching upon the general air of malaise, of a strange impending doom that seemed to hang h'ke a dark shadow over most of dreamland.
'Yes,' de Marigny answered, 'I must enter Dylath-Leen; my friends are there and they are in trouble.'
'But, Henri, if the Elder Gods themselves are incapable of helping your friends, then what can a mere man do?'
'You ask me that? And you, a "mere man," once built the Wall of Naach-Tith about Dylath-Leen, destroying all of the horned traders in the city.'
'I was lucky,' the older man grunted. 'Without Atal's help I could have done nothing.'
'But I, too, have been helped by Atal,' de Marigny pointed out. 'And I have my flying cloak.'
'Huh!' Enderby grunted grudgingly. 'Still, you do not know what you go against, Henri.'
'Oh, but I do. You have told me what I go against, Grant, for which I am grateful. There is something further, however.'
'Oh?'

'Yes. You explained how you built the Wall of Naach-Tith about Dylath-Leen, but you said nothing about its removal. How can you be sure that things are once more as they were - that Dylath-Leen again suffers the contagion of the horned traders?'
Enderby shrugged. 'There are reasons. Travelers have strayed too close to the city, never to be seen again; others have been lucky enough to escape. It is rumored that two such men have stumbled away from the city in the last five years, two out of dozens lost forever. Then there is the vision you saw in Kthanid's crystal: the square in the center of Dylath-Leen, where once again the homed ones have set up a great ruby which doubtless pulses out its evil, debilitating radiations even now . . .
'As to how the horned ones regained Dylath-Leen -how they chained the Fly-the-Light from Yuggoth on the Rim, prisoning it again within this new ruby they have brought to the city from across the Southern Sea - of these things I can only guess. And anyone's guess is as good as mine. Remember, Henri, that there was a rune to build the Wall of Naach-Tith, and another to splinter the great ruby and free the Fly-the-Light. Why not a third to remove Naach-Tith's barrier, and yet another to prison the horror from Yuggoth?
'It is after all a Fly-the-Light, which, during the hours of day, must find a dark sanctuary or perish beneath the sun's rays. If man - or monster - knew the correct runes, it would be an easy task to trap the vampire during the hours of daylight.'
Wearily de Marigny stroked his forehead. 'Whichever way it is,' he answered, 'I'll find out soon enough for myself.' He stood up and stretched, and his host immediately apologized.
'I fear I've kept you up talking too long, my friend. Let me show you to your room now. You have come a long way and will probably need all the strength you can

muster. When will you tackle Dylath-Leen?'
Following Enderby upstairs to the tiny guestroom, de Marigny answered. 'I intend it to be tomorrow night, and of course I will fly into the city. That way the journey will be one of minutes, a half hour at most. With luck I should be in and out of Dylath-Leen before your horned traders even suspect that I am there. I won't need much more equipment than I have already: a rope - a sharp knife, perhaps - a little blacking for my face.'
'Ah, well, Henri, go to your bed now,' his host answered. 'We'll talk again tomorrow, when you are fully rested. If only I were a young man again, I -'
'No, no - you've done enough already, Grant, and I am extremely grateful.'
'My boys, too,' Enderby nodded, ushering the man from the waking world into the guestroom. 'If you were going afoot, I would find it difficult to dissuade them from going with you. You will understand why I am glad you are flying to Dylath-Leen.'
De Marigny nodded. 'Of course I understand, but in any case it's best I go it alone. Goodnight, Grant.'
'Goodnight, my friend. And may your dreams within dreams be pleasant ones.'
The following evening, as twilight deepened and the first suggestions of stars began to glow dimly in the sky over Ulthar, de Marigny set out. People who saw his shadow and the shape that cast it flitting high over the rooftops would later talk of a great bat; or perhaps it was a night-gaunt - though night-gaunts were extremely rare in these parts.
As the dreamer passed swiftly through the darkening sky he retraced in his mind's eye the comprehensive map of Dylath-Leen which Grant Enderby had drawn for him. It was of the utmost importance that he remember all of the routes from the square of the ruby dais to the outskirts

of the city, and from the outskirts to the desert. It would not be too difficult to reach that square, where by now Titus Crow and Tiania might well be suffering the none too tender attentions of the squat horned ones. But it could very well be a different story again to escape from
the place.
De Marigny had upon his person a stout rope with a noose, a sharp knife in a leather sheath, and the precious vial given him by Atal. Nothing more. He hoped that nothing more would be necessary, for he dared not weigh himself down too much.