"Lumley,.Brian.-.Titus.Crow.3.-.Clock.Of.Dreams" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)dreamland.
And de Marigny understood what his friend had meant by referring to himself as being 'abnormal.' During his adventures in space and time, on bis way to Elysia, Crow had crashed the time-clock into an alien world. Rescued from oblivion by a robot doctor, T3RE, Crow had been rebuilt from the pulp of his human body by a science beyond anything even guessed at by the doctors and scientists of his mother world. He was immensely strong and fast; he could stay underwater without mechanical aids for indefinite periods; his skin was impervious to all but the most corrosive atmospheres; and, perhaps most amazing of all, he had been built in the image of himself as he had been twenty to twenty-five years earlier! Even Crow's mind had been altered! He had found himself able to do completely inexplicable and unbelievable things with the time-clock, using it in ways never conceived of by its original builders, the Elder Gods themselves. De Marigny banished all such thoughts and memories from his mind as he caused the cloak to drop them down to the roof of the tower. With a little cry of relief Tiania threw herself into Crow's arms. He stroked her for a moment, then turned to their rescuer: 'Well, Henri, what do you have in mind now? We're not out of the fire yet, my friend.' 'I know that, but -' de Marigny began, then paused and put a finger to his lips as suddenly sounds of activity began to drift up from the nighted city. Below, some distance away, freshly lighted torches flared redly. The man in the flying cloak turned a wide-eyed look to his companions. 'That sounds like trouble. It looks like they've discovered your escape!' Night-Gaunt 'They'll soon alert the whole city,' de Marigny continued in haste as he tried to rearrange his plans. 'Titus, how many of them are there in Dylath-Leen?' 'A thousand, possibly more,' Crow answered. 'We saw a regular fleet of their black galleys in the harbor.' Crow clapped his friend on the back and wished him luck, then squatted down behind the tower's parapet wall. A second later de Marigny was once again airborne, with Tiania wrapped in a wing of his cloak. As they flew on high, looking down at the squares and rooftops of nighted Dylath-Leen, they could see that indeed the homed horrors from Leng were beginning to throng the city's streets. With the fingers of his free hand upon the studs that controlled the cloak's antigravitic forces, and his other arm wrapped firmly around Tiania's tiny waist, de Marigny coaxed the clock up higher still into the night air. The girl clung tightly to him, but though the swift flowing air was chill, their height above the ground fearful, and the tension increasing with each passing moment, not once did she tremble. He believed she must be thinking about Titus Crow, left behind now atop the tower in the middle of an unquiet city, and to divert her mind from any morbid train of thought, he said: 'You're a brave girl, Tiania.' She immediately turned her head toward him and smiled through the rush of dark air, and de Marigny believed he could see the worry and fear swiftly fading from her lovely, almost luminous face. 'I'm not really brave,' she said. 'In the care of two such as you and Titus, what can there be to fear?' It was de Marigny's turn to smile; but a second later he frowned, asking: 'Why in the name of all that's wonderful didn't you two bring flying cloaks with you to dreamland? I should have thought that -' 'But we did bring cloaks,' she cut him off, 'and would have brought a time-clock, too, except that it would give the game away. Our cloaks were taken from us by those homed beasts when they trapped us. The fools, they threw them away with the rest of our clothes!' They didn't know what they were?' 'No. Creatures such as they are could never dream of flying. Their very souls are earthbound.' 'And how were you trapped in the first place?' de Marigny asked, noting that the watchfires were slowly falling away to the rear. He stared ahead into darkness, hoping to find a good place to alight. That is a long story, but I will try to be brief ... 'When first we came here there were many things we should have done. We ought first to have visited Atal the Wise, and perhaps Kuranes of Ooth-Nargai beyond the Tanarian Hills. But there seemed so many wonders to see - almost as many as one might find in Elysia - and it was the first time I had ever been in an alien world, even a dream world. Also, I wanted Titus for myself for a little while. And so I persuaded him to spend just a day or two in idle wandering from town to town, spending the nights at tiny inns and taverns. To me it was just a game, you see. I did not know . . . 'Anyway, Titus agreed to my silly ideas, saying it would be a good way to acclimatize ourselves, to get the feel of |
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