"Lumley,.Brian.-.Titus.Crow.3.-.Clock.Of.Dreams" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)
'I thought as much,' I answered. 'And they're already abroad, I've seen them. But what business is this you
speak of?'
Then Bo-Kareth told me a tale that filled my heart with horror and determined me never to rest until I had at least attempted to right a great wrong.
It had started a number of years earlier, according to my host (I made no attempt to pinpoint a date; what was the point when Bo-Kareth had apparently aged thirty years to my twelve?) and had involved the bringing to the city of a gigantic ruby. This great gem had been a gift, an assurance of the traders' regard for Dylath-Leen's peoples, and as such had been set upon a pedestal in the city's main square. But only a few nights later the horror had started to make itself noticeable.
The keeper of a tavern near the square, peering from his window after locking the door for the night, had noticed a strange, deep, reddish glow from the giant gem's heart; a glow which seemed to pulse with an alien life all its own. And when the tavern-keeper told the next day of what he had seen an amazing thing came to light. All of the other galley-brought rubies in the city - the smaller gems set in rings, amulets, and instruments, and those larger, less ornamental, almost rude stones owned purely for the sake of ownership by certain of the city's richer gentlemen - had glowed through the night to a lesser degree, as if
in response to the greater activity of their bulky brother. And with that unearthly glowing of the gems had come a strange partial paralysis, making all the peoples of the city other than the turbaned traders themselves slumberous and weak, incapable and unwanting of any festivity and barely able to go about their normal duties and business. As the days passed and the power of the great ruby and the less regal ones waxed, so also did the strange drowsiness upon Dylath-Leen's folks. And it was only then, too late, that the plot was seen and its purpose recognized.
For a long time there had been a shortage of the fat black slaves of Parg. They had been taken from the city by the traders faster than they came in, until only a handful remained; and that handful, on hearing one day of a black galley soon due to dock, had fled their masters and left the city to seek less suspicious bondage. That had been shortly before the horned traders brought the great jewel to Dyath-Leen, and since that time, as the leering, gem-induced lethargy had increased until its effects were felt in daylight almost as much as they were at night, so had the number of oddly-shod traders grown until the docks were full of their great black galleys.
Then, inexplicable absences began to be noticed; a taverner's daughter here and a quarrier there, a merchant from Ulthar and a thagweed curer and a silversmith's son. Soon any retaining sufficient willpower sold up their businesses, homes, and houses and left Dylath-Leen for Ti-Penth, Ulthar, and Nir. I was glad to learn that Litha and her brothers had thus departed, though it made me strangely sad to hear that when Litha went she took with her a handsome husband and two strong sons. She was old enough now, her father told me, to be mistaken for my mother; but she still retained her great beauty.
By this time the hour of midnight was well passed and all about the house tiny red points of light had begun to glow in an eerie, slumber-engendering coruscation. As
Bo-Kareth talked, his monologue interrupted now with many a yawn and shake of his head, I tracked down the sources of those weird points of radiance and found them
to be rubies.
The curse was just as Bo-Kareth had described it - rubies! Ten tiny gems were set in the base of an ornamental goblet; many more of the small red stones enhanced the hanging silver and gold plates; fire-flashing splinters of precious crystal were embedded in the spines of certain of my host's leather-bound books of prayer and dream-lore - and when his mumbling had died away completely I turned from my investigations to find the old man asleep in his chair, lost in distressing dreams which pulled his gray face into an expression of muted terror.
I had to see the great gem. I make no excuse for such a rash and headstrong decision (one does things in dreams which one would never consider for a moment in the waking world) but I knew I could make no proper plans nor rest easy in my mind until I had seen that great ruby for myself.
I left the house by the back door, locking it behind me and pocketing the key. I knew Bo-Kareth had a duplicate key, and besides, I might later need to get into the house without delay. The layout of the city was well known to me, and thus it was not difficult for me to find my way through labyrinthine back streets to the main square. That square was away from the district of S'eemla, far closer to the docks and quays, and the nearer I drew to the waterfront the more carefully I crept.
Why, the whole area was alive with the alien and evil traders! The wonder is that I was not spotted in the first few minutes; and when I saw what those hellish creatures were up to, thus confirming beyond a shadow of a doubt Bo-Kareth's worst fears, the possibility that I might yet be discovered - and the consequences such an untimely discovery would bring - caused me to creep even more
carefully. Each streetcorner became a focal point for terror, where lurking, unseen presences caused me to glance over my shoulder or jump at the slightest flutter of bat-wings or scurry of mice feet. And then, almost before I knew it, I came upon the square.
I came at a run, my feet flying frantically, all caution thrown to the wind. For I knew now for sure what the horned ones did at night, and a fancy had grown quickly on me that something foUowed in the dark; so that when I suddenly burst from that darkness into a blaze of red firelight I was taken completely by surprise. I literally keeled over backwards as I contrived to halt my flight of fear before it plunged me into the four turbaned terrors standing at the base of the dais of the jewel. My feet skidded as I pivoted on my heels and my fingers scrabbled madly at the round cobbles of the square as I fell. In truth it could scarce be termed a real fall - I was no sooner down than up - but in that split second or so as I fought to bring my careening body under control those guardians of the great gem were after me. Glancing fearfully back I saw them darting rat-like in my wake.
My exit from that square can only properly be described as panic-stricken, but brief though my visit had been I had seen more than enough to strengthen that first resolve of mine to do something about the loathsome and insidious invasion of the traders. Backtracking, bounding through the night streets I went, with the houses and taverns towering blackly on both sides, seeing in my mind's eye that horrible haunting picture which I had but glimpsed in the main square.
There had been the four guards with great knives fastened in their belts, the dais with pyramid steps to its flat summit, four hugely flaring torches in blackly-forged metal holders, and, atop the basalt altar itself, a great reddish mass pulsing with inner life, its myriad facets catching and reflecting the fire of the torches in a
mixture with its own evil radiance. The hypnotic horror, the malignant monster - the great ruby!
But fast and furious though my flight was, it soon became apparent that my pursuers were gaining on me. A faint padding came to my ears as I ran, causing me to accelerate, forcing my feet to pump even faster. The effort was useless, if anything, worse than useless, for I soon tired and had to slow down. Twice I stumbled and the second time, as I struggled to rise, the fumbling of slimy fingers at my feet lent them wings and shot me out again in front. It became as one of those nightmares (which indeed it was) where you run and run through vast vats of subconscious molasses, totally unable to increase the distance between yourself and your ethereal pursuer; the only difference being, dream or none, that I knew for a certainty I was running for my life!
It was a few moments later, when an added horror had just about brought me to the verge of giving up hope, that I found an unexpected but welcome reprieve. Slipping and stumbling, panting for air, I had been brought up short by a mad fancy that the soft padding of alien feet now came from the very direction in which I was heading, from somewhere in front of me! And as those sounds of demon footfalls came closer, closing in on me, I flattened myself to the basalt wall, spreading my arms and groping desperately with my hands at the bare, rough stone; and
there, beneath my unbelieving fingers - an opening! - a narrow crack or entry, completely hidden in jet shadows, between two of the street's bleak buildings.
I squeezed myself into the narrow opening, trying to get my breathing under control, fighting a lunatic urge to cry out in my terror. It was pitch black, the blackness of the pit, and a hideous thought suddenly came to me. What if this tunnel of darkness - this possible gateway to sanity - what if it were closed, a dead end? That would be a dead end indeed! Then, as if in answer to my silent, frantic prayers, even as I heard the first squawk of amazed frustration from somewhere behind me, I squirmed from the other end of the division to emerge in a street mercifully void of the evil aliens.
My flight had carried me in a direction well away from Bo-Kareth's house; but in any case, now that my worst fears were realized and the alarm raised, it would have been completely idiotic to think of hiding anywhere in the city. I had to get away, to Ulthar or Nir, as far as possible - and as fast as possible - until I could try to find a way to rid Dylath-Leen of its inhuman curse.
Less than an hour later, with the city behind me, I was in an uninhabited desert area heading in a direction which I hoped would eventually bring me to Ulthar. It was cool beneath a full, cloud-floating moon, yet a long while passed before the fever of my panic-flight left me. When it did I was almost sorry, for soon I found myself shivering as the sweat of my body turned icy chill, and I wrapped my cloak more tightly about me for I knew it must grow still colder before the dawn. I was not particularly worried about food or water; there are many water holes and oases between Dylath-Leen and Ulthar. No, my main cause for concern lay in orientation. I did not want to end up wandering in one of the many great parched deserts! My sense of direction in open country has never been very good.
Before long, great clouds came drifting in from a direction I took to be the south, obscuring the moon until only the stars in the sky ahead gave any light by which to travel. Then, it seemed, the dune-cast shadows grew blacker and longer and an eerie sensation of not being alone waxed in me. I found myself casting sharp, nervous glances over my shoulder and shuddering to an extent not entirely warranted by the chill of the night. There grew in my mind an awful suspicion, one which I had to resolve one way or the other.
I hid behind a dune and waited, peering back the way I had come. Soon I saw a darting shadow moving swiftly over the sand, following my trail - and that shadow was endowed with twin points at its top and chuckled obscenely as it came. My hair stood on end as I saw the creature stop to study the ground, then lift its wide-mouthed face to the night sky. I heard again that weird, ululant cry of alert - and I waited no longer.
In a passion of fear even greater than that which I had known in the streets of Dylath-Leen, I fled - racing like a madman over the night sands, scrambling and often falling head over heels down the sides of the steeper sandhills, until my head struck something hard in the shadow of a dune and I was knocked unconscious.
But it seems that I was not too deeply gone in dream to be shocked back into the waking world, and I was fortunate enough to wake up before my pursuer could find me. This time I was far from sorry when I leapt shouting awake at my home in Norden; and in the sanity of the waking world I recognized the fact that all those horrors of dream and the night had existed only in my slumbers, so that in the space of a few days my second visit to Dylath-Leen was all but forgotten. The mind soon forgets that which it cannot bear to remember . . .
Grant Enderby's Story, III: The Utterer of the Words
I was forty-seven when next - when last - I saw Dylath-Leen. Not that my dream took me straight to the basalt city; rather, I found myself first on the outskirts of Ulthar, the City of Cats. Wandering through the city's streets, I stooped to pet a fat torn as he lazed upon a doorstep, and an old shopkeeper seated outside his store beneath a shade called out to me in a friendly, quavering voice:
'It is good, stranger. It is good when a stranger pets the cats of Ulthar. Have you journeyed far?'
'Far,' I affirmed. 'From the waking world. But even there I stop to play when I see a cat. Tell me, sir, can you direct me to the house of Litha, daughter of Bo-Kareth of Dylath-Leen?'
'Indeed, I know her well.' He nodded his old head. 'She is one of the few in Ulthar with as many years to count as I. She lives with her husband and family not far from here. Until some years ago her father also lived at his daughter's house. He came out of Dylath-Leen mazed and mumbling, and did not live long here in Ulthar. Now no man goes to Dylath-Leen.'
But the old man had soured at the thought of Dylath-Leen and did not wish to talk any longer. I took his directions and started off with mixed feelings along the street he had indicated; but only halfway up that street I cut off down a dusty alley and made for the Temple of the Elder Ones instead. It could do no good to see Litha now. What use to wake old memories - if indeed she were capable of remembering anything of those golden days of her youth? And it was not as though she might help me solve my problem. That same problem of thirteen waking years ago: how to
avenge the outraged peoples of Dylath-Leen, and how to rescue those of them - if any such existed - still enslaved. For there was still a feeling of yearning in me for the black-towered city and its peoples of yore. I remembered the friends I had known and my many walks through the high-walled streets and along the farm lanes of the outskirts. Yet even in S'eemla the knowledge that certain offensive black galleys were moored in the docks had somehow always sufficed to dull my appetite for living, had even impaired the happiness I had known with dark-eyed Litha, in the garret of Bo-Kareth's house, with the bats of night clustered thick and chittering beneath the sill without my window.
As quickly as the vision of Litha the girl came, I put it out of my mind, striding out more purposefully for the Temple of the Elder Ones. If any man could help me in my bid for vengeance against the turbaned traders, Atal, the Priest of the Temple, was that man. It was rumored that in the temple he had keep of many incredible volumes of sorcery. His great knowledge of the darker mysteries was, in fact, my main reason for seeking his aid. I could hardly hope to engage the forces of evil controlled by the hell-traders with physical means alone.
It was then, as I left the little green cottages and neatly fenced farms and shady shops of the suburbs behind me, as I pressed more truly into the city proper, that I received a shock so powerful my soul almost withered within me. It is a wonder that I was not driven to seek refuge in the waking world, but a vision of vengeance made me cling desperately to dreamland.
I had allowed myself to become interested in the old peaked roofs, the overhanging upper storeys, numberless chimney pots, and narrow, old cobbled streets of the city, so that my attention had been diverted from the path my feet followed, causing me to bump rudely into someone coming out of the narrow door of a shop. Of a sudden the
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