"Masterton, Graham - The Djinn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Masterton Graham)

It began with a curious investigation of an ancient Arabian jar and the strange legends of sorcery it symbolised. Then legend and logic demand that the jar be opened - the secret of the djinn must be exposed to the light of reality.

'It swirled in the smoke and seemed to melt and shift. Out of the fog of poppy incense loomed a black, bulky thing like a monstrous leech, with blind eyes and a pale, disgusting maw. Anna lifted up her silver crescent again, and spoke some clear, ringing words in Arabic. As quickly as it had transmogrified itself into the leech-beast, the djinn twisted and turned in the smoke and started turning itself into something else.

'We saw a dim shape like a huge rat, but then Anna spoke the words again, and again the djinn changed. Soon she was chanting the words continuously, and before us, in the gloom, we saw the whole terrifying and revolting range of Thieves that Ali-Bahah had imprisoned in his jar. There were things that shuffled and crept; things that had mouths of ragged teeth; things that twisted and coiled; things that ran on hairy legs. Like a horrible hallucination, the mythical terrors of an age that was lost and forgotten more than a thousand years ago were brought to life in front of our eyes . . .'










THE DJINN

A Star Original



'Max's death had something to do with that old Arabian jar," Marjorie said. 'Max said it had strange properties, that it made singing noises. He took all our portraits down, he said we shouldn't have any in the house. He even took the labels off the groceries and burnt them if they had pictures of people on them. He was always going on about that jar. When I threatened to smash it he locked it away in the turret.'

'I think old Max was imagining things,' I said.

'But the way he died,' she said simply, 'it wasn't very nice. I woke up last Thursday night and found he wasn't there. I heard people talking in the kitchen downstairs. At least I imagined I did. Then I heard terrible screeching. I can't tell you how awful it was. It went on and on for about three or four minutes, perhaps longer. I went downstairs. I don't know how I had the courage to do it. I thought he was all right at first, because he was turned away from me. Then I realised what he'd done. He had taken out the carving knife and cut off his face. His nose, his cheeks, even his eyes. And he had done it himself.'










It is sometimes said that travelers on the road to Bagdad were beguiled at night by strange voices. The voices were said to sound variously like the wind, or like seductive women, or at times like animals of a kind which no man had ever seen. The wise men of the time said these were the voices of jinni, or djinns, and that hearing them, a traveler should hurry onward for the sake of his sanity and his life.

-Abdul Hazw'halla The Book of Magic










Prologue