"A. E. Merritt - Dwellers in the mirage" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merritt A. E)

With the first words, the odd feeling of recognition swept over me--with
something added. The words, the gestures, were automatic. I did not
have to exert any effort of memory; they remembered themselves. I no
longer saw the chained girl. All I saw was the black tentacle in the


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shattered stone.

On swept the ritual and on . . . was the yellow stone dissolving from
around the tentacle . . . was the tentacle swaying?

Desperately I tried to halt the words, the gesturing. I could not!

Something stronger than myself possessed me, moving my muscles,
speaking from my throat. I had a sense of inhuman power. On to the
climax of the evil evocation--and how I knew how utterly evil it
was--the ritual rushed, while I seemed to stand apart, helpless to check
it.

It ended.

And the tentacle quivered . . . it writhed . . . it reached outward to the
chained girl. . . .

There was a devil's roll of drums, rushing up fast and ever faster to a
thunderous crescendo. . . .

The girl was still looking at me . . . but the trust was gone from her
eyes . . . her face reflected the horror stamped upon my own.

The black tentacle swung up and out!

I had a swift vision of a vast cloudy body from which other cloudy
tentacles writhed. A breath that had in it the cold of outer space
touched me.

The black tentacle coiled round the girl. . . .

She screamed--inhumanly . . . she faded . . . she dissolved . . . her
screaming faded . . . her screaming became a small shrill agonized
piping . . . a sigh.

I heard the dash of metal from where the girl had stood. The clashing
of the golden chains and girdle that had held her, falling empty on the
rock.