"A. E. Merritt - Through the Dragon Glass" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merritt A. E)

long I sat, but all at once I jumped to my feet. The dragons seemed to be moving! They were moving!
They were crawling round and round the glass. They moved faster and faster. The thirteenth dragon spun
about the topaz globe. They circled faster and faster until they were nothing but a halo of crimson and
gold flashes. As they spun, the glass itself grew misty, mistier, mistier still, until it was nothing but a green
haze. I stepped over to touch it. My hand went straight on through it as though nothing were there.

"I reached in--up to the elbow, up to the shoulder. I felt my hand grasped by warm little fingers. I
stepped through--"

"Stepped through the glass?" I cried.

"Through it," he said, "and then--I felt another little hand touch my face. I saw Santhu!

"Her eyes were as blue as the corn flowers, as blue as the big sapphire that shines in the forehead of
Vishnu, in his temple at Benares. And they were set wide, wide apart. Her hair was blue-black, and fell
in two long braids between her little breasts. A golden dragon crowned her, and through its paws slipped
the braids. Another golden dragon girded her. She laughed into my eyes, and drew my head down until
my lips touched hers. She was lithe and slender and yielding as the reeds that grow before the Shrine of
Hathor that stands on the edge of the Pool of Djeeba. Who Santhu is or where she came from---how do
I know? But this I know--she is lovelier than any woman who ever lived on earth. And she is a woman!

"Her arms slipped from about my neck and she drew me forward. I looked about me. We stood in a
cleft between two great rocks. The rocks were a soft green, like the green of the Dragon Glass. Behind
us was a green mistiness. Before us the cleft ran only a little distance. Through it I saw an enormous peak
jutting up like a pyramid, high, high into a sky of chrysoprase. A soft rose radiance pulsed at its sides,
and swimming slowly over its breast was a huge globe of green fire. The girl pulled me towards the
opening. We walked on silently, hand in hand. Quickly it came to me--Ward, I was in the place whose
pictures had been painted in the room of the Dragon Glass!

"We came out of the cleft and into a garden. The Gardens of Many-Columned Iram, lost in the desert
because they were too beautiful, must have been like that place. There were strange, immense trees
whose branches were like feathery plumes and whose plumes shone with fires like those that clothe the
feet of Indra's dancers. Strange flowers raised themselves along our path, and their hearts glowed like the
glow-worms that are fastened to the rainbow bridge to Asgard. A wind sighed through the plumed trees,
and luminous shadows drifted past their trunks. I heard a girl laugh, and the voice of a man singing.

"We went on. Once there was a low wailing far in the garden, and the girl threw herself before me, her
arms outstretched. The wailing ceased, and we went on. The mountain grew plainer. I saw another great
globe of green fire swing out of the rose flashes at the right of the peak. I saw another shining into the
glow at the left. There was a curious trail of mist behind it. It was a mist that had tangled in it a multitude
of little stars. Everything was bathed in a soft green light--such a light as you would have if you lived
within a pale emerald.

"We turned and went along another little trail. The little trail ran up a little hill, and on the hill was a little
house. It looked as though it was made of ivory. It was a very odd little house. It was more like the Jain
pagodas at Brahmaputra than anything else. The walls glowed as though they were full light. The girl
touched the wall, and a panel slid away. We entered, and the panel closed after us.

"The room was filled with a whispering yellow light. I say whispering because that is how one felt about it.
It was gentle and alive. A stairway of ivory ran up to another room above. The girl pressed me toward it.