"The Face In the Abyss" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merritt Abraham)

During his convalescence there had been plenty of time for him to analyze what he had beheld; rationalize it; dissolve its mystery. Had the three actually turned into globules of gold? There was another explanation-and a far
more probable one. The cavern of the Face might be a laboratory of Nature, a crucible wherein, under unknown rays, transmutation of one element into another took place. Within the rock out of which the Face was carved might be some substance which by these rays was transformed into gold. Fulfillment of that old dream ... or inspiration... of the ancient alchemists which modem science is turning into reality. Had not Rutherford, the Englishman, succeeded in turning an entirely different element into pure copper by depriving it of an electron or two? Was not the final product of uranium, the vibrant mother of radium-dull, inert lead?
The concentration of the rays upon the Face was terrific. Beneath the bombardment of those radiant particles of energy the bodies of the three might have been swiftly disintegrated. The three droplets of gold might have been oozing from the rock behind them... the three had vanished ... he had seen the drops... thought the three changed into them... an illusion.
And the Face did not really sweat and weep and slaver gold. That was the action of the rays upon it. The genius who had cut it from the stone had manipulated that... Of course!
The lure of the Face? Its power? A simple matter of psychology-once one understood it. That same genius had taken the stone, worked upon it, and reproduced so accurately man's hunger for power that inevitably, he who looked upon it responded. The subconsciousness, the consciousness as well, leaped up in response to what the Face portrayed with such tremendous fidelity. In proportion to the strength of that desire within him was the strength of the response. Like calls to like. The stronger draws the weaker. A simple matter of psychology. Again-of course!
The winged serpents-the Messengers? There, indeed, one's feet were solidly on scientific fact. Ambrose Bierce had deduced in his story "The Damned Thing" that there might be such things: H. G. Wells, the Englishman, had played with the same idea in his "Invisible Man"; and de Maupassant had worked it out, just before he went insane, in his haunting tale of the Horla. Science knew the thing was possible, and scientists the world over were trying to find the secret to use in the next war.
Yes, the invisible Messengers were easily explained. Conceive something that neither absorbs light nor throws it back. In such case the light rays stream over that something as water in a swift brook streams over a submerged bowlder. The bowlder is not visible. Nor would be the thing over which the light rays streamed. The light rays would curve over it, bringing to the eyes of the observer whatever image they carried from behind. The intervening object would be invisible. Because it neither absorbed nor threw back light, it could be nothing else.
There is a traveler in the desert. Suddenly he sees before him a rivulet and green palms. They are not there. They are far behind the mountain at whose base they seem to be. The rays of light carrying their images have struck upward, angled over the mountain, struck down, and have been reflected in denser hot air. It is a mirage. The example was not entirely analogous, but the basic principle was the same.
Ah, yes, thought Graydon-the winged Messengers were not hard to understand. And as for their shape-is not the bird but a feathered serpent, or feathered lizard? The plumes of the bird of paradise are only developments of the snake's scales. Science says so. The bird is a feathered serpent. The first bird, the Archeopterix, still had the jaws and teeth and tail of its reptilian ancestors.
But-these creatures understanding and obeying human command? Well, why not? The dog could be trained to do the same thing. There was nothing to puzzle about in that. The dog is intelligent. There was no reason why the flying serpents should have less intelligence than the dog. And that explained the recognition of Suarra's bracelet by the unseen creature that had attacked him.
The Snake Mother?-well, he'd have to see her before he believed in anything half-snake and half-woman. Let that be.
Having explained everything except the Serpent-woman to his own satisfaction, Graydon ceased to think, and in consequence grew rapidly better.
When he had fully recovered, he tried to pay some of his debt of life to whomsoever it was he owed that life. He sent messengers to Cerro de Pasco for funds, and other things. The padre could have the altar trappings he had long wished for, and what he gave the Indians made them thank their patron saints or secret gods that they had found him.
He had been lucky, too. He had lost his rifle in his wanderings, and his messengers had been able to pick up a superior, high-power gun in Cerro.
And now, with plenty of ammunition, four automatics, and all the equipment he needed, Graydon was on his way back to the hidden haunted trail. With him was that same patient burro which had shared his adventures in the Hidden Land.
Since leaving Chupan he had borne steadily toward the Cordillera. For the past few days he had seen no trace of Indians. Something whispered to him to be cautious.
Cautious? He smiled at the thought. It was hardly the word for this journey-one man headed deliberately into the range of the power Suarra had named Yu- Atlanchi! Cautious! Graydon laughed outright. Yet, he reflected, one probably could exercise caution even in invading Hell. And Suarra's land, from what he had seen of its phenomena, seemed rather close to some such place of the damned, if not well over its borders. Lingering upon this interesting idea, he took stock of his assets for its invasion.
A first class rifle and plenty of ammunition; four serviceable automatics, two in one of the packs, one at his belt and one tucked in a holster under his armpit. Good enough-but Yu-Atlanchi might have, and probably did have, weapons that could make these look like a bushman's bow and arrow. And what use would automatics and rifles be against the scaly armor of the dinosaurs?
What else had he? A flicker of purple light from his wrist answered him-the gleam of the jewels in Suarra's bracelet. That would be worth a hundred guns and pistols-if it were passport to the Forbidden Land.
When dusk fell on the fourteenth day of his journeying, he was in a little valley between sparsely wooded, close lying ranges. A friendly stream gurgled and chuckled close to him. He made camp beside the brook, stripped the burro, hobbled it, and turned it loose to graze. He built his fire, boiled his tea, and prepared his supper. He measured with his eyes the southern range of hills. Till now he had been lucky in being able to follow the valleys, with few climbs and none of them a stiff one. Here, a mountain lay directly in his path. About two thousand feet high, he reckoned it; not difficult to get over. The trees marched all the way up to its summit, singly and in platoons, and always with the curious suggestion of careful planting.
He lay for awhile, thinking. His right arm was stretched outside his blanket In the light of the dying fire the purple gems in the bracelet gleamed and waned-gleamed and waned. Larger they seemed to grow-and larger still Sleep swept over Graydon.
He slept, and he knew that he slept. Still, even in his sleep he saw the gleaming purple jewels. He dreamed- and they guided his dream. He passed swiftly over a moonlit waste. Ahead of him frowned a black barrier. It shrouded him and was gone. He had a glimpse of an immense circular valley rimmed by sky- piercing peaks. He caught the glint of a lake, the liquid silver of a mighty torrent streaming out of the heart of a cliff. He had wheeling visions of colossi, gigantic shapes of stone bathed in the milky flood of the moon, each guarding the black mouth of a cavern.
A city rushed up to meet him; a city ruby-roofed and opal-turreted and fantastic as though built by Djinns from the stuff of dreams.
He came to rest within a vast and columned hall from whose high roof fell beams of dimly azure light. High arose those columns, unfolding far above into wide petalings of opal and emerald and turquoise flecked with gold.
He saw-the Snake Mother!
She lay coiled in a nest of cushions just beyond the lip of a wide alcove set high above the pillared pave. Between her and him the azure beams fell, curtaining the immense niche with a misty radiance that half-revealed, halfshadowed, her.
Her face was ageless-neither young nor old; free from time, free from the etching acid of the years. She might have been born yesterday-or a million years ago.
Her eyes, set wide apart, were round and luminous; they were living jewels filled with purple fires. Her forehead was wide and low; her nose delicate and long, the nostrils a little dilated. Her chin was small and pointed. Her mouth was small, and heart-shaped; her lips were a vivid scarlet.
Down her narrow, childish shoulders flowed hair that gleamed like spun silver. It arrow-headed into a point on her forehead. It gave her face that same heart shape in which her lips were formed-a heart of which the pointed chin was the basal point.
She had little high breasts, uptilted. Her face, neck, shoulders and breasts were the hue of pearls suffused faintly with rose. Her coils began just below her tilted breasts. They were half buried in a nest of silken cushions; thick coils and many; circle upon circle of them, covered with gleaming heart- shaped scales; each scale as exquisitely wrought as though by an elfin carver- of-gems; opaline; mother-of-pearl.
Her pointed chin was cupped in hands as small as a child's. Like a child's were her slender arms, their dimpled elbows resting on her topmost coil.
On her face which was both face of woman and face of serpent-and in some strange fashion neither serpent nor woman-there dwelt side by side an awesome wisdom and a weariness beyond belief-
The Serpent-woman-memory of whom or of her sisters may be the source of those legends of the Naga Princesses whose wisdom reared the cities of the vanished Khmers in the Cambodian jungles; yes, and may be the source of those persistent stories of serpent-women in the folklore of every land.
May even be the germ of truth in the legend of Lilith, first wife of Adam, whom Eve ousted.
It was thus that Graydon saw her-or thus he thought
he saw her. For again and again that question of whether she was as she seemed to him to be, or whether he saw her as she willed him to see her, was to rise to torment him.
He thrilled to the beauty of that little heart-shaped face, the glistening argent glory of her hair, the childish exquisiteness of her.
He gave no heed to her coils, her-monstrousness. It was as though she reached down into his heart and plucked some deep hidden string, silent there since birth.
And in that dream-if dream it was-he knew that she was aware of all this and was well pleased. Her eyes softened, and brooded upon him; the rose-pearl coil upon which was her body raised until her head swayed twice the height of a tall man above the alcove's pave. She nodded toward him. She raised her little hands to her forehead and cupped them; then with oddly hieratic gesture lowered them, tipping the palms as though she poured from them.
Beyond her was a throne that seemed cut from the heart of a colossal sapphire. It was oval, ten feet or more in height, and hollowed like a shrine. It rested upon, or was set within, the cupped end of a pillar of milky rock- crystaL It was empty, although around it clung, he thought, a faint radiance. At its foot were six lesser thrones. One was red as though carved from ruby; one was black as though cut from jet; the four thrones between the two were yellow gold.
The crimson lips of the Snake Mother opened; a slender, pointed, scarlet tongue flicked out and touched them. Whether she spoke or did not speak, Graydon heard her thought.
"I will hold up the hands of this man. Suarra loves him. He pleases me., Except for Suarra, I have no interest in those who dwell in Yu-Atlanchi. The desire of the child flies to him. So let it be! I grow weary of Lantlu and his crew. For one thing, Lantlu draws closer than I like to that Shadow of Nimir they call the Dark Master. Also, he would take Suarra. He shall not."
"By the ancient compact," the Lord of Folly spoke-
"by that compact, Adana, you may not use your wisdom against any of the Old Race. Your ancestors swore it. It was sworn to long and long and long ago, before the ice drove us north from the Homeland. The oath has never been broken. Even you, Adana, cannot break that oath."
"S-s-s-s!" the Snake Mother's scarlet tongue nickered wrathfully-"Say you so! There was another side to that compact. Did not the Old Race swear never to plot against any of us, the Serpent-people? Yet Lantlu and his followers plot with the Shadow. They plot to free Nimir from the fetters which long ago we forged for him. Free, he will seek to destroy us... and why should he not... and perhaps he may!
"Heed that, Tyddo! I say perhaps he may! 'Lantlu plots with Nimir, who is our enemy; therefore he plots against me-the last of the Serpent- people. The ancient compact is broken. By Lantlu-not by me."
She swayed forward.
"Suppose we abandon Yu-Atlanchi? Pass from it as did my ancestors, and the Lords who were your peers? Leave it to its rot?"
The Lord of Folly did not answer.
"Ah, well, where there is little left but folly, you of course must stay," she nodded her childish head toward him. "But what is there to keep me? By the wisdom of my people! Here was a race of hairless gray apes that we took from their trees. Took them and taught them, and turned them into men. And what have they become? Dwellers in dream, paramours of phantoms, slaves of illusion. The others-swinging ever toward the darkness, lovers of cruelty; retainers of beauty, outwardly-and under their masks, hideous. I sicken of them. Yu- Atlanchi rots-nay, it is rotten. Let it die!"