"The Ship Of Ishtar" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merritt Abraham)

Round and round, in clamorous rings above the ship,wheeled the cloud of doves, snowy wings beating, redbeaks open; screaming.
Within the blackness of the ship's stern roared the thun-der of the serpent drum.
The blackness thinned. A face stared out, half veiled,bodiless, floating in the shadow. It was the face of theman Klaneth-and yet no more his than that which chal-lenged it was the woman Sharane's. The pale eyes had be-come twin pools of hell flames; pupilless. For a heartbeat the face hovered, framed by the darkness. The shadowdropped over it and hid it. Now Kenton saw that this shadow hung like a curtainover the exact center of the ship, and that he crouchedhardly ten feet distant from where that curtain cut thecraft in twain. The deck on which he lay was pale ivoryand again memory stirred but did not awaken. The ra-diance from the roseate orb struck against the curtain ofshadow and made upon it a disk, wider than the ship,that was like a web of beams spun from the rays of arosy moon. Against this shining web the shadow pressed,straining to break through.
From the black deck the thunder of the serpent drumredoubled; the brazen conches shrieked. Drum-thunderand shrieking horn mingled; they became the pulse ofAbaddon, lair of the damned.
From Sharane's three women, shot storm of harpings,arpeggios like gusts of tiny arrows and with them shrilljavelin pipings from the double flute. Arrows and javelinsof sound cut through the thunder hammering of the drumand the bellow of the horns, sapping them, beating themback.
A movement began within the shadow. It seethed. It spawned.
Over the face of the disk of radiance black shapesswarmed. Their bodies were like monstrous larva, slugs; faceless. They tore at the web; stove to thrust through it; flailed it.
The web gave! Its edge held firm, but slowly the center was pushedback until the disk was like the half of a huge hollowsphere. Within that hollow crawled and writhed and struckthe monstrous shapes. From the black deck serpent drumand brazen horns bellowed triumph.
Again rang the golden trumpet cry from the deck ofivory. Out of the orb streamed an incandescence in-tolerable. The edges of the web shot forward and curved They closed upon the black spawn; within it the blackspawn milled and struggled like fish in a net. Like a netlifted by some mighty hand the web swung high up abovethe ship. Its brightness grew to match that of the orb.From netted shapes of blackness came a faint, highpitched, obscene wailing. They shrank, dissolved, were gone.
The net opened. Out of it drifted a little cloud of ebon dust.
The web streamed back into the orb that had sent it forth.
Then, swiftly, the orb was gone! Gone too was the shadow that had shrouded the blackdeck. High above the ship the snowy doves circled, screaming victory.
A hand touched Kenton's shoulder. He looked up intothe shadowy eyes of the woman called Sharane; no god-dess now, only woman. In her eyes he read amazement, startled disbelief.
Kenton sprang to his feet. A thrust of blinding pain shot through his head. The deck whirled round him. Hetried to master the dizziness; he could not. Dizzily theship spun beneath his feet; and beyond in wider arcsdizzily spun turquoise sea and silver horizon.
Now all formed a vortex, a maelstrom, down whose pithe was dropping-faster, ever faster. Around him was aformless blur. Again he heard the tumult of the tempests; the shrillings of the winds of space. The winds died away.There were three clear bell notes-- Kenton stood within his own room! The bell had been his clock, striking the hour of six.Six o'clock? Why the last sound of his own world beforethe mystic sea had swept it from under him had been thethird stroke of that hour clipped off in mid-note.
God-what a dream! And all in half a bell stroke! He lifted his hand and touched a throbbing bruise overhis right temple. He winced-well, that blow at least hadbeen no dream. He stumbled over to the jewelled ship.
He stared at it, incredulous.
The toys upon the ship had moved-new toys had ap-peared! No longer were there four manikins on the black deck.
There were only two. One stood pointing toward thestarboard platform near the mast, his hand resting on the shoulder of a red bearded, agate eyed soldier toy cladall in glittering chain mail.
Nor was there any woman at the rosy cabin's door asthere had been when Kenton had loosed the ship from theblock. At its threshold were five slim girls with javelinsin hands.
The woman was on the starboard platform, bent lowbeside the rail! And the ship's oars were no longer buried in the wavesof lapis lazuli. They were lifted, poised for the down-ward stroke!


3. The Ship Returns

ONE BY ONE Kenton pulled at the manikins, eachtoy. Immovable, gem hard, each was, seemingly part ofthe deck itself; no force he could exert would move them.
Yet something had shifted them-and where were thevanished ones? From where had the new ones come? Nor was there any haze around the little figures, norblurring; each lineament stood out clean cut. The point-ing toy on the black deck had dwarfed, bowed legs; historso was that of a giant; his bald pate glinted and inhis ears were wide discs of gold. Kenton recognized him-the beater of the serpent drum.
There was a tiny silver crescent upon the head of thebending woman toy, and over its tips poured flood of red-gold hair-- Sharane! And that place at which she peered-was it not wherehe had lain on that other ship of his dream? That-other ship? He saw again its decks ebon andivory, its rosy cabin and its emerald mast. It had beenthis ship before him-no other! Dream? Then what hadmoved the toys? Kenton's wonder grew. Within it moved a sharp un-ease, a sharper curiosity. He found he could not think clearly with the ship filling his eyes; it seemed to focus allhis attention upon it, to draw it taut, to fill him with atense expectancy. He unhooked a hanging from the walland threw it over the gleaming mystery. He walked fromthe room, fighting with each step an imperative desire toturn his head. He dragged himself through the doorwayas though hands were gripping his ankles, drawing himback. Head still turned away Kenton lurched shouldersagainst the door; closed it; locked it.
In his bathroom he examined the bruise on his head. Itwas painful enough, but nothing serious. Half an hour ofcold compresses fairly well removed all outward marksof it. He told himself that he might have fallen upon thefloor, overcome by the strange perfumes-he knew thathe had not.
Kenton dined alone, scarce heeding what was set be-fore him, his mind groping through perplexities. Whatwas the history of the block from Babylon? Who had setthe ship within it-and why? Forsyth's letter had saidthat he had found it in the mound called Amran, justsouth of the Qser or crumbled "palace" of Nabopolasser.There was evidence, Kenton knew, that the 'Amran moundwas the site of E-Sagilla, the ziggurat or terraced tem-ple that had been the Great House of the Gods in an-cient Babylon. The block must have been held in peculiarreverence, so Forsyth had conjectured, since only sowould it have been saved from the destruction of thecity by Sennacherib and afterwards have been put backin the re-built temple.
But why had it been held in such reverence? Whyhad such a miracle as the ship been imprisoned in thestone? The inscription might have given some clue had it notbeen so mutilated. In his letter Forsyth had pointed outthat the name of Ishtar, Mother Goddess of the Baby-lonians-Goddess of Vengeance and Destruction as well-appeared over and over again; that plain too were thearrowed symbols of Nergal, God of the Babylonian Hadesand Lord of the Dead; that the symbols of Nabu, the Godof Wisdom, appeared many times. These three names hadbeen almost the only legible words on the block. It wasas though the acid of time which had etched out theother characters had been held back from them.
Kenton could read the cuneatic well nigh as readily as his native English. He recalled now that in the inscriptionIshtar's name had been coupled with her wrathful aspect rather than her softer ones, and that associated always with the symbols of Nabu had been the signs of warning, of danger.
Forsyth had not noticed that, evidently-or if he hadhe had not thought it worth mentioning. Nor, apparentlyhad he been aware of the hidden perfumes of the block, Well-there was no use thinking of the inscription. Itwas gone forever with the dust into which it had turned.
Kenton impatiently thrust back his chair. He knew thatfor the past hour be had been out temporizing, dividedbetween the burning desire to get back to the room wherethe ship lay and the dread that when he did he wouldfind all that adventure had been illusion, a dream; thatthe little figures had not really moved; that they wereas they had been when he had first loosed the ship; thatit was only a toy manned by toys-nothing more. Hewould temporize no longer.
"Don't bother about me any more to-night, Jevins," hetold his butler. "I've some important work to do. If thereare any calls say that I am away. I'm going to lock my-self in and I don't want to be disturbed for anything lessthan Gabriel's trumpet." The old servant, a heritage from Kenton's father,smiled.
"Very well, Mr. John," he said. "I'll let no one botheryou." To reach the room wherein was the ship, Kenton's wayled through another in which he kept the rarest of hisspoils from many a far away corner of the world. Passing,a vivid gleam of blue caught his eye and stayed him, likea hand. The gleam came from the hilt of a sword inone of the cabinets, a curious weapon he had bought froma desert nomad in Arabia. The sword hung above an an-cient cloak in which it had been wrapped when the fur-tive Arab had slipped into his tent. Unknown centurieshad softened the azure of that cloak, through whoseweb and woof great silver serpents writhed, cabalisticallyentwined.
Kenton unhooked the sword. Silver serpents, counter-parts of those on the garments, twined about its hilt. Fromthe hilt sprang a rod of bronze, eight inches long andthree thick, round as a staff. This rod flared and flattened out into a leaf shaped blade two feet long and full sixinches wide across its center. Set in the hilt had beenone large stone of cloudy blue.
The stone was no longer clouded. It was translucent,shining like an immense sapphire! Obeying some half-formed thought that linked this newenigma with the ship's shifting toys, he drew down thecloak and threw it over his shoulders. The sword in hand,he unlocked the further door, closed and fastened it be-hind him; walked over to the shrouded ship; swept off itscovers.
Pulses leaping, Kenton drew back.
On it now were two figures only-the drummer,crouched with head in arms upon the black deck, and ondeck of ivory a girl, leaning over the rail and lookingdown upon the oarsmen! Kenton snapped out the electrics and stood waiting.
Minute after minute crept by. Fugitive gleams from thelights on the Avenue penetrated the curtains of the win-dows, glimmered on the ship. Muted but steady came theroar of the traffic, punctuated by horn blasts, explosionsthrough mufflers-New York's familiar voice.
Was that a halo growing round the ship . . . And whathad become of the traffic's roar.
The room was filling with silence as a vessel is filledwith water... .
Now a sound broke that silence; a sound like the lap-ping of little waves, languorous, caressing. The soundsstroked his lids, slumbrously; pressed them down. Byenormous effort he half raised them.
A wide mist was opposite him, a globular silvery mistfloating down upon him. Within that mist drifted a ship,its oars motionless, its sail half-filled. Wavelets crisped atits sickled bow, wavelets of pale turquoise with lacededges of foam.
Half the room was lost in the ripples of that approach-ing sea . . . the part on which he stood was many feetabove the waves ... so far below were they that thedeck of the ship was level with his feet.
Closer drew the ship. He wondered why he heard norushing winds, no clamoring tempests; no sound save thefaint whispering of the foam-tipped waves.
Retreating, he felt his back press against the farther wall. Before him drifted that misty world, the ship uponits breast.
Kenton leaped, straight for the deck.
The winds roared about him now; vast winds howledand shrieked-again he heard but felt them not at all.And suddenly the clamor died.