"C. L. Moore - The Black Gods Kiss" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moore C. L)

tonsure.
"My daughter!" he whispered. "My daughter! How have you escaped? Shall I find you a mount? If you
can pass the sentries you should be in your cousin's castle by daybreak."
She hushed him with a lifted hand.
"No," she said. "It is not outside I go this night. I have a more perilous journey even than that to make.
Shrive me, father."
He stared at her.
"What is it?"
She dropped to her knees before him and gripped the rough cloth of his habit with urgent fingers.
"Shrive me, I say! I go down into hell tonight to pray the devil for a weapon, and it may be I shall not
return."
Gervase bent and gripped her shoulders with hands that shook.
"Look at me!" he demanded. "Do you know what you're saying? You go--"
"Down!" She said it firmly. "Only you and I know that passage, father--and not even we can be sure of
what lies beyond. But to gain a weapon against that man I would venture into perils even worse than
that."
"If I thought you meant it," he whispered, "I would waken Guillaume now and give you into his arms. It
would be a kinder fate, my daughter."
"It's that I would walk through hell to escape," she whispered back fiercely. "Can't you see? Oh, God
knows I'm not innocent of the ways of light loving--but to be any man's fancy, for a night or two, before
he snaps my neck or sells me into slavery--and above all, if that man were Guillaume! Can't you
understand?"
 "That would be shame enough," nodded Gervase.
"But think, Jirel! For that shame there is atonement and absolution, and for that death the gates of
heaven open wide. But this other---Jirel, Jirel, never through all eternity may you come out, body or soul,
if you venture --down!"
She shrugged.
"To wreak my vengeance upon Guillaume I would go if I knew I should burn in hell forever."
"But Jirel, I do not think you understand. This is a worse fate than the deepest depths of hell-fire. This
is --this is beyond all the bounds of the hells we know. And I think Satan's hottest flames were the breath
of paradise, compared to what may befall there."
"I know. Do you think I'd venture down if I could not be sure? Where else would I find such a weapon
as I need, save outside God's dominion?"
"Jirel, you shall not!"
"Gervase, I go! Will you shrive me?" The hot yellow eyes blazed into his, lambent in the starlight.
After a moment he dropped his head. "You are my lady. I will give you God's blessing, but it will not
avail you--there."

She went down into the dungeons again. She went down a long way through utter dark, over stones
that were oozy and odorous with moisture, through blackness that had never known the light of day. She
might have been a little afraid at other times, but that steady flame of hatred burning behind her eyes was
a torch to light the way, and she could not wipe from her memory the feel of Guillaume's arms about her,
the scornful press of his lips on her mouth. She whimpered a little, low in her throat, and a hot gust of
hate went over her.
In the solid blackness she came at length to a wall, and she set herself to pulling the loose stones from
this with her free hand, for she would not lay down the sword. They had never been laid in mortar, and
they came out easily. When the way was clear she stepped through and found her feet upon a
downward-sloping ramp of smooth stone. She cleared the rubble away from the hole in the wall, and
enlarged it enough for a quick passage; for when she came back this way--if she did--it might well be
that she would come very fast.