"Moore, C L - Dust of Gods UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moore C. L)

-close range, was stupefying, a blackness that the eye refused to comprehendЧthat could not be, and was. -
With the nearness of it his brain seemed to leave its moorings and plunge in mad, impossible curves through ~ suddenly opened space wherein the walls of the passage were shadows dimly seen and his own body no more than a pillar of mist in a howling void. The black thing must have rolled over him in passing, and engulfed him in its reasonless and incredible dark. He never-knew. When his plunging brain finally ceased its lunges through the void and returned reluctantly to his body, the horror of nothingness had receded past them down -the corridor, still struggling, and the waves of its blinding force weakened with the distance. -
Yarol was leaning against the wall, wide-eyed and gasping. УDid it get you, too?Ф he managed to articulate after
several attempts to control his hurrying breath. -
Smith found his own lungs laboring. He nodded breath
less. -
УI wonder,Ф he said when he had recovered a measure of normality, Уif that thing-would look as white in the dark as it did in the light? IТll bet it would. And do you suppose it canТt exist outside the light? Reminded me of a jelly-fish caught in a mill-race. Say, itthe lightТs flowing out that fast, dТyou think it may go entirely? WeТd better be moving.Ф -
Under their feet the passage sloped downward still. And when they reached the end of their quest, it came very suddenly. The curve of the passage sharpened to an angle, and round the bend the corridor ended abruptly at the threshold of a great cavity in the heart of the asteroid.
In the rich golden light it glittered like the ceilter of a many-faceted diamondЧthat vast crystal room. The light brimmed it from wall to wall, from floor to ceiling. And it was strange that in thit mellow flood of radiance the boundaries of the room seemed hard to defineЧsomehow it looked limitless, though the walls were clear to be seen.
All this, though, they were realizing only subconsciously. Their eyes met the throne in the center of the crystal vault and clung there, fascinated. It was a crystal throne, and it Сhad been fashioned for no human occupant. On this thelnighty Three of measureless antiquity had sat. It was not-an altarЧit was a throne where incarnate godhood reigned once, toolong ago for the mind to comprehend. Roughly triform, it glittered under the great arch of the ceiling. There was no knowing from the shape of it now, what form the Three had worn who sat upon it. But the forms must have been outside modern comprehensionЧnothing the two explorers had ever seen in all their wanderings could have occupied it.
Two of-the pedestals were empty. Saig and- Lsa had vanished as completely as their names from manТs memory. On the thirdЧthe center and the highest. . . SmithТs breath
caught in his throat suddenly. Here then, ~n the great throne before them, lay all that was left of a godЧthe greatest of antiquityТs deities. This mound of gray dust. The oldest thing upon three worldsЧolder than the mountains that held it, older than the very old beginnings of the mighty race of man.
Great PharolЧdust upon a throne.
УSay, listen,Ф broke in YarolТs matter-of-fact voice.
УWhy did the image turn to dust when the room and the throne didnТt? The whole room must have come from that
crystal temple on the other world. YouТd thinkЧ.Ф
-УThe image must have been very old long before the temple was built,Ф said Smith softly. He was thinking how dead it looked, lying there in a soft gray mound on the crystal. How dead! how immeasurably old!Чyet- if the little man
spoke truly, life still dwelt in these ashes of forgotten deity. Could he indeed forge from the gray dust a cable that would
reach out irresistibly across the gulfs of time and space, into dimensions beyond manТs understanding, and draw back the vanished entity which had once been Great Pharol? Could he? And if be couldЧsuddenly doubt rose up in SmithТs mind. What man, with a god to do his bidding, would stop short of domination over the worlds of spaceЧperhaps of godhood for himself? ~nd if that man were half mad?...
He followed Yarol across the shining floor in silence. It took them longer to reach the throne than they had expectedЧthere was something deceptive about the crystal of that room, and the clarity of the brimming golden light.
The translucent heights of the triumvirate structure that had enthroned gods towered high over their heads. Smith looked upward toward that central pedestal bearing its eon-old burden, wondering what men had stood here before him at the foot of the throne, what men of nameless races and forgottenworlds, worshipping the black divinity that was Pharol. On this crystal floor the feet ofЧ A scrambling sound interrupted his wondering. The irreverent Yarol~ his eyes on -the gray dust above them, was climbing the crystal throne. It was slippery, and never meant
for mounting, and his heavy boots slid over the smoothness of it. Smith stood watching with a half-smile. For long ages no living man had dared approach this place save- in reverence, on his knees, not venturing so much as to lift his eyes to that holy of holies where sat incarnate godhood. NowЧ Yarol Сs foot slipped on the last step of the ascent and he muttered under his breath, reaching out to clutch the pedestal, ~where Great Pharol, first of the living gods, had ruled a mightier world than any men inhabit now.
At the summit he paused, looking down from an eminence whence no eyes save those of gods had ever looked before. And he frowned in a puzzled way as he looked.
УSomething wrong here, N.W.,Ф he said. УLook up. WhatТs going on around the ceiling?Ф
SmithТs pale gaze rose. For a moment he stared in utter bewilderment. For the third time that day his eyes were beholding something so impossible-that they refused to register the fact upon an outraged brain. Something dark and yet not dark was closing dOwn upon them. The roof seemed to lowerЧand panic stirred within him briefly. The ceiling, coming down to crush them? Some further guardian of the gods descending like a blanket over theft heads? What?Т
And then understanding broke upon him, and his laugh of sheer relief echoed almost blasphemously in the silence of the place.
УThe lightТs running out,Ф he said. УLike water, just draining away. ThatТs all.Ф
And the incredible thing was true. That shining lake of light which brimmed the crystal hollow was ebbing, pouring through the door, down the passage, out into the upper--air, and darkness, literally, was flowing in~behind it. And it was flowing fast.
УWell,Ф said Yarol, casting an imperturbable glance up- ward, УweТd better be moving before it all runs out. Hand me up the box, will you?Ф -
Hesitantly, Smith unslung the little lacquered steel box they had been given. Suppose they brought him back the dust
to weld it fromЧwhat then? Such limitless power even in the
hands of an eminently wise, eminently sane and balanced
man would surely be dangerous. And-in the hands of the little whispering fanaticЧ Yarol, looking down frqm his height, met the troubled eyes and was silent for a moment. Then he whis led softly and said, though Smith had not spoken,УI never thought of that. - . - DТyou suppose it really
could be done? Why, the manТs half crazy!Ф
УI donТt know,Ф said Smith. УMaybe he couldnТtЧbut he told us the way here, didnТt he? He knew this muchЧI donТt think weТd better risk his not knowing any more. And suppose he did succeed, YarolЧsuppose he found some way to
- bring thisЧthis monster of the darkЧthrough into our
dimensionЧturned it loose on our worlds. Do you think he could hold it? He talked about enslaving a god, but could he? I havenТt much doubt that he knows sonic way of opening a door between dimensions to admit the thing that used to be
- PharolЧit can be done. It has been done. But once he gets it opened, can he close it? Could he keep the thing under control? You know he couldnТt! You know itТd break loose, andЧwell, anything could happen then.Ф
У1-hadnТt thought of that,Ф said Yarol- again. УGods!
SupposeЧФ -
He broke off, staring in fascination at the gray dust that held such terrible potentialities. And there was silence for a while in the crystal place.
Smith, looking upward at the throne and his frimid, saw that the dark was flowing in faster and faster. And the light thinned about them, and long streaks of brilliance wavered out behind him -as the light ebbed by a racing torrent.
УSuppose we donТt take it back, then,Ф said Yarol saddenly. УSay we couldnТt find the placeЧor that it was buried under debris or something. Suppose weЧgods, but itТs getting dark in here!Ф -
The line of light was far down the walls now. Above them the black night of the underground brimmed in relentlessly.
They watched in half-incredulous wonder as the tidemark of radiance ebbed down and down along the crystal. Now it touched the level of the throne, and Yarol gasped as be was plunged head and shoulders into blackness, starring down as into a sea of light in which his own lower limbs moved shimmeringly, sending long ripples outward as they stirred.
Very swiftly the tide-race ran. Fascinated, they watched it ebb away, down YarolТs legs, down beyond him entirely, so that he perched in darkness above the outrunning tide, down the heights of the throne, down to touch SmithТs tall head with blackness. Uncannily he stood in the midst of a receding sea, shoulder-deepЧwaist-deep-Чknee-deep...
The light that so short a time beforeЧfor so many countless ages beforeЧhad brimmed this chamber lay in a shallow, gleaming sea ankle-deep on the floor.. For the first tin~e in eons the throne of the Three stood in darkness. -
Not until the last dregs of illumination were snaking along a black floor in rivulets that ran swiftly, like fiery snakes, toward the door, did the two men awake from their wonder. The last of the radiance that must have been lighted on a lost world millions of years ago, perhaps by the hands of the first godsЧebbed doorward. Smith drew a deep breath and turned in the blackness toward the spot where the throne must be standing in the first dark it had known for countless ages.
- Those snakes of light along-the floor did not seem to give out any radianceЧthe place was blacker than any night above ground. YarolТs light-tube suddenly stabbed downward, and Yarol Сs voice said - from the dark,
УWhew! Should have bottled some of that to take home. Well, what dТyou say, N.W,? Do we leave with the dust or