"Jim Theis - The Eye of Argon (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Theis Jim)

which tappered off to thin hollow points. Its nose was a bulging
triangular mass, sunken in at its sides with tow gaping nostrils. Dramatic
beneath the nostrils was a twisted, shaggy lipped mouth, giving the
impression of a slovering sadistic grimace.
At the foot of the heathen diety a slender, pale faced female, naked
but for a golden, jeweled harness enshrouding her huge outcropping breasts,
supporting long silver laces which extended to her thigh, stood before the
pearl white field with noticable shivers traveling up and down the length
of her exquisitely molded body. Her delicate lips trembled beneath soft
narrow hands as she attemped to conceal herself from the piercing stare of
the ambivalent idol.
Glaring directly down towards her was the stoney, cycloptic face of
the bloated diety. Gaping from its single obling socket was scintillating,
many fauceted scarlet emerald, a brilliant gem seeming to possess a life
all of its own. A priceless gleaming stone, capable of domineering the
wealth of conquering empires...the eye of Argon.

-4-

All knowledge of measuring time had escaped Grignr. When a person is
deprived of the sun, moon, and stars, he looses all conception of time as
he had previously understood it. It seemed as if years had passed if time
were being measured by terms of misery and mental anguish, yet he estimated
that his stay had only been a few days in length. He has slept three times
and had been fed five times since his awakening in the crypt. However,
when the actions of the body are restricted its needs are also affected.
The need for nourishmnet and slumber are directly proportional to the
functions the body has performed, meaning that when free and active Grignr
may become hungry every six hours and witness the desire for sleep every
fifteen hours, whereas in his present condition he may encounter the need
for food every ten hours, and the want for rest every twenty hours. All
methods he had before depended upon were extinct in the dismal pit. Hence,
he may have been imprisoned for ten minutes or ten years, he did not know,
resulting in a disheartened emotion deep within his being.
The food, if you can honor the moldering lumps of fetid mush to that
extent, was born to him by two guards who opened a portal at the top of his
enclosure and shoved it to him in wooden bowls, retrieving the food and
water bowels from his previous meal at the same time, after which they
threw back the bolts on the iron latch and returned to their other duties.
Since deprived of all other means of nourishment, Grignr was impelled to
eat the tainted slop in order to ward off the paings of starvation, though
as he stuffed it into his mouth with his filthy fingers and struggled to
force it down his throat, he imagined it was that which had been spurned by
the hounds stationed at various segments of the palace.
There was little in the baren vault that could occupy his body or
mind. He had paced out the length and width of the enclosure time and time
again and tested every granite slab which consisted the walls of the prison
in hopes of finding a hidden passage to freedom, all of which was to no
avail other than to keep him busy and distract his mind from wandering to
thoughts of what he believed was his future. He had memorized the number