"Jack Vance - Elder Isles 2 - The Green Pearl" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

Desperate at last, Tamurello invoked a spell of ennui upon Desmei: an
influence so quiet, gradual and unobtrusive that she never noticed its
coming. She grew weary of the world, its sordid vanities, futile ambitions
and pointless pleasures, but so strong was her disposition that she never
thought to suspect a change in herself. From Tamurello's point of view, the
spell was a success.

For a period Desmei moved in gloomy contemplation through the windy
halls of her palace on the beach near Ys, then at last decided to abandon
the world to its own melancholy devices. She made herself ready for death,
and from her terrace watched the sun set for the last time.
calculation, for her thinking had become vague and eerie. She surely felt
betrayal and rancor, and no doubt a measure of spite, and seemed also
urged by forces of sheer creativity. In any event she produced a pair of
superlative objects, which perhaps she hoped might be accepted as the
projection of her own ideal self, and that the beauty of these objects and
their symbolism might be impinged upon Tamurello.

In the light of further circumstances* her success in this regard was
flawed, and the triumph, if the word could so be used, went rather to
Tamurello.

*The details are chronicled in LYONESSE 1: Suldrun's Garden.

In achieving her aims, Desmei used a variety of stuff: salt from the sea,
soil from the summit of Mount Khambaste in Ethiopia, exudations and
pastes, as well as elements of her personal substance. So she created a
pair of wonderful beings: exemplars of all the graces and beauties. The
woman was Melancthe; the man was Faude Carfilhiot.

Still all was not done. As the two stood naked and mindless in the
workroom, the dross remaining in the vat yielded a rank green vapor. After
a startled breath, Melancthe shrank back and spat the taste from her
mouth. Carfilhiot, however, found the reek to his liking and inhaled it with all
avidity.

Some years later, the castle Tintzin Fyral fell to the armies of Troicinet.
Carfilhiot was captured and hanged from a grotesquely high gibbet, in order
to send an unmistakably significant image toward both Tamurello at Faroli
to the east and to King Casmir of Lyonesse, to the south.

In due course Carfilhiot's corpse was lowered to the ground, placed on a
pyre, and burned to the music of bagpipes and flutes. In the midst of the
rejoicing the flames gave off a gout of foul green vapor, which, caught by
Elsewhere harbours, good or bad were infrequent, and often no more than
coves enclosed by the hook of a headland.

Twenty miles south of Oaldes, a line of crags entered the ocean and
with the help of a stone breakwater, gave shelter to several dozen fishing