"Vance, Jack - Dying Earth 02 - The Eyes of the Overworld (Cugel the Clever) UCb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

Cugel blinked hi dismay. "Under these conditions, requital could never be made."
"True," mused lucounu. "I wonder if after all there is some small service which you can perform for me."
"The villain is as good as dead!" declared Cugel. "Now remove these abominable bonds!"
"I had no specific assassination hi mind," said lucounu. "Come."
The rope relaxed, allowing Cugel to hobble after lucounu into a side chamber hung with intricately embroidered tapestry. From a cabinet lucounu brought a small case and laid it on a floating disk of glass. He opened the case and gestured to Cugel, who perceived that the box showed two indentations lined with scarlet fur, where reposed a single small hemisphere of filmed violet glass.
"As a knowledgeable and traveled man," suggested lucounu, "you doubtless recognize this object. No? You are familiar, of course, with the Cutz Wars of the Eighteenth Aeon? No?" lucounu hunched up his shoulders in astonishment. "During these ferocious events the demon Unda-HradaЧhe listed as 16-04 Green in Thrump's AlmanacЧthought to assist his principals, and to this end thrust certain agencies up from the sub-world La-Er. In order that they might perceive, they were tipped with cusps similar to the one you see before you. When events went amiss, the demon snatched himself back to La-Er. The hemispheres were dislodged and broadcast across Cutz. One of these, as you see, I own. You must procure its mate and bring it to me, whereupon your trespass shall be overlooked."
Cugel reflected. "The choice, if it lies between a sortie into the demon-world La-Er and the Spell of Forlorn Encystment, is moot. Frankly, I am at a loss for decision."
lucounu's laugh almost split the big yellow bladder of his head. "A visit to La-Er perhaps will prove unnecessary. You may secure the article hi that land once known as Cutz."
"If I must, I must," growled Cugel, thoroughly displeased by the manner in which the day's work had ended. "Who guards this violet hemisphere? What is its function? How do I go and how return? What necessary
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weapons, talismans and other magical adjuncts do you undertake to fit me out with?"
"All in good time," said lucounu. "First I must ensure that, once at liberty, you conduct yourself with unremitting loyalty, zeal and singleness of purpose."
"Have no fear," declared Cugel. "My word is my bond."
"Excellent!" cried lucounu. "This knowledge represents a basic security which I do not in the least take lightly. The act now to be performed is doubtless supererogatory."
He departed the chamber and after a moment returned with a covered glass bowl containing a small white creature, ah" claws, prongs, barbs and hooks, now squirming angrily. 'This," said lucounu, "is my friend Firx, from the star Achernar, who is far wiser than he seems. Firx is annoyed at being separated from his comrade with whom he shares a vat in my work-room. He will assist you in the expeditious discharge of your duties." lucounu stepped close, deftly thrust the creature against Cugel's abdomen. It merged into his viscera, and took up a vigilant post clasped around CugeFs liver.
lucounu stood back, laughing hi that immoderate glee which had earned him his cognomen. Cugel's eyes bulged from his head. He opened his mouth to utter an objurgation, but instead clenched his jaw and rolled up his eyes.
The rope uncoiled itself. Cugel stood quivering, every muscle knotted.
lucounu's mirth dwindled to a thoughtful grin. "You spoke of magical adjuncts. What of those talismans whose efficacy you proclaimed from your booth in Azenomei? Will they not immobilize enemies, dissolve iron, impassion virgins, confer immortality?"
"These talismans are not uniformly dependable," said Cugel. "I will require further competences."
"You have them," said lucounu, "in your sword, your crafty persuasiveness and the agility of your feet. Still, you have aroused my concern and I will help you to this extent." He hung a small square tablet about Cugel's neck. "You now may put aside all fear of starvation. A touch of this potent object will induce nutriment into wood, bark, grass, even discarded clothing. It will also sound a chime hi the presence of poison. So nowЧthere
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The Eyes of the Overworld
is nothing to delay us! Come, we will go. Rope? Where is Rope?"
Obediently the rope looped around Cugel's neck, and Cugel was forced to march along behind lucounu.
They came out upon the roof of the antique castle. Darkness had long since fallen over the land. Up and down the valley of the Xzan faint lights glimmered, while the Xzan itself was an irregular width darker than dark.
lucounu pointed to a cage. "This will be your conveyance. Inside."
Cugel hesitated. "It might be preferable to dine well, to sleep and rest, .to set forth tomorrow refreshed."
"What?" spoke lucounu in a voice like a horn. "You dare stand before me and state preferences? You, who came skulking into my house, pillaged my valuables and left all in disarray? Do you understand your luck? Perhaps you prefer the Forlorn Encystment?"
"By no means!" protested Cugel nervously. "I am anxious only for the success of the venture!"
"Into the cage, then."
Cugel turned despairing eyes around the castle roof, then slowly went to the cage and stepped within.
"I trust you suffer no deficiency of memory," said lucounu. "But even if this becomes the case, and if you neglect your prime responsibility, which is to say, the procuring of the violet cusp, Firx is on hand to remind you,"
Cugel said, "Since I am now committed to this enterprise, and unlikely to return, you may care to learn my appraisal of yourself and your character. In the first placeЧ"
But lucounu held up his hand. "I do not care to listen; obloquy injures my self-esteem and I am skeptical of praise. So nowЧbe off!" He drew back, stared up into the darkness, then shouted that invocation known as Thas-drubal's Laganetic Transfer. From high came a thud and a buffet, a muffled bellow of rage.
lucounu retreated a few steps, shouting up words in an archaic language; and the cage with Cugel crouching within was snatched aloft and hurled through the air.
Cold wind bit Cugel's face. From above came a flapping and creaking of vast wings and dismal lamentation;
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The Eyes of the Overworld
the cage swung back and forth. Below all was dark, a blackness like a pit. By the disposition of the stars Cugel perceived that the course was to the north, and presently he sensed the thrust of the Maurenron Mountains below; and then they flew over that wilderness known as the Land of the Falling Wall. Once or twice Cugel glimpsed the lights of an isolated castle, and once he noted a great bonfire. For a period a winged sprite came to fly alongside the cage and peer within. It seemed to find Cugel's plight amusing, and when Cugel sought information as to the land below, it merely uttered raucous cries of mirth. It became fatigued and sought to cling to the cage, but Cugel kicked it away, and it fell off into the wind with a scream of envy.
The east flushed the red of old blood, and presently the sun appeared, trembling like an old man with a chill. The ground was shrouded by mist; Cugel was barely able to see that they crossed a land of black mountains and dark chasms. Presently the mist parted once more to reveal a leaden sea. Once or twice he peered up, but the roof of the cage concealed the demon except for the tips of the leathern wings.
At last the demon reached the north shore of the ocean. Swooping to the beach, it vented a vindictive croak, and allowed the cage to fall from a height of fifteen feet
Cugel crawled from the broken cage. Nursing his bruises, he called a curse after the departing demon, then plodded back through sand and dank yellow spini-fex, and climbed the slope of the foreshore. To the north were marshy barrens and a far huddle of low hills, to east and west ocean and dreary beach. Cugel shook his fist to the south. Somehow, at some time, in some manner, he would visit revenge upon the Laughing Magician! So much he vowed.
A few hundred yards to the west was the trace of an ancient sea-wall. Cugel thought to inspect it, but hardly moved three steps before Firx clamped prongs into his liver. Cugel, rolling up his eyes in agony, reversed his direction and set out along the shore to the east
Presently he hungered, and bethought himself of the charm furnished by lucounu. He picked up a piece of driftwood and rubbed it with the tablet, hoping to see a transformation into a tray of sweetmeats or a roast fowl.
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But the driftwood merely softened to the texture of cheese, retaining the flavor of driftwood. Cugel ate with snaps and gulps. Another score against lucounu! How the Laughing Magician would pay!
The scarlet globe of the sun slid across the southern sky. Night approached, and at last Cugel came upon human habitation: a rude village beside a small river. The huts were like birds'-nests of mud and sticks, and smelled vilely of ordure and filth. Among them wandered a people as unlovely and graceless as the huts. They were squat, brutish and obese; their hair was a coarse yellow tangle; their features were lumps. Their single noteworthy attributeЧone in which Cugel took an instant and keen interestЧwas their eyes: blind-seeming violet hemispheres, similar in every respect to that object required by lucounu.
Cugel approached the village cautiously but the inhabitants took small interest hi him. If the hemisphere coveted by lucounu were identical to the violet eyes of these folk, then a basic uncertainty of the mission was resolved, and procuring the violet cusp became merely a matter of tactics.