"Karl Edward Wagner - Undertow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wagner Karl Edward)

eBook Version: 2.1




Undertow
Karl Edward Wagner




Prologue
"She was brought in not long past dark," wheezed the
custodian, scuttling crab-like along the rows of silent, shrouded
slabs. "The city guard found her, carried her in. Sounds like the
one you're asking about."
He paused beside one of the waist-high stone tables and lifted
its filthy sheet. A girl's contorted face turned sightlessly
upwardтАФpainted and rouged, a ghastly strumpet's mask against
the pallor of her skin. Clots of congealed blood hung like a
necklace of dark rubies along the gash across her throat.
The cloaked man shook his head curtly within the shadow of
his hood, and the moon-faced custodian let the sheet drop back.
"Not the one I was thinking of," he murmured apologetically.
"It gets confusing sometimes, you know, what with so many, and
them coming and going all the while." Sniffling in the cool air, be
pushed his rotund bulk between the narrow aisles, careful to
avoid the stained and filthy shrouds. Looming over his guide, the
cloaked figure followed in silence.
Low-flamed lamps cast dismal light across the necrotorium, of
Carsultyal. Smouldering braziers spewed fitful, heavy fumed
clouds of clinging incense that merged with the darkness and the
stones and the decayтАФits cloying sweetness more nauseating
than the stench of death it embraced. Through the thick gloom
echoed the monotonous drip-drip-drip of melting ice, at times
chorused suggestively by some heavier splash. The municipal
morgue was crowded tonightтАФas always. Only a few of its
hundred or more slate beds stood dark and bare; the others all
displayed anonymous shapes bulging beneath blotched
sheetsтАФsome protruding at curious angles, as if these restless
dead struggled to burst free of the coarse folds. Night now hung
over Carsultyal, but within this windowless subterranean
chamber it was always night. In shadow pierced only by the
sickly flame of funereal lamps, the nameless dead of Carsultyal
lay unmournedтАФwaited the required interval of time for
someone to claim them, else to be carted off to some unmarked
communal grave beyond the city walls.
"Here, I believe," announced the custodian. "Yes. I'll just get a
lamp."
"Show me," demanded a voice from within the hood.