"Colin Wilson - Spiderworld 05 - The Magician" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilson Colin)

mixed with snow.
Dravig was standing silently behind him. Niall asked: "Do you notice anything?"
"No." The spider's antennae were directed toward the pool.
"There's almost no snow on that lawn. Somebody has gone to the trouble of
gathering all the dead leaves" -- he pointed down into the pool -- "and throwing them in
there."
He went around the pool and clambered down the ladder; as he did so he noted
that the steps were almost free of snow. Standing at the bottom, he reached out and
grabbed the end of a length of decaying timber that looked as if it had once been the
frame of a door. As he heaved it free, and a dead bush also came away with it, he saw
what he had been half-expecting: a human leg protruding from the wet leaves.
A moment later, Dravig was beside him, clearing away the dead branches. The
corpse that was exposed was naked; it was a man, and his head and limbs were swollen to
almost balloon-like proportions. The face had turned black, and looked as if it was made
of shiny leather. Niall felt the energies drain from his heart; it reminded him of his
father's corpse as it lay across the threshold of their underground home in the desert.
Dravig said with satisfaction: "Skorbo managed to kill one of them before he
died."
Niall leaned forward cautiously until his nostrils assured him that, in spite of its
bloated appearance, the corpse had not yet started to decay. He took hold of the foot and
pulled the body clear of the dead leaves. The eyes were open and the lips drawn back
from the teeth; he had obviously died in agony. The knees were bent grotesquely in rigor
mortis.
Dravig asked: "Do you know him?"
"No." The swelling made recognition impossible.
Niall turned away; the staring eyes and exposed teeth made him feel sick. He
climbed the ladder back to the lawn; suddenly he was glad it was cold. On a hot day the
corpse would already have been surrounded by bluebottles. And since bluebottles were
the size of small birds, the corpse would soon have been devoured.
Niall stood staring at the lawn. Only a few hours earlier, men had worked in the
darkness, gathering armfuls of snow and dead leaves to conceal the corpse; they should
have left behind some clue to their identity. But the recent snow had buried all the clues.
But why should they take so much trouble to hide the body? Did they mean to return later
to give it a decent burial? Niall dismissed that idea. The man's clothes had been removed
because they might afford a clue to his identity; the body had probably been concealed
for the same reason. But that suggested that the killers were men who belonged to this
city. And Niall found such an idea almost unbelievable.
Dravig had been waiting patiently while Niall stood there, lost in thought. As
Niall shook his head and sighed, Dravig asked: "Do you have any idea who might be
responsible?"
"None. The whole thing is completely baffling."
From over the rooftops came the sound of a gong. In the days when men were
enslaved, it had been used to announce the evening curfew; anyone found abroad after
that time was subject to instant execution. Now it was used in the mornings to announce
the beginning of the working day.
Niall said: "I must go back. There is a meeting of the Council in half an hour." Its
full title was the Council of Free Men, but Niall shortened it in order to avoid the risk of
causing offense.
As they walked back through the bushes, Niall observed something that had
caught on a twig. It was a fine, thin chain made of a gold-colored metal; suspended on it