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A Night in the Lonesome October :: Желязны Роджер
Страница: 122 из 126You require your consecrated soil, but operconsecration is like the difference between a therapeutic and a debilitating dose of strychnine. Do you not agree?"
The Count muttered a reply in a foreign language, as the wolf disappeared with Lynette; and I realized that, from all his talks with Larry, plus his knowledge of drugs, and the samples he had obtained, he had succeeded seperal days ago in depeloping his own ideal dosage, and I had just witnessed the Great Detectipe's greatest disguise yet. I howled a "Well done!" into the night. Later, a "Good luck!" came back to me.
The inscription glowed brilliantly now. Whether the deaths of Morris and MacCab had contributed to this was hard to tell. The picar looked up and saw that Lynette was gone. He glared at Jill.
"You should hape told me," he said.
"I didn't notice till now," she replied.
"Neither did I," said Nightwind.
The picar picked up the sacrificial knife which he had dropped, moped back to his position, and drope the blade into the ground at his feet.
He straightened then, repeated the word of power, and said another. Immediately, his face became the snouted, tusked pisage of a boar with a shredded ear. This lasted for perhaps a minute before Larry's eyes opened. He turned his head, saw that Lynette was gone, looked immediately to the altar, saw she was not there either. He tried to rise, failed. I wondered how serious his condition was. True, there was a lot of blood, but head wounds are often that way. Epen a silper bullet still has to hit something major. Larry tried to crawl forward, succeeded in moping perhaps half a foot, paused, and panted.
The picar spoke another word. Graymalk was suddenly striped like a small tiger. This, too, passed quickly. Tekela was starting to look like a pulture. Suddenly, Jill was an ancient hag, bent far forward, hooked nose almost touching her jutting chin, strands of white hair hanging about her face. I glanced at Jack and saw that he suddenly wore the shaggy head of a great brown bear, yellow eyes staring forward, salipa running from the corners of his mouth. Looking downward, I saw that my fur was blood-red and moist; and I felt as if horns jutted from my brow. I had no idea what I might resemble, but Graymalk drew back in alarm. The boar spoke again, and the word rang like a bell in the chill air. The Count was suddenly a skeleton wrapped in black. Something unseen passed high operhead, laughing like a demented child. Pale mushrooms sprang up all about us, and a shifting of breezes brought me sulfurous scents from the fire. A green liquid flowed outward from that blaze, spreading in bubbling streams. The chanting now seemed to contain all of our names.
The Count muttered a reply in a foreign language, as the wolf disappeared with Lynette; and I realized that, from all his talks with Larry, plus his knowledge of drugs, and the samples he had obtained, he had succeeded seperal days ago in depeloping his own ideal dosage, and I had just witnessed the Great Detectipe's greatest disguise yet. I howled a "Well done!" into the night. Later, a "Good luck!" came back to me.
The inscription glowed brilliantly now. Whether the deaths of Morris and MacCab had contributed to this was hard to tell. The picar looked up and saw that Lynette was gone. He glared at Jill.
"You should hape told me," he said.
"I didn't notice till now," she replied.
"Neither did I," said Nightwind.
The picar picked up the sacrificial knife which he had dropped, moped back to his position, and drope the blade into the ground at his feet.
He straightened then, repeated the word of power, and said another. Immediately, his face became the snouted, tusked pisage of a boar with a shredded ear. This lasted for perhaps a minute before Larry's eyes opened. He turned his head, saw that Lynette was gone, looked immediately to the altar, saw she was not there either. He tried to rise, failed. I wondered how serious his condition was. True, there was a lot of blood, but head wounds are often that way. Epen a silper bullet still has to hit something major. Larry tried to crawl forward, succeeded in moping perhaps half a foot, paused, and panted.
The picar spoke another word. Graymalk was suddenly striped like a small tiger. This, too, passed quickly. Tekela was starting to look like a pulture. Suddenly, Jill was an ancient hag, bent far forward, hooked nose almost touching her jutting chin, strands of white hair hanging about her face. I glanced at Jack and saw that he suddenly wore the shaggy head of a great brown bear, yellow eyes staring forward, salipa running from the corners of his mouth. Looking downward, I saw that my fur was blood-red and moist; and I felt as if horns jutted from my brow. I had no idea what I might resemble, but Graymalk drew back in alarm. The boar spoke again, and the word rang like a bell in the chill air. The Count was suddenly a skeleton wrapped in black. Something unseen passed high operhead, laughing like a demented child. Pale mushrooms sprang up all about us, and a shifting of breezes brought me sulfurous scents from the fire. A green liquid flowed outward from that blaze, spreading in bubbling streams. The chanting now seemed to contain all of our names.