[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.He put his hand to his throat, put it down again."No," he said aloud, in aflat, almost matter-of-fact voice.He discovered that he was grinning,involuntarily, mirthlessly, grinning with horror.At the same time, adistant part of himself was saying, You knew what it would be,dispassionate, unafraid, and not at all surprised.He blinked.Then, grimly,he reached back into the box.Brittle dead things, rustling, rolling thingsthat scuttled under his fingertips.A cold, unpleasant texture.Likeporcelain, he thought inanely.Bones.Ribs, vertebrae, finger bones,femurs, a pelvis.He scrambled over to the next box scurrying along on hands and feetwithout bothering to straighten up, like a crab and wrenched it open,heedless of noise, hitting it a savage, splintering blow with the palm of hishand when a nail stuck, the lid rising into the air with dreamlike slowness,as if it were a butterfly, and then, suddenly fast, clattering away end overend.There was now a long splinter wedged painfully under his fingernail,but he ignored it.Recklessly, he reached into the box and scooped out adouble armful of its contents.Yes bones.And more bones.He frozeagain, face turned up to the sky, squatting grotesquely with his arms fullof brittle white bones, like a ghoul caught gathering firewood.There wasan odd, dangerous vacuum inside him, waiting to be filled by the panicand horror he knew were there, insulated from him as if by a thin layer ofglass.Calmly and patiently, he crouched there in the dark, waiting for theglass to break.Behind him, the door made a loud ratcheting sound.The glass shattered.The vacuum filled.Before the light from theopening door could even spill out across the cleared area, Farber was off,dropping the bones and springing away in a single enormous bound, like astartled cat.Three strides took him to the edge of the packed snow, up theicy slope then scrambling straight up it with hands, feet, knees, elbows,fingernails and he was running and plunging away through the drifts,battering and bulling his way forward, floundering, falling, snowplowing,almost swimming through the snow as he breasted it.Up again.A hoarseshout behind him, and he ran faster, snapping his knees up as high as hecould with each stride to get his feet clear of the snow.Then his feet bitair.He fell from the drifts to the surface of the road, hit jarringly, rolled,and came up running.Fortunately, when he came up he was pointedsouth, in the direction of Aei, because he was in no condition to navigate. His mind had whited out under an overload of panic and superstitiousterror.But his body had orders to run as fast as possible, and, to it, thehard, dry pavement underfoot and the sudden release from theencumbering snowdrifts were a benediction.He ran.Somewhere in the smothering night behind him, there was anothershout.Already it was faint with distance, diminishing, left behind.Farber kept running anyway.17Afterward, Farber was unable to remember much about the trip back toAei.Cold, jarring motion, darkness, the stars doing a stately jig around hishead, the rasping sound of his breathing loud and ugly to his own ears.Heran or dogtrotted most of the way, occasionally slowing down to a walkwhen he was blown, but running again as soon as he got his wind back.Hedidn't look behind him.Sometimes he would miss his footing in the darkand fall rolling with it if he was lucky, rattling his teeth and cuttinghimself on pebbles and grit if he was not but always he would scrambleup again immediately and keep on.He ran because it was the practicalthing to do, a defense against the amazing cold, but he also ran to stayahead of the horror that ghosted along at his heels like a vast blackshadow, stopping when he stopped, watching him without eyes, followingafter again when he ran, patient and indefatigable.Somewhere just outside of Aei, it caught him, swallowed him in a singlevelvet gulp, and he was thinking again, the thoughts scribbling themselvesunstoppably across the blank slate of his mind.My God, how could he tellLiraun! She wouldn't believe him.How could she believe him? How couldhe convince her, how could he make her see through the monstrousdeception that had been perpetrated on the women of her race for Christ,hundreds of years? Millennia? How many victims, across all that gulf oftime? The horror and pity of it squeezed his heart.Think of them, thecountless millions of women who had gone unsuspecting to beslaughtered, consenting happily to the rituals without realizing where itwould lead them, believing the pious lies of the butchers.And then theBirth House, the door closing behind, the sudden terror and shock, theknives.Slaughter.The ignoble burial in the secret hills.And all because ofsome dark superstition, some god-haunted paranoia, some murderous holy flummery! The pastel lights of New City were winking languidlyahead, and, feverish and shivering, he ran madly toward them.At the junction of the North Road and River Way, he took his last andhardest fall, skidding down the steep slope on his stomach for about thirtyyards, embedding gravel deeply in his hands and face.The impact stunnedhim for a moment, and he lay peacefully on his elbows in the dark,breathing raggedly [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.He put his hand to his throat, put it down again."No," he said aloud, in aflat, almost matter-of-fact voice.He discovered that he was grinning,involuntarily, mirthlessly, grinning with horror.At the same time, adistant part of himself was saying, You knew what it would be,dispassionate, unafraid, and not at all surprised.He blinked.Then, grimly,he reached back into the box.Brittle dead things, rustling, rolling thingsthat scuttled under his fingertips.A cold, unpleasant texture.Likeporcelain, he thought inanely.Bones.Ribs, vertebrae, finger bones,femurs, a pelvis.He scrambled over to the next box scurrying along on hands and feetwithout bothering to straighten up, like a crab and wrenched it open,heedless of noise, hitting it a savage, splintering blow with the palm of hishand when a nail stuck, the lid rising into the air with dreamlike slowness,as if it were a butterfly, and then, suddenly fast, clattering away end overend.There was now a long splinter wedged painfully under his fingernail,but he ignored it.Recklessly, he reached into the box and scooped out adouble armful of its contents.Yes bones.And more bones.He frozeagain, face turned up to the sky, squatting grotesquely with his arms fullof brittle white bones, like a ghoul caught gathering firewood.There wasan odd, dangerous vacuum inside him, waiting to be filled by the panicand horror he knew were there, insulated from him as if by a thin layer ofglass.Calmly and patiently, he crouched there in the dark, waiting for theglass to break.Behind him, the door made a loud ratcheting sound.The glass shattered.The vacuum filled.Before the light from theopening door could even spill out across the cleared area, Farber was off,dropping the bones and springing away in a single enormous bound, like astartled cat.Three strides took him to the edge of the packed snow, up theicy slope then scrambling straight up it with hands, feet, knees, elbows,fingernails and he was running and plunging away through the drifts,battering and bulling his way forward, floundering, falling, snowplowing,almost swimming through the snow as he breasted it.Up again.A hoarseshout behind him, and he ran faster, snapping his knees up as high as hecould with each stride to get his feet clear of the snow.Then his feet bitair.He fell from the drifts to the surface of the road, hit jarringly, rolled,and came up running.Fortunately, when he came up he was pointedsouth, in the direction of Aei, because he was in no condition to navigate. His mind had whited out under an overload of panic and superstitiousterror.But his body had orders to run as fast as possible, and, to it, thehard, dry pavement underfoot and the sudden release from theencumbering snowdrifts were a benediction.He ran.Somewhere in the smothering night behind him, there was anothershout.Already it was faint with distance, diminishing, left behind.Farber kept running anyway.17Afterward, Farber was unable to remember much about the trip back toAei.Cold, jarring motion, darkness, the stars doing a stately jig around hishead, the rasping sound of his breathing loud and ugly to his own ears.Heran or dogtrotted most of the way, occasionally slowing down to a walkwhen he was blown, but running again as soon as he got his wind back.Hedidn't look behind him.Sometimes he would miss his footing in the darkand fall rolling with it if he was lucky, rattling his teeth and cuttinghimself on pebbles and grit if he was not but always he would scrambleup again immediately and keep on.He ran because it was the practicalthing to do, a defense against the amazing cold, but he also ran to stayahead of the horror that ghosted along at his heels like a vast blackshadow, stopping when he stopped, watching him without eyes, followingafter again when he ran, patient and indefatigable.Somewhere just outside of Aei, it caught him, swallowed him in a singlevelvet gulp, and he was thinking again, the thoughts scribbling themselvesunstoppably across the blank slate of his mind.My God, how could he tellLiraun! She wouldn't believe him.How could she believe him? How couldhe convince her, how could he make her see through the monstrousdeception that had been perpetrated on the women of her race for Christ,hundreds of years? Millennia? How many victims, across all that gulf oftime? The horror and pity of it squeezed his heart.Think of them, thecountless millions of women who had gone unsuspecting to beslaughtered, consenting happily to the rituals without realizing where itwould lead them, believing the pious lies of the butchers.And then theBirth House, the door closing behind, the sudden terror and shock, theknives.Slaughter.The ignoble burial in the secret hills.And all because ofsome dark superstition, some god-haunted paranoia, some murderous holy flummery! The pastel lights of New City were winking languidlyahead, and, feverish and shivering, he ran madly toward them.At the junction of the North Road and River Way, he took his last andhardest fall, skidding down the steep slope on his stomach for about thirtyyards, embedding gravel deeply in his hands and face.The impact stunnedhim for a moment, and he lay peacefully on his elbows in the dark,breathing raggedly [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]