"Barker, Clive - Weaveworld (b)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barker Clive)

She was too much herself to be sold, he decided - not for the first time - and told himself to forget the exercise. It was one he could never hope to master; why should he torment himself with it? Immacolata turned away from the window.

'Arc you rested now?’ she asked him.

'It was you wanted to get out of the sun; he reminded. her. 'I'm ready to start whenever you are. Though I haven't a clue where we begin...’

'That's not so difficult; Immacolata said. 'Remember what my sister prophesied? Events are close to crisis-point.’

As she spoke, the shadows in the comer of the room stirred afresh, and Immacolata's two dead sisters showed their ethereal skirts. Shadwell had never been easy in their presence, and they in their turn had always despised him. But the old one, the Hag, the Beldam, had skills as an oracle, no doubt of that. What she saw in the filth of her sister, the Magdalene's after-birth, was usually proved correct.

'The Fugue can't stay hidden much longer; said Immacolata. 'As soon as it's moved it creates vibrations. It can't help itself. So much life, pressed into such a hideway.’

'And do you feel any of these . . . vibrations?’ said Shadwell, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and standing up.

Immacolata shook her head. 'No. Not yet. But we should be ready.’

Shadwell picked up his jacket, and slipped it on. The fining shimmered, casting filaments of seduction across the room. By their momentary brightness he caught sight of the Magdalene and the Hag. The old woman covered her eyes against the spillage from the jacket, fearful of its power. The Magdalena did not concern herself; her lids had long ago been sewn closed over sockets blind from birth.

'When the movements begin it may take an hour or two to pin-point the location; said Immacolata.

'An hour?’ Shadwell replied. The pursuit that had finally led them here seemed today to have been a lifetime long 'I can wait an hour.’

WHO MOVED THE GROUND?

The birds did not stop their spiralling over the city as Cal approached. For every one that flew off, another three or four joined the throng.

The phenomenon had not gone unnoticed. People stood on the pavement and on doorsteps, hands shading their eyes from the glare of the sky, and stared heavenwards. Opinions were everywhere ventured as to the reason for this congregation. Cal didn't stop to offer his, but threaded his way through the maze of streets, on occasion having to double back and find a new route, but by degrees getting closer to the hub.

And now, as he approached, it became apparent that his first theory had been incorrect. The birds were not feeding. There was no swooping nor squabbling over a six-legged crumb, nor any sign in the lower air of the insect life that might have attracted these numbers. The birds were simply circling. Some of the smaller species, sparrows and finches, had tired of flying and now lined rooftops and fences, leaving their larger brethren - carrion-crows, magpies, gulls to occupy the heights. There was no scarcity of pigeons here either; the wild variety banking and wheeling in flocks of fifty or more, their shadows rippling across the rooftops. There were some domesticated birds too, doubtless escapees like 33. Canaries and budgerigars: birds called from their millet and their bells by whatever force had summoned the others. For these birds being here was effectively suicide. Though their fellows were at present too excited by this ritual to take note of the pets in their midst, they would not be so indifferent when the circling spell no longer bound them. They would be cruel and quick. They'd fall on the canaries and the budgerigars and peck out their eyes, killing them for the crime of being tamed.

But for now, the parliament was at peace. It mounted the air, higher, ever higher, busying the sky.

The pursuit of this spectacle had led Cal to a part of the city he'd seldom explored. Here the plain square houses of the council estates gave way to a forlorn and eerie no-man's-land, where streets of once-fine, three-storey terraced houses still stood, inexplicably preserved from the bulldozer, surrounded by areas levelled in expectation of a boomtime that had never come; islands in a dust sea.

It was one, of these streets - Rue Street the sign read - that seemed the point over which the flocks were focused. There were more sizeable assemblies of exhausted birds here than in any of the adjacent streets; they twittered and preened themselves on the eaves and chimney tops and television aerials.

Cal scanned sky and roof alike, making his way along Rue Street as he did so. And there - a thousand to one dance he caught sight of his bird. A solitary pigeon, dividing a cloud of sparrows. Years of watching the sky, waiting for pigeons to return from races, had given him an eagle eye; he could recognize a particular bird by a dozen idiosyncrasies in its flight pattern. He had found 33; no doubt of it. But event as he watched, the bird disappeared behind the roofs of Rue Street.

He gave chase afresh, finding a narrow alley whirl cut between the terraced houses half way along the road, and let on to the larger alley that ran behind the row. It had not been well kept. Piles of household refuse had been dumped along its length; orphan dustbins overturned, their contents scattered.

But twenty yards from where he stood there was work going on. Two removal men were manoeuvring an armchair out of the yard behind one of the houses, while a third stared up at the birds. Several hundred were assembled on the yard walls and window sills and railings. Cal wandered along the alley, scrutinizing this assembly for pigeons. He found a dozen or more amongst the multitude, but not the one he sought.

'What d'you make of it?’

He had come within ten yards of the removal men, and one of them, the idler was addressing the question to him.

'I don't know,' he answered honestly.

'Maybe they're goin' to migrate.’ Said the younger of the two armchair carriers, letting drop his half of the burden and staring up at the sky.