"Lester Del Rey - The Pipes of Pan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Del Rey Lester)

"Dying," the god answered. The blunt truth was easier than half-believed lies.

"Then take me outside, where the sun can shine on me."

Pan nodded and lifted him easily, bearing him out as gently as a mother might her child, but a spasm of
pain shot over the man's face as Pan laid him down. The time was almost up, the god knew. From a
pocket in his tattered loincloth he drew out a small syrinx, or pipe of seven reeds, and blew softly across
it. A bird heard the low murmuring melody and improvised a harmony, while a cricket marked time in
slow chirps.

Emmet's face relaxed slowly and one of his hands came out to lie on the hairy thigh. "Thanks, Pan.
You've always been a good god to me, and I'm hoping you'll have good 1—" The voice trailed away and
disappeared into the melody of the syrinx. Pan rose slowly, drawing a last lingering note from it,
dropped the arm over the still chest and closed the eyes. Nearby was a rusty spade, and the earth was
soft and moist.

Pan's great shoulders drooped as he wiped the last of the earth from his hands. Experimentally, he
chirped at the cricket, but there was no response, and he knew that the law governing all gods still
applied. When the last of their worshipers were gone, they either died or were forced to eke out their
living in the world of men by some human activity. Now there would be hunger to satisfy, and in
satisfying it, other needs of a life among men would present themselves.

Apollo was gone, long since, choosing in his pride to die, and the other gods had followed slowly, some
choosing work, some death. But they had at least the advantage of human forms, while he knew himself
for a monster his own mother had fled from. But then, the modern clothes were more concealing than
the ancient ones.

Inside the house he found Emmet's other clothes, more or less presentable, and a hunting knife and soap.
Men were partial to their own appearance, and horns were a stigma among them. Reluctantly, he brought
the knife up against the base of one, cutting through it. Pain lanced through him at first, but enough of
his godhead remained to make the stumps heal over almost instantly. Then the other one, followed by
the long locks of his hair. He combed it out and hacked it into such form as he could.

As the beard came away he muttered ungodly phrases at the knife that took off skin with the hair. But
even to his own eyes, the smooth-shaven face was less forbidding. The lips, as revealed, were firm and
straight, and the chin was good, though a mark of different color showed where the beard had been.

He fingered his tail thoughtfully, touching it with the blade of the knife, then let it go; clothes could hide
it, and Pan had no love for the barren spine that men regarded as a mark of superiority. The tail must
stay. Shoes were another problem, but he solved it by carving wooden feet to fit them, and making holes
for his hoofs. By lacing them on firmly, he found half an hour's practice enough to

teach him to walk. The underclothes, that scratched against the hair on his thighs and itched savagely,

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were another factor he had no love for, but time might improve that.