"King Krool" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lem Stanislaw)

six fire-breathing monsters. These were muzzled with fire screens
and smoke filters, had their wings clipped to keep them on the
ground, and long spiked tails and six paws apiece with iron claws
that cut deep pits in the road wherever they went. As soon as the
monsters saw the constructors, the entire team set up a howl,
belching fire and brimstone, and strained to get at them. The coach
men in asbestos armor and the King's huntsmen with hoses and pumps
had to fall upon the crazed creatures and beat them into submission
with laser and maser clubs before Trurl and Klapaucius could safely
step into the plush carriage, which they did without a word. The
carriage tore off at breakneck speed or--to use an appropriate
metaphor--like a bat out of hell.
"You know," Trurl whispered in Klapaucius' ear as they rushed along,
knocking down everything in their path and leaving a long trail of
sulfurous smoke behind them, "I have a feeling that this king won't
settle for just anything. I mean, if he has coursers like these..."
But level-headed Klapaucius said nothing. Houses now flashed by,
walls of diamonds and sapphires and silver, while the dragons
thundered and hissed and the drivers cursed and shouted. At last a
colossal portcullis loomed up ahead, opened, and their carriage
whirled into the courtyard, careening so sharply that the flower
beds all shriveled up, then ground to a stop before a castle black
as blackest night. Welcomed by an unusually dismal fanfare and quite
overwhelmed by the massive stairs, balustrades and especially the
stone giants that guarded the main gate, Trurl and Klapaucius,
ranked by a formidable escort, entered the mighty castle.
King Krool awaited them in an enormous hall the shape of a skull, a
vast and vaulted cave of beaten silver. There was a gaping pit in
the floor, the skul1's foramen magnum, and beyond it stood the
throne, over which two streams of light crossed like swords--they
came from high windows fixed in the skull's eye sockets and with
panes specially tinted to give everything a harsh and infernal
aspect. The constructors now saw Krool himself: too impatient to sit
still on his throne, this monarch paced from wall to wall across the
silver floor, his steps booming in that cadaverous cavern, and as he
spoke he emphasized his words with such sudden stabs of the hand,
that the air whistled.



Part 4. The Hunting Trophies
Back to: TOC | Lem
"Welcome, constructors!" he said, skewering them both with his eyes.
"As you've no doubt learned from Lord Protozor, Master of the Royal
Hunt, I want you to build me new and better kinds of game. Now I'm
not interested, you understand, in any mountain of steel on a
hundred-odd treads--that's a job for heavy artillery, not for me. My
quarry must be strong and ferocious, but swift and nimble too, and
above all cunning and full of wiles, so that I will have to call
upon all my hunter's art to drive it to the ground. It must be a