"A. E. Merrit - The People of the Pit" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merritt A. E)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--

The People of the Pit
A. Merritt
This page copyright © 2003 Blackmask Online.

http://www.blackmask.com



The People of the Pit
NORTH OF us a shaft of light shot half way to the zenith. It came from behind
the five peaks. The beam drove up through a column of blue haze whose edges
were marked as sharply as the rain that streams from the edges of a thunder
cloud. It was like the flash of a searchlight through an azure mist. It cast
no shadows.

As it struck upward the summits were outlined hard and black and I saw that
the whole mountain was shaped like a hand. As the light silhouetted it, the
gigantic fingers stretched, the hand seemed to thrust itself forward. It was
exactly as though it moved to push something back. The shining beam held
steady for a moment; then broke into myriads of little luminous globes that
swung to and fro and dropped gently. They seemed to be searching.

The forest had become very still. Every wood noise held its breath. I felt the
dogs pressing against my legs. They too were silent; but every muscle in their
bodies trembled, their hair was stiff along their backs and thier eyes, fixed
on the falling lights, were filmed with the terror glaze.

I looked at Anderson. He was staring at the North where once more the beam had
pulsed upward.

“It can't be the aurora,” I spoke without moving my lips. My mouth was as dry
as though Lao T'zai had poured his fear dust down my throat.

“If it is I never saw one like it,” he answered in the same tone. “Besides who
ever heard of an aurora at this time of the year?”

He voiced the thought that was in my own mind.

“It makes me think something is being hunted up there,” he said, “an unholy
sort of hunt—it's well for us to be out of range.”

“The mountain seems to move each time the shaft shoots up,” I said. “What's it
keeping back, Starr? It makes me think of the frozen hand of cloud that Shan
Nadour set before the Gate of Ghouls to keep them in the lairs that Eblis cut
for them.”

He raised a hand—listening.