"Moore, C L - Scarlet Dream UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moore C. L)

“What do you mean? Why not?” A little absurd pity was starting up in his mind at the sorrow and the pity in her voice, the sureness of her words. Yet this was one of those r~re dreams wherein he knew quite definitely that he dreamed. He
could not be mistaken. . . . —
“There are many dream countries,” she said, “sitany nebulous~unreal half-lands where the souls of sleepers wander, places that have an actual, tenuous existence, if one knows the way. . . . But here—itbas happened before, you see—one may not blunder without passing a door that opens one way only. And he who has the key to open it may come through, but he can never find the way into his own waking land again. Tell me—what key opened the door to
you?” -
“The shawl,” Smith murmured. “The shawl . . . of course. That damnable red pattern, dizzy—”
He passed a hand across his eyes, for the memory of it, writhing; alive, searingly scarlet, burned behind his eyelids.
“What was it?” she demanded, breathlessly, he thought, as if a half-hopeless eagerness forced the question from her lips. “Can you remember?” -
“A red pattern,” he said slowly, “a thread of bright scarlet woven into a blue shawl—nightmare pattern-— painted on the gate I caine by. . . but it’s only ~a dream, of
course. In a few minutes I’ll wake. . . .“ She clutched his knee excitedly.
“Can you remember?” she demanded. “The pattern—.-the red pattern? The Word?”
“Word?” he wondered stupidly. “Word—in the sky?
No—no, I don’t want to r~ember—crazy pattern, you kflow. Can’t forget it—but no, I couldn’t tell you what it was, or trace it for you. i~ever was anything like it—thank God. It was on that shawl. . .
“Woven on a shawl,” she murmured to herself. “Yes, of course. But how you ever caine by it, in your world—when it—when it—oh!”
Memory of whatever tragedy had sent her flying down the stairs swept back in a flood, and her face crumpled into tears again. “My sister!”
“Tell me what happened.” Smith woke from his daze at the sound of her sob. “Can’t I help? Please let me try—tell
me about it.” - -
“My sister,” she said faintly. “It caught her in the haIl— caught her before my eyes—spattered me with her blood. Oh!...
“It?” puzzled Smith. “What? Is there danger?” and his hand moved instinctively~toward his gun.
She caught the gesture and smiled a little scornfully
through her tears. , -
“It,” she said. “The—the Thing. No gun can harm it, no man can fight it—It caine, and that was all.”
“But what is it? What does it look like? Is it near?”
“It’s everywhere. One never knows—until the mist begins to thicken and the pulse of red shows through—and then it’s too late. We do not fight it, or think of it overmuch—life would be unbearable. For it hungers and must be fed, and we who feed it strive to live as happily as we may know before the Thing comes for us. But one can never know.”
- “Where did it come from? What is it?” -
“No one knows—it has always been here—always will be
too nebulous to die or be killed—a Thing out of some
alien place we couldn’t understand, ‘I suppose—somewhere so long ago, or in some such unthinkable dimension that we will never have any knowledge of its origin. But as! say, we try notto think.” -
“If it eats flesh,” said Smith stubbornly, “it must be vulnerable—and I have my gun.”
“Tryifyoulike,” she shnigged. “Othershavetried—and it still, comes. It dwells here, we believe, if it dwells any~ where. We are—taken—more often in these halls than elsewhere. When you are weary of life you might bring your gun and wait under this roof. You may not have long to wait.”
“I’m. no~ ready to try the experiment just yet,” Smith grinned. “tf the Thing lives here, why do you come?”
She shrugged again, apathetically. “If we do not, it will come after us when it hungers. And we come here for—for our food.” She shot him a curious glance from un4er lowered lids. “You wouldn’t understand. But as you say, it’s a dangerous place. We’d best go now—you will come with me, won’t you? I shall be lonely now.” And her eyes brimmed again.
“Of course. I’m sorry, my dear. I’ll do what I can for you—until! wake.” He grinned at the fantastic sound of this.
“You will not wake,” she said quietly. “Better not to hope, I think. You are trapped here with the rest of us and here you must stay until. you die.” -
He rose and held out his hand.
“Let’s go, then,” he said. “Maybe you’re right, but— well, come on.”

She took his hand and jumped up. The orange hair, too fantastically colored for anything outside a dream, swung about her brilliantly. He saw now that she wore a single white garment, brief and belted, over the creamy brownness of her body. It was torn now, and hideously stained. She made a pictd~e of strange and vivid loveliness, all white and gold and bloody, in the misted twilight of the gallery.
“Where are we going?” she asked Smith. “Out there?” And he nodded toward the blueness beyond the windows.
— She drew her shoulders together in a little shudder of distaste. “Oh, no,” she~aid.
‘‘What is it?’’
“Listen.” She took him bythe anus and lifted a serious
face to his. “If you must stay here—and you must, for there
is only one way out save death, and that is a worse way even than dying—you musi learn to ask no questions about the— the Temple. This is the Temple. Here it dwells. Here we— feed.
“There are halls we know, and we keep to them. It is wiser. You saved my life when you stopped me on those stairs—no one has ever gone down into that mist and darkness, and returned. I should have known, seeing you climb them, that you were not of us. . . for whatever lies beyond, wherever that stairway leads—it is better not to know. It is better not to look out the windows of this place. We have learned that, too. For from the outside the Temple looks strange enough, but from the inside, looking out, one is liable to see things it is better not to see., . . What that blue space is, on which this gallery opens, I do not know—I have no wish to know. There are ~.‘indows here open g on stranger things than this—but we turn our eyes away when we pass them. You will learn. , -.
She took his hand, smiling a little.
“Come with me, now.” - -~
And in silence they left the gallery opening on space and went down the hail where the blue mist floated so beautifully with its clouds of violet and green confusing, the eye, and a great stillness. all about.
The hallways led straight, as nearly as he could see, for the floating clouds veiled it, toward the great portals of the Temple. In the form of a mighty triple arch it opened out of the clouded twilight upon a shining day like no day he had ever seen, on any planet. The light came from no visible source, and there was a lucid quality about it, nebulous but
unmistakable, as if one were looking through the depths of a crystal, or through clear water that trembled a little now and then. It was diffused through the translucent day from a sky as shining and unfamiliar as everything else in this amazing dreamlend.
They stood under the great arch of the Temple, looking out over the shining land beyond~’ Afterward he could never quite remember what had made it so unutterably strange, so indefinably dreadful. There were trees, feathery masses of green and bronze above the bronze-green grass; the bright air shimmered, and through the leaves he caught the glimmer of water not far away. At first glance it seemed a perfectly normal sense—yet tiny details caught his eyes that sent ripples of coldness down his back. The grass, for instance.