"Larry Niven - Limits UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

Durily nodded. "Can you guide us there?"
"I can. Can you breathe under water?"
Durily smiled. "Yes."
"The gem holds mana. If it leaves Minter! castle, the ghosts will fade."
Durily lost her smile. "King Nihilil-"
"I will show you. Duty runs two ways between a king and his subjects. Now?"
"A day or two. We'll have to reach the stairwell, past the innkeeper's family."
The ghosts went where ghosts go. Karskon and Dually pulled the wool loose from the windows and opened them wide. A brisk sea wind whipped away the smell of scorched blood. "I wish we could have done
this on the roof," she said viciously. "Among Rordray's damned chickens.
Used their blood."

It happened the second day after their arrival. Karskon was expecting
it.
The dining room was jammed before noon. Rordray's huge pot of stew dwindled almost to nothing. He set his older children to frying thick steaks with black pepper and cream and essence of wine, his younger children to serving. Providentially Merle showed up, and Rordray set him to moving tables and chairs to the roof. The younger children set the extra tables.
Karskon and Durily found themselves squeezing through a host of seamen to reach the roof. Rordray laughed as he apologized. "But after all, it's your own doing! I have red meat! Usually there is nothing but fish and shellfish. What do you prefer? My stew has evaporated, poof but I can offer-"
Durily asked, "Is there still fish?" Rordray nodded happily and vanished.
Cages of rabbits and pigeons and large, bewildered-looking moos had been clustered in the center of the roof, to give the diners a sea view. A salvo of torpedoes shot from the sea: bottlenosed mammals with a laughing expression. They acted like they were trying to get someone's attention. Merle, carrying a table and chairs, said, "Merpeople. They must be lost.
Where the magic's been used up they lose their half-human shape, and their sense too. If they're still around when I put out I'll lead them out to

Rordray served them himself, but didn't join them. Today he was too busy. Under a brilliant blue sky they ate island-fish baked with slivered nuts and some kind of liqueur, and vegetables treated with respect. They ate quickly. Butterflies fluttered in Karskon's belly, but he was jubilant.
Rordray had red meat. Of course the Attic was jammed, of course Rordray and his family were busy as a fallen beehive. The third floor Would be entirely deserted.

Water, black and stagnant, covered the sixth step down. Durily Stopped before she reached it. "Come closer," she said. "Stay close to me."
Karskon's protective urge responded to her fear and her beauty. But, he reminded himself, it wasn't his nearness she needed; it was the gem.
He moved down to join Dually and her ally.
She arrayed her equipment on the steps. No blood this time: King Nihulil was already with them, barely, like an intrusive memory at her side.
She began to chant in the Sorcerer's Guild tongue.
The water sank, step by step. What had been done seventy-odd years ago could be undone, partially, temporarily.
Durily's voice grew deep and rusty. Karskon watched as her hair faded from golden to white, as the curves of her body drooped. Wrinkles formed on her face, her neck, her arms.
Glamour is a lesser magic, but it takes mona. The magic that was Durily's youth was being used to move seawater now. Karskon had thought he was ready for this. Now he found himself staring, flinching back, until Durily, without interrupting herself, snarled (teeth brown or missing) and gestured him down.
He descended the wet stone stairs. Durily followed, moving stiffly. King Nihilil floated ahead of them like foxfire on the water.
The sea had left the upper floors, but water still sluiced from the landings. Karskon's torch illuminated dripping walls, and once a stranded fish. Within his chest his heart was fighting for its freedom.
On the fifth floor down there were side corridors. Karskon, peering into their darkness, shied violently from a glimpse of motion. An eel thrashed as it drowned in air.
Eighth floor down.
Behind him, Durily moved as if her joints hurt. Her appearance repelled him. The deep lines in her face weren't smile wrinides; they were selfishness, sulks, rage. And her voice ran on, and her hands danced in creaky curves.
She can't hurry. She'd falL Can't leave her behind. Her spell.s~, my jewel: keep them together, or we drown. But the ghost was drawing ahead of them. Would he leave us? Here? Worse, King Nihilil was becoming hard to see. Blurring. The whole corridor seemed filled with the restless fog that was the King's ghost .
No. The King's ghost had multiplied. A horde of irritated or curious ghosts had joined the procession. Karskon shivered from the cold, and wondered how much the cold was due to ghosts rubbing up against him.
Tenth floor down . . . and the procession had become a crowd. Karskon, trailing, could no longer pick out the King. But the ghosts streamed out of the stairwell, flowed away down a corridor, and Karskon followed.
A murmuring was in the air, barely audible, a hundred ghosts whispering gibberish in his ear.
The sea had not retreated from the walls and ceiling here. Water surrounded them, ankle deep as they walked, rounding up the corridor walls and curving over their heads to form a huge, complex bubble. Carpet disintegrated under Karskon's boots.
To his right the wall ended. Karskon looked over a stone railing, down into the water, into a drowned ballroom. There were bones at the bottom. Swamp-fires formed on the water's surface. More ghosts.
The ghosts had paused. Now they were like a swirling, continuous, glowing fog. Here and there the motion suggested features. . . and Karskon suddenly realised that he was watching a riot, ghost against ghost.
They'd realised why he was here. Drowning the intruders would save the jewel, save their fading lives. Not drowning them would repel Minterl's enemies.
Karskon nerved himself and waded into them. Hands tried to clutch him. . . a broadsword-shape struck his throat and broke into mist.
He was through them, standing before a heavy, ornately carved door.
The King's ghost was waiting. Silently he showed Karskon how to manipulate a complex lock. Presently he mimed turning a brass knob and threw his weight back. Karskon imitated him. The door swung open.
A bedchamber, and a canopied bed like a throne. If this place was a ruse, Nihilil must have acted his part with verve. The sea was here, pushing in against the bubble. Karskon could see a bewildered school of minnows in a corner of the chamber. The leader took a wrong turn, and the whole school whipped around to follow him, through the water interface and suddenly into the air. They flopped as they fell, splashed into more water and scattered.
A bead of sweat ran down Durily's cheek.
The King's ghost waited patiently at another door.
Terror was swelling in Karskon's throat. Fighting fear with self-cUrected rage, he strode soggily to the door and threw it open, before the King's warning gesture could register.