"Smith, Clark Ashton - Tales of Averoigne" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Clark Ashton)

mantled with the iridescent scum of corruption. The drawbridge was
down and the gates were open, as if to receive an expected guest. But
still there was no sign of human occupancy; and the walls of the great
grey building were silent as those of a sepulcher. And more tomb-like
even than the rest was the square and over-towering bulk of the mighty
donjon.
Impelled by the same power that had drawn him along the
lakeshore, Gerard crossed the drawbridge and passed beneath the
frowning barbican into a vacant courtyard. Barred windows looked
blankly down; and at the opposite end of the court a door stood
mysteriously open, revealing a dark hall. As he approached the
doorway, he saw that a man was standing on the threshold; though a
moment previous he could have sworn that it was untenanted by any
visible form.
Gerard had retained his hornbeam staff; and though his reason told
him that such a weapon was futile against any supernatural foe, some
obscure instinct prompted him to clasp it valiantly as he neared the
waiting figure on the sill.
The man was inordinately tall and cadaverous, and was dressed in
black garments of a superannuate mode. His lips were strangely red,
amid his bluish beard and the mortuary whiteness of his face. They
were like the lips of the woman who, with her assailants, had
disappeared in a manner so dubious when Gerard had approached
them. His eyes were pale and luminous as marsh-lights; and Gerard
shuddered at his gaze and at the cold, ironic smile of his scarlet lips,. _Ѕ
that seemed to reserve a world of secrets all too dreadful and hideous to
be disclosed.
"I am the Sieur du Malinbois," the man announced. His tones were
both unctuous and hollow, and served to increase the repugnance felt
by the young troubadour. And when his lips parted, Gerard had a
glimpse of teeth that were unnaturally small and were pointed like the
fangs of some fierce animal.
"Fortune has willed that you should become my guest," the man
went on. "The hospitality which I can proffer you is rough and
inadequate, and it may be that you will find my abode a trifle dismal.
But at least I can assure you of a welcome no less ready than sincere."
"I thank you for your kind offer," said Gerard. "But I have an
appointment with a friend; and I seem in some unaccountable manner
to have lost my way. I should be profoundly grateful if you would
direct me toward Vyones. There should be a path not far from here;
and I have been so stupid as to stray from it."
The words rang empty and hopeless in his own ears even as he
uttered them; and the name that his strange host had given the Sieur du
Malinbois was haunting his mind like the funereal accents of a knell;
though he could not recall at that moment the macabre and spectral
ideas which the name tended to evoke,
"Unfortunately, there are no paths from my chateau to Vyones," the
stranger replied. "As for your rendezvous, it will be kept in another
manner, at another place, than the one appointed. I must therefore
insist that you accept my hospitality. Enter, I pray; but leave your