"Charles Stross - Examination Night" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

both know the rules ..." the body the daemon wore drooled and rolled its eyes, still grinning
like a lunatic.
"I know this for the truth." Kerein seemed taken aback by the mildness of the
daemon's repose. "But why are you so placid, breaker of mountains and bringer of
hurricanes? Answer me, I command you! You who writhe and thunder at the touch of flesh
yet quietly smile from within that cage of bone, what is the meaning of your current
behaviour?"
Cold sweat prickled on Sebastian's brow. He's tempting fate, he noted carefully.
Holding a dialogue rather than demanding answers to simple questions! He's too bloody
confident tonight, is Lord Kerein.
The daemon shrugged amidst a rattle of chains; the runes around the altar flared
ruby-bright then faded again. "Your time is come," it rumbled softly; "of that I am assured."
"Who told you of that?" demanded the mage. "I forbid it! Speak, Aharseus! I
command you! Who has promised you –"
The daemon smiled frightfully. The flesh on its stolen face rippled and distorted, tore
away from itself with a dreadful noise; bones cracked beneath the skin. "One among you
mislikes your kind," it creaked, in a voice like trees breaking before a gale.. "You will know
them again by their ways and by their whiles, when the candles of flesh burn low and the
sands of night expire! Now forgive me, mortal, for I tire of this conversation and I'm still
hungry –"
Lightning flashed outside, and the runes glowed black and hissed. There was an
astouding clap of thunder that smashed the windows from their frames, and the daemon
vanished from the altar with its unfortunate host. Sebastian blinked and someone screamed
in agony. He started and peered through the holes in the filigree screen. Where the magus
Kerein had been there stood a lumpy parody of humanity that appeared to be sculpted from
grey blebs of cauliflower. It staggered briefly and screamed once more, tearing at its robes
with clawed hands. Then it stood shivering for a moment as if racked by the most exquisite
agony, and fell backward across the altar. Spreading rings of dark blood began to seep
through the front of its robes, dripping from the warty blebs that covered its naked skin.
There was a rising hubbub of voices from the students, then one cry which rose
above the others: "It's the work of the daemon! That's Lord Kerein – he's been afflicted unto
death by tumours of brain!" The move to evacuate the chapel was fast, not to say unseemly.
Nevertheless, by the time the mass of panicking students reached the door Sebastian was
already outside the building, retching upon the cold stones of the courtyard.
Suspicion fell upon the magi first and upon the student body second. Panic of a most
ugly and undignified kind took root in the hallowed corridors of the academy; it was
accompanied by a kind of feverish determination not to be intimidated by the traitor, not to let
one's activities be circumscribed by the unseen hand of the malign practitioner who was
undoubtedly responsible for the distortion of the recent conjourations. That this invisible
presence was also responsible for the death of Frankenburg an d the abominable accidents
that had recently befallen the student corpus was not in doubt, for it was unthinkable that two
such curses should descend upon the academy in a single month. The daemon's description
served to sow more confusion than it dispelled. Nevertheless, everybody took precautions;
and in some cases this reached the stage of refraining entirely from certain dangerous
activities or questionable pursuits...

Sebastian drained his tankard of wine and was about to refill it when Anya reached
out and placed her hand across the mouth of the jug. "Repeat once more for my ears, what
was the purpose of the ritual at which Lord Kerein was so misfortunately cursed? That you
failed to tell me. What was his incentive for indulging in such a fatal conjuration?"