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

Sebastian opened his eyes and saw Zevon, leaning very close, a look of intense concentration about his face, as it had been in better times when they made love in this very bed. "I can't," he said with difficulty, dropping the words into a stony silence. "I can't. They will send their nightmare minions after me, things that swarm in the infinite night between stars and dream of flesh that tears and screams to sing – as is their right –"
"So you're working for the good guys now," said Zevon, without a trace of mockery in his voice. "Have they scared you that much?"
Sebastian tried to stand up and failed, due to a curious weakness in his ankles. "It's the Invigilation," he whispered defensively. "The good guys. If they'd been around forty years ago the Dark Pretender would have shit bricks – would have –" he was unable to finish. A dark realisation came over him as he tried to look at Zevon, found that his neck muscles would not obey.
Zevon stood up. "Well, well, well," he said tightly. "So it's like that, is it?" He looked frighteningly serene as he leaned over Sebastian. "They've broken you like a puppy. Their stupid fetish about dark agencies – you can look but you can't touch. The creeping secret police, the minions of mediocrity! And you're scared of them." He didn't sound contemptuous; but there was a terrifyingly casual tone to his voice as he continued. "I'm leaving now, Seb. I've got business to attend to and I dare say we won't be meeting again afterwards. At least, not for a very long time. What do you say?"
Sebastian managed to work his numb jaws sufficiently to speak. "What was it?" he croaked, a dull ache of fear eating away at his innards.
"Toad venom. In the wine; I leave you the antidote." He gestured at a pot of unguent upon the cupboard. It was tantalisingly close, had Sebastian even been able to lift an arm. "Eventually it will paralyse your lungs; then you will die. Not part of the main plan, I'm afraid, but we can't all be omniscient and I did –" his voice cracked slightly – "hope you'd be prepared to join me."
Sebastian managed another question. "But what of our oath?" he whispered desperately.
"That?" Zevon held up a carving of an ivory heart, inscribed with symbols. "You mean our foolish love-knot? Oh, that. I'm afraid I won't have time for that kind of thing any more. Being Lord of Darkness is apparently rather demanding. Still –" he dropped it casually "– beggars can't be choosers." He paused in the doorway and glanced back, just for a moment. "See you in hell, lover boy," he said, smiling as he pulled the door to.
Then Sebastian was left alone in his terror, with only the candle and his laboured breathing for company. As he desperately tried to work his fingers he saw that the candle was guttering. Soon, if no one came, he would be joining it.

Trying not to think too clearly about what she was doing, or about the probable outcome of her actions, Anya removed a small purse of powders from her belt pouch. She shook out a tiny pinch in the palm of one hand and sniffed it up each nostril in turn: a great and silent sneeze shook her as she mumbled an obscure incantation then stabbed the ball of one index finger with a needle and smeared the resulting drop of blood upon the tip of her nose.
The light began to die away around her, and the night fell unnaturally silent. Her skin grew numb and she noticed a strange scent of smelly flesh about herself; leaning forward, she pawed at the bannister rail on which Sebastian had rested his hand. The smell, skin, stench of the man forced its way into her nostrils like the taste of fresh excrement and the smoke of burning nail clippings. Gasping, Anya straightened up and blindly fumbled her way towards the door. The scent was still present, although faded and diffuse. She traced his way through the hall and out into the alley, bumping into a number of doors and walls along the way: then she stood and smelt the cool night breeze for a long minute.
There he was. The bloodhound magecraft carried a tiny emanation of desire to her nostrils. They flared instinctively; got you! The trail was old, half masked by the presence of other, riper odours, but her fugitive student had come this way for sure. Stumbling like a sleepwalker, Anya followed her nose down the hill, past the drunken revellers and somnambulists, through the twisting rookeries and shambles of the lower city, past the heady stench of the bakers preparing for the next day's business, past the diffuse emanations of a hundred thousand bodies, following the trail of the missing student. All the while, clutching at her guts, was a horrible sense that she knew exactly what was happening; that it would all slide into place like some grand and evil game of chess at any moment and that she would discover that she had missed a move, or her opponent had cheated while her back was turned ...
The city blurred around her, all colour draining into the tired darkness of the dog-watches. Moving through a realm of charcoal shadows and unlit windows, Anya drifted towards her target. Passing the ornamental cherry groves of the wealthy merchants, Anya followed the trail of her victim: past the gibbeted felons too, and the sinister white-walled college of the Inquisition. The odour of the fleeing man led her back up the wall of the valley towards the heights of the University until after an eternity of seeking she found herself outside a building where, according to her nostrils, Sebastian's trail vanished. Rubbing the blindness from her eyes, she mumbled the phrase that banished his unnatural acuity of smell. This must be it. He'll be hiding out here for sure. She rapped sharply on the door; when there was no response she bent and tapped a finger on the lock.
It was dark inside, but for the glimmer of a dying candle-wick. A stench of rich warm rotting belched forth, assaulting her still-sensitive nostrils. Chalk dust floated in the air, dry and ticklish in her throat as she recoiled. "Damn –" her eyes, freed now by the repression of her magic, adjusted to the darkness. Deep in the recess, barely more than a lump on the bed, she saw his hunched form.
Time stood still: she was beside him in an instant, hand flexing for the hilt of a dagger that intellect told her would be useless. The thin rattle of his wheeze was as laboured as that of any dying animal. Only his eyes twitched, rolling. She followed the direction of his gaze to the pot. "Is that it?" Reaching out, she touched his forehead. He was burning hot, as if in a fever's grip: "Or is it a cunning antidote?" Sweat burst out beneath her fingertips. He was trying to form words, but had too l ittle control over his throat to lend the syllables shape and meaning.
"It would be like your friend to leave an emollient close to hand, but out of reach," she said. "Or he may have left the poison itself as a sign, and in case an interfering Invigilator might happen upon the scene. Don't you wonder about that?"
She picked up the jar. "That's what happened, wasn't it?" she asked, not expecting any kind of reply. She sniffed; the ointment within smelled foul, bitter. "There's no telling," she added. "We'll just have to see which it is. A lesson, either way." Digging one index finger into the jar she scooped up a dab of the ointment and pulled down his lower lip; she smeared the finger across the exposed gum then wiped Sebastian's drool from her wrist and the remaining medicine from her digit. "Unreliable bastard," she said, not unkindly. Then she became aware of a rasping sound. His teeth were grinding together.
Five minutes later Sebastian jack-knifed forward and dry-heaved across the rug and the broken pentacle of chalk inscribed in the middle of the floor. Anya grabbed his hair and pulled his head back, to keep him from falling. "Thanks," he whispered.
"My pleasure. Just don't let it get to be a habit." She let go of him, stood up, and walked over to the closed book on the table. After reading the title she turned to stare at him. "You've got a lot of explaining to do," she added. "Don't let me keep you from starting."

Sebastian tried to frown. His face, still partially paralysed, transformed the expression into a deranged grin; when he spoke his voice was soft and hoarse. "He's a swine. No such thing as a quiet life. Didn't even tell me until I walked in on him."
Anya rummaged around on the desk. "Candle. Ah, got it. What was he doing?"
Sebastian's cheek twitched. His left hand performed an involuntary jig on his thigh; a patch of darkness was spreading in his lap. He no longer looked deranged, merely tired and sick and revolted by his own loss of control. "The ritual you mentioned. A conjuration of the three-in-one who took Lord Kerein the other night. He's crazy!"
"Very probably. Why did it take you so long to figure that out?"
"He's not always been like this," Sebastian retreated into self- defense. "He was always the bright spark – no, a flame of intellect – denied his rightful place by the narrow-minded windbaggery of the high table. I can see why he wants it –"
"The urge to control has always followed the urge to understand," Anya said quietly. Sebastian managed to turn his head far enough to look at her, then shut his mouth. Very slowly, he began to wiggle his fingers. "That's why I was sent here. Now do you understand?"
"I understand less than I thought I did," he admitted. Anya held her breath, never having expected such a confession of him. "Zev's motivation is as shallow as his power is great. Why couldn't he do something really big?"
"The banality of evil is proportional to its magnitude," stated Anya. "If you'd been around at the time of the Dark Pretender –" she stopped. "Damn," she said quietly.
"What is it?" asked Sebastian.
"How many has he killed?" she demanded suddenly.
"Only five, to my knowledge. He's executing the Ritual of Mummu. I interrupted his sixth summoning, but doubtless he will improvise." Sebastian raised a hand painfully and brought it down on his thigh, began massaging cramped muscles. "I didn't realise the antidote would be this effective. I thought –"
"Does everything close look blurred?" Anya demanded. "Is your mouth dry and your heart racing, and pins and needles in your flesh?"
"Yes –" he looked puzzled. "Oh, a lesser toxin. I see. But no, it had to be the antidote. If I was his sixth victim, and slain by poison, it would have broken the required pattern."
"No it wouldn't," said Anya. "The Ritual of Mummu permits one random and creative slaying among the seven, so long as the rest are sacrificed by means of their own sensory organs. The symbolism, you see: senses, knowledge, power, and an element of caprice. It makes the daemons sit up and listen. How did he trick you into imbibing the poison?"
"He –" Sebastian tried to stand and failed. "The toad! The worm-brained gutless –"
"Hardly," interrupted Anya. "Those accusations are baseless, and you know it. It takes more guts than you or I know to risk the fires that befall those who take his chosen path. That, or a kind of blindness. But what would you know about those mysteries? You're only a scholar, not a true diabolist. If you were the latter I'd be beholden to kill you where you sit."
"Are you talking about the Upper Mysteries of Noctis or the Five Circles of the Duat?" Sebastian retorted sharply: "or are you referring to the Banal Sufficiencies of the Fundic Assumption?" He tried to stand up again, and succeeded in grabbing hold of the cupboard before his knees gave way beneath him.
Anya snorted. "I should have known. An expert on necromancy, and not even graduated in the school of life yet! You'll go far as a sorcerer and farther as a corpse if you make a habit of speaking of those mysteries in public. Nevertheless, you know the names. Tell me though, from what substance are these nocturnal terrors stitched? To the best of your knowledge."
Sebastian straightened up painfully. "If you mean do they pose a threat to the twenty-four kingdoms right now, the answer is probably not. But in the past – and perhaps in future times – they could be the death of us all. All they need is a leader, a malevolent force to give shape to their undirected evil. And that's what you're sworn to destroy, isn't it?"
"Yes. And what would happen if one should accede to the Dark Throne tomorrow?"
"Oh, they'd follow him to the abyss and back." Sebastian was looking at the chest containing his clothing, so he failed to see the stare that Anya turned on him.
"Tell me what you know of the Dark Lord," she said.
"The Dark Committee, more like," he muttered. He stopped, took a tentative step towards the chest, and frowned. "First there was the Representative of Aharseus, then the Nameless Maurauder, then the Gang of Five and the last, the Midnight One who fought our parents in the last Last Battle To End Last Battles forty years ago. Meantime, while none of them is physically present the mission of their sponsors is maintained in this world by those conspiracies I mentioned. Not to mention free-lance lunatics, such as my late beloved. Do you want a detailed description of them, or can I leave it by saying that more illuminated scholars than I generally agree them to be mad, bad, and dangerous to talk too loudly about?"
"You can," said Anya, sounding mildly amused. He reached the chest and began to rummage around in it. "Would you rather I turned my back?" she asked.
"Don't patronise me!" Sebastian snapped. He began to ease out of his soiled breeches, a look of extreme distaste on his face. "If you want a slave, go down the market tomorrow! What more do you want of me anyway?"
"Your cooperation," she said quietly. "And your understanding. I assume you felt strongly for Zevon?"
"Felt?" He looked puzzled for an instant, then a strange expression came to his face. "Oh, I felt strongly," he said. "I want none of this! Just show me a way out. I never asked for adventure. Just a quiet corner and a comfortable life free from the curses of responsibility and boredom."
"Didn't you ever aspire to something ... more?" she asked. "A higher cause, a positive good?"
Sebastian toweled at his crotch with a filthy rag, then pulled a pair of much-patched trousers from the chest and began to tug them on. "Don't make me vomit," he muttered. "Join you? You've got me over a barrel – a small matter of a most puissant oath – for tonight, only. But that's all. What more do you expect me to do? Kiss your ass? You're riding your ideals along a wide road that ends at the gates of Castle Death, woman. Don't expect me to join you on it." He tied a belt around his waist, then bent over and picked something up; a small ivory heart. "I've ridden down enough blind alleys already," he said bitterly.