"Lawrence Watt-Evans - Dus 1 - Lure Of The Basilisk" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

out, swing the casement open-it was well-oiled and swung freely without
squeaking-and hook his legs over the sill. Then he was inside, sliding the
rope carefully back over his shoulder so that it would not slap noisily
against the wall. He regretted the necessity of leaving it dangling there, but
with any sort of luck at all it would remain unnoticed until morning. Garth
hoped to be out of the palace, his task done, by morning.
The room he found himself in was an unused bedchamber; a vast canopied
four-poster occupied most of one wall, while directly opposite stood an
ornately carved wardrobe and an elegant full-length mirror. Tapestries covered
all the walls, divided here and there to allow draperied doorways. There was
only the single window.
Moving carefully around the room counterclockwise, Garth peered
carefully through each doorway. The first led to an indoor privy with a
complex array of plumbing, which Garth would have liked to study further but
could not by the feeble light available. He considered lighting his torch, but
decided it was an unnecessary risk. The second door revealed a storeroom of
some sort; the third a hallway; the fourth, which had a line of light
surrounding the rectangle of drapery, Garth bypassed temporarily; and the
fifth and last led to what was apparently a dressing room, with racks of
women's dresses along either side. Returning to the fourth doorway, Garth used
all his stealth and caution in peering past the velvet curtain. It took his
eyes a few seconds to adjust to the light.
He was looking at another room of approximately the same dimensions as
the bedchamber, furnished with a desk and an assortment of chairs and
couches-a sitting room, apparently. It was not lit itself, but on the far side
a wooden double door stood wide open, revealing many-paned glass doors through
which torchlight poured; they apparently opened onto one of the courtyard
galleries.
He had two choices: the darkened hallway or the torchlit gallery. The
decision was simple; having rejected the courtyard route once, he saw no
reason to risk it now.
Cautiously, he slipped past the velvet drape into the darkness of the
hallway beyond. He could see almost nothing of his surroundings. There were
neither windows nor skylights; the faint trace of light, far too little to be
of any use, seeped in from the rooms and chambers to either side. As best the
overman could determine, the hallway extended for perhaps a dozen yards from
where he stood. At least two other rooms opened off it, detectable from the
pale-gray glimmer in the blackness made by their doorways. Inching almost
soundlessly, his feet cushioned by rich carpet, Garth moved down the corridor.
When he had passed the last pale seepings of light and worked his way a
yard or two into the stygian dark beyond, his forward foot suddenly missed the
floor; he was at the head of a staircase. Finding his way entirely by feel
now, he moved carefully, step-by-step down the spiral until he emerged, long
minutes later, on the ground floor. He had bypassed the intermediate level
without hesitation, and only regretted that the stairs did not continue into
the cellars, or better still the crypts themselves.
The final step deposited him on soft carpeting again; by the feel of the
air and the tiny echoes of the faint rattling of his armor and weapons, he
knew himself to be in a large chamber. Although it did not yet seem the proper
time to ignite the torch, he decided that it would be appropriate to risk a