[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
."Gregorian is the only perfectly evil man I've ever met," Undine said.Her face was suddenly cold, asharsh and stern as Caliban's rocky plains."He is smarter than you, stronger than you, more handsomethan you, and far more determined.He has received an offplanet education that's at least the equal ofyours, and he's a master of occult arts in which you do not believe.You are insane to challenge him.Youare a dead man, and you do not know it.""He'd certainly like me to believe that.""All men are fools," Undine said.Her tone was light again, her look disdainful."Have you noticedthat? Were I in your position, I'd arrange to contract an illness or develop a moral qualm about the natureof my assignment.It might be a black mark on my record, but I would outlive the embarrassment.""When did you meet Gregorian?" The bureaucrat dumped more dirt in the drum, raising mad swirls ofphosphorescence."That was the year I spent as a ghost.I was a foundling.Madame Campaspe bought me the year Ifirst bled -- she'd seen promise in me.I was a shy, spooky little thing to begin with, and as part of mytraining, she imposed the discipline of invisibility.I kept to the shadows, never speaking.I slept at oddtimes and in odd places.When I was hungry, I crept into the homes of strangers and stole my food fromtheir cupboards and plates.If I was seen, Madame beat me -- but after the first month, I was neverseen.""That sounds horribly cruel.""You are in no position to judge.I was watching from the heart of an ornamental umbrella bush themorning that Madame tripped over Gregorian.Literally tripped -- he was sleeping on her doorstep.Ilearned later that he'd walked two days solid without food, he was so anxious to become her apprentice,and then collapsed on arrival.What a squawk! She kicked him into the road, and I think he broke a rib.Iclimbed to the roof of her potting shed and saw her harass him out of sight.Quick as a thought, I slid tothe ground, stole a turnip for my breakfast from the garden, and was gone.Thinking that was the last ofthat ragged young man."But the next day he was back."She chased him away.He came back.Every morning it was the same.He scrounged for food duringthe day -- I do not know if he stole, worked, or sold his body, for I was not quite interested enough tofollow him, though by now I could walk down the center of Rose Hall in broad daylight without beingnoticed.But every morning he was back on the stoop."After a week, she changed tactics.When she found him on the doorsill, she would throw him somesmall change.The little ceramic coins that were current then, the orange and green and blue chips --they've gone back to silver since.She treated him as a beggar.Because, you see, he held himself veryproudly, and there was a dirty gray trace of lace on the cuffs of his rags; she could tell he washaut-bourgeois.She thought to shame him away.But he'd snatch the coins from the air, pop them into hismouth, and very ostentatiously swallow.Madame pretended not to notice.From the attic window of thebeautician's shop across the street, I watched this duel between her stiff back and his nasty grin."A few days later I noticed a horrible smell by the stoop, and discovered that he'd been shittingbehind the topiary bushes.There was a foul heap of his leavings studded with the ceramic coins she hadbeen throwing him.So that finally Madame had no choice but to take him in.""Why?""Because he had the spirit of a magician.He had that unswerving, unbreakable will that the spiritualarts require, and the sudden instinct for the unexpected.Madame could no more ignore him than apainter could ignore a child with perfect visualization.Such a gift only comes along once in a generation."She tested him.You are familiar with the device used to give the experience of food to surrogates?""The line-feed.Yes, very familiar.""She had one mounted in a box.An offworld lover had wired it up for her.It was stripped down sothat she could feed raw current into the nerve inductor.Do you know how it would feel to hold yourhand within its field?""It would hurt like hell." "Like hell indeed." She smiled sadly, and he could see the ghost of the schoolgirl behind her smile."Iremember that box so well.A plain thing with a hole in one side and a rheostat on top calibrated fromone to seven.If I close my eyes, I can see it, and her long fingers atop it, and that damned water rat ofhers perched on her shoulder.She warned me that if I took my hand out of the box before she told meto, she would kill me.It was the most terrifying moment of my life.Even Gregorian, ingenious though hewas, could never top that."Undine skimmed more slop off the water.Her voice was soft and reminiscent."When she moved thedial off zero, it felt like an animal had bitten right through my flesh.Then slowly, oh, excruciatingly slowly,she moved it up to one, and that was an order of magnitude worse.What agonies I suffered! I was cryingaloud by three, and blind with pain by four.At five I yanked out my hand, determined to die."She gave me a hug then, and told me she had never seen anyone do as well, that I would somedaybe more famous than she."For a long moment the witch was silent."I slipped through an open window and into the next room when Madame led Gregorian in.Moresilent than a wraith, I drifted from shadow to shadow, leaving not the echo of a footfall behind.I left thedoor open one fingerspan, so I could peer from darkness into light.Then I retreated to a closet within thesecond room.Through the crack of the door I could see their distant reflections in the mantel mirror.Gregorian was skinny, barefoot, and dirty.I remember thinking how insignificant he looked alongsideMadame Campaspe's aristocratic figure."Madame sat him down by the hearth.A murmur of voices as she explained the rules.She drew awaythe fringed cloth that covered the box.Cocky as a crow, he placed his hand within."I saw his face jump -- that involuntary hop of the muscles -- when she first touched the dial.I sawhow pale he grew, how he trembled as she increased the pain.He did not take his eyes off of her."She took him all the way up to seven.His body was rigid, his fingers spasming, but his head heldstraight and unforgiving, and he had not blinked.I think even Madame feared him then.Sitting there in hisragged clothes, his eyes burning like lanterns."I was so still my heart did not beat.My immobility was perfect.But somehow Gregorian knew.Hishead rose, and he looked in the mirror.He saw me, and he grinned.A horrible grin, a skull's grin, but agrin nonetheless.And I knew then that try though she might, she would never break him.""I'm done now." She set a piece of cheesecloth over the tray, and the bureaucrat followed her backinside, slim crescent moons winking at him one after the other from beneath the blanket."What's it good for?" he asked when they were both seated on the bed again, facing each othercross-legged, her vagina a sweet dark shadow within the protective circle of her legs."The powder youmake from dogs.""We mix it with ink and inject it beneath the skin." She rotated a hand before his face; in the shadowsit was colorless, unmarked."Each design represents a ritual the woman of power is entitled to perform,and every ritual represents knowledge, and all knowledge properly applied is control
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Tematy
IndexSean Michael Three Wishes 2 Three More Wishes
Sean Michael Three Wishes 1 Three Wishes
16. Medstar II, Uzdrowicielka Jedi (Michael Reaves, Steve Perry) 20 lat przed Era Powstania Imperium
72. Trylogia Kryzys Czarnej Floty 1 Michael P. Kube McDowell Przed Burza upload by herbatniq
Lesser Kan and Li Inner Sexual Alchemy by Michael Winn Introductory Talks (2001)
46.Trylogia Kryzys Czarnej Floty t.1 Przed Burzš Michael P. Kube McDowell
Gribbin John & White Michael W poszukiwaniu kota Schrödingera realizm w fizyce kwantowej
Michael Wintle, Menno Spiering European Identity and the Second World War (2011)
Kraszewski Józef Ignacy Kraków za Łoktka
Musso Guillaume Papierowa dziewczyna