by Jack Vance
Twelve bobbins: a discolored spot appeared on the sagging cheek, and Blikdak quivered in uneasiness.
Twenty bobbins: the spot spread across Blikdak's visage, across the slanted fore-dome, and his mouth hung lax; he hissed and fretted.
Thirty bobbins: Blikdak's head seemed stale and putrid; the gunmetal sheen had become an angry maroon, the eyes bulged, the mouth hung open, the tongue lolled limp.
Fifty bobbins: Blikdak collapsed. His dome lowered against the febrile mouth; his eyes shone like feverish coals.
Sixty bobbins: Blikdak was no more.
And with the dissolution of Blikdak so dissolved Jeldred, the demonland created for the housing of evil. The breach in the wall gave on barren rock, unbroken and rigid.
And in the Mechanismus sixty shining bobbins lay stacked neat; the evil so disorganized glowed with purity and iridescence.
Kerlin fell back against the wall. "I expire; my time has come. I have guarded well the Museum; together we have won it away from Blikdak ... Attend me now. Into your hands I pass the curacy; now the Museum is your charge to guard and preserve."
"For what end?" asked Shierl. "Earth expires, almost as you ... Wherefore knowledge?"
"More now than ever," gasped Kerlin. "Attend: the stars are bright, the stars are fair; the banks know blessed magic to fleet you to youthful climes. Now—I go. I die."
"Wait!" cried Guyal. Wait, I beseech!"
"Why wait?" whispered Kerlin. "The way to peace is on me; you call me back?"
"How do I extract from the banks?"
"The key to the index is in my chambers, the index of my life ..." And Kerlin died.
Guyal and Shierl climbed to the upper ways and stood outside the portal on the ancient flagged floor. It was night; the marble shone faintly underfoot, the broken columns loomed on the sky.
Across the plain the yellow lights of Saponce shone warm through the trees; above in the sky shone the stars.
Guyal said to Shierl, "There is your home; there is Saponce. Do you wish to return?"
She shook her head. 'Together we have looked through the eyes of knowledge. We have seen old Thorsingol, and the Sherit Empire before it, and Golwan Andra before that and the Forty Kades even before. We have seen the warlike green-men, and the knowledgeable Pharials and the Clambs who departed Earth for the stars, as did the Merioneth before them and the Gray Sorcerers still earlier. We have seen oceans rise and fall, the mountains crust up, peak and melt in the beat of rain; we have looked on the sun when it glowed hot and full and yellow ... No, Guyal, there is no place for me at Saponce . .."
Guyal, leaning back on the weathered pillar, looked up to the stars. "Knowledge is ours, Shierl—all of knowing to our call. And what shall we do?"
Together they looked up to the white stars.
"What shall we do ..."
FB2 document info
Document ID: ffb4c110-6c27-1014-9453-91d7206a3831
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 12.06.2008
Created using: Text2FB2 software
Document authors :
traum
About
This file was generated by Lord KiRon's FB2EPUB converter version 1.1.5.0.
(This book might contain copyrighted material, author of the converter bears no responsibility for it's usage)
Этот файл создан при помощи конвертера FB2EPUB версии 1.1.5.0 написанного Lord KiRon.
(Эта книга может содержать материал который защищен авторским правом, автор конвертера не несет ответственности за его использование)
http://www.fb2epub.net
https://code.google.com/p/fb2epub/
