[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
in the door, a lot of ratty little commoners came in from somewhere and began
making the most insulting remarks about my head. As if it were something
stuffed and hanging on the wall! You d have lost your temper, too! I wanted to
chastise them. That s why I ran inside.
But what made you jump out the window?
The house, I tell you! I didn t see the commoners anywhere. But it all began
to heave and shake. The floor lifted under my feet and knocked me against a
wall. The wall bounced me to another. Then the floor got me again. Before I
knew it I was upstairs, I got a last bang, and a window opened in the wall
just before I hit it. I couldn t help myself!
Chulian did not want to listen. It was all too disturbing and confusing. Why
did the Hierarchy want to do things like this? Why, the commoners had laughed!
The deacons in the crowd had shut them up pretty quickly. But they had
laughed.
Cousin Deth strolled up, followed by priests.
And now that your reverences have edified the mob with this little display,
he was saying, perhaps we can carry through the original instructions given
us by the archpriest Goniface.
Given you, you mean! one of the young priests retorted hotly. We all had
our orders from
Sanctuary Control Center and the Apex Council. We were told to proceed in the
usual manner.
Deth surveyed him coolly. But you see, your reverence, this is not the usual
haunted house, set up for you to knock down. This, I fear, is a kind of war,
your reverences. And perhaps war is something that only a contemptible and
misbegotten deacon knows how to dirty his hands with.
Unlimber the zeroentropy spray, Brother Sawl!
A long, light, slim projector was attached to the contamer which had
originally been carried behind Deth. Brother Chulian felt the chill strike
through his inviolability field, and he edged away, shivering.
A brief medium spray over the whole building, Deth was directing. Enough to
stiffen the outer walls. Then full intensity straight ahead. We ll make our
own doorway. Ready? Very well.
Brother Jafid, speak your piece!
Brother Jafid s voice, mightily amplified, was unpleasantly sweet.
Let the Waters of Perfect Peace infold this place. Let them lull its unrest.
Let them draw from it all motion and all evil.
With a faint screaming sound of almost inaudibly high pitch, suggestive of ice
scraping ice, the zeroentropy projector opened up. Snowflakes and flakes of
frozen air traced the widening path of its spray. The haunted house was
Page 31
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
engulfed in a swirling miniature snowstorm. Back from it rebounded a blast of
arctic cold. The crowd, tight-packed as it was, seemed to draw back still
farther, huddling.
The path of the spray narrowed, concentrated around the doorway, crusted it
frostily. Then the faint screaming ceased.
A priest walked up to that gleaming, icily opalescent patch and rapped it
smartly with his rod of wrath. The hyperfrozen materials shattered, leaving a
large, jagged-edged hole. The priest ran his rod around the edge, knocking
down splinters, which tinkled like icicles as they fell.
Now we can proceed, said Deth sharply. Projector and rods first. Keep
together. Watch for traps. Wary of doors. Listen for my orders. If the young
witch is found, inform me at once.
Then, just as they were starting, he noticed Brother Chulian standing to one
side.
Oh, your reverence, I had almost forgotten! This was the very thing you
wanted so much to see.
You shall have the place of honor. Lead the way, Brother Chulian!
But
We are waiting for you, Brother Chulian. All Megatheopolis is waiting.
Reluctantly Chulian picked his way through the frostbitten weeds. Cold pushed
upward around his ankles through the lower orifice in his inviolability field,
urging his knees to tremble.
Unwillingly he studied the house, whose frosted walls were already beginning
to steam in the hot sunlight. Even in its present dilapidated state, the
haunted house had a certain beauty of proportion. But its potential fluidity
was very repugnant to one used to the ponderous, rigid plastics of Hierarchic
architecture.
Somewhere he had read of the adjustable houses of the Golden Age, with elastic
walls made tense by force fields, akin in structure and motivation to the
mobile figure of the Great God on the
Cathedral.
But the idea did not appeal to Brother Chulian. To a considerable degree he
shared the commoners fear and awe of the Golden Age and its proud
inhabitants. They must have been as unpredictable and self-willed as their
houses rebellious and critical like Brother Jarles, brazen and mocking like
that witch woman.
Chulian believed that it would have been extremely unpleasant to have lived in
the Golden Age, with your own free individuality continually threatened by
that of everyone else and with no
Hierarchy to plan your life and guarantee your security.
He was very close to the ice-rimmed opening. What if the ancient dwellers had
come alive with the house? Silly thought. And yet
If the interior shows signs of movement, we ll be giving it a light entropy
spray to freeze it, your reverence, he heard Deth call to him. You d better
step lively if you don t want your inviolability field to go into stasis, your
reverence.
Hurriedly Chulian entered the haunted house and ducked through the first
interior doorway he caught sight of. It would be just like the mean little
deacon to carry out his threat and the thought of being held helpless in a
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]