[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
the ground in what looked like a pool of blood. I went to her side and knelt
by her, and she began to mutter something in a bleary way about being
attacked and robbed.
Can you sit up? I said, slipping my arm around her back. It ll be
easier for me to carry you if
Then I felt a pair of hands grasping me by the shoulders, not gently,
and something hard and sharp pressing against the middle of my back, and
the supposedly bloodied and battered woman I was trying to help rolled
deftly out of my grasp and stepped back without any trouble at all, and a
disagreeable rasping voice at my left ear said quietly, Just give us your
wristwatch and your wallet and you won t get hurt at all.
I was puzzled for a moment. I was still far from accus-tomed to
human ways, and it was often necessary to peer into my host-mind to find
out what was going on.
Quickly, though, I came to understand that there was such a thing as
crime in your world, and that some of it was being tried on me at this very
moment. The woman in the alley was bait; I was the prey; two accomplices
had been lurking in the shadows.
I suppose I could have given them my wristwatch and wallet without
protest, and let them make their escape. What did a wristwatch mean to
me? And I could create a thousand new wallets just like the one I had,
which I had created also, after all. As for harm, they could do me none with
their little knife. I had survived even the lightnings of Zeus. Perhaps I should
have reacted with godlike indif-ference to their little attempt at mugging me.
But it had been a long dreary discouraging day, and a hot one, too.
The air was close and vile-smelling. Maybe I had allowed my host body to
drink a little too much retsina with dinner. In any event, godlike indifference
was not what I displayed just then. Mortal petulance was more like the
appropriate term.
Behold me, fools, I said.
I let them see my true form.
There I was before them, sky-high, mountainous, a hor-rendous
gigantic figure of many heads and fiery eyes and thick black bristles and
writhing viperish excrescences, a sight to make even gods quail.
Of course, inasmuch as I m taller than the tallest tree and
appropriately wide, manifesting myself in such a nar-row alleyway might
have posed certain operational prob-lems. But I have access to
dimensions unavailable to you, and I made room for myself there with the
proper interpenetrational configurations. Not that it mattered to the three
muggers, because they were dead of shock the moment they saw me
towering before them.
I raised my foot and ground them into the pavement like noxious
vermin.
Then, in the twinkling of an eye, I was once more a slender, lithe
middle-aged American tourist with thinning hair and a kindly smile, and there
were three dark spots on the pavement of the alley, and that was that.
It was, I admit, overkill.
But I had had a trying day. In fact, I had had a trying fifty thousand
years.
* * * *
Athens had been so hellish that it put me in mind of the authentic kingdom
of Hades, and so that was my next destination, for I thought I might get
some answers down there among the dead. It wasn t much of a trip, not for
me. I opened a vortex for myself and slipped downward and there right in
front of me were the black poplars and willows of the Grove of
Persephone, with Hades Gate just behind it.
Cerberus? I called. Here, doggy doggy doggy! Good Cerberus!
Come say hello to Daddy!
Where was he, my lovely dog, my own sweet child? For I myself was
the progenitor of the three-headed guard-ian of the gate of Hell, by virtue of
my mating with my sister, Tartarus and Gaea s scaly-tailed daughter
Echidna. We made the Harpies too, did Echidna and I, and the Chimera,
and Scylla, and also the Hydra, a whole gaudy gorgeous brood of
monsters. But of all my children I was always most fond of Cerberus, for his
loyalty. How I loved to see him come running toward me when I called!
What pleasure I took in his serpent-bristled body, his voice like clanging
bronze, his slavering jaws that dripped black venom!
This day, though, I wandered dogless through the Un-derworld. There
was no sign of Cerberus anywhere, no trace even of his glittering turds.
Hell s Gate stood open and the place was deserted. I saw nothing of
Charon the boatman of the Styx, nor Hades and Queen Persephone, nor [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl chiara76.opx.pl
the ground in what looked like a pool of blood. I went to her side and knelt
by her, and she began to mutter something in a bleary way about being
attacked and robbed.
Can you sit up? I said, slipping my arm around her back. It ll be
easier for me to carry you if
Then I felt a pair of hands grasping me by the shoulders, not gently,
and something hard and sharp pressing against the middle of my back, and
the supposedly bloodied and battered woman I was trying to help rolled
deftly out of my grasp and stepped back without any trouble at all, and a
disagreeable rasping voice at my left ear said quietly, Just give us your
wristwatch and your wallet and you won t get hurt at all.
I was puzzled for a moment. I was still far from accus-tomed to
human ways, and it was often necessary to peer into my host-mind to find
out what was going on.
Quickly, though, I came to understand that there was such a thing as
crime in your world, and that some of it was being tried on me at this very
moment. The woman in the alley was bait; I was the prey; two accomplices
had been lurking in the shadows.
I suppose I could have given them my wristwatch and wallet without
protest, and let them make their escape. What did a wristwatch mean to
me? And I could create a thousand new wallets just like the one I had,
which I had created also, after all. As for harm, they could do me none with
their little knife. I had survived even the lightnings of Zeus. Perhaps I should
have reacted with godlike indif-ference to their little attempt at mugging me.
But it had been a long dreary discouraging day, and a hot one, too.
The air was close and vile-smelling. Maybe I had allowed my host body to
drink a little too much retsina with dinner. In any event, godlike indifference
was not what I displayed just then. Mortal petulance was more like the
appropriate term.
Behold me, fools, I said.
I let them see my true form.
There I was before them, sky-high, mountainous, a hor-rendous
gigantic figure of many heads and fiery eyes and thick black bristles and
writhing viperish excrescences, a sight to make even gods quail.
Of course, inasmuch as I m taller than the tallest tree and
appropriately wide, manifesting myself in such a nar-row alleyway might
have posed certain operational prob-lems. But I have access to
dimensions unavailable to you, and I made room for myself there with the
proper interpenetrational configurations. Not that it mattered to the three
muggers, because they were dead of shock the moment they saw me
towering before them.
I raised my foot and ground them into the pavement like noxious
vermin.
Then, in the twinkling of an eye, I was once more a slender, lithe
middle-aged American tourist with thinning hair and a kindly smile, and there
were three dark spots on the pavement of the alley, and that was that.
It was, I admit, overkill.
But I had had a trying day. In fact, I had had a trying fifty thousand
years.
* * * *
Athens had been so hellish that it put me in mind of the authentic kingdom
of Hades, and so that was my next destination, for I thought I might get
some answers down there among the dead. It wasn t much of a trip, not for
me. I opened a vortex for myself and slipped downward and there right in
front of me were the black poplars and willows of the Grove of
Persephone, with Hades Gate just behind it.
Cerberus? I called. Here, doggy doggy doggy! Good Cerberus!
Come say hello to Daddy!
Where was he, my lovely dog, my own sweet child? For I myself was
the progenitor of the three-headed guard-ian of the gate of Hell, by virtue of
my mating with my sister, Tartarus and Gaea s scaly-tailed daughter
Echidna. We made the Harpies too, did Echidna and I, and the Chimera,
and Scylla, and also the Hydra, a whole gaudy gorgeous brood of
monsters. But of all my children I was always most fond of Cerberus, for his
loyalty. How I loved to see him come running toward me when I called!
What pleasure I took in his serpent-bristled body, his voice like clanging
bronze, his slavering jaws that dripped black venom!
This day, though, I wandered dogless through the Un-derworld. There
was no sign of Cerberus anywhere, no trace even of his glittering turds.
Hell s Gate stood open and the place was deserted. I saw nothing of
Charon the boatman of the Styx, nor Hades and Queen Persephone, nor [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]