（外文电子版资料）Tanith Lee - Venus Rising On Water.pdf

The Master of Rampling Gate Venus Rising on Water Tanith Lee Like long hair, the weeds grew down the façades of the city, over ornate shutters and leaden doors, into the pale green silk of the lagoon. Ten hundred ancient mansions crumbled. Sometimes a flight of birds was exhaled from their crowded mass, or a thread of smoke was drawn up into the sky. Day long a mist bloomed on the water, out of which distant towers rose like snakes of deadly gold. Once in every month a boat passed, carving the lagoon that had seemed thickened beyond movement. Far less often, here and there, a shutter cracked open and the weed hair broke, a stream of plaster fell like a blue ray. Then, some faint face peered out, probably eclipsed by a mask. It was a place of veils. Visitors were occasional. They examined the decaying mosaics, loitered in the caves of arches, hunted phantoms through marble tunnels. And under the streets they took photographs: one bald flash scouring a century off the catacombs and sewers, the lacework coffins, the handful of albino rats perched up on them, caught in a second like ghosts of white hearts, mute, with waiting eyes. The dawn star shone in the lagoon on a tail of jagged silver. The sun rose. There was an unsuitable noise — the boat was coming. There, said the girl on the deck of the boat, stop there, please. The boat sidled to a pavement and stood on the water, trembling and murmuring. The girl left it with a clumsy gracefulness, and poised at the edge of the city with her single bag, cheerful and undaunted file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...Tanith%20Lee%20-%20Venus%20Rising%20On%20Water.html (1 of 34)24-2-2006 20:27:01 T