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Ameryka?skie wied?minki 3
Par? drobiazgów ze ?wiata cyklu Anita Blake Vampire Hunter:
1. WJ:
Mistle ?y?a jeszcze, ale oczy mia?a ju? zamglone, zeszklone, rybie.
(...)
Siedzia? tylko i gapi? si? na mnie bez s?owa. Oczy mia? takie... rybie
jakie?. Bez brwi, bez rz?s... Takie wodniste kulki, w ka?dej zatopione
czarne j?dro. Wpija? we mnie te oczy i milcza?. Przerazi? mnie tym
bardziej, ni? biciem. Nie wiedzia?am, co kombinuje.
(...)
Kilka dni pó?niej spotkali?my si?, pomy?la?a. Ja i Bonhart. Twarz? w
twarz. Patrzy?am w jego nieludzkie, rybie oczy, o tym jednym my?l?c - jak
t? dziewczyn? bi?. I w my?li mu zajrza?am... Na moment. A by?o to tak,
jakbym g?ow? wsadzi?a w rozgrzeban? mogi??...
PJ:
Bonhart jak duch wychyn?? z niszy i uderzy? j? pi??ci? w twarz. Zatoczy?a
si?, a on skoczy? na ni? jak jastrz?b, chwyci? za gard?o, przedramieniem
przydusi? do muru. Ciri spojrza?a w jego rybie oczy i poczu?a, jak serce
zje?d?a jej w dó?, do podbrzusza.
(...)
Ciri skoczy?a. Spad?a obok niego w przykl?k. Mi?kko jak kot. Widzia?a, jak
jego rybie oczy rozszerzy?y si? ze strachu.
Tom 3. Circus of the Damned:
The pale eyes followed my hand, flat and dead as day-old fish.
2. CsKCsZ:
Villentretenmerth, wci?? pod postaci? rycerza Borcha Trzy Kawki,
wyja?niaj?c
doplerowi spokojnie, ?e zmiennokszta?tno?? jest przywilejem,
który zobowi?zuje, a zobowi?zuje mi?dzy innymi do
przybierania postaci ogólnie uwa?anych za przyzwoite i akceptowane w
towarzystwie, i ?e to nic innego jak zwyk?a grzeczno?? w
stosunku do gospodarza. Doppler zarzuci? Villentretenmerthowi rasizm,
szowinizm i brak elementarnego poj?cia o przedmiocie dyskusji.
Ura?ony Villentretenmerth przybra? wi?c na chwil? posta?
smoka, niszcz?c troch? mebli i doprowadzaj?c do ogólnej
paniki.
Tom 4. Lunatic Cafe
Dolph walked carefully down the snow-covered slope. Didn't want to repeat
my performance, I guess. You know what it is?
Shapeshifter, I said.
Explain. He had his trusty notebook out, pen poised. I explained what
I'd found. What I thought.
We haven't had a rogue lycanthrope since the squad was formed. Are you
sure about this?
I'm sure it's a shapeshifter, but I didn't say it was a lycanthrope.
Explain.
All lycanthropes are shapeshifters by definition, but not all
shapeshifters are lycanthropes. Lycanthropy is a disease that you catch
from surviving an attack or getting a bad batch of lycanthropy vaccine.
He looked at me. You can get it from the vaccine?
It happens.
Good to know, he said. How can you be a shapeshifter and not a
lycanthrope?
Most often an inherited condition. The family guardian dog, beast, giant
cat. Mostly European. One person a generation has the genes and changes.
Is that tied to the moon like normal lycanthropy?
No. A family guardian comes out when the family needs it. War, or some
kind of physical danger. There are swanmanes. They are tied to the moon,
but it's still an inherited condition.
That it?
You can be cursed, but that's really rare.
Why?
I shrugged. You've got to find a witch or something with magic powerful
enough to curse somebody with shapeshifting. I've read spells for personal
shapeshifting. The potions are so full of narcotics that you might believe
you were an animal. You might also believe you were the Chrysler building,
or you might just die. Real spells for it are a lot more complex and
usually require a human sacrifice. A curse is a step up from a spell. It's
not really a spell at all.
I tried to think how to explain it. In this area Dolph was the civvie. He
didn't know the lingo. A curse is like the ultimate act of will. You just
gather all your power, magic, whatever, and focus it on one person. You
will them to be cursed. You always do it in person, so they know it's been
done. Some theories think it takes the victim's belief to make a curse
work. I'm not sure I buy that.
Are witches the only people that can curse people?
Occasionally somebody will run afoul of a fairy. One of the old Daoine
sidhe, but you'd have to be in Europe for that. England, Ireland, parts of
Scotland. In this country it'd be a witch.
So a shapeshifter, but we don't know what kind or even how they got to be
a shapeshifter.
Not from a few marks and tracks, no.
If you saw the shifter face-to-face could you tell what kind they were?
What animal? I asked.
Yeah.
Nope.
Could you tell if they'd been cursed or if it was a disease?
Nope.
He just looked at me. You're usually better than this.
I'm better with the dead, Dolph. Give me a vamp or a zombie and I'll tell
you their Social Security number. Some of that is natural talent, but a
lot of it is practice. I haven't had as much experience with
shapeshifters.
What questions can you answer?
Ask and find out, I said.
You think this is a brand-new shapeshifter? Dolph asked.
Nope.
Why not?
The first time you change on the night of the full moon. It's too early
for a brand-new shifter. But it could be a second, or third month, but?
But what?
If this is still a lycanthrope that can't control itself, that kills
indiscriminately, it should still be here. Hunting us.
Dolph glanced out into the darkness. He held his notebook and pen in one
hand, right hand free for his gun. The movement was automatic.
Don't sweat it, Dolph. If it was going to eat more people, it would have
taken Williams or the deputies.
His gaze searched the darkness, then came back to me. So the shapeshifter
could control itself?
I think so.
Then why kill the man?
I shrugged. Why does anyone kill? Lust, greed, rage.
The animal form used as a murder weapon then, Dolph said.
Yeah.
Is it still in animal form?
This was done by a half-and-half form, sort of a wolfman.
A werewolf.
I shook my head. I can't tell what sort of animal it is. The wolfman was
just an example. It could be any sort of mammal.
Just a mammal?
These wounds, yeah. I know there are avian weres, but they don't do this
sort of damage.
So werebirds?
Yeah, but that's not what did this.
Ogólnie w ?wiecie Anity Blake wyst?puje mnóstwo zmiennokszta?tnych:
szczuro?aki, wilko?aki, lamparto?aki, tygryso?aki, lwo?aki (?),
nied?wiedzio?aki, liso?ak, pso?aki, kobro?aki, anakondo?aki, hieno?aki,
swanmanes (okre?lane zbiorowo jako lycantropes), lamia i naga, a tak?e
zmiennokszta?tna czarownica. Lamia i naga s? nie?miertelnymi istotami
maj?cymi i kszta?t cz?owieka, i w??a lub w??ocz?owieka. Poza swanmanes i
pso?akami pozosta?e ?aki powstaj? z regu?y w wyniku zaka?enia krwi, z
regu?y po ataku - ugryzieniu lub podrapaniu. S? te? panwere -
wszystko?aki , które maj? wi?cej ni? jedn? posta? zwierz?c?. S? dwa i
drugim okazuje si? by? sama Anita Blake po zabiciu pierwszego (mimi, ?e
nie zmienia kszta?tu). Normalnie zaka?enie wirusem jednej
zmiennokszta?tno?ci uodparnia na inne - st?d idea szczepionek i armia
wilko?aków stworzonych przez parti? niedobrej szczepionki. Równie? wirus
odpowiedzialny za wampiryzm nie toleruje wirusów likantropii - ani wampir
nie mo?e zosta? likantropem, ani likantrop - wampirem. Nie zawsze tak by?o
- pewna (ma?a) liczba najstarszych wampirów to jednocze?nie likantropy.
Najstarszy zabity przez Anit? wampir nie by? homo sapiens, a homo erectus
- co najmniej milion lat. BTW, jedn? z wyj?tkowych umiej?tno?ci Anity jest
ocenianie wieku wampira z którym rozmawia z dok?adno?ci? do dziesi?ciu lat
dla tych do tysi?ca lat i do pi?dziesi?ciu lat dla starszych. Ca?a
dok?adno?? posz?a w diab?y pod ci??arem miliona lat.
S?owo witch (i kobieta, i m??czyzna) ma dwa znaczenia: zawód/uzdolnienie
do pewnego rodzaju magii oraz kap?an/kap?anka Wicca.
Tom 15. The Harlequin:
Another interesting sideline of wearing this much of my chest in full view
was that some of my scars were on display. I'd been more worried about my
modesty than about the scars. Vampire.
I thought it was a shapeshifter bite.
Nope, vampire. I showed him my arms with all their scars. Most of these
are from vampires. I touched one on my left arm: claw marks. This one
was a shapeshifted witch, which means her shapeshifting was a spell and
not a disease.
I didn't know there was a difference.
Well, the spell isn't contagious, and it's not tied to the full moon at
all. In fact, strong emotions don't cause you to shift, or any of that.
You don't shift until you put on the item, usually a fur belt or
something.
Do you have any scars from shapeshifters?
Yes.
Taki item powstaje ze skóry likantropa, którego ?mier? jest cz??ci?
zakl?cia.
Obyczaje i struktury spo?eczne ró?nych likantropów s? istotne w cyklu.
Anita Blake zostaje lupa (wilczyc?-matk?) stada (pack) wilko?aków, oraz
Nimir-Ra (królow?) grupy (pard) lamparto?aków. Zapewne wkrótce zostanie
te? Regin? stada (pride) lwo?aków.
3. Obok mayhe?skiej lamii, która jest ro?lin? i której uprawa jest
zakazana, lamia - potwór wyst?puje u ASa tylko jako nazwa.
Tom 3. Circus of the Damned:
A woman walked up the hallway towards us, coming from deeper in the house.
She swayed on bare feet, toenails painted a bright scarlet that matched
her fingernails. The belted dress she wore matched the nail polish. Her
legs were long and pale, but it was that kind of paleness that promised to
tan if it ever got enough sunlight. Her hair fell past her waist, thick
and absolute black. Her makeup was perfect, her lips scarlet. She smiled
at me; fangs showed below her lips.
But she wasn't a vampire. I didn't know what the hell she was, but I knew
what she wasn't. I glanced at Inger. He didn't look happy.
Shouldn't we be going? I said.
Yes, he said. He backed towards the front door and I backed behind him.
Neither of us took our eyes off the fanged beauty slinking down the hall
towards us.
She moved in a liquid run that was almost too fast to follow. Lycanthropes
could move like that, but that wasn't what she was, either.
She was around Inger and coming for me. I gave up being cool and sort of
ran backwards towards the front door. But she was too fast for me, too
fast for any human.
She grabbed my right forearm. She looked puzzled. She could feel the knife
sheath on my arm. She didn't seem to know what it was. Bully for me.
What are you? My voice was steady. Not afraid. Heap big vampire slayer.
Yeah, right.
She opened her mouth wider, tongue caressing the fangs. The fangs were
longer than a vampire's; she'd never be able to close her mouth around
them.
Where do the fangs go when you close your mouth? I said.
She blinked at me, the smile slipping away from her face. She ran her
tongue over them, then they folded back into the roof of her mouth.
Retractable fangs. Cool, I said.
Her face was very solemn. I'm glad you enjoyed the show, but there's so
much more to see. The fangs unfolded again. She widened her jaws, almost
a yawn, flashing the fangs nicely in the dim beams of sunlight that got
around the drapes.
Mr. Oliver will not like you threatening her, Inger said.
He grows weak, sentimental. Her fingers dug into my arm stronger than
she should have been.
She was holding my right arm, so I couldn't go for the gun. The knives
were out for similar reasons. Maybe I should wear more guns.
She hissed at me, a violent explosion of air that no human throat ever
made. The tongue that flicked out was forked.
Sweet Jesus, what are you?
She laughed, but it didn't sound right now; maybe the split tongue. Her
pupils had narrowed to slits, her irises turned a golden yellow while I
watched.
I tugged on my arm but her fingers were like steel. I dropped to the
floor. She lowered my arm but didn't let go.
I leaned back on my left side, drew my legs up under me, and kicked her
right kneecap with everything I had. The leg crumpled. She screamed and
fell to the floor, but she let my arm go.
Something was happening to her legs. They seemed to be growing together,
the skin spreading. I'd never seen anything like it, and I didn't want to
now.
Melanie, what are you doing? The voice was behind us. Oliver stood in
the hallway just short of the brighter light of the living room. His voice
was the sound of rocks falling, trees breaking. A storm that was just
words but seemed to cut and slash.
The thing on the floor cringed from the voice. Her lower body was becoming
serpentine. A snake of some kind. Jesus.
She's a lamia, I said softly. I backed away, putting the outside door to
my back, hand on the door knob. I thought they were extinct.
She is the last one, Oliver said. I keep her with me because I fear
what she would do left to her own desires.
Mr. Oliver to w?a?nie ten ponadmilionletni wampir. Lamia jest
nie?miertelna. Anita nie mia?a okazji wypróbowa? ognia, ale rany po kulach
regenerowa?y si? niemal momentalnie. Likantropy s? ?ywe - starzej? si? i
umieraj?; wampiry nawet pozbawione po?ywienia nie umieraj? - g?odzony
przez lata (np. uwi?ziony w zbyt g??bokim, trwa?ym grobie) wampir
przybiera wygl?d wysuszonej mumii, ale nakarmiony i ogrzany mo?e wróci? do
normalnego stanu; ale wampira mo?na zabi?. Lamia, naga czy faerie s?
naprawd? nie?miertelne: dowolne rany regeneruj? si? niemal momentalnie.
Anita zastanawia si? nad poszatkowaniem takiej nie?miertelnej istoty.
4. PJ:
Dziewczyna, g?ow? stawi?by w zak?ad, nie by?a cz?owiekiem z krwi i ko?ci.
?wiadczy?o o tym szczup?e cia?o, dziwny kolor w?osów, g?os. By? pewien, ?e
gdyby si? odwróci?a, zobaczy?by wielkie oczy o kszta?cie migda?ów. A gdyby
odgarn??a
popielate w?osy, dostrzeg?by jak nic ostre, szpiczasto zako?czone
ma??owiny uszne.
To by?a mieszkanka Faërie, wró?ka. Jedna z Tylwyth T?g. Jedna z tych,
które Piktowie i Irlandczycy nazywali Daoine Sidhe, Ludkiem Wzgórz. Jedna
z tych, które Sasi nazywali elfami.
W ?wiecie Anity Blake szpiczaste uszy to mit.
Tom 4. The Lunatic Cafe:
Occasionally somebody will run afoul of a fairy. One of the old Daoine
sidhe, but you'd have to be in Europe for that. England, Ireland, parts of
Scotland. In this country it'd be a witch.
Tom 5. Bloody Bones:
I shook my head. I've read about glamor, and it doesn't work this well
unless you're high court, Daoine Sidhe. The seelie court of fairyland
doesn't interbreed with mortals often. At least not commoners. The
unseelie court, on the other hand, does.
He stared at me with his beautiful eyes, looking, even without glamor, so
gorgeous you wanted to touch him. Wanted to see if his hair was as
luxuriant as it looked. He was like a really fine sculpture; you wanted to
run your hands over it and feel the lines.
Magnus smiled gently. The unseelie court is evil, cruel. What I do here
is not evil. For one night these people can come here and be their own
fantasies. They think it's love charms, and I let them. We all keep the
secret of this small illegal act. The local police know. They even come
down once in a while and join in.
Tom 6. Killing Dance, scena w lupanarze (to nie rzymski przybytek
negocjowanego afektu, a ?wi?te miejsce spotka? przy pe?ni dla stada
wilko?aków), przed przej?ciem w?adzy nad wilko?akami przez ukochanego
Anity:
Marcus, Raina. Richard released my hand slowly, and as he pulled away,
the tie remained. It was a shadow of the way I'd bound Richard and
Jean-Claude's auras to me, but more. He took a few steps away to stand a
little in front of me. I could feel him like a large, shimmering thing.
His energy was amazing. The closest thing I'd ever felt was the power of a
Daoine Sidhe, a fairie of the highest court.
You naughty boy, Raina said. You've made her one of us.
No, Richard said, she is what she always has been: herself.
Then how can you ride her power? How can she ride yours? Raina pushed
away from the chair, stalking along the ground in front of it, pacing like
a caged animal.
What have you done, Richard? Marcus asked.
She is my mate.
5. PJ:
Regis gestykulowa? srebrnym widelcem i dowodzi?, ?e najlepsze remedium na
wampiry to srebro, kruszec, którego najl?ejszy dotyk jest dla wampira
absolutnie zabójczy.
Daoine Sidhe reaguj? na srebrn? amunicj? i srebrne ostrza tak, jak wampiry
i likantropy na zwyk?? - oczywi?cie dzia?a si?a uderzenia pocisku, ale
rany regeneruj? si? bardzo szybko (nie tak szybko, jak rany
nie?miertelnych). Za to dzia?a na nie stal i o?ów. Od pi?tego tomu Anita
ma stale pry sobie jeden magazynek o?owianych kul. Likantropy i wampiry
rany zadane srebrnym pociskiem lub ostrzem goj? tak wolno, jak ludzie goj?
swoje rany. Srebrne ?a?cuchy unieruchamiaj? wampira, a stalowe ?ciany
podziemnego skarbca - nie. Likantropy dostaj? uczulenia od kontaktu ze
srebrem:
Tom 7. Burnt Offerings:
There were marks on his wrists and ankles like he'd been chained. The
marks were rubbed bloody like he'd struggled, and they weren't healing.
Which meant that they'd used chains with a high silver content so it would
hurt and not just hold. Whoever had done this to him knew ahead of time
they'd be getting a lycanthrope.
GR:
Ka?dy wied?min ma dwa miecze. Nie?yczliwi mawiaj?, ?e ten srebrny jest na
potwory, a ten z ?elaza na ludzi. To oczywi?cie nieprawda. S? potwory,
które mo?na ugodzi? wy??cznie srebrnym ostrzem, ale istniej? i takie, dla
których zabójcze jest ?elazo. Nie, Iola, nie ka?de ?elazo, ale wy??cznie
to, które pochodzi z meteorytu.
W ?wiecie Anity Blake meteorytowe pochodzenie jest nieistotne, ale
na?adowana magicznie stal zadaje rany, które goj? si? jak ludzkie,
powoli.
Tom 11. Cerulean Sins:
My left hand was covered in little bandages. I was using the clear ones,
so I didn't look like a tan version of the mummy's hand. There were larger
bandages on my left forearm. All the wounds were self-inflicted, and it
was beginning to piss me off.
I had been learning how to control my growing psychic powers by studying
with Marianne, who had been a psychic when I met her, but had become a
witch. She was Wiccan now. Not all witches are Wiccan, and if Marianne had
been another flavor of witch, I wouldn't have had to cut myself up.
Marianne, as my teacher, shared some of my karmic debt, or so her group -
read coven - believed. The fact that I killed an animal every time I
raised the dead, three, four times a night, almost every night, had made
her coven rant, rave, scream, and basically lose it. Blood magic is black
magic to a Wiccan. Taking a life for magical purposes, any life, even a
chicken's, is very black magic.
How could Marianne have tied herself to someone who was being so? evil?
they demanded to know.
To help Marianne's karmic burden - and mine, the coven assured me - I'd
been trying to raise the dead without killing anything. I'd done it in
emergencies without an animal to sacrifice, so I knew it was possible. But
- surprise, surprise - while it was true that I could do my job without
killing anything, I could not do it without fresh blood. Blood magic is
still black magic to Wiccans, so what to do? The compromise was that I
would use only my own blood. I wasn't sure it would work. But it did, for
the recently dead, at least.
I'd started out slicing up my left forearm, but that had rapidly lost its
appeal, since I needed to do it three or more times a night. Then I'd
taken to pricking my fingers. Just a little blood seemed to be enough for
those dead under six months. But I'd run out of fingers, and my arm had
enough scars already. I'd also found that when I practiced left-handed
shooting that I was slower, because the cuts freaking hurt. I would not
cut up my right hand, because I couldn't afford to be slower with my
right. I'd pretty much decided that, while I was sorry I had to kill a few
chickens or goats to raise the dead, the animal's lives were not worth my
own. There I've said it, a totally selfish judgment call.
I'd really hoped the tiny cuts would heal instantly. Thanks to my ties to
Jean-Claude, master vamp of the city, I healed fast, very fast. The little
cuts didn't heal fast. Marianne said it was probably because I was using a
magically charged blade to do the cutting. But I liked my machete.
Truthfully, I wasn't a hundred percent sure that I could raise the dead
with only a prick of blood without a magically charged blade. It was a
problem.
I was going to have to call Marianne and tell her I'd failed the Wiccan
test of goodness. Why should they be any different? Most right-wing
Christian groups hated me too.
6. W?asno?ci mechaniczne srebra czyni?y dyskusyjn? warto?? bojow?
srebrnego wied?miskiego miecza. Oto, jak sobie z tym problemem poradzi?a
Laurell K. Hamilton:
Tom 4. The Lunatic Cafe:
I had both guns and two knives. I'd replaced the one that Gretchen never
returned. They were a set of four that I'd had made for me. Hard to find a
knife with a high enough silver content to kill monsters and still take a
hard edge.
Tom 5. Bloody Bones:
I'd had four knives. All handcrafted for little ol' moi. Two of them had
been lost beyond recovery. I was having them replaced, but hand forging
takes time, especially when you insist on the highest silver content
possible in the steel. Two knives, two guns should be enough for one
weekend business trip. I'd wear the Browning Hi-Power.
Tom 6. Killing Dance:
I put on wrist sheaths and both knives. These were the last two of a
foursome that I'd had custom made for my hands, with the highest silver
content possible in the steel. I'd had to have two of them replaced;
monsters ate them. I put the two new knives in the suitcase still in their
felt-lined box. They were pretty and sharp enough to cut your skin if you
ran a thumb along the edge.
While I was having the lost knives replaced, I'd ordered a new one. It was
nearly a foot long, more a sword than a knife. I'd had a leather harness
made that let me carry it down my spine, with the hilt under my hair. I
hadn't used it before, but I'd seen it in a catalog and couldn't resist.
Ci?g dalszy by? mo?e nast?pi...
--
--
Z powa?aniem
Marek Szyjewski
Ziemia = kula u nogi
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