"slide11" - читать интересную книгу автора (Betancourt John Gregory - Roger Zelazny's Dawn of Amber 01 - The Dawn of Amber...)

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NINE

I dreamed.
Flying . . . floating . . . drifting . . .  I saw snake-headed monsters and an ever-shifting tapestry of worlds . . . 
Ilerium, under the thrall of hell-creatures . . . 
The Courts of Chaos, just like on Freda’s card, the air overhead pulsating with those weird lightning-patterns, while all around me the buildings moved like living creatures and corners turned in on themselves with angles that couldn’t possibly exist but somehow did . . . 
Then worlds of vast deserts, endless oceans, and virgin forests where no man had or ever would set foot. . . . Come . . . 
Deserts and swamps . . . 
Cities buzzing with movement like the hives of bees . . . Wind-scoured rocks with no sign of water or life . . . Come to me . . . 
I felt a chill, a remembered feeling of hate and loathing surging up inside. That voice—I had heard that voice before!
Come to me, sons of Dworkin . . . 
Against my will, I found myself drawn forward like a moth to its flame. I soared through blackness, through vast cold and dark distances, to a world of strange colors. Patterns turned in the air, odd shapes and geometries that drifted like snowflakes, patterns within patterns within patterns. My vision began to brighten, then dim.
Slowly, I turned and discovered a tower built entirely of skulls. A grim shock of recognition swept through me. I had been here before, I thought, long ago.
Come to me, sons of Dworkin . . . 
I could not resist the voice. Like a phantom, I passed through the tower’s wall. A stairway of arm and leg bones circled the inside wall, ascending into shadows, descending into a murky, pulsating redness.
I drifted down. The redness became the flickering glow of torches. They showed an eerily familiar scene, guards in armor who surrounded an immense stone altar. And on that altar a body lay chained and bleeding . . . 
Taine!
Though his face had become gaunt and gray, and he looked ten years older, I still recognized my new brother from the Trump in Freda’s deck. He had a dueling scar on his left cheek just as Aber had drawn it. And he had Dworkin’s face . . . more so now than when his portrait had been done.
Naked and blood-smeared, he lay spread-eagle on the stone slab. But he lived. As I stared at him, I saw his chest rising and falling steadily.
His arms and legs had been heavily chained, and dozens of long, shallow knife wounds—some days or weeks old, some clearly fresh—marred the smoothness of his arms and face. His captors had made an effort to keep him alive, I thought. While clearly painful, none of the wounds appeared life-threatening. The real risk would come later from infection.
Blood still seeped from the most recent wounds, but instead of falling toward the floor, drops of scarlet floated up around him, lazily drifting through the air. As I watched, first one then another flattened, spreading out and becoming miniature windows into other worlds.
In many of those windows, I glimpsed Juniper and the army camp that surrounded it.
They’re spying on us, I realized. No wonder someone knew to send Ivinius to kill me. They see everything that happens.
Suddenly everything in the tower grew flat, muted, distant. The colors washed out; the world around me began pulling back like a sudden outrushing tide. The tower of skulls—this world of strange geometries—receding into darkness—
Abruptly I found myself back in my body. It was a shock, like leaping into an icy lake, and I gasped.
“Drink . . . ” a voice commanded.
I sat up, sputtering, liquid fire in my mouth and throat.
“What—” I tried to say. It came out as a muffled “Waaa.”
Opening bleary eyes, I found Dworkin crouched over me. He held a small silver cup, which he pressed to my lips. This time when he poured, I tasted brandy, old and smooth.
What had he done to me?
My whole body ached and refused to obey my commands. My hands shook. When I tried to push him away and sit up, I flailed like a fish out of water.
“Taine . . . ” I gasped.
Dworkin jerked, spilling the brandy all over us both.
“What?” he demanded. “What did you say?”
I took a deep breath and summoned my strength. Raising one hand, I pushed him away. My limbs felt numb and weak, like all the blood had drained from my body and been replaced with lead. Rolling over onto my hands and knees took intense effort, but I managed it.
The room swayed dangerously. Grasping the edge of the closest table, I stood.
“Where . . . ?” I tried to ask. It came out more or less right.
“Give yourself time to recover, my boy,” he said. “You went through a difficult test.”
I frowned. “Yes . . . I . . . remember.”
As I sat on the edge of the table, trying to recover my sense of balance, he pressed the cup into my hands. Gingerly I took another sip.
“I know what I did was . . . difficult for you. But it had to be done.”
“What . . . had to be done?” I levered myself up on my elbows, sick and dizzy inside.
“I looked within you, within your essence. Turned you inside out, saw what needed to be seen, then put you back together.”
“My head hurts.” Groaning a little, I pressed my eyes shut and rubbed them. What felt like thousands of little needles piercing my skull resolved itself into the sort of headache I’d only had after a night of cheap rot-gut and too many women.
“Oberon . . . ” He hesitated.
I forced open my eyes and gazed blearily up at him.
“You said something just now. It sounded like a name.”
“Taine,” I said, remembering my dream.
“What about him?”
“He’s hurt.”
“Where?”
“It was just a nightmare.” I shook my head. “I can barely recall it.”
“Try,” he urged. “Taine . . . you saw him?”
“Yes . . . in—in a tower made of bones, I think.” I frowned, trying to recall the details. “I heard a voice . . . a serpent’s voice. They had Taine on an altar.”
“They? Who are they?”
“The guards . . . hell-creatures . . . but not like the ones in Ilerium . . . ”
“And Taine was alive? You are sure of it?”
“Yes. I think . . . they needed his blood for something . . . it dripped up!”
“Go on.” He spoke softly. “What were they doing with his blood?”
“I don’t know . . . ”
“Think! It is important! Try to remember!”
I half closed my eyes, trying to see the tower in my mind’s eye, blood dripping into the air. “They were looking for us, I believe. I saw Juniper in a window made of blood . . . I think.”
I shook my head, the dream-images slipping away, elusive as will-o’-the-wisps. In another minute they would be gone.
Dworkin sank back on his heels. “Blood drips toward the sky in the Courts of Chaos,” he said numbly. “You have never been there. You could not possibly know . . . ”
“It couldn’t have been real,” I said.
“I think it was. And if you saw Taine . . . then he is alive! That is good news. I had given up hope.”
“Better off dead, from the look of him.”
“All the children of Chaos heal fast and well. If we can find him . . . if we can rescue him—”
“Do you think that’s possible?”
“I will see.”
“And the Logrus!” I said, levering myself up with my elbows. I felt a rising sense of excitement at the prospect of traversing it. “How soon can we go there?”
He hesitated.
“What is it?” I demanded. “You said it was my birthright. You said King Uthor couldn’t deny me my chance to go through it.”
“Oberon . . . the news is bad. You cannot use the Logrus. Not now. Not ever.”
“No!” Anger and outrage surged through me. I’d spent my whole life being denied. Denied a father. Denied a family. Denied all that should have been mine. I had no intention of missing out again. I would master the Logrus, even if I had to borrow one of Aber’s magical Trumps and go to the Courts of Chaos on my own.
“Listen to me,” he said urgently. “The pattern within you is wrong, somehow. It is more distorted than mine . . . so crooked, I almost did not recognize it.”
“So?” I said. His news meant nothing to me.
“You cannot enter the Logrus. It would destroy you, as it destroyed my brother, as it almost destroyed Freda and me. You would die, Oberon.”
I looked away. My headache returned with a vengeance, little knives piercing the inside my skull.
“So that’s it, then?” I said. I felt like he had kicked my legs out from under me. “There’s nothing you can do? No way you can fix it, somehow? Make it work?”
“I am sorry, my boy.” His eyes grew distant, thoughtful. “Unless . . . ”
“Unless what?” I demanded. If he had any idea, any plan that might help me, I would have seized upon it.
But Dworkin simply sighed and shook his head. “No. It was a crazy thought, best left unspoken. You must be content with who and what you are. If nothing else, that may keep you alive. I know it gives you small comfort now, but perhaps it is a blessing in disguise. Put all thoughts of the Logrus behind you. There is nothing else we can do for now.”
For now. That still hinted of plans for the future, I thought. Plans which, it seemed, he had no intention of sharing with me. At least, not yet.
“Very well,” I said. I had a blinding pain behind both of my eyes, like twin needles pushing into my brain. I didn’t feel up to fighting with him about the Logrus. There would be time enough for that later.
Let him think I’d given up. I’d ask Aber about it later. My new-found brother seemed eager to volunteer information. If another way existed to get to the Logrus, or to have it imprinted on my mind, he might well know of it. Too many of Dworkin’s lies had been exposed for me to blindly trust him now, when he said the Logrus would kill me. For all I knew, he’d made it up to keep his control over me.
I considered the evidence. First, my childhood face-changing game . . . no one else I knew had been able to do that. And what about my great strength? I was two or three times stronger than any normal man. Or the speed of my reflexes—the quickness with which I healed—? If the pattern inside me came out so distorted, why had I been able to do all these things?
No, I thought, everything added up to more than Dworkin wanted to admit. I already had a measure of power over the Logrus—small as it was compared to everyone else’s. Judging from all these little signs, the Logrus within me worked just fine.
But what if he’s right? a small voice at the back of my head asked. What if I can’t master the Logrus? What if this is as much magic as I’ll ever have?
I didn’t like the thought.
“Take my arm,” he said.
With his help, I made it to the chair without falling. My head still swam, but not like before. A clarity had come over me, a sense of warmth and well-being. Probably from the brandy, I thought.
He moved to refill my cup, and I didn’t stop him. I drank it in a single gulp. After a moment’s hesitation, he filled the cup again, and again I drained it all.
A warm glow spread down my throat and into my belly. I pressed my eyes shut, turned away, tried to envision Taine on the altar’s slab and failed. My dream or vision or whatever it had been had left me.
“You’ve had enough brandy,” he said.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. That was a mistake; waves of nausea engulfed me again. “I haven’t had enough yet—not by far. I feel like I need a good three-day drunk.”
“Do not feel bad about the Logrus, my boy,” he said, patting my shoulder. “You grew up without it. You will not miss what you have never had.”
“Won’t I?” A wild fury came over me. My mind was racing, cataloging every sin he’d ever committed against me, and the words just poured out. “Do you know what it’s like, growing up in Ilerium without a father? Yes, you were there, but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t real. When my mother died in the Scarlet Plague and you simply disappeared—do you know how alone that left me? You cannot imagine it. No father or mother or brothers and sisters. No uncles or aunts, no cousins. No one. Now, ten years later, you magically sweep back in and expect everything to be perfect because, oh yes, you really are my father, and my whole life up till now had been a lie!”
“Oberon . . . ” he whispered. He took a step back, face ashen.
“It’s the truth!” I yelled. My whole body quivered with rage. “And now . . . after you’ve shown me all these wonders . . . told me about the Logrus and the powers that should be mine . . . now you tell me I’ll never have them! And never miss what I’ve never known!”
“I—” he began.
I drowned him out. “I never knew my father, and I missed him. I never knew a real family, and I missed it. I never knew my brothers and sisters, and I missed them every day of my childhood. Every time I saw other children, it reminded me of what I lacked. Don’t tell me I won’t miss what I’ve never had—I know the truth!”
“Perhaps I deserve that,” he said heavily. His shoulders slumped; he seemed old . . . old and tired and beaten. In that moment, he looked every day of his two hundred years of age.
A pang of guilt touched me, but I pushed it away. He was the one who should feel guilty, I told myself. He was the one who had lied to me, denied me a normal childhood, and now planned to deny me everything else.
I had lived too long in Shadow. Never again. I would not be denied my birthright.
Whatever it took, whatever it cost, I would master the Logrus. I vowed it to myself.
Distantly, I heard a bell toll.
“Time for dinner,” Dworkin said softly. Then with a touch of almost bitter irony, looking up into my eyes, he added, “Time for you to meet the rest of our happy little family.”

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NINE

I dreamed.
Flying . . . floating . . . drifting . . .  I saw snake-headed monsters and an ever-shifting tapestry of worlds . . . 
Ilerium, under the thrall of hell-creatures . . . 
The Courts of Chaos, just like on Freda’s card, the air overhead pulsating with those weird lightning-patterns, while all around me the buildings moved like living creatures and corners turned in on themselves with angles that couldn’t possibly exist but somehow did . . . 
Then worlds of vast deserts, endless oceans, and virgin forests where no man had or ever would set foot. . . . Come . . . 
Deserts and swamps . . . 
Cities buzzing with movement like the hives of bees . . . Wind-scoured rocks with no sign of water or life . . . Come to me . . . 
I felt a chill, a remembered feeling of hate and loathing surging up inside. That voice—I had heard that voice before!
Come to me, sons of Dworkin . . . 
Against my will, I found myself drawn forward like a moth to its flame. I soared through blackness, through vast cold and dark distances, to a world of strange colors. Patterns turned in the air, odd shapes and geometries that drifted like snowflakes, patterns within patterns within patterns. My vision began to brighten, then dim.
Slowly, I turned and discovered a tower built entirely of skulls. A grim shock of recognition swept through me. I had been here before, I thought, long ago.
Come to me, sons of Dworkin . . . 
I could not resist the voice. Like a phantom, I passed through the tower’s wall. A stairway of arm and leg bones circled the inside wall, ascending into shadows, descending into a murky, pulsating redness.
I drifted down. The redness became the flickering glow of torches. They showed an eerily familiar scene, guards in armor who surrounded an immense stone altar. And on that altar a body lay chained and bleeding . . . 
Taine!
Though his face had become gaunt and gray, and he looked ten years older, I still recognized my new brother from the Trump in Freda’s deck. He had a dueling scar on his left cheek just as Aber had drawn it. And he had Dworkin’s face . . . more so now than when his portrait had been done.
Naked and blood-smeared, he lay spread-eagle on the stone slab. But he lived. As I stared at him, I saw his chest rising and falling steadily.
His arms and legs had been heavily chained, and dozens of long, shallow knife wounds—some days or weeks old, some clearly fresh—marred the smoothness of his arms and face. His captors had made an effort to keep him alive, I thought. While clearly painful, none of the wounds appeared life-threatening. The real risk would come later from infection.
Blood still seeped from the most recent wounds, but instead of falling toward the floor, drops of scarlet floated up around him, lazily drifting through the air. As I watched, first one then another flattened, spreading out and becoming miniature windows into other worlds.
In many of those windows, I glimpsed Juniper and the army camp that surrounded it.
They’re spying on us, I realized. No wonder someone knew to send Ivinius to kill me. They see everything that happens.
Suddenly everything in the tower grew flat, muted, distant. The colors washed out; the world around me began pulling back like a sudden outrushing tide. The tower of skulls—this world of strange geometries—receding into darkness—
Abruptly I found myself back in my body. It was a shock, like leaping into an icy lake, and I gasped.
“Drink . . . ” a voice commanded.
I sat up, sputtering, liquid fire in my mouth and throat.
“What—” I tried to say. It came out as a muffled “Waaa.”
Opening bleary eyes, I found Dworkin crouched over me. He held a small silver cup, which he pressed to my lips. This time when he poured, I tasted brandy, old and smooth.
What had he done to me?
My whole body ached and refused to obey my commands. My hands shook. When I tried to push him away and sit up, I flailed like a fish out of water.
“Taine . . . ” I gasped.
Dworkin jerked, spilling the brandy all over us both.
“What?” he demanded. “What did you say?”
I took a deep breath and summoned my strength. Raising one hand, I pushed him away. My limbs felt numb and weak, like all the blood had drained from my body and been replaced with lead. Rolling over onto my hands and knees took intense effort, but I managed it.
The room swayed dangerously. Grasping the edge of the closest table, I stood.
“Where . . . ?” I tried to ask. It came out more or less right.
“Give yourself time to recover, my boy,” he said. “You went through a difficult test.”
I frowned. “Yes . . . I . . . remember.”
As I sat on the edge of the table, trying to recover my sense of balance, he pressed the cup into my hands. Gingerly I took another sip.
“I know what I did was . . . difficult for you. But it had to be done.”
“What . . . had to be done?” I levered myself up on my elbows, sick and dizzy inside.
“I looked within you, within your essence. Turned you inside out, saw what needed to be seen, then put you back together.”
“My head hurts.” Groaning a little, I pressed my eyes shut and rubbed them. What felt like thousands of little needles piercing my skull resolved itself into the sort of headache I’d only had after a night of cheap rot-gut and too many women.
“Oberon . . . ” He hesitated.
I forced open my eyes and gazed blearily up at him.
“You said something just now. It sounded like a name.”
“Taine,” I said, remembering my dream.
“What about him?”
“He’s hurt.”
“Where?”
“It was just a nightmare.” I shook my head. “I can barely recall it.”
“Try,” he urged. “Taine . . . you saw him?”
“Yes . . . in—in a tower made of bones, I think.” I frowned, trying to recall the details. “I heard a voice . . . a serpent’s voice. They had Taine on an altar.”
“They? Who are they?”
“The guards . . . hell-creatures . . . but not like the ones in Ilerium . . . ”
“And Taine was alive? You are sure of it?”
“Yes. I think . . . they needed his blood for something . . . it dripped up!”
“Go on.” He spoke softly. “What were they doing with his blood?”
“I don’t know . . . ”
“Think! It is important! Try to remember!”
I half closed my eyes, trying to see the tower in my mind’s eye, blood dripping into the air. “They were looking for us, I believe. I saw Juniper in a window made of blood . . . I think.”
I shook my head, the dream-images slipping away, elusive as will-o’-the-wisps. In another minute they would be gone.
Dworkin sank back on his heels. “Blood drips toward the sky in the Courts of Chaos,” he said numbly. “You have never been there. You could not possibly know . . . ”
“It couldn’t have been real,” I said.
“I think it was. And if you saw Taine . . . then he is alive! That is good news. I had given up hope.”
“Better off dead, from the look of him.”
“All the children of Chaos heal fast and well. If we can find him . . . if we can rescue him—”
“Do you think that’s possible?”
“I will see.”
“And the Logrus!” I said, levering myself up with my elbows. I felt a rising sense of excitement at the prospect of traversing it. “How soon can we go there?”
He hesitated.
“What is it?” I demanded. “You said it was my birthright. You said King Uthor couldn’t deny me my chance to go through it.”
“Oberon . . . the news is bad. You cannot use the Logrus. Not now. Not ever.”
“No!” Anger and outrage surged through me. I’d spent my whole life being denied. Denied a father. Denied a family. Denied all that should have been mine. I had no intention of missing out again. I would master the Logrus, even if I had to borrow one of Aber’s magical Trumps and go to the Courts of Chaos on my own.
“Listen to me,” he said urgently. “The pattern within you is wrong, somehow. It is more distorted than mine . . . so crooked, I almost did not recognize it.”
“So?” I said. His news meant nothing to me.
“You cannot enter the Logrus. It would destroy you, as it destroyed my brother, as it almost destroyed Freda and me. You would die, Oberon.”
I looked away. My headache returned with a vengeance, little knives piercing the inside my skull.
“So that’s it, then?” I said. I felt like he had kicked my legs out from under me. “There’s nothing you can do? No way you can fix it, somehow? Make it work?”
“I am sorry, my boy.” His eyes grew distant, thoughtful. “Unless . . . ”
“Unless what?” I demanded. If he had any idea, any plan that might help me, I would have seized upon it.
But Dworkin simply sighed and shook his head. “No. It was a crazy thought, best left unspoken. You must be content with who and what you are. If nothing else, that may keep you alive. I know it gives you small comfort now, but perhaps it is a blessing in disguise. Put all thoughts of the Logrus behind you. There is nothing else we can do for now.”
For now. That still hinted of plans for the future, I thought. Plans which, it seemed, he had no intention of sharing with me. At least, not yet.
“Very well,” I said. I had a blinding pain behind both of my eyes, like twin needles pushing into my brain. I didn’t feel up to fighting with him about the Logrus. There would be time enough for that later.
Let him think I’d given up. I’d ask Aber about it later. My new-found brother seemed eager to volunteer information. If another way existed to get to the Logrus, or to have it imprinted on my mind, he might well know of it. Too many of Dworkin’s lies had been exposed for me to blindly trust him now, when he said the Logrus would kill me. For all I knew, he’d made it up to keep his control over me.
I considered the evidence. First, my childhood face-changing game . . . no one else I knew had been able to do that. And what about my great strength? I was two or three times stronger than any normal man. Or the speed of my reflexes—the quickness with which I healed—? If the pattern inside me came out so distorted, why had I been able to do all these things?
No, I thought, everything added up to more than Dworkin wanted to admit. I already had a measure of power over the Logrus—small as it was compared to everyone else’s. Judging from all these little signs, the Logrus within me worked just fine.
But what if he’s right? a small voice at the back of my head asked. What if I can’t master the Logrus? What if this is as much magic as I’ll ever have?
I didn’t like the thought.
“Take my arm,” he said.
With his help, I made it to the chair without falling. My head still swam, but not like before. A clarity had come over me, a sense of warmth and well-being. Probably from the brandy, I thought.
He moved to refill my cup, and I didn’t stop him. I drank it in a single gulp. After a moment’s hesitation, he filled the cup again, and again I drained it all.
A warm glow spread down my throat and into my belly. I pressed my eyes shut, turned away, tried to envision Taine on the altar’s slab and failed. My dream or vision or whatever it had been had left me.
“You’ve had enough brandy,” he said.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. That was a mistake; waves of nausea engulfed me again. “I haven’t had enough yet—not by far. I feel like I need a good three-day drunk.”
“Do not feel bad about the Logrus, my boy,” he said, patting my shoulder. “You grew up without it. You will not miss what you have never had.”
“Won’t I?” A wild fury came over me. My mind was racing, cataloging every sin he’d ever committed against me, and the words just poured out. “Do you know what it’s like, growing up in Ilerium without a father? Yes, you were there, but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t real. When my mother died in the Scarlet Plague and you simply disappeared—do you know how alone that left me? You cannot imagine it. No father or mother or brothers and sisters. No uncles or aunts, no cousins. No one. Now, ten years later, you magically sweep back in and expect everything to be perfect because, oh yes, you really are my father, and my whole life up till now had been a lie!”
“Oberon . . . ” he whispered. He took a step back, face ashen.
“It’s the truth!” I yelled. My whole body quivered with rage. “And now . . . after you’ve shown me all these wonders . . . told me about the Logrus and the powers that should be mine . . . now you tell me I’ll never have them! And never miss what I’ve never known!”
“I—” he began.
I drowned him out. “I never knew my father, and I missed him. I never knew a real family, and I missed it. I never knew my brothers and sisters, and I missed them every day of my childhood. Every time I saw other children, it reminded me of what I lacked. Don’t tell me I won’t miss what I’ve never had—I know the truth!”
“Perhaps I deserve that,” he said heavily. His shoulders slumped; he seemed old . . . old and tired and beaten. In that moment, he looked every day of his two hundred years of age.
A pang of guilt touched me, but I pushed it away. He was the one who should feel guilty, I told myself. He was the one who had lied to me, denied me a normal childhood, and now planned to deny me everything else.
I had lived too long in Shadow. Never again. I would not be denied my birthright.
Whatever it took, whatever it cost, I would master the Logrus. I vowed it to myself.
Distantly, I heard a bell toll.
“Time for dinner,” Dworkin said softly. Then with a touch of almost bitter irony, looking up into my eyes, he added, “Time for you to meet the rest of our happy little family.”

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