"John DeChancie - Castle 04 - Castle War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dechancie John)

There was nothing to do but go back to the castle. Something had happened to the Earth-Perilous link,
and Gene would probably miss his plane.

тАЬRats.тАЭ

He couldnтАЩt muster much disappointment. This surprised him. He suddenly realized that he really wasnтАЩt
as keen on going to school as he had thought.

So why was he going? He sat down on one of the suitcases and thought about it.

The reason might be a sense of obligation to his parents, or maybe a feeling of guilt for letting them
down. After all, they had expected a lot from him.

At first things had gone pretty good. He took his B.A. magna cum laude and entered grad school. But he
quit to try law school. He dropped out of that, too, then drifted in and out of a series of odd jobs.
Eventually he wound up living at home, staring out windows. At that point he stumbled into Castle
Perilous, and his life of fantasy began.

Sometimes the thought that it all might be a hallucination nettled him. The hallucination hypothesis was
still in the running. If true, the castle was the most convincing phantasm in medical history, having as it
did tactile and olfactory dimensions as well as visual and aural ones. It had more: it had downright

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spatial dimensions. It was the biggest delusion going.

Put medical speculations aside. Hallucination or not, the castle represented something in his psyche.
What was it? The desire to escape? Now youтАЩre talking. Escape what?

Life.

Why? Because life тАФ as he knew it and had lived it тАФ was disappointing. It was drab; it was colorless.
It was the proverbial idiot-spun tale, full of sound but not a whole hell of a lot of fury unless you
counted random violence, which it had in abundance but which was simply stupid. To him, тАЬfuryтАЭ
connoted something interesting, even significant.

He craved a little significance. He wanted to accomplish something, to be involved in some activity that
was not mundane, not quotidian. The castle had given him a taste of that. He had seen a thousand new
worlds and had had adventures in half a dozen. He had met Vaya in one of those worlds.

As much fun as sword and sorcery could be, though, it was not enough. He felt obligated to apply
himself to some significant тАФ there was that word again тАФ some important task. He wanted to find a
cause worthy of his dedication.

It was as simple as that. The plan to help his parents was only the handiest one he could think of. As
plans go, it wasnтАЩt bad at all. But it certainly was mundane.

Yeah, it sure was. Cal Tech was a fine school. Computer programming? That sure as hell was not going