"John DeChancie - Castle 08 - Bride of the Castle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dechancie John)

He kicked another dry stick into the fire and huddled closer to the flames.
Presently he opened his bedroll, spread it out, and lay down. He took out a parchment scroll-a back
issue of Graverobbers' Forum-and read himself to sleep.
Nothing disturbed him during the night.
He stood looking up at the pinnacle of the immense burial pyramid. The structure was at least as tall as it
was wide, and it was very wide indeed, and was set off in steps-he counted seven. An involved sequence
of ramps, each quite steep, led to the top. A forced entrance had been cut into the west side of the thing,
a gash in the stone like a wound that had never healed.
He could see that there was zero chance of recovering anything of value from this site. Hundreds of tomb
robbers had plundered it, perhaps thousands. Generations. What was of value was long gone.
He looked around. And there was nothing else. All had been picked over, searched through a thousand
times. He had sifted through piles of bones, skulls--remains of ancient Zinites, or squatters who had died
almost as long ago? Zin's history was a muddle. There was no telling. The bones were probably those of
ghouls who had succumbed to the inevitable curses and protection devices.
He tethered his mount and untied a packet of tools and other paraphernalia. He slung it over his back and
strode forward toward the lowest ramp.
? CHAPTER THREE

AT THIRTY-FIVE, Maximilian Dumbrowsky knew his life was a mess, but there was absolutely nothing
he could do about it. He had tried.
In fact, he had tried: (1) psychotherapy; (2) Zen; (3) various forms of meditation; (4) good old-fashioned
psychoanalysis; (5) existential therapy; (7) biofeedback training; (9) jogging; (10) running; (11) massage;
(12) screaming; (13) macrobiotic and other diets; (14) drugs; (15) sex; (16) and assorted cheap thrills.
None of the above had done him any good.
He had done almost everything there was to do, gone with every fad, every New Age flimflam. He had
dared to be great, tried to win through intimidation, pulled his own strings, got himself together, found his
own private space, sensitized himself, desensitized himself, sought union with the cosmic Om, only to find
in the end that he was . . . o.k.
But he didn't feel it. In truth, he was fed up, more than a little desperate, and was seriously thinking of
looking into pyramid-selling schemes.
Everything was a mess. He lived with not a farthing to his name in three squalid rooms in the
student/aging-hippie section of town. His career history, spaciously laid out with embarrassingly long
periods of unemployment; was a sorry record of job-hopping. His present job was excremental, and his
boss, Herb Fenton, was a dolt of the first water.
Regarding (15) [see above], Penny wasn't returning his calls to her phone recorder. Hadn't for three
weeks. The least of his worries, actually.
And his present psychotherapist-he was back to (1) again-was giving up his private practice to work in a
large university hospital upstate. He handed Max a card with the address and phone of another therapist,
to whom he had referred Max's case. Max had glanced at it, slipped the card into a pocket, and
promptly lost it.
He just couldn't face starting over again. He had checked with a physicians' reference service, got a few
names, but hadn't done anything about getting a new shrink.
Working late again. Printer's deadline for the updated hardware catalog.
Coming back from dinner, Max snapped on the light in his cubbyhole of an office. The place was
cramped, windowless, and drab. There was a desk with reams of paper and old catalogs piled around a
battered typewriter and a telephone. A filing cabinet occupied one corner. The rest of the roam was
stuffed to the ceiling with cardboard cartons. Max sat down at the desk. A note taped to the telephone
read: MAX, CALL ME-HERB.
"I'll call you `Herb,"' Max grumbled. "You have about as much brainpower as a sprig of parsley."
He tore off the note, crumpled it, and threw it in the direction of the gorged wastebasket.