"Harlan Ellison - Troublemakers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ellison Harlan)

chance. Of LizetteтАЩs chance.

We approached the cemetery, my unicorn and I. From deep in the center of the skyline of stones beyond
the fence I could see the ice-chill glow of a pulsing blue light. The light one finds in a refrigerator, cold and
flat and brittle.

I mounted my unicorn, leaned close along his neck, clinging to his mane with both hands, knees tight to
his silken sides, now rippling with light and color, and I gave a little hiss of approval, a little sound of go.

My unicorn sailed over the fence, into the world-famous Saint Louis Cemetery.

I dismounted and thanked him. We began threading our way between the tombstones, the sepulchers,
the crypts.
The blue glow grew more distinct. And now I could hear the chimera winds rising, whirling, coming in off
alien seas. The pulsing of the light, the wail of the winds, the night dying. My unicorn stayed close. Even
we of the spirit world know when to be afraid.

After all, I was only operating off a chance; I was under no godтАЩs protection. Naked, even in death.

There is no fog in New Orleans.

Mist began to form around us.

Except sometimes in the winter, there is no fog in New Orleans.

I remembered the daybreak of the night IтАЩd died. There had been mist. I had been a suicide.

My third wife had left me. She had gone away during the night, while IтАЩd been at a business meeting with
a client; I had been engaged to design a church in Baton Rouge. All that day IтАЩd steamed the old
wallpaper off the apartment weтАЩd rented. It was to have been our first home together, paid for by the
commission. IтАЩd done the steaming myself, with a tall ladder and a steam condenser and two flat pans
with steam holes. Up near the ceiling the heat had been so awful IтАЩd almost fainted. SheтАЩd brought me
lemonade, freshly squeezed. Then IтАЩd showered and changed and gone to my meeting. When IтАЩd
returned, she was gone. No note.

Lizette and I were two sides of the same coin, cast off after death for the opposite extremes of the same
crime. She had never loved. I had loved too much. Overindulgence in something as delicate as love is to
be found monstrously offensive in the eyes of the God of Love. And some of us тАФ who have never
understood the salvation in the Golden Mean тАФ some of us are cast adrift with but one chance. It can
happen.

Mist formed around us, and my unicorn crept close to me, somehow smaller, almost timid. We were
moving into realms he did not understand, where his limited magics were useless. These were realms of
potency so utterly beyond even the limbo creatures тАФ such as my unicorn тАФ so completely alien to even
the intermediary zone wanderers тАФ Lizette and myself тАФ that we were as helpless and without
understanding as those who live. We had only one advantage over living, breathing, as yet undead
humans: weknew for certain that the realms on the other side existed.

Above, beyond, deeper: where the gods live. Where the One who had given me my chance, had given
Lizetteher chance, where He lived. Undoubtedly watching.