"Philip Jose Farmer - Riverworld 4 - The Magic Labyrinth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

THE FIRST TIME THAT SlR THOMAS MALORY DIED WAS ON EARTH

in A.D. 1471.

The English knight got through the terrible weeks after Resurrection Day
without too many body wounds, though he suffered grievously from spiritual
shock. He found the food in his "littel greal" fascinating. It reminded him of
what he had written in The Book of King Arthur concerning Galahad and his
fellow knights when they ate of the food provided by the Sangreal. "... ye
shall be fed afore this table with sweetmeats that never knights tasted."

There were times when Malory thought he'd go mad. He'd always been tempted by
madness, a state in which a person was both touched with holiness by'God and
invulnerable to the cares and woes of the world, not to mention his own. But a
man who'd spent so many years in prison on Earth without going crazy had to be
basically tough. One of the things that had kept his mind unclouded in prison
had been his writing of the first English prose epic. Though he knew that his
readers would be very few, and most of them would probably not like it, he did
not care one whit. Unlike his first work, which had been based on the great
French Writers of the cycles about King Arthur of ancient Britain, this was
about the rejections but final triumph of his sweet Jesu. Unlike so many once-
devout Christians, Malory clung to his faith with fierce obliviousness to

The Magic Labyrinth I 7

"facts"тАФ-in itself an indication that he had gone mad, if his critics were to
be believed.

Twice slain by savage infidels, Malory ended up in an area inhabited on one
side by Parthians and oh the other by Englishmen.

The Parthians were ancient horsemen who got their name from their habit of
shooting backwards from their steeds as they retreated. In other words, they
always got in a parting shot. At least, that was the explanation for their
name according to one informant. Malory suspected that the grinning fellow was
pulling his leg, but it sounded good, so why not accept it.

The Englishmen were chiefly of the seventeenth century and spoke an English
which Malory had trouble understanding. However, after all these years, they
also spoke Esperanto, that tongue which the missionaries of the Church of the
Second тАвтАв Chance used as a universal medium of communication. The land, now
known as New Hope, was peaceful, though it had not always been so. Once it had
been a number of small states which had had a savage battle with the medieval
German and Spanish states up north. These had been led by a man called Kramer,
nicknamed the Hammer. After he had been killed, a long peace had come to the
land, and the states eventually became one. Malory settled down there and took
as his hutmate Philippa Hobart, daughter of Sir Henry Hobart. Though there was
no longer a giving in marriage, Malory insisted that they be married, and he
got a friend who had been a Catholic priest to perform the old ceremony.