"Philip Jose Farmer - WOT 2 - The Gates of Creation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

Urizen had set another gate within his hexaculum and had shunted him off to this place, wherever
it was. Why Urizen had done so would become apparent quickly enough.

Wolff knew what would happen if he tried to walk back through the gate. Nevertheless, not being
one to take things for granted, he did attempt it. With ease, he stepped out on the other side
upon the boulder.

It was a one-way gate, just as he had expected.

Somebody coughed behind him, and he whirled, his beamer ready.

II

THE LAND ENDED ABRUPTLY AGAINST THE SEA WITH NO INTERVENING beach. The animal had just emerged
from the sea and was only a few feet from him. It squatted like a toad on huge webbed feet, its
colum-nar legs folded as if they were boneless. The torso was humanoid and sheathed in fat, with a
belly that protruded like that of a Thanks-giving goose. The neck was long and supple. At its end
was a human head, but the nose was flat and had long narrow nostrils. Tendrils of red flesh
sprouted out around the mouth. The eyes were very large and moss-green. There were no ears. The
pate was covered, like the face and body, with a dark-blue oily fur.

"Jadawin!" the creature said. It spoke in the ancient language of the Lords. "Jadawin! Don't kill
me! Don't you know me?"

Wolff was shocked but not so much that he forgot to look behind him. This creature could be trying
to distract him.

"Jadawin! Don't you recognize your own brother!"

Wolff did not know him. The frog-seal body, lack of ears, blue fur, and squashed long-slitted nose
made identification too difficult. And there was Time. If he had really called this thing brother,
it must have been millennia ago.

That voice. It dug away at the layers of dusty memory, like a dog after an old bone. It scraped
away level after level, it...

He shook his head and glanced behind him and at the feathery vegetation. "Who are you?" he asked.


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The creature whined, and by this he knew that his brother-if it were his brother-must have been
imprisoned in that body for a long long time. No Lord whined.

"Are you going to deny me? Are you like the others? They'd have nothing to do with me. They mocked
at me, they spat upon me, they drove me away with kicks and laughs. They said. . ."