"Alan Dean Foster - Catechist 2 - Into The Thinking Kingdom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

For my niece, Alexandra Rachel Carroll




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 Into the Thinking Kingdoms: Journeys of the Catechist, Book 2

I

The most powerful man in the world couldnтАЩt sleep.

At least Hymneth the Possessed thought of himself as the most powerful man in the world, and since
those few who might have contemplated disputing him were no longer alive, he felt comfortable with
having appropriated the title to himself. And if not the most powerful man, then he was certainly the
most powerful mage. Granted that there might be a handful of imprudent individuals foolhardy enough
to stand before him as men and women, there were none who dared confront him in the realm of the
arcane and necromantic. Therehe was the Master of masters, and all who dabbled in the black arts must
pay him homage, or suffer his whims at their peril.

Yet despite the knowing of this, and the sum of all his knowing, he could not sleep.

Rising from his bed, a graven cathedral to Morpheus that had taken the ten finest wood-carvers in the
land six years to render from select pieces of cobal, redwood, cherry, walnut, and purpleheart, Hymneth
walked slowly to the vaulted window that looked out upon his kingdom. The rich and populous reach of
Ehl-Larimar stretched out before him, from the rolling green hills at the base of his mountaintop fortress
retreat to the distant, sun-washed shores of the boundless ocean called Aurel. Every home and farm,
every shop and industry within that field of view acknowledgedhim as supreme over all other earthly
authorities. He tried to submerge his soul in the warmth and security of that understanding, to let it wash
over and burnish him like a shower of liquid pleasure. But he could not.

He couldnтАЩt shake the accursed dream that had kept him awake.

Worse than the loss of sleep was his inability to recall the details. Nebulous, hazy images of other beings
had tormented his rest. Awake, he found that he was unable to remember them with any degree of
resolution. His inability to identify them meant it was impossible to deal with their condition or take
steps to prevent their return. He was convinced that some of the likenesses had been human, others not.
Why they should disturb him so he could not say. Unable to distinguish them from any other wraiths, he
could not formulate a means for dealing with them directly. The situation was more than merely
irritating. Priding himself as he did on the precision with which he conducted all his dealings, the
persisting inexactitude of the dream was disquieting.

He would go out, he decided. Out among his people. Receiving their obeisance, grandly deigning to
acknowledge their fealty, always made him feel better. Walking to the center of the grandiose but
impeccably decorated bedroom, he stood in the center of the floor, raised his arms, and recited one of
several thousand small yet potent litanies he knew by heart.

Light materialized that was solid, as opposed to the feeble sunbeams that entered through the tall
window. Taking the form of small yellow fingers that were detached from hands, it set about dressing