"James E. Gunn - The Magicians" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gunn James E)

INTO THE BOTTOMLESS PIT...

I fumbled the key into the lock, opened the door to room 707тАФand stepped into a
bottomless black pit through which I went falling, falling, falling...

I was spinning, my arms and legs reaching desperately for handholds and footholds in the
formless night. I cartwheeled madly through the lightless void, lost and alone and terrified,
and I thought to myself that if I could only get out of this eternal pit, I would give it all up.
I would give up the search for Solomon; I would give up the case; I would never meddle
again in things that didn't concern me.

I braced myself for the impact of my body on some unyielding bottom to this pit, but it
never came. This isn't real, I told myself, but the thought was twisted away from me by
a cold, rushing wind. Illusion! I screamed, but my voice was lost in the nothingness that
enveloped me....


THE MAGICIANS
By
James Gunn


To Jeanne and R.T.
who produced and named Casey

publisher's note
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of
the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright ┬й 1976 by James Gunn

A shorter version of "this novel was first published in
Beyond Fantasy Fiction for May 1954 under the title
"Sine of the Magus."

The only trouble with magic is that it doesn't work.
тАФJohn Symonds

Chapter 1
Magic has power to experience and fathom things which are inaccessible to human
reason. For magic is a great secret wisdom, just as reason is a great public folly.
тАФParacelsus,
De Occulta Philosophia

The white letters on the corrugated black board spelled out:

COVENTION
 October 30 and 31