"R. A. Lafferty - Melchisedek 02 - Tales of Midnight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lafferty R A)

Have you ever even met him?"
"No."
"And yet you say that he was the son of Giulio the Monster who was a
Teras. You have so much, you know so much, one-aspect-brother-of-mine, for
one who knows so little."
"I suspect that this Finnegan was another of your talisman-children,
Duffey," Patrick Finnegan said. I myself have met this Finnegan long ago,
when he shipped on the river, long before my son Vincent, who was his best
friend, knew him. And as to Duffey's having created a brood of beautiful and
bumptious people, I don't find this unlikely at all. I myself made a few
people by the modified talismanic method before I made my sons and daughters
from my loins. The latter thing precludes and shuts off the former, forever,
always. Let us consider just what these creative conditions are.
"A non-creative human soul would not be possible. We all share in
each others creations. We are even partly created by persons who may not be
born for another thousand years yet. There was One who creates. And yet, on
level 1-B, creation was a group effort and some are better at it than
others. Some souls have more creativity than others. Not all souls are as
resoundingly creative than others. Not all souls are as resoundingly
creative as was Duffey. As to Duffey though: his creations are like a
multitude of old, (no no, no old, of new and brightly painted) milk cans
clattering down stone steps. They do make a noise!
"The mathematics of the talismanic-creation complex are fantastic.
We are dealing with multi-dimensional equations with as many as thirty
billion unknown and highly mysterious integers, in which equations every
integer was a variable function of all the others. Yes, I believe that
Duffey has conspicuously created my own son Vincent, and Piccone's daughter
Teresa, and Finnegan, the son of the Monster Giulio (I also knew this
Monster, and I once represented him against a motion to have him locked up),
and big-brained Hans, and Casey, and many of those beautiful young girls
also. But it all works both ways, or it works thirty billion ways. For I
myself conscuously created this Melchisedech Duffey, even though he was
already fifteen or sixteen years old when I first met him. There's a lot
more to him than there would have been if I hadn't muddied my creative hands
with him. These additional powers that he got from myself and several others
at that time aren't seen too clearly in him even yet, but they will be
absolutely required in his future trials."
Duffey remembered that he had picked up a little suavity from
Patrick Stranahan, and perhaps other pleasant things.
"You are speaking in false context about any person ever creating
anything," said Father McGuigan. "You are indulging in unlawful metaphor."
"Nah, man, nah," Duffey said. "He was only putting into metaphor
what was literal fact: that was Patrick's only offense in the present
dwascussion. There was nothing metaphorical about my creations or about my
kingship... I am a Magus... I am a sorcerer. I am a child of gold and
minister of bread and wine. I am the Boy King, and I am the King of Salem. I
command giants. I move with high royalty, and the trumpets know me by name.
I have sat in Kings' conclaves with Solomon and Saul, and with Ptolemy and
Chandragupta and Nebuchadessar, with Hsien and with Barbarossa, all the way
down to --"