"Corum - 01 - The Knight Of The Swords" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

world. This pestilence struck down the old races wherever it touched them. And
it was not
only death that Man brought; but terror, too. Wilfully, he made of the older
world nothing but ruins and bones. Unwittingly, he brought psychic and
supernatural disrupнtion of the magnitude which even the Great Old Gods failed
to comprehend.
And the Great Old Gods began to know Fear.
And Man, slave of fear, arrogant in his ignorance, continued his sttunbling
progress. He was blind to the huge disruptions aroused by his apparently petty
ambiнtions. As well, Man was deficient in sensitivity, had no awareness of the
multitude of dimensions that filled the universe, each plane intersecting with
several others. Not so the Vadhagh or the Nhadragh, who had known what it was to
move at will between the dimensions they termed the Five Planes. They had
glimpsed and understood the nature of the many planes, other than the Five,
through which the Earth moved.
Therefore it seemed a dreadful injustice that these wise races should perish at
the hands of creatures who were still little more than animals. It was as if
vultures feasted on and squabbled over the paralysed body of the youthful poet
who could only stare at them with puzzled eyes as they slowly robbed hi-in of an
exquisite existence they would never appreciate, never know they were taking.
'If they valued what they stole, if they knew what they were destroying,' says
the old Vadhagh in the story, The Only Autumn Flower, `then I would be
consoled.'
It was unjust.
By creating Man, the universe had betrayed the old races.
But it was a perpetual and familiar injustice. The sentient may perceive and
love the universe, but the universe cannot perceive and love the sentient. The
universe sees no distinction between the multitude of creatures and elements
which comprise it: All are equal.
None is favoured. The universe, equipped with nothing but the materials and the
power of creation, continues to create: something of this, something of that. It
cannot control what it creates and it cannot, it seems, be controlled by its
creations (though a few might deceive themselves otherwise). Those who curse the
workings of the universe curse that which is deaf. Those who strike out at those
workings fight that which is inviolate. Those who shake their fists, shake their
fists at blind stars.
But this does not mean that there are some who will not try to do battle with
and destroy the invulnerable.
There will always be such beings, sometimes beings of great wisdom, who cannot
bear to believe in an insouciant universe.
Prince Corum jhaelen Irsei was one of these. Perhaps the last of the Vadhagh
race, he was sometimes known as The Prince in the Scarlet Robe.
This chronicle concerns him.

The Book of Corum

CHAPTER ONE

At Castle Erorn