"He Who Shapes by Roger Zelazny" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nebula Awards)

The blade moved from side to side. Caesar, fascinated by the
sharpened steel, swayed to the same rhythm.
"Why?" he cried. "Why?"
"Because," answered Render, "he was a far nobler Roman
than yourself."
"You lie! It is not so!"
Render shrugged and returned to the stabbing.
"It is not true!" screamed Caesar. "Not true!"
Render turned to him again and waved the dagger.
Puppetlike, Caesar mimicked the pendulum of the blade.
"Not true?" smiled Render. "And who are you to question an
assassination such as this? You are no one! You detract from
the dignity of this occasion! Begone!"
Jerkily, the pink-faced man rose to his feet, his hair
half-wispy, half-wetplastered, a disarray of cotton. He turned,
moved away; and as he walked, he looked back over his
shoulder.
He had moved far from the circle of assassins, but the scene
did not diminish in size. It retained an electric clarity. It made
him feel even further removed, ever more alone and apart.
Render rounded a previously unnoticed corner and stood
before him, a blind beggar.
Caesar grasped the front of his garment.
"Have you an ill omen for me this day?"
"Beware!" jeered Render.
"Yes! Yes!" cried Caesar. " 'Beware!' That is good! Beware
what?"
"The ides-"
"Yes? The ides"
"-of Octember."
He released the garment.
"What is that you say? What is Octember?"
"A month."
"You lie! There is no month of Octember!"
"And that is the date noble Caesar need fearthe non-
existent time, the never-to-be-calendared occasion."
Render vanished around another sudden corner.
"Wait! Come back!"
Render laughed, and the Forum laughed with him. The bird-
cries became a chorus of inhuman jeers.
"You mock me!" wept Caesar.
The Forum was an oven, and the perspiration formed like a
glassy mask over Caesar's narrow forehead, sharp nose, chinless
jaw.
"I want to be assassinated too!" he sobbed. "It isn't fair!"
And Render tore the Forum and the senators and the
grinning corpse of Antony to pieces and stuffed them into a
black sackwith the unseen movement of a single fingerand
last of all went Caesar.
Charles Render sat before the ninety white buttons and the