"Mike Resnick - The Fallen Angel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

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And in Hell, where there is no time or date, and where even location is subject to the whim of its Dark
Master, the princes and generals of the pits perched in conclave on a flat outcropping of rock, high
above their sullen ruler.

тАЬWhy does he do it?тАЭ asked one, the newest member of the elite group. тАЬSurely he could win a chess
game against anyone who ever lived!тАЭ

тАЬJust as I could win a coin flip,тАЭ agreed the son of Baal, тАЬor step beyond the boundaries of a pentagram
at will.тАЭ

тАЬAnd just as I could have made all women ugly, destroyed Germany, and allowed Skarda life everlasting
while toiling in the pits beneath us,тАЭ added Lucifuge Rofocale.

тАЬThen why?тАЭ persisted the questioner. тАЬHell is teeming with the suffering and the damned. Why even
pretend to seek for more? The Dark Master avoids the ones we have now.тАЭ

тАЬOf course he does,тАЭ said Lucifuge Rofocale. тАЬFor he himself is damned beyond the suffering the others
shall ever undergo. They, like you, have never known Paradise.тАЭ

тАЬI don't understand.тАЭ

тАЬDo you think he enjoys the suffering of the damned?тАЭ asked the son of Baal.

тАЬWhy not? I do.тАЭ

тАЬBut you were born a demon, and he an angel.тАЭ

The newcomer shook his horned head. тАЬI still don't see what difference that makes.тАЭ

тАЬYou have all Eternity before you,тАЭ said Lucifuge Rofocale. тАЬThere will come a time when you
comprehend your master.тАЭ

And as they spoke, Lord Lucifer strode through the lava streams of Hell. Finally he stopped and, as he
had done a billion times before and as he would do a trillion times in the future, he raised his gaze to
Heaven. The brilliance of the light seemed to grow in intensity as he stared at it, and an instant later,
tears of pain streaming down his face, the Dark Master let his consciousness float upward and outward,
joining for the merest flickering of an instant the triumphant and pleasure-filled bodies and souls of
Skarda and Achmed and Ellington and a million others, as he grasped futilely for a tiny taste of the
Paradise he had relinquished so long ago.

тАФThe EndтАФ

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