"Love Is AnImaginary Number" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

Lights appeared in my rearview mirror.

Them?

Too soon.

It was either just another car headed this way, or it was Stella.

Prudence, as the Greek Chorus says, is better than imprudence.

I shifted, not gears.

I was whipping along in a lower, more powerful car.

Again, I shifted.

I was driving from the wrong side of the vehicle and headed up the
wrong side of the highway.

Again.

No wheels. My car sped forward on a cushion of air, above a beaten and
dilapidated highway. All the buildings I passed were of metal. No wood or
stone or brick had gone into the construction of anything I saw.

On the long curve behind me, a pair of headlights appeared.

I killed my own lights and shifted, again and again, and again.

I shot through the air, high above a great swampland, stringing sonic
booms like beads along the thread of my trail. Then another shift, and I
shot low over the steaming land where great reptiles raised their heads like
beanstalks from out their wallows. The sun stood high in this world, like an
acetylene torch in the heavens. I held the struggling vehicle together by an
act of will and waited for pursuit. There was none.

I shifted again...

There was a black forest reaching almost to the foot of the high hill
upon which the ancient castle stood. I was mounted on a hippogriff, flying,
and garbed in the manner of a warrior-mage. I steered my mount to a landing
within the forest.

"Become a horse," I ordered, giving the proper guide-word.

Then I was mounted upon a black stallion, trotting along the trail
which twisted through the dark forest.

Should I remain here and fight them with magic, or move on and meet
them in a world where science prevailed?