"Roger Zelazny & Robert Sheckley - Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

"Save it," Azzie growled, grabbing Scrivener by the arm and steering him to the gate in the wall that leads
to other parts of Hell and, eventually, to everywhere else and vice versa.



Chapter 2



Azzie and Scrivener proceeded through the iron gate in the iron wall and up the spiraling road that leads
through the outer suburbs of Purgatory, a region com-posed of great crosshatched depths and startling
heights exact-ly as Fuseli drew it. They trudged along, demon and man, and the way was easy, for easy
are the roads of Hell, but it was also boring, because Hell is the state of not being amused.

And after a while Scrivener said, "Is it much farther?"

"I'm not sure," Azzie confessed. "I'm new in this sector. In fact, I shouldn't be here at all."

"Just like me," Scrivener said. "Just because I fall into a corpselike coma from time to time is no reason
for your Grim Reaper fellow to grab me up without making proper tests. It was slipshod, I tell you. Why
shouldn't you be here?"

"I was intended for better things," Azzie said. "I got good grades in Thaumaturgy College. Finished in the
top three in my class."

He failed to tell Scrivener that all of his class except three had wiped out when a sudden infestation of
good blew in from the south, freak metaphysical weather that killed all but Azzie and two others, who
seemed to have a natural immunity against good halations. And then there had been the poker game.
"So why are you here?" Scrivener asked.

"I'm working off a gambling debt," Azzie said. "I couldn't pay up, so I had to serve time." He hesitated,
then said, "I like to gamble."

"Me too," Scrivener said, with what sounded like an air of regret.

They walked for a while in silence. Then Scrivener said, "What's going to happen to me now?"

"We're going to insert you back into your body."

"Will I be all right? Some people wake up from the dead and are all funny, so I've heard."

"I'll be around to look out for you. I'll stay until I'm sure you're all right."

"That's good to hear," Scrivener said. He walked for a while in silence, then said, "But of course, when I
wake up I won't know you're there, will I?"

"Of course not."

"Then I won't be reassured."