"Roger Zelazny - Amber 08 - Sign Of Chaos" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

that I was caught up in the moment, but I couldn't see my way clear.
I was caught up...
I was caught...
How?
Well... It had all started when I'd shaken my own hand. No. Wrong. That
sounds like Zen and that's not how it was. The hand I shook emerged from the
space occupied by the image of myself on the card that went away. Yes, that
was it... After a fashion.
I clenched my teeth. The music began again. There came a soft scraping
sound near to my hand on the bar. When I looked I saw that my tankard had been
refilled. Maybe I'd had too much already. Maybe that's what kept getting in
the way of my thinking. I turned away. I looked off to my left, past the place
where the mural on the wall became the real landscape. Did that make me a part
of the mural? I wondered suddenly.
No matter. If I couldn't think here... I began running... to the left.
Something about this place was messing with my head, and it seemed impossible
to consider the process while I was a part of it. I had to get away in order
to think straight, to determine what was going on.
I was across the bar and into that interface area where the painted rocks
and trees became three-dimensional. I pumped my arms as I dug in. I head the
wind without feeling it.
Nothing that lay before me seemed any nearer. I was moving, but Luke began
singing again.
I halted. I turned, slowly, because it sounded as if he were standing
practically beside me. He was. I was only a few paces removed from the bar.
Luke smiled and kept singing.
"What's going on?" I asked the Caterpillar. "You're looped in Luke's
loop," it replied. "Come again?" I said.
It blew a blue smoke ring, sighed softly, and said, "Luke's locked in a
loop and you're lost in the lyrics. That's all."
"How'd it happen?" I asked.
"I have no idea," it replied.
"Uh, how does one get unlooped?"
"Couldn't tell you that either."
I turned to the Cat, who was coalescing about his grin once again.
"I don't suppose you'd know - " I began.
"I saw him come in and I saw you come in later," said the Cat, smirking.
"And even for this place your arrivals were somewhat... unusual, leading me to
conclude that at least one of you is associated with magic."
I nodded.
"Your own comings and goings might give one pause," I observed.
"I keep my paws to myself," he replied. "Which is more than Luke can say."
"What do you mean?"
"He's caught in a contagious trap."
"How does it work?" I asked.
But he was gone again, and this time the grin went too.
Contagious trap? That seemed to indicate that the problem was Luke's, and
that I had been sucked into it in some fashion. This felt right, though it
still gave me no idea as to what the problem was or what I might do about it.
I reached for my tankard. If I couldn't solve my problem, I might as well