"Roger Zelazny - Amber 10 - Prince Of Chaos" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

Judgment, I could not even guess. Unless he somehow considered her proof
against the forces of the Pattern and the Logrus in their attempts to recover
it. My expertise in this area, though, was nonexistent. Having finally met the
diminutive mage, I had become convinced of his sanity, though this feeling in
no way served to penetrate those enigmatic qualities that ancient wise men
tend to possess.
"How does it feel?" I asked her.
"Very strange," she replied. "Not pain, exactly. More like the way a Trump
contact feels. Only it's with me all the time, and I'm not going anywhere or
talking to anyone. It's as if I'm standing in some sort of gateway. Forces are
moving about me, through me."
In an instant I was at the center that was the gray ring with its wheel of
many-spoked reddish metal. From the inside, here, it was like a great web. A
bright strand pulsed for my attention. Yes, it was a line to a very potent
force in distant Shadow, one that might be used for probing. Carefully, I
extended it toward the covered jewel she wore in her eye socket.
There was no immediate resistance. In fact, I felt nothing as I extended
the line of power. An image came to me of a curtain of flame, however. Pushing
through the fiery veil, I felt my extension of inquiry slowing, slowing,
halted. And there I hovered, as It were, at the edge of a void. This was not
the way of attunement, as I understood it, and I was loath to invoke the
Pattern, which I understood to be a part of it, when employing other forces. I
pushed forward and felt a terrible coldness, draining the energies I had
called upon.
Still, it was not draining the energy directly from me, only from one of
the forces I commanded. I pushed it farther, and I beheld a faint patch of
light like some distant nebula. It hung against a background the deep red of
port wine. Closer still, and it resolved itself into a form, a complex, three
dimensional construct, half familiar, which must be the pathway one takes in
attuning oneself to the Jewel, from my father's description. All right, I was
inside the Jewel. Should I essay the initiation?
"Go no further," came an unfamiliar voice, though I realized it to be
Coral who was making the sounds. She seemed to have slipped into a trance
state. "You are denied the higher initiation."
I drew back on my probe, not eager for any demonstrations that might come
my way along it. My Logrus sight, which had remained with me constantly since
recent events in Amber, gave me a vision of Coral now fully enfolded and
penetrated by the higher version of the Pattern.
"Why?" I asked it.
But I was not vouchsafed a reply. Coral gave a little jerk, shook herself,
and stared at me.
"What happened?" she asked.
"You dozed off," I replied. "No wonder. Whatever Dworkin did, plus the
day's stress..."
She yawned and collapsed back on the bed.
"Yes," she breathed, and then she was really asleep. I pulled off my boots
and discarded my heavier garments. I stretched out beside her and drew a quilt
over us. I was tired, too, and I just wanted someone to hold.
How long I slept I do not know. I was troubled by dark, swirling dreams.
Faces - human, animal, demonic, moved about me, none of them bearing