"Zelazny, Roger - Amber Short Stories 01 - Prologue to Trumps" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

Prologue to Trumps Of Doom from Amberzine #4 August, 1993
by Roger Zelazny



It was almost too easy. A turning, a twisting, a doubling back...

And then he faced a rough, slanted wall, looked up and saw the shaft.
He commenced climbing.

It was no longer easy. A swaying sensation began--faint, then distinct--
as if he were mounting into the uppermost branches of a tall tree. His way
brightened end then dimmed, repeatedly, in no perceptible pattern. After a
time, his eyes ached. Images doubled, wavered...

When the way grew suddenly level he doubted his vision, till his
extended hand assured him that there was indeed a choice of passages.

He leaned and moved his head into each of these. The faint musical
sound seemed slightly louder in the one to the left, and he followed it. Of
that, at least, he was certain.

Now his way rose and fell. He climbed up, he climbed down. The
brightening and dimming continued, only now the brightness was brighter and
the dimness dimmer.

And the sensations of external movement had nit abated. The floor of
the tunnel seemed to ripple beneath his feet, the walls and roof to contract
and expand. He stumbled, caught himself. Stumbled again...

At the next turning the sounds grew slightly louder, and he realized
that they were not a tune, but rather a totally random concatenation of
noises.

He climbed. He descended. The passageway shrank, and finally he
crawled.

The sensations of movement increased. At times he seemed to be spinning;
other times, it felt as if he were falling into an enormous abyss.

The flashes of light now drove nails of pain into skull. He began to
hallucinate. Faces and figures. Flames. Or were they hallucinations ?

He felt the first faint pulsation upon his left wrist...

How long had he been moving ? His clothes were already in tatters and
he bled, painlessly, from a dozen scrapes and lacerations.