"Zelazny, Roger - Amber Short Story 02 - The Salesman's Tale" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

The Salesman's Tale
Roger Zelazny
An Amber Short Story

Amberzine #6 february, 1994

Glad I'd planned on leaving Merlin in the Crystal Cave for a long while.
Glad he didn't stay the entire time. As I interrupted our trumped conversation
by kicking over my glass of iced tea and shouting "Shit! I spilled it-" I turned
over the Trump of Doom in my good hand.
Junkyard Forest. Nice sketch, that. Though it didn't matter what it
depicted, which is why I'd had Merlin fan the cards face down and had drawn one
at random. That was for show, to confuse the Pattern. All of them led to places
within spitting distance of the Crystal Cave- which had been the real reason for
their existence in the first place. Their only purpose had been to draw Merlin
into the Cave's orbit, at which point a blue crystal warning system was to have
alerted me. The plan was for me to get there in a hurry and find a way to make
him a prisoner.
Unfortunately, I hadn't gotten the message when he'd drawn the Sphinx to
escape from mom. Her neurotoxins had canceled a necessary trigger signal from
his nervous system--just one of the many ways she's messed up my plans without
half-trying. Didn't matter, though, in the long run. I got Merlin there, anyway.
Only... everything changed after that.
"Luke! You fool!" The Pattern's message blasted through me like the closing
number at a rock concert. But the Junkyard Forest had already come clear, and I
was trumping out, before the Pattern realized that tea rather than my blood was
flowing upon it.
I rose to my feet as the Pattern faded, and I moved forward amid the rusty
sawblade bushes, the twisted girder trees, the gaily colored beds of broken
bottles. I began to run, blood spilling from the slashed palm of my left hand. I
didn't even take the time to bind it. Once the Pattern recovered from its shock
and discovered itself undamaged, it was going to begin scanning Shadow for me,
for the others. They'd be safe within the ambit of the other Pattern, and that
left me. The walls of the Crystal Cave had the effect of blocking every
paraphysical phenomenon I'd been able to test them for, and I'd a hunch they'd
screen me from the Pattern's scrutiny as well. It was just a matter of my
getting there before it shadow-shuffled this far.
I increased my pace. I'd stayed in shape. I could run. Past rusting cars
and swirls of bedsprings, broken tiles, shattered crates... Down alleys of
ashes, up trails of bottlecaps and pulltabs... Alert. Waiting. Waiting for the
world to spin and waver, to hear the voice of the Pattern announce, "Gotcha!"
I rounded a bend and caught a glimpse of blue in the distance. The Junkyard
Forest--result of an ancient Shadow storm--ended abruptly as I entered upon a
downward slope, to be succeeded within paces by a wood of the more normal
variety.
Here, I heard a few birdcalls as I passed, and the humming of insects,
above the steady striking of my feet upon the earth. The sky was overcast, and I
could tell nothing of temperature or wind because of my activity. The shimmering
mound of blue grew larger. I maintained my pace. By now, the others should be
safe, if they'd made it at all. Hell! By now they should be well out of harm's