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

I got to my feet and followed her to a table in the corner. She took off
her dusty apron and hung it on a peg on the wall. As she prepared the tea I
regarded the small army of statues which lined one wall and bivouacked in random
cluster about the enormous room-large, small, realistic, impressionistic,
beautiful, grotesque. She worked mainly in clay, though a few smaller ones were
of stone and there were furnaces at the room's far end, though these were cold
now. Several metal mobiles of unusual shape were suspended from ceiling beams.
When she joined me again she reached out and touched my left hand, locating
the ring she had given me.
"Yes, I value the Queen's protection," I said.
"Even though you are now a monarch yourself from a country on friendly
terms with us?"
"Even so," I said. "So much so, in fact, that I wish to reciprocate in
part."
"Oh?"
"I'm not at all certain that Amber is aware of recent events to which I
have been party or of which I have knowledge, which may affect her welfare. That
is, unless Merlin has been in touch recently."
"Merlin has not been in touch," she said. "If you have information vital to
the realm, though, perhaps you ought to give it to Random direct, He's not here
just now, but I could reach him for you via Trump."
"No," I said. "I know he doesn't like me at all or trust me, as his
brother's killer and a friend of the man who has sworn to destroy Amber. I am
sure he would love to see me deposed and some puppet on the throne of Kashfa. I
suppose I must have things out with him one day, but this isn't the day. I've
too much else going on just now. But the information transcends local politics.
It involves Amber and the Courts of Chaos, the Pattern and the Logrus, the death
of Swayvill and Merlin's possible succession to the throne in the Courts--"
"You're serious!"
"You bet. I know he'll listen to you. And he'll even understand why I told
you. Let me avoid him this way. There are big events in the offing."
"Tell me," she said, raising her cup.
So I did, including everything Merlin had told me, up through the
confrontation at the primal Pattern and my flight to the Crystal Cave. We went
through the entire pot of tea in the process, and when I was finished we just
sat for a time in silence.
Finally, she sighed.
"You have charged me to deliver major intelligence," she said.
"I know."
"Yet I feel it is but a small part of much greater developments."
"How's that?" I asked.
"A few small things I have heard, known, guessed at, and perhaps
dreamed-and a few, I suppose, I simply fear. Hardly a coherent shape. Yet
enough, perhaps, to query the powers of the earth I work with. Yes. Now that I
have thought it I must try it, of course. At a time such as this."
She rose slowly, paused, and gestured high.
"That shall be the Tongue," she said, and a draft stirred one of the
mobiles causing it to produce many tones.
She crossed the studio to the righthand wall--small figure in gray and
green, chestnut hair down to the middle of her back--and ran her fingers lightly