"Zelazny, Roger - Amber Short Story 05 - Blue Horse Dancing Mountains" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

Blue Horse, Dancing Mountains
Roger Zelazny
An Amber Short Story

I took a right at the Burning Wells and fled smokeghosts across the
Uplands of Artine. I slew the leader of the Kerts of Shern as her flock
harried me from hightowered perches among the canyons of that place. The
others abandoned the sport, and we were through, beneath a green rain out of
a slate-colored sky. Onward and down then, to where the plains swirled dust
devils that sang of sad eternities in rock that once they were.
At last the winds fell off and Shask, my deadly mount, blue stallion
out of Chaos, slowed to a stop before vermilion sands.
"What is the matter?" I asked.
"We must cross this neck of the desert to reach the Dancing Mountains,"
Shask replied.
"And how long a journey might that be?"
"Most of the rest of the day," he said. "It is narrowest here. We have
paid in part for this indulgence already. The rest will come in the
mountains themselves, for now we must cross where they are very active."

I raised my canteen and shook it.
"Worth it," I said, "so long as they don't really dance in Richter
terms."
"No, but at the Great Divide between the shadows of Amber and the
shadows of Chaos there is some natural shifting activity in play where they
meet."
"I'm no stranger to shadow-storms, which is what that sounds like--a
permanent shadow-storm front. But I wish we could just push on through
rather than camp there."
"I told you when you chose me, Lord Corwin, that I could bear you
farther than any other mount by day. But by night I become an unmoving
serpent, hardening to stone and cold as a demon's heart, thawing come dawn."
"Yes, I recall," I said, --and you have served me well, as Merlin said
you might. Perhaps we should overnight this side of the mountains and cross
tomorrow."
"The front, as I said, shifts. Likely, at some point, it would join you
in the foothills or before. Once you reach the region, it matters not where
we spend the night. The shadows will dance over us or near us. Dismount now,
please, unsaddle, and remove your gear, that I may shift."

"To what?" I asked as I swung to the ground.
"I've a lizard form would face this desert best."
"By all means, Shask, be comfortable, be efficient. Be a lizard."
I set about unburdening him. It was good to be free again.
Shask as blue lizard was enormously fast and virtually tireless. He got
us across the sands with daylight to spare, and as I stood beside him
contemplating the trail that led upward through the foothills, he spoke in a
sibilant tone: "As I said, the shadows can catch us anywhere around here,
and I still have strength to take us up for an hour or so before we camp,
rest, and feed. What is your choice?"