"Zelazny, Roger - Bring Me The Head Of Prince Charming" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

"Difficult to strike such a blow," Azzie commented.
"The blow is well struck-the poltroon prince is cloven in twain. His upper half rolls in the dust. But his cowardly legs are still running, they are running now from death. Relieved of the weight of his upper body, they find it easy to run, though it is true they are running out of energy. But how much energy does it take for a pair of legs to drive themselves, when no one else is attached? Demons are pursuing these running legs, because they have already passed the boundaries of the normal, already they run in the limitless land of possibilities that is the preternatural. And now, at last, they totter a last few steps, turn, sway, and then crash lifeless to the ground."
"In short, we have here the legs of a coward," Azzie said.
"A coward, to be sure. But a sort of divine coward who would run from death even in death, so afraid was he that what had in fact happened would happen."

Chapter 2

After Hermes left him to preside over a meeting of maguses in what would someday be Zurich, Azzie sat and brooded. Moodily he poked the legs. They were much too valuable to waste on snacking. That's what Hermes had implied in his usual roundabout fashion.
What should he do with them? He thought again about the great event, the Millennial contest. What he needed was an idea, a concept. . . . He stared at the legs, rearranged them this way and that. There must be something. . . .
Suddenly he sat up straight. Yes, the legs! He had it! A wonderful idea, one that was sure to make his name in circles of evil. He had an idea for the contest! It had come in a burst of demoniac inspiration. He must lose no time, must hurry and get it on record, get cooperation from the Evil Powers. What day was this? He calculated swiftly, then moaned. This was the last day in which entries could be made. He must go to the High Demon Council, and quickly.
Taking a deep breath, he propelled himself away from Earth to the region of Limbo where the high council was meeting. It is not generally realized, but demons have as much trouble getting in to see someone in the top level of command as mortals do. If you're not high up in the hierarchy, if you're not related to someone important, if you are not a gifted athlete, then forget anything immediate; you have to go through channels, and that can take time.
Azzie didn't have time, however. Next morning, the High Committee would pick a winner, and the game would be set.
"I gotta see the Game Committee," Azzie said to the demon guard at the gate of the Ministry, the great group of buildings, some baroque and ornamental with onion-shaped domes, others severely modern and rectilinear, where the affairs of demons, imps, and other evil supernatural creatures were regulated. Many demons worked here as clerks: a lot of paper was required in the never-ending attempt to codify the behavior of supernatural creatures. The government of Supernatural Creatures of Evil was more extensive than any on Earth and employed most of the demons of Hell in one capacity or another. And this was despite the fact that the governing of demons had never been sanctioned by a higher power. The only recognized power above Good and Evil was the strange and misty thing called Ananke, Necessity. It was not certain whether the chain of command stopped at Ananke or went on to even higher levels. Ananke was as far as demoniac theorists had reached. The theorists had difficulty communicating with Ananke because it was so mysterious, so difficult to pin down, so unbodied, and so uncommunicative that it was impossible to be sure of anything about it except that it seemed to exist. Ananke judged the contests between Good and Evil which were held every thousand years. Its decisions were reached mysteriously. Ananke was a law unto itself, but it was a law that showed only glimpses of itself, and never stood still for explication.

But why should demons have to be ruled? In theory, demons were autonomous creatures who followed their impulses, i.e., to do evil. But there seemed to be a built-in perversity in the makeup of intelligent creatures, whether natural or supernatural, that made them go against the grain, against what was best for them, against all the things they should believe. Thus the demons needed the first necessity of government, a bureau of Conformity, and this cheered them no end because their top theorists believed that the enforcing of the standards of evil was worse, evilwise, than the doing of evil itself. It was difficult to be sure of this, but it seemed reasonable.
Azzie was acting in a nonconformist manner as he burst past the guards, who stared at him slack-jawed, taken aback because this was definitely undemonic behavior. Demons are usually toadies to those above them. But they hesitated to chase after and stop him because the fox-headed young demon had seemed more than a little crazed, and if that were so, he might be divinely inspired, that is, inspired by Satan himself, in whose invisible service all of the powers of evil toiled as an act of faith.
Azzie ran through the corridors of the Ministry, well aware why the guardian demons had not tried to stop him. That was all very well, but he knew he was not inspired, and he also knew that the high council would not be amused by any of this. It occurred to him that he had made a very big mistake, had taken more upon himself than he could deal with. But he thrust that thought from his mind, his determination stiffening. Now that he had begun, he would have to continue.
He raced up one side of an impressive double stairway, turned to his left, almost overturning an urn filled with freshly picked spring weeds, and continued down the corridor, making left turns whenever the choice presented itself, racing past subordinate demons with their hands full of papers, until he came to a high bronze door. He knew this had to be the place. He pushed open the door and entered.

When Azzie burst in, the meeting of the Powers of Evil was in full session. It was not a happy meeting. Discontent was manifest on the bestial faces of the major demons. Mouths were turned down, eyes red and swollen.
"What is this?" Belial said, standing up on his goat feet to better peer at Azzie, who was now bowing low.
Azzie, tongue-tied, could only stammer and stare.
"It's obvious, isn't it?" Azazel said, hunching his mighty shoulders and ruffling his dark wings. "It's a demon of the common sort who has presumed to break in upon us. I don't know what the young are coming to these days. It wasn't like this in my time. Young demons were respectful then, and desirous of pleasing their elders. Now they barge around in gangs, sewer gangs I have heard them called, and they don't care whom they offend with their noisy behavior. Not satisfied with this, they even elect one of their number to break into our inner sanctorum and taunt us."
Belial, an old rival of Azazel's, pounded with his hoof on the table and said, in mincing words, "The right honorable member is sufficiently talented to expand a single demonic intrusion into an onslaught by a sewer warfare gang. I see no gang: only a single rather foolish-looking demon. I would also point out that sanctum is more correct than sanctorum in this case, which the honorable member would know if he had ever mastered the dear old mother tongue, Latin."
Azazel's eyes smoldered, little wisps of blue smoke came out of his snout, corrosive acid dripped from his nose and ate holes in the ironwood table. "I'll not be mocked," he said, "by a jumped-up nature spirit who has been made a demon rather than born one and who, because of his ambiguous ancestry, cannot be relied upon to understand the true nature of evil."
Other members clamored to be heard, because demons loved to argue about who really understood evil, who was most evil, and by extension, who was insufficiently bad. Azzie, however, had now regained his poise. He realized that the attention of the Lord Demons would soon be turned to him. So he made haste to speak in his own defense.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I am sorry to be the cause of this dispute. I would not have broken in on you if I had not something urgent to say."
"Yes," Belial said. "Why have you come? And I notice that you haven't brought any presents, as is customary. What have you to say for yourself?"
"I come without presents," Azzie said, "that is true. It was my haste, and I beg apology. But I do bear something more important."
He paused. It was that dramatic demon sense working in him that made him stop at that moment rather than blurt on.
The Demon Lords also knew a thing or two about drama.
They stared at him in accusing silence. After what seemed like forever, Belphegor, who was anxious to adjourn this committee and get a little sleep, said, "All right, damn you, what do you bear that is more important than presents?"
In a low, husky voice, Azzie said, "What I bear, gentlemen, is that most precious of things: an idea."

Chapter 3

Azzie's words hit upon a common concern among the Lord Demons, namely, their need for an idea for the coming Light versus Dark festivities, a drama that would be their entry into the contest of Good versus Evil, and whose outcome would demonstrate, homiletically, as it were, the superiority of Evil, thus giving them the right to dominate man's destiny for the next thousand years.
"What is this idea?" Belial asked.
Azzie bowed low and began to tell them the story of Prince Charming.
Fairy tales have great weight and resonance for demons as well as for humans. All of the Demon Lords knew the Prince Charming story-of how a youth came forth to save a princess who had been enchanted by a spell and cast into a perpetual sleep. This prince was Prince Charming, who, aided by his pure heart and loyal spirit, fought his way through the various dangers that beset the Princess, conquered them all, won through the wall of thorns to her castle, climbed to the top of the mountain of glass upon which her palace had been set, and kissed her. Whereupon she awoke, and they married and lived happily ever after.
Azzie proposed to stage this pretty story, but with characters of his own devising.
"Gentlemen, give me a grant so that I can draw freely upon Supply- and I will create a Prince and a Princess who will act out the Prince Charming-Sleeping Beauty story and turn this insipid tale on its ear. My couple will demonstrate a different ending. Their conclusion to the tale, arrived at by their own free will, with only a minimum of behind-the-scenes tampering on my part, will show conclusively, to the enjoyment of our friends and the confusion of our enemies, that given a free hand, evil must inevitably win in the contests of the human spirit."
"Not a bad idea," Azazel said. "But what makes you think that your actors, given free will, will act the way you want them to?"
"That can be ensured," Azzie said, "by careful selection of the body parts, and appropriate education once they are selected and animated into persons."
"Careful selection?" Phlegethon asked. "What do you mean by that?"
"Here is the very first item," Azzie said, "around which I intend to build my Prince Charming."
He removed from his canvas bag the pair of legs he had won at the demons' poker game. The Lord Demons leaned forward to regard them. By the combined weight of their gaze a cloud of body memory issued forth, and each demon could see for himself the history of this pair of legs, and how their owner had come to lose them.
"A devilish cowardly pair of legs indeed," Belial said.
"True, my lord," Azzie said. "A prince with these legs would never stay the course of a difficult trial. The legs themselves would almost haul him back to shameful safety!"
"Is that the destined outcome of your planned charade?" Belial asked.