"Zelazny, Roger - Changeling Saga - 02 - Madwand" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

"Traveling alone also has its hazards."
"I'd imagine they are fewer for a sorcerer."
"Perhaps," Mouseglove replied.
The dark form of the dragon-mount dwindled against the northern sky, vanished within a mountain's shadow.


II
That night, as I permeated the dead man's body, seeking traces within his brain cells, I learned that his name had been Keth and that he had served one greater than himself. Nothing more. As I slid into and out of higher spaces, as I terminated a rat in a drainage channel in the manner I had recently learned, as I threaded my way among moonbeams in the old tower and slid along rafters in search of spiders, I thought upon the evening's doings and on all manner of existential questions which had not troubled me previously.
The energies of the creatures which I had taken had a bracing effect upon my overall being. I wandered through new areas of thought. Other beings existed in multitudes, yet I had never encountered another such as myself. Did this mean that I was unique? If not, where were the others? If so, why? From whence did I come? Was there a special reason for my existence? If yes, what could it be?
I swirled across the ramparts. I descended to the caverns far below and passed among the sleeping dragons and the other creatures. I felt no kinship with any of them.
It did not occur to me until much later that I must possess some particular attachment to Rondoval itself, else I might long ago have wandered off. I realized that I did prefer it and its environs to those other portions of the countryside into which I had ventured. Something had kept calling me back. What?
I returned to Pol's sleeping form and examined him very carefully, as I had every night since his arrival. And I found myself, as always, hovering above the dragonmark upon his right forearm. It, too, attracted me. For what reason, I could not say. It was at about the time of this man's arrival that I had begun the movement which had culminated in my present state of self-awareness. Was it somehow his doing? Or--the place having been deserted for as long as it had been--would the prolonged presence of anyone have worked the same effect within me?
My desire for purpose returned to me strongly. I began to feel that my apparent deficiency in this area might have been accidental, that perhaps I should possess a compulsion, that there was something I should be doing but had somehow lost or never learned. How significant, I wondered, was this feeling? Again, I was uncertain. But I began to understand what had produced my present attitude of inquiry.
Pol would be departing on the morrow. My memories of a time before his time had already become dim. Would I return to my more selfless state when he left? I did not believe so, yet I was willing to concede that he had played some part in my awakening into identity.
I realized at that moment that I was trying to make a decision. Should I remain at Rondoval or should I accompany Pol? And in either case, why?
I tried to terminate a bat in flight but it got away from me.

The two of them took the northern trail on foot that morning, traveling together through the pass and downward to the spring-touched green of the forest to the place of the crossroads Pol had marked upon the map he bore.
They rested their packs against the bole of a large oak, still darkly damp with the morning dew, and considered the mists which dwindled and faded even as they watched, while the sun became a bright bulge upon the slope of a mountain to their right. From somewhere behind them the first tentative notes of birdsong were commenced and then abandoned.
"You will be out of the hills by evening," said Pol, looking to the right. "It will be a few days before I get down, and then I'll have to climb again later. You'll be basking in the sea breeze while I'm still shivering my ass off. Well, good luck to you and thanks again--"
"Save the speech." said Mouseglove. "I'm coming along."
"To Belken?"
"All the way."
"Why?"
"I allowed myself to get too curious. Now I want to see how it all ends."
"It may well end indeed."
"You don't really believe that or you wouldn't be going. Come on! Don't try to talk me out of it. You might succeed."
Mouseglove raised his pack and moved off to the left. Shortly, Pol joined him. The sun looked over the mountain's shoulder and the gates of dawn were opened. Their shadows ran on before them.
That night they camped within a stand of pine trees, and Pol had a dream which felt like no dream he had ever known before. There was a clarity and a quality of consciousness involved which spun it past his inner eye with a disturbing simulation of reality, while in all aspects it was invested with a foreboding air of menace and yet possessed him with a certain dark joy.
Seven pale flames were moving in slow procession widdershins about him, as if summoning him, spirit fashion, to appear in their midst. He rose up slowly out of his body and stood like a bloodless image of himself. At this, they halted and left the ground. He followed them to treetop height and beyond. Then they escorted him northward, moving higher and faster beneath a sky filled with palely illuminated clouds. Grotesque shapes seemed to fill the trees below, the mountains about him. The wind made a whining sound and black forms flirted out of his way. The terrain rippled in dark waves as his speed increased. The wind became a howling thing, though he felt neither cold nor pressure from it.
At last, a huge, dark form loomed before him, set halfway up a mountainside, dotted here and there with small illumination; walled, turreted, heavy, high, it was a castle at least the size of Rondoval and in better condition.
There followed a break in his dream-awareness from which he recovered after an eon or a moment to a feeling of cold, of dampness. He stood before a massive double-door, heavily ironbound and hung with huge rings. It was inscribed with the figure of a serpent, spikes driven through it; the crucified form of a great bird hung above it. Where it was located, he had no idea, but it seemed suddenly familiar--as though he had glimpsed it repeatedly in other dreams, forgotten until this instant. He swayed slightly forward, realizing as he did that the chill he experienced hung about the Gate itself like an invisible aura, increasing perceptibly with each tiny movement he made toward it.
The flames burned silently, sourcelessly, at either hand. He was overwhelmed with a desire to pass through the Gate, but he had no idea as to how this might be accomplished. The doors looked for too formidable to yield to the strength of any solitary mortal....
He awoke cold and wondering, pulling his covering higher and drawing it more tightly about him. The next morning he remembered the dream but did not speak of it. And that night it was partly repeated....
He stood again before the dusky Gate, with the recalled sensations but few specific images of his journey to the place. This time he stood with his arms upraised, pleading in ancient words for them to open before him. With a mighty creaking they obeyed, moving outward a short distance, releasing a small breeze and an icy chill along with tendrils of mist and a sound of distant wailing. He moved forward to enter....
On each night of that first week on the road, he returned to that dream and traveled further into it, losing his flame-like companions when he passed beyond the Gate. Alone, he drifted across a blasted landscape--gray and bronze, black and umber--beneath a dark, red-streaked sky where a barely illuminated, coppery orb hung still in what could be the west. It was a place of shadow and stone, sand and mist, of cold and wailing winds, sudden fires and slow, crawling things which refused to register themselves upon his memory. It was a place of sinister, sentient lights, dark caves and ruined statues of monstrous form and mien. Some small part of him seemed to regret that he took such pleasure in the prospect....
And the night that he saw the creatures--scaled, coarse monstrosities; long-armed, hulking parodies of the human form--sliding, hopping, lurching in pursuit of the lone man who fled before them across that landscape. He looked down with a certain anticipation.
The man ran between a pair of high stone pillars, cried out when he found himself in a rocky declivity having no other exit. The creatures entered and laid hold of him. They forced him to the ground and began tearing at him. They beat at him and flayed him, the ground growing even darker about them.
Abruptly, one of the creatures shrieked and drew back from the ghastly gathering. Its long, scaly right arm had been changed into something short and pale. The others uttered mocking noises and seized upon it. Holding the struggling creature, they returned their attention to the thing upon the ground. Bending forward, they wrenched and bit at it. It was no longer recognizable as anything human. But it was not unrecognizable.
It had altered under their moist invasions, becoming something larger, something resembling themselves in appearance, while the beast they held to witness had shrunken, growing softer and lighter and stranger.
Nor was it unrecognizable. It had become human in form, and whole.
Those who held the man pushed him and he fell. In the meantime, the demonic thing upon the ground was left alone as the others drew back from it. Its limbs twitched and it struggled to rise.
The man scrambled to his feet, stumbled, then raced forward, passing between the pillars, howling. Immediately, the dark creatures emitted sharp cries and, pushing and clawing against one another, moved to pursue the fleeing changeling, the one who had somehow been of a substance with him joining in.
Pol heard laughter and awoke to find it his own. It ended abruptly, and he lay for a long while staring at moonlit clouds through the dark branches of the trees.
They rode one day in the wagon of a farmer and his son and accompanied a pedlar for half a day. Beyond this--and encounters with a merchant and a physician headed in the opposite direction--they met no one taking the same route until the second week. Then, a sunny afternoon, they spied the dust and dark figures of a small troop before them in the distance.
It was late afternoon when they finally overtook the group of travelers. It consisted of an old sorcerer, Ibal Shenson, accompanied by his two apprentices, Nupf and Sahay, and ten servants--four of whom were engaged in the transportation of the sedan chair in which Ibal rode.
It was to Nupf--a short, thin, mustachioed youth with long, dark hair--that Pol first addressed himself, since this one was walking at the rear of the retinue.
"Greetings," he said, and the man moved his right hand along an inconspicuous arc as he turned to face him.
As had been happening with increasing frequency when confronted with manifestations of the Art, Pol's second vision came reflexively into play. He saw a shimmering gray strand loop itself and move as if to settle over his head. With but the faintest throb of the dragonmark he raised his hand and brushed it aside.
"Here!" he said. "Is that the way to return the greeting of a fellow traveler?"