"Zelazny, Roger - Creatures Of Light And Darkness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

PRELUDE IN THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD

The man walks through his Thousandyear Eve in the House of the Dead. If you could look about the enormous room through which he walks, you couldnТt see a thing. It is far too dark for eyes to be of value.
For this dark time, weТll simply refer to him as Уthe man.Ф
There are two reasons for doing so:
First, he fits the general and generally accepted description of an unmodified, male, human-model beingЧwalking upright, having opposable thumbs and possessing the other typical characteristics of the profession; and second, because his name has been taken from him.
There is no reason to be more specific at this point.
In his right hand, the man bears the staff of his Master, and it guides him through the dark. It tugs him this way, that way. It burns his hand, his fingers, his opposing thumb if his foot strays a step from its ordained path.
When the man reaches a certain place within the darkness, he mounts seven steps to a stone dais and raps three times upon it with the staff.
Then there is light, dim and orange and crowded into corners. It shows the edges of the enormous, unfilled room.
He reverses the staff and screws it into a socket in the stone.
Had you ears in that room, you would hear a sound as of winged insects circling near you, withdrawing, returning.
Only the man hears it, though. There are over two thousand other people present, but they are all of them dead.
They come up out of the transparent rectangles which now appear in the floor, come up unbreathing, unblinking and horizontal, and they rest upon invisible catafalques at a height of two feet, and their garments and their skins are of all colors and their bodies of all ages. Now some have wings and some have tails, and some have horns and some long talons. Some have all of these things, and some have pieces of machinery built into them and some do not Many others look like the man, unmodified.
The man wears yellow breeches and a sleeveless shirt of the same color. His belt and cloak are black. He stands beside his MasterТs gleaming staff, and he regards the dead beneath him.
УGet up!Ф he calls out. УAll of you!Ф
And his words mix with the humming that is in the air and are repeated over and over and again, not like an echo, fading, but persistent and recurring, with the force of an electric alarm.
The air is filled and stirred. There comes a moaning and a creaking of brittle joints, then movement
Rustling, clicking, chafing, they sit up, they stand up.
Then sound and movement cease, and the dead stand like unlit candles beside their opened graves.
The man climbs down from the dais, stands a moment before it, then says, УFollow me!Ф and he walks back the way he came, leaving his MasterТs staff vibrating in the gray air.
As he walks, he comes to a woman who is tall and golden and a suicide: He stares into her unseeing eyes and says, УDo you know me?Ф and the orange lips, the dead lips, the dry lips move, and they whisper, УNo,Ф but he stares longer and says, УDid you know me?Ф and the air hums with his words, until she says, УNo,Ф once again, and he passes her by.
He questions two others: a man who had been ancient of days, with a clock built into his left wrist, and a black dwarf with horns and hooves and the tail of a goat. But both say, УNo,Ф and they fall into step behind him, and they follow him out of that enormous room and into another, where more lie under stone, not really waiting, to be called forth for his Thousandyear Eve in the House of the Dead.

The man leads them. He leads the dead whom he has summoned back to movement, and they follow him. They follow him through corridors and galleries and halls, and up wide, straight stairways and down narrow, winding stairways, and they come at last into the great Hall of the House of the Dead, where his Master holds his court.
He sits on a black throne of polished stone, and there are metal bowls of fire to his right and to his left. On each of the two hundred pillars that line his high Hall, a torch blazes and flickers and its spark-shot smoke coils and puffs upward, becoming at last a gray part of the flowing cloud that covers the ceiling completely.
He does not move, but he regards the man as he advances across the Hall, five thousand of the dead at his back, and his eyes lay red upon him as he comes forward.
The man prostrates himself at his feet, and he does not move until he is addressed:
УYou may greet me and rise,Ф come the words, each of them a sharp, throaty stab in the midst of an audible exhalation.
УHail, Anubis, Master of the House of the Dead!Ф says the man, and he stands.
Anubis lowers his black muzzle slightly and his fangs are white within it. Red lightning, his tongue, darts forward, re-enters his mouth. He stands then, and the shadows slide downward upon his bare and man-formed body.
He raises his left hand and the humming sound comes into the Hall, and it carries his words through the flickering light and the smoke:
УYou who are dead,Ф he says, Уtonight you will disport yourselves for my pleasure. Food and wine will pass between your dead lips, though you will not taste it. Your dead stomachs will hold it within you, while your dead feet take the measure of a dance. Your dead mouths will speak words that will have no meaning to you, and you will embrace one another without pleasure. You will sing for me if I wish it. You will lie down again when I will it.Ф
He raises his right hand.
УLet the revelry begin,Ф he says, and he claps his hands together.
Then tables slide forward from between the pillars, laden with food and with drink, and there is music upon the air.
The dead move to obey him.
УYou may join them,Ф Anubis says to the man, and he reseats himself upon his throne.
The man crosses to the nearest table and eats lightly and drinks a glass of wine. The dead dance about him, but he does not dance with them. They make noises which are words without meaning, and he does not listen to them. He pours a second glass of wine and the eyes of Anubis are upon him as he drinks it. He pours a third glass and he holds it in his hands and sips at it and stares into it.
How much time has passed he cannot tell, when Anubis says, УServant!Ф
He stands, turns.
УApproach!Ф says Anubis, and he does so.
УYou may rise. You know what night tonight is?Ф
УYes, Master. It is Thousandyear Eve.Ф
УIt is your Thousandyear Eve. This night we celebrate an anniversary. You have served me for a full thousand years in the House of the Dead. Are you glad?Ф
УYes, MasterЕФ
УYou recall my promise?Ф
УYes. You told me that if I served you faithfully for a thousand years, then you would give me back my name. You would tell me who I had been in the Middle Worlds of Life.Ф
УI beg your pardon, but I did not.Ф