"Simon R. Green - Nightside 1 - Drinking Midnight Wine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Simon R)

'She is only what she is, whatever name she might be using. Hers is a most singular nature.'
'Ah. Am I supposed to understand any of that?'
'Not yet.'

'Well, what makes her so important?' said Toby, almost desperately. 'And what on earth makes you
think I might be important? I've never mattered much to anyone, not even myself.'
'Self-pity suits you,' said Carys. 'But you'll have to put it aside. It's too small an emotion for
what you are now.'
'What am I?'
Carys leaned forward, fixing Toby with her dark, bottomless gaze. 'You are a focal point, Toby
Dexter. The patterns of fate surround you. Your role in things has been decided where everything
that matters is decided, in the Courts of the Immaterial. And neither you nor anyone else has any
say in the matter. The decisions you make in the next few days will be vital, for all of us...
though I cannot see what or when or why. Which is in itself almost unprecedented. Whatever's
coming must be momentous indeed, if it is hidden even from me.'
'Is this... going to be dangerous? For me?'
'Very.'
'And there's no way out of it?'
Carys leaned back in her chair, her face suddenly guarded. Her bangles made soft, eerie clanking
sounds as she crossed her arms. 'You could try to walk away from your fate; insist on your
humanity, at the cost of everything else. Few things are set in stone. But to walk away from the
role chosen for you would mean walking away from Gayle. You could never see her, never speak to
her again. Only you can decide how much that matters.'
Toby nodded slowly. 'Give me the directions. I'll go and talk to her. And then I'll decide... what
I'll decide.'
Carys smiled. Gayle turned out to be living almost literally just around the corner from the Dandy
Lion. Somehow Toby wasn't entirely surprised. He got to his feet, looked briefly at his pint glass
and then left it standing on the table. At the thought of meeting Gayle again, his stomach was
suddenly full of butterflies. Dancing. With clogs on.
'One last word of advice,' said Carys. 'You be careful around Gayle. She's more than she appears.
Hell; she's more than anyone appears.'
'But you're not going to tell me what,' said Toby. 'I'm getting really tired of mysteries, Carys.
It was only by accident that I followed Gayle through that magic door of hers last evening.'
'There are no accidents,' said Carys Galloway, the Waking Beauty.

'Some things are just meant to be. Now get out of here, and let the rest of us drink in peace.'
Meanwhile, back in the real world, in Veritie, where she lived entirely by choice, Gayle was
reluctantly getting out of her very comfortable bed. Thank the good Lord for snooze alarms. She
could sleep through or ignore one alarm, but half a dozen in a row would have had Lazarus himself
stomping out of his tomb to complain about the noise. Gayle stood naked before her full-length
bedroom mirror and thought, not for the first time, that she looked pretty good, all things
considered. Bit of a tummy, and the breasts weren't everything they once were, but you could say
that about a lot of things these days. The world turns, and we all get just that little bit older.
She pulled on a white silk wraparound, made a few half-hearted stabs at doing something with her
hair, and then decided it was far too early for shit like that. She padded downstairs, stifling a


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