"Roger Zelazny & Fred Saberhagen - The Black Throne" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

about the squat form of a final tree—a palmetto, it would seem. But it shouldn't be growing here.
The fog became more active, drifting in from the apparent direction of the water. In places the whiteness
broke, giving him glimpses of pebbles and sand. In other places it writhed, serpent-like, near to the

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 - Chapter 1

ground, or was blown into grotesque shapes which faded almost as quickly as they formed. Advancing
till he came to the water, he halted, stooped, let the sea run into and out of his hands. He raised a finger
to his lips.
It was real. Warm and salty as blood.
A wave slopped over his shoetops and he backed away. He turned and began walking again, certain now
where he was headed. He increased his pace. Before long, he was running.
He stumbled, picked himself up and kept going. Perhaps he had somehow crossed over and was back in
his dream. The tinny sound of a buoy bell came to him now, marking some channel far to the right. The
sea itself seemed of a sudden louder. A vast flock of birds passed overhead, uttering cries unlike those of
the gulls or any other birds he had ever heard. The bells—somewhere behind him now—took on a new
voice, answering the random notes of the buoy with something patterned, something deeper. And the
singing. . . . For the first time the singing grew louder. It seemed very near.
A dark form appeared suddenly in his path. A small hill or—
He stumbled again, trying to avoid it. As he fell, the singing ceased. The bells ceased. He looked upon
bleak walls and vacant eye-like windows—battlemented, turreted edifice emergent from
duneside—drear, dark, partly crumbling, beside a gray, unruffled tarn. He was falling—somehow too
fast—toward it. . . .
Then the fog swirled and the veil fell away. What had seemed a distant prospect was almost within
reach, as an instant rearrangement of perspective showed it to be a castle of sand constructed on a slope
above a tidal pool.
His outflung arm struck a wall. A tower toppled. The great gateway was broken.
"No!" came a cry. "You mean thing! No!"
And she was upon him, small fists pummeling his shoulder, head, back.
"I'm—sorry," he said. "I didn't mean—I fell. I'll help. I'll put it back—the way—it was."
"Oh."
She stopped striking him. He drew back and regarded her.
She had very gray eyes, and brown hair lay disheveled upon her brow. Her hands were delicate, fingers
long. Her blue skirt and white blouse were sand-streaked, smudged, the hem of the skirt sodden. Her full
lips quivered as her gaze darted from him to the castle and back, but her eyes remained dry.
"I'm sorry," he repeated.
She turned her back to him. A moment later her bare foot kicked forward. Another wall fell, another
tower toppled.
"Don't!" he cried, rising, reaching to restrain her. "Stop! Please stop!"
"No!" she said, moving forward, trampling towers. "No."
He caught hold of her shoulder and she pulled away from him, continuing to kick and stamp at the castle.
"Please . . ." he repeated.
"Say, leave the poor fellow's castle alone, would you?" came a voice from behind them both.
They turned, to regard the figure which approached through the fog.
"Who are you?" they asked, in near unison.
"Edgar," he replied.


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