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

"Me, too!"
"Me, too. . . ."
"—almost as if I were already here with someone: You two."
"Yes, so was I."
"I was, too."
"I hope I'm not still dreaming."
"I don't think so."
"It feels a little strange, though," Allan said, "as if it's real in a very special way."
"What do you mean?" Perry asked.
"Dip your hands in the water," the other boy told him.
Perry leaned to the side and obliged.
"Yes?" he said then.
"Sea water is never that warm," Allan answered.
"Well, it's been sitting in this pool for some time, and it had a chance to heat up."
"The sea's the same way," Allan answered. "I felt it earlier."
Perry rose to his feet, turned away, began running toward the water. Allan glanced at Annie, who
laughed. Suddenly the two of them were running after.
Before long, they were splashing about in the ocean, laughing, dunking each other, waves boiling about
their legs.
"You're right!" Perry called out. "It's never been this way! Why should it be like this?"
Allan shrugged.
"Perhaps it's warm because the sun's shining on it hard someplace we can't see. Then the waves are
bringing it to us that way—"
"That doesn't sound right. Maybe it's a current—like a river in the sea—"
"It's warm because I wanted it to be," Annie interrupted. "That's why."
The boys looked at her and she laughed.
"You don't think this is a dream," she said, "because it's not your dream. It's mine. You remember
getting up this morning and I don't. I think it's mine, and this is my place."
"But I'm real! I'm not a dream-thing!"
"So am I!"
"I invited you, that's why."
Both boys laughed suddenly and splashed her. She laughed, too.
"Well—maybe . . ." she said, and then she splashed them back.
Their garments grew wet and were dried several times over, as they felt compelled to verify the sea and
its moods on several occasions. Slowly, between baths, a new castle grew beneath their hands. This one,


file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Nieuwe%20map/Zelazny,%20Ro...20Fred%20-%20The%20Black%20Throne/0743435796___1.htm (5 of 10)6-1-2007 13:29:31
 - Chapter 1

larger and more ambitious than that with which Allan had collided, sprouted towers like asparagus
branches, its thick walls climbing and descending the rolling sandscape, rippling inward and outward,
sprinkled and dampened from the pool where small crabs, bright fish, and hidden molluscs dwelled amid
the glitter of stone, shell, and broken coral. Impulsively, Allan reached forth and took Annie's gritty
hand within his own. "It's a wonderful castle you thought of," he said. Even as she began to blush Perry
had hold of her other hand. "It is," he said, "and if it's a dream, you're the best dreamer yet."
He could never be sure how their time on the beach ended. There was a great sense of amity with Perry,
as if the two were—somehow—brothers, though his feelings for Annie were different and he was sure
that Perry loved her, too. The light around them was gray, and sea-green, and pearly with the mist. The
sun rarely appeared. The sea and the air were timeless, throbbing warmly beside and about them.