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

"Oh, my God!" said Annie.
"What's the matter?" both boys shouted, turning in the direction of her wide-eyed gaze.
"In—the—water," she said. "Dead—isn't he?"
The fog had parted. Something wrapped in tangles of seaweed and a few tatters of cloth lay half in and
half out of the water. Here and there a patch of swollen, fishbelly white flesh showed. It might have been
human. It was difficult to say, wrack-decked as it was, tossed by the surf, strands of fog drifting past it.
Perry rose to his feet.
"Maybe it is and maybe it isn't," he said. Annie had covered her face by then, and was peering between
her fingers. Allan stared, fascinated.
"Do we really want to know?" Perry continued. "It may just be a mess of weeds and trash with a few
dead fishes caught in it. If we don't go and look, it can be whatever we want it to be. You know what I
mean? You want to tell your friends you saw a body on the beach? Well, maybe you did."
The fog moved between them, hiding it again.
"What do you think it is?" Allan asked him.
"Seaweed and rubbish," Perry replied.
"It's a body," Annie said.
Allan laughed. "No, you can't both be right," he stated.
"Why not?" Annie said suddenly.
"The world just doesn't work that way," Allan said.
Allan rose and began walking through the fog in the direction of the body.
"I think that sometimes it can," he heard her say, somewhere behind him.
The fog churned, parted once more. Through a sudden rift Allan caught sight of the heaving mass, now
drawn entirely back into the water a few paces offshore. This could be resolved in a matter of moments.
He strode forward, simultaneous with the shifting of a wall of fog to a position directly before him. But
he was not about to let the vision escape. He plunged ahead. Any moment now he should feel the water
swirl about his ankles—
"Allan. . . ." Her voice seemed distant.
"Where are you . . . ?" Perry called, also, it seemed, from afar.
"A moment," he answered. "I'm near it."
It seemed that they called again, but he could not distinguish the words. He pushed on. Suddenly, he


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

seemed to be moving uphill. There were dark shapes about him once again. The ground seemed to have
grown harder. From overhead came that strange bird cry.
"E-tekeli-li!" it seemed to sound. He began to run. He stumbled.
***
And then. And then. And then.
***
Bright splash in the pool of my vision, up from the sand, against my brow, falling, fallen, then.
I was on my way back to the fort when it happened, returning from Legrand's hut. I did not even suspect
that my life had been permanently changed. Not that my life before had been devoid of visions. Far from
it. But this time I experienced none of the premonitory sensations or perceptions with which the visions
were wont to announce themselves.
When the golden beetle flew up from somewhere and struck me in the face I could not have known that
this signaled a change in everything for me, forever. I sought it as it lay on the sand before me, a
remarkable and brilliant gold in the lowering October sun. I knew that certain chafers had something of
a metallic color, gold or silver, and might be very beautiful. But this. . . . This was an unknown species,