"Roger Zelazny & Robert Sheckley - A Farce To Be Reckoned With" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

Morning found him above Switzerland, and he pumped for more altitude as the Alps came into sight.
Next came the familiar Great St. Bernard Pass; soon after that he was flying over northern Italy. The air
was noticeably warmer, even at Azzie's altitude.

Italy! Azzie loved it here. Italy was his favorite country, and the Renaissance, at which he had just
arrived, his favorite time. He considered himself a sort of Renaissance demon. He flew over vineyards
and tilled fields, little hills and sparkling rivers.

Azzie turned toward the east and, adjusting the set of his wings for the heavier air rising off the land, flew
until land and sea seemed to interpenetrate in a great marsh that stretched green and gray below him and
combined at last with the Adriatic. And here he came to the outskirts of Venice.

The final yellow rays of the setting sun illuminated the noble old city, glinting off the waters of the canals.
In the oncoming gloom of evening he could just make out the gondolas, each with a lantern suspended
from a pole in its rear, making their way back and forth over the Grand Canal.

Chapter 4

Back in York, old Meg the servant was cleaning up the inn when Peter Westfall arrived for his morning
pail of ale.

"Master Peter," Meg said, "did you lose something last night? I found this where you gentlemen were
sitting."

She handed him a little bag made of either deerskin or a very fine chamois. There was something inside.

"Oh, yes," Westfall said. He fumbled in his purse and found a farthing. "Here, have a pail of beer for your
trouble."

Westfall returned to his house in Rotten Lane and went to his private room on the top floor. The room
was spacious, with sloping windows set in the ceiling, and it was furnished with three tables made of stout
oak. On these tables Westfall had placed various items of the alchemist's trade. In those days, the allied
practices of alchemy and magic were accessible to many.

Westfall pulled out a chair and sat down. He untied the silver cord that knotted the throat of the bag,
eased in two fingers, and carefully withdrew the smooth yellow stone he found inside. Engraved on it was
a sign that could be recognized as the Hebrew letter, aleph.

Westfall knew it had to be a talisman or charm — an object of power. This was the sort of thing that a
master magician would possess. With it, various conjuring powers would be his; he could call one or
more spirits out of the deep, depending on how the talisman was tuned. Westfall had always wanted a
talisman, for without it, his magic had always been quite ineffectual. He suspected that it had been
dropped by the spooky young fellow he had talked with after the Noah play the previous night.

That gave him momentary pause. He stopped and thought. This, after all, was not his talisman. The
owner would be likely to return for something so unusual and valuable. If he did, Westfall would of
course return it immediately.

He started to put the talisman back into its soft case, then stopped. It could do no harm if he played with
it until its owner returned. Surely that would be unobjectionable.