"Roger Zelazny - Amber 04 - The Hand Of Oberon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

The Hand Of Oberon
Chapter 1

A bright flash of insight, to match that peculiar sun...
There it was... Displayed within that light, a thing I had only seen
self-illuminated in darkness up until then: the Pattern, the great Pattern of
Amber cast upon an oval shelf beneath/above a strange sky-sea.
...And I knew, perhaps by that within me which bound us, that this had to
be the real one. Which meant that the Pattern in Amber was but its first
shadow. Which meant -
Which meant that Amber itself was not carried over into places beyond the
realm of Amber, Rebma, and Tir-na Nog'th. Meaning, then, that this place to
which we had come was, by the law of precedence and configuration, the real
Amber.
I turned to a smiling Ganelon, his beard and wild hair molten in the
merciless light.
"How did you know?" I asked him.
"You know I am a very good guesser, Corwin," he replied, "and I recall
everything you ever told me about how things work in Amber: how its shadow and
those of your struggles are cast across the worlds. I often wondered, in
thinking of the black road, whether anything could have cast such a shadow
into Amber itself. And I imagined that such a something would have to be
extremely basic, powerful, and secret." He gestured at the scene before us.
"Like that."
"Continue," I said.
His expression changed and he shrugged.
"So there had to be a layer of reality deeper than your Amber," he
explained, "where the dirty work was done. Your patron beast led us to what
seems to be such a place, and that blot on the Pattern looks to be the dirty
work. You agreed."
I nodded.
"It was your perceptiveness rather than the conclusion itself which
stunned me so," I said.
"You beat me to it," admitted Random, off to my right, "but the feeling
has found its way into my intestines - to put it delicately. I do believe that
somehow that is the basis of our world down there."
"An outsider can sometimes see things better than one who is part of
them," Ganelon offered.
Random glanced at me and returned his attention to the spectacle.
"Do you think things will change any more," he asked, "if we go down for a
closer look?"
"Only one way to find out," I said.
"Single file, then," Random agreed. "I'll lead."
"All right."
Random guided his mount to the right, the left, the right, in a long
series of switchbacks which zigged us and zagged us across most of the face of
the wall. Continuing in the order we had maintained all day, I followed him
and Ganelon came last.
"Seems stable enough now," Random called back.
"So far," I said.