"Zelazny, Roger - Amber 07 - Blood Of Amber" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

and we got to know each other a lot better. Then, at a moment when I would have
judged her thoughts to be anywhere but there, she asked me my mother's name. So,
what the hell, I told her. It did not come to me until later that she might
really have been the person I'd gone to the bar to meet.
Our liaison was terminated prematurely by a call from the lobby--from a man
purportedly Meg's husband. I did what any gentleman would do. I got the hell out
fast.
My Aunt Fiona, who is a sorceress (of a different style from my own), had
not approved of my date. And apparently she approved even less of Luke, because
she asked me whether I had a picture of him after I'd told her somewhat
concerning him. I showed her a photo I had in my wallet, which included Luke in
the group. I'd have sworn she recognized him from somewhere, though she wouldn't
admit it. But the fact that she and her brother Bleys both disappeared from
Amber that night would seem more than coincidental.
The pace of events was accelerated even more after that. A crude attempt at
knocking off most of the family with a thrown bomb was made the next day,
following Caine's funeral. The would-be assassin escaped. Later, Random was
upset at a brief demostration on my part of the power of the Ghostwheel, my pet
project, my hobby, my avocation during those years at Grand Design. Ghostwheel
is a--well, it started out as a computer that required a different set of
physical laws to operate than those I'd learned in school. It involved what
might be called magic. But I found a place where it could be built and operated,
and I'' constructed it there. It was still programming itself when I'd left it.
It seemed to have gone sentient, and I think it scared Random. He ordered me to
go and turn it off. I didn't much like the idea, but I departed.
I was followed in my passage through Shadow; I was harassed, threatened and
even attacked. I was rescued from a fire by a strange lady who later died in a
lake. I was protected from vicious beasts by a mysterious individual and saved
from a bizarre earthquake by the same person--who turned out to be Luke. He
accompanied me to the final barrier, for a confrontation with Ghostwheel. My
creation was a bit irritated with me and banished us by means of a
shadow-storm--a thing it is not fun to be caught in, with or without an
umbrella. I delivered us from the vicissitudes by means of one of the Trumps of
Doom, as I'd dubbed the odd pasteboards from Julia's apartment.
We wound up outside a blue crystal cave, and Luke took me in. Good old
Luke. After seeing to my needs he proceeded to imprison me. When he told me who
he was, I realized that is was a resemblance to his father which had upset Fiona
when she'd seen his photo. For Luke was the son of Brand, assassin and arch
traitor, who had damn near destroyed the kingdom and the rest of the universe
along with it some years back. Fortunately, Caine had killed him before he'd
accomplished his designs. Luke, I learned then, was the one who'd killed Caine,
to avenge his father. (And it turned out he'd gotten the news of his father's
death on an April thirtieth and had had a peculiar way of observing its
anniversary over the years.) Like Random, he too had been impressed by my
Ghostwheel, and he told me that I was to remain his prisoner, as I might become
necessary in his efforts to gain control of the machine, which he felt would be
the perfect weapon for destroying the rest of the family.
He departed to pursue the matter, and I quickly discovered that my powers
were canceled by some peculiar property of the cave, leaving me with no one to
talk to but you, Frakir, and no one here for you to strangle....