"Zelazny, Roger - Amber 09 - Knight Of Shadows" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

now. Our shadow walk was only the most spectacular of a series of small,
off-the-cuff tests I had occasionally thrown her way, hoping to catch her off
guard, hoping to expose her as--what? Well, a potential sorceress. So?
I set my utensils aside and rubbed my eyes. It was near, though I'd been
hiding it from myself for a long while....
"Is something the matter, Merlin?" I heard Jasa asking.
"No. Just realized I was a little tired," I said. "Everything's fine."
A sorceress. Not just a potential sorceress. There had been the buried
fear, I now understood, that she was behind the April 30 attempts on my
life--and I had suppressed this and kept on caring for her. Why? Because I knew
and did not care? Because she was my Nimue? Because I had cherished my possible
destroyer and hidden evidence from myself? Because I'd not only loved unwisely
but had had one big death wish following me around, grinning, and any time now I
might cooperate with it to the utmost?
"I'll be okay," I said. "It's really nothing."
Did it mean that I was, as they say, my own worst enemy? I hoped not. I
didn't really have time to go through therapy, not when my life depended on so
many external things as well.
"A penny for your thoughts," Jasra said sweetly.




Knight of Shadows
Roger Zelazny
Chapter 2
     "They're priceless," I answered. "Like your jokes. I must applaud you. Not only did I know nothing of this at the time, but I didn't make any correct guesses when I did have a few facts to rub together. Is that what you wanted to hear?"
     "Yes," she said.
     "I'm pleased there came a point where things went wrong for you," I added.
     She sighed, nodded, took a drink of wine.
     "Yes, it came," she acknowledged. "I was hardly expecting any recoil from such a simple bit of business. I still find it hard to believe that there's that much irony running around loose in the world."
     "If you want me to appreciate the whole thing, you're going to have to be a little more explicit," I suggested.
     "I know. In a way, I hate trading that vaguely puzzled expression you're wearing for one of delight at my own discomfort. On the other hand, there may still be material able to distress you in some fresh fashion on the other side of it."
     "Win a few, lose a few," I said. "I'm willing to bet there are still features of those days that puzzle you."
     "Such as?" she asked.
     "Such as why none of those April thirtieth attempts on my life succeeded."
     "I assume Rinaldo sabotaged me some way, tipped you off."
     "Wrong."
     "What, then?"
     "The ty'iga. She's under a compulsion to protect me. You might recall her from those days, as she resided is the body of Gail Lampron."
     "Gail? Rinaldo's girlfriend? My son was dating a demon?"
     "Let's not be prejudiced. He'd done a lot worse his freshman year."
     She thought a moment, then nodded slowly.
     "You've got a point there," she admitted. "I'd forgotten Carol. And you still have no idea--beyond what the thing admitted back in Amber--as to why this was going on?"
     "I still don't know," I said.
     "It casts that entire period in an even stranger light," she mused, "especially since our paths have crossed again. I wonder...?"
     "What?"
     "Whether she was there to protect you or to thwart me--your bodyguard or my curse?"
     "Hard to say, since the results came to the same thing."
     "But she's apparently been hanging around you most recently, which would seem to indicate the former."