"Zelazny, Roger - Amber 10 - Prince Of Chaos" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

a large kitchen. Suhuy led me to the larder and indicated I should help myself.
I found some cold meat and bread and made myself a sandwich, washing it down
with tepid beer. He nibbled at a piece of bread himself and sipped at a flagon
of the same brew. A bird appeared overhead in full flight, cawing raucously,
vanishing again before it had passed the entire length of the room.
"When are the services?" I asked.
"Redsky next, almost a whole turning off," he replied. "So you've a chance
to sleep and collect yourself before then--perhaps."
"What do you mean, `perhaps'?"
"As one of the three, you're under black watch. That's why I summoned you
here, to one of my places of solitude." He turned and walked through the wall. I
followed him, still bearing my flagon, and we seated ourselves beside a still,
green pool beneath a rocky overhang, umber sky above. His castle contained
places from all over Chaos and Shadow, stitched together into a crazy-quilt
pattern of ways within ways. "And since you wear the spikard you've added
resources for safety," he observed.
He reached out and touched the many-spoked wheel of my ring. A faint
tingling followed in my finger, hand, and arm.
"Uncle, you were often given to cryptic utterances when you were my
teacher," I said. "But I've graduated now, and I guess that gives me the right
to say I don't know what the hell you're talking about."
He chuckled and sipped his beer.
"On reflection, it always became clear," he said.
"Reflection..." I said, and I looked into the pool. Images swam amid the
black ribbons beneath its surface--Swayvill lying in state, yellow and black
robes muffling his shrunken form, my mother, my father, demonic forms, all
passing and fading, Jurt, myself, Jasra and Julia, Random and Fiona, Mandor and
Dworkin, Bill Roth and many faces I did not know....
I shook my head.
"Reflection does riot clarify," I said.
"It is not the function of an instant," he replied.
So I returned my attention to the chaos of faces and forms. Jurt returned
and remained for a long time. He was dressing himself, in very good taste, and
he appeared to be relatively intact. When he finally faded there returned one of
the half familiar faces I had seen earlier. I knew he was a noble of the Courts,
and I searched my memory. Of course. It had been a long while, but now I
recognized him. It was Tmer, of the House of Jesby, eldest son of the late
Prince Rolovians, and now lord himself of the Ways of Jesby--spade beard, heavy
brow, sturdily built, not unhandsome, in a rugged sort of way; by all report a
brave and possibly even sensitive fellow.
Then there was Prince TubbIe of the Ways of Chanicut, phasing back and
forth between human and swirling demonic forms. Placid, heavy, subtle; centuries
old and very shrewd; he wore a fringed beard, had wide, innocent, pale eyes, was
master of many games.
I waited, and Tmer followed Jurt followed Tubble into vanishment amid the
coiling ribbons. I waited longer, and nothing new occurred.
"End of reflection," I announced at last. "But I still don't know what it
means."
"What did you see?"
"My brother Jurt," I replied, "and Prince Tmer of Jesby. And Tubble of