"Zelazny, Roger - Amber Short Stories 01 - Prologue to Trumps" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

He descended a well and emerged somehow upward onto a floor. Mad
laughter rang about him, ceasing only when he realized it to be his own.

The sounds grew even louder, until it lefts as if he negotiated a
gallery of demonic bells - wild, out of phage, their vibrations beating
against him.

Thinking became painful. He knew that he must not stop, that he must
not turn back, that he must not take any of the lesser turnings where the
sounds came softer. Any of these courses would prove fatal. He reduced this
to one imperative: Continue.

Again, a pulsing at his wrist, and a faint, slow movement...

He gritted his teeth when he saw that he must climb once more, for her
limbs had grown heavy. Each movement seemed as if it were performed
underwater - slowly, requiring more than normal effort.

A screen of smoke offered frightening resistance. He drove himself
against it for an age before he passed through and felt his movement become
easy once again. Six times this occurred, and each time the pressure against
him was greater.

When he crawled out, drooling and dripping blood, on the other side of
the chamber from which he had entered, his eyes darted wildly and could not
fix upon the small, dark figure which stood before him.

"You are a fool," it told him.

It took some time for the words to register, and when they did he
lacked the strength with which to reply.

"A lucky fool," it went on, darkness flowing about it like wings. (Or
were they really wings?) "I had not judged you ready to essay the Logrus
for a long while yet."

He closed his eyes against this speaker, and an image of the route he
had followed danced within his mind's seeing, like a bright, torn web
folding in a breeze.

"...And a fool not to have borne a blade and so enchanted it... or a
mirror, a chalice, or a wand to brace your magic. No, all I see is a piece
of rope. You should have waited, for more instruction, for greater strength
; What say you ?"

He raised himself from the floor, and a mad light danced within his
eyes.

"It was time," he said. "I was ready."