"Zelazny, Roger - Creatures Of Light And Darkness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

“Which ones?”
“Temporal fugue. To make time follow the mind, not the body.”
“Yes.”
“And killing?”
“Yes.”
“And combining the two?”
“Yes.”
Anubis stands, a full head taller than Wakim, whose new body is well over two yards in length.
“Then show me!”
“Let the music cease!” he cries. “Let the one who in life was called Dargoth come before me!”
The dead stop dancing. They stand without moving and their eyes never blink. There is silence for several seconds, unbroken by word, footfall, breathing.
Then Dargoth moves among the standing dead, advancing through shadow, through torchlight. Wakim stands straighter when he sees him, for the muscles of his back, his shoulders, his stomach tighten.
A metal band the color of copper crosses Dargoth’s head, covers his cheekbones, vanishes beneath his gray-grizzled chin. A latitudinal band passes above his brows, over his temples, meets at the back of his skull. His eyes are wide, the sclera yellow and the irises red. His lower jaw makes a constant chewing motion as he rolls forward, and his teeth are long shadows. His head sways from side to side upon its twenty inches of neck. His shoulders are three feet in width, giving him the appearance of an inverted triangle, for his sides taper sharply to meet with his segmented chassis, which begins where the flesh stops. His wheels turn slowly, the left rear one squeaking with each revolution. His arms hang a full four and a half feet, so that his fingertips barely brush the floor. Four short, sharp metal legs are folded upward along his flat sides. The razors come erect on his back, fall again, as he moves. The eight-foot whip that is his tail uncoils behind him as he comes to a halt before the throne.
“For this night, this Thousandyear Night,” says Anubis, “I give you back your name—Dargoth. Once were you numbered among the mightiest warriors in the Middle Worlds, Dargoth, until you pitted your strength against that of an immortal and went down to your death before him. Your broken body has been repaired, and this night you must use it to do battle once more. Destroy this man Wakim in single combat and you may take his place as my first servant here in the House of the Dead.”
Dargoth crosses his great hands upon his brow and bows until they touch the floor.
“You may have ten seconds,” says Anubis to Wakim, “to prepare your mind for battle, —Stand ready, Dargoth!”
“Lord,” says Wakim, “how may I kill one who already dead?”
“That is your problem,” says Anubis. “You have now wasted all ten of your seconds with foolish questions. Begin!”
There comes a snapping sound and a series of metallic clicks.
Dargoth’s metal legs snap downward, straighten, raise him three feet higher above the floor. He prances. He raises his arms and flexes them.
Wakim watches, waiting.
Dargoth rises onto his hind legs, so that now his head is ten feet above the floor.
Then he leaps forward, his arms outstretched, his tail curled, his head extended, fangs bared. The blades rise upon his back like gleaming fins, his hooves fall like hammers.
At the last possible moment, Wakim sidesteps and throws a punch which is blocked by the other’s forearm. Wakim leaps high into the air then, and the whip cracks harmlessly beneath him.
For all his bulk, Dargoth halts and turns rapidly. He rears once more and strikes forward with his front hooves. Wakim avoids them, but Dargoth’s hands fall upon Wakim’s shoulders as Dargoth descends.
Wakim seizes both wrists and kicks Dargoth in the chest. The tail-lash fails across his right cheek as he does so. Then he breaks the grip of those massive hands upon his shoulder, ducks his head and lays the edge of his left hand bard upon the other’s side. The whip falls again, this time across his back. He aims a blow at the other’s head, but the long neck twists it out of the way, and he hears the whip crack once more, missing him by inches.
Dargoth’s fist lands upon his cheekbone, and he stumbles, off balance, sliding upon the floor. He rolls out of the path of the hooves, but a fist knocks him sprawling as he attempts to rise again.
As the next blow descends, however, he catches the wrist with both hands and throws his full weight upon the arm, twisting his head to the side. Dargoth’s fist strikes the floor and Wakim regains his feet, landing a left cross as he does so.
Dargoth’s head rolls with the punch and the lash cracks beside Wakim’s ear. He lays another blow upon the twisting head, and then he is borne over backwards as Dargoth’s rear legs straighten like springs and his shoulder strikes Wakim in the chest.
Dargoth rears once more.
Then, for the first time, he speaks:
“Now, Wakim, now!” he says, “Dargoth becomes first servant of Anubis!”
As the hooves flash downward, Wakim catches those metal legs, one in each hand, halfway up their length. He has braced himself in a crouched position, and now his lips curl back, showing his clenched teeth, as Dargoth is frozen in mid-strike above him.
He laughs as he springs back into a standing position and heaves with both arms, casting his opponent high up upon his hind legs, struggling to keep from falling over backwards.
“Fool!” he says, and his voice is strangely altered. His word, like the stroke of a great iron bell, rings through the Hall. There comes up a soft moaning from among the dead, as when they had been routed from out their graves.
“ ‘Now,’ you say? ‘Wakim,’ you say?” and he laughs as he steps forward beneath the falling hooves. “You know not what you say!” and he locks his arms about the great metal torso and the hooves flail helplessly above his back and the tail-whip swishes and cracks and lays stripes upon his shoulders. His hands rest between the sharpened spines, and he crushes the unyielding segmented body of metal close up against his own.
Dargoth’s great hands find his neck, but the thumbs cannot reach his throat, and the muscles of Wakim’s neck tighten and stand out as he bends his knees and strains.
They stand so, frozen for a timeless instant, and the firelight wrestles with shadows upon their bodies.
Then with a gigantic, heaving motion, Wakim raises Dargoth above the ground, turns, and hurls him from him.
Dargoth’s legs kick wildly as he turns over in the air. His spines rise and fall and his tail reaches out and cracks. He raises his arms up before his face, but he lands with a shattering crash at the foot of the throne of Anubis, and there he lies still, his metal body broken in four places and his head split open upon the first step to the throne.
Wakim turns toward Anubis.
“Sufficient?” he inquires.
“You did not employ temporal fugue,” says Anubis, not even looking downward at the wreck that had been Dargoth.
“It was unnecessary. He was not that mighty an opponent.”
“He was mighty,” says Anubis. “Why did you laugh, and make as if you questioned your name when you fought with him?”
“I do not know. For a moment, when I realized that I could not be beaten, I felt as though I were someone else.”
“Someone without fear, pity, or remorse?”
“Yes.”
“Do you still feel thus?”
“No.”