"Роджер Желязны. Lord of Light (Лорд Света, engl) " - читать интересную книгу автора

him to die the real death were they to learn of the pray-machine. For that
matter, though, it was not doubted that they would have him to die the real
death without the excuse of the pray-machine, also, were he to come into
their custody. How he would settle this matter with the Lords of Karma was
his own affair, though none doubted that when the time came he would find a
way. He was half as old as the Celestial City itself, and not more than ten
of the gods remembered the founding of that abode. He was known to be wiser
even than the Lord Kubera in the ways of the Universal Fire. But these were
his lesser Attributes. He was best known for another thing, though few men
spoke of it. Tall, but not overly so; big, but not heavy; his movements,
slow and fluent. He wore red and spoke little.
He tended the pray-machine, and the giant metal lotus he had set atop
the monastery roof turned and turned in its sockets.
A light rain was falling upon the building, the lotus and the jungle at
the foot of the mountains. For six days he had offered many kilowatts of
prayer, but the static kept him from being heard On High. Under his breath,
he called upon the more notable of the current fertility deities, invoking
them in terms of their most prominent Attributes.
A rumble of thunder answered his petition, and the small ape who
assisted him chuckled. "Your prayers and your curses come to the same. Lord
Yama," commented the ape. "That is to say, nothing."
"It has taken you seventeen incarnations to arrive at this truth?" said
Yama. "I can see then why you are still doing time as an ape."
"Not so," said the ape, whose name was Tak. "My fall, while less
spectacular than your own, nevertheless involved elements of personal malice
on the part of - "
"Enough!" said Yama, turning his back to him.
Tak realized then that he might have touched upon a sore spot. In an
attempt to find another subject for conversation, he crossed to the window,
leapt onto its wide sill and stared upward.
"There is a break in the cloud cover, to the west," he said.
Yama approached, followed the direction of his gaze, frowned, and
nodded.
"Aye," he said. "Stay where you are and advise me."
He moved to a bank of controls.
Overhead, the lotus halted in its turning, then faced the patch of bare
sky.
"Very good," he said. "We're getting something."
His hand moved across a separate control panel, throwing a series of
switches and adjusting two dials.
Below them, in the cavernous cellars of the monastery, the signal was
received and other preparations were begun: the host was made ready.
"The clouds are coming together again!" cried Tak.
"No matter, now," said the other. "We've hooked our fish. Out of
Nirvana and into the lotus, he comes."
There was more thunder, and the rain came down with a sound like hail
upon the lotus. Snakes of blue lightning coiled, hissing, about the
mountaintops.
Yama sealed a final circuit.
"How do you think he will take to wearing the flesh again?" asked Tak.