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Isle Of The Dead :: Zelazny Roger
Страница: 101 из 110And from somewhere Nick leaped up to the edge and seizedher outfiung wrist. For a moment, I thought he would be able to hold her.
For a moment... .
It was not a matter of his lacking the necessary strength. He had plenty of that. It was a question of weight and momentum, of balance.
I heard him curse as they fell.
Then I raised up my head and turned upon Shandon, with the death-fury lighting up my backbone. I reached for my gun and recalled, as in a dream, what had become of it.
Then the falling stones caught me and pinned me as he took another step, and I felt my right leg break beneath me as I fell. I must have blacked out for an instant, but the pain brought me back to consciousness. By then he had taken another step, which brought him very near, and the world was going to hell all around me. I looked up at the stump of his hand, at those manic-depressive eyes, at the mouth opened to finally speak or laugh; and I raised my left hand, supported it with my right and performed the necessary gesture. I screamed as my fingertip flared and his head fell from his shoulders, bounced once and rolled past me--those eyes still open and staring--and followed my wife and my best friend into the chasm below. What remained thudded to the ground before me, and I stared at it for a long while before the darkness sucked me down.
VIII
When I awoke it was dawn and I was still being rained on. My right leg throbbed, about eight inches above the knee, which is bad--the place and the pain. The rain was only rain, though. The storm was over. The ground had stopped its shaking. When I was able to raise myself, however, I forgot my pain in a moment of shock.
Most of the isle was gone, sunken into Acheron, and what remained was unrecognizable as my handiwork. I lay perhaps twenty feet above the waterline, on a wide shelf of rock. The chalet was gone and a mutilated corpse lay before me. I turned away from it and considered my own predicament.
Then, as the torches of last night's dinner of blood still sputtered and blazed, befouling the morning sky, I reached out slowly and began removing the rocks that lay upon me, one by bloody one.
* * *
Pain and monotonous repetition of an action numb the mind, free it to wander.
Even if they had been real gods, what did it matter? What was it to me? Here I was still, right where I was born a thousand or so years before, in the middle of the human condition--namely, rubbish and pain. If the gods were real, their only relationship with us was to use us to play their games. Screw them all. "That includes you, too, Shimbo," I said.
For a moment... .
It was not a matter of his lacking the necessary strength. He had plenty of that. It was a question of weight and momentum, of balance.
I heard him curse as they fell.
Then I raised up my head and turned upon Shandon, with the death-fury lighting up my backbone. I reached for my gun and recalled, as in a dream, what had become of it.
Then the falling stones caught me and pinned me as he took another step, and I felt my right leg break beneath me as I fell. I must have blacked out for an instant, but the pain brought me back to consciousness. By then he had taken another step, which brought him very near, and the world was going to hell all around me. I looked up at the stump of his hand, at those manic-depressive eyes, at the mouth opened to finally speak or laugh; and I raised my left hand, supported it with my right and performed the necessary gesture. I screamed as my fingertip flared and his head fell from his shoulders, bounced once and rolled past me--those eyes still open and staring--and followed my wife and my best friend into the chasm below. What remained thudded to the ground before me, and I stared at it for a long while before the darkness sucked me down.
VIII
When I awoke it was dawn and I was still being rained on. My right leg throbbed, about eight inches above the knee, which is bad--the place and the pain. The rain was only rain, though. The storm was over. The ground had stopped its shaking. When I was able to raise myself, however, I forgot my pain in a moment of shock.
Most of the isle was gone, sunken into Acheron, and what remained was unrecognizable as my handiwork. I lay perhaps twenty feet above the waterline, on a wide shelf of rock. The chalet was gone and a mutilated corpse lay before me. I turned away from it and considered my own predicament.
Then, as the torches of last night's dinner of blood still sputtered and blazed, befouling the morning sky, I reached out slowly and began removing the rocks that lay upon me, one by bloody one.
* * *
Pain and monotonous repetition of an action numb the mind, free it to wander.
Even if they had been real gods, what did it matter? What was it to me? Here I was still, right where I was born a thousand or so years before, in the middle of the human condition--namely, rubbish and pain. If the gods were real, their only relationship with us was to use us to play their games. Screw them all. "That includes you, too, Shimbo," I said.