Go ask Elric [Тэд Уильямс] (fb2) читать постранично, страница - 10

wasn’t Elric.

It wasn’t Jimi, either.

She was tall and slender and absolutely naked, her skin a beautiful coffee- and-cream color, her hair streaked both black and white. Beneath her long lashes were eyes like golden coins. In her hand she held a slim gray sword.

“It is not a moment too soon,” she said in a voice as naturally melodious as birdsong.

Pogo stared, slack-jawed and dry-lipped. He felt big, dumb, and sweaty — and seventy feet tall made for a lot of all three. He had never developed a swifter crush, not even the one on Miss Brinkman, his fifth-grade teacher, who had worn tartan miniskirts. “Um, who... who are you?”

“I am the place where Law and Chaos come together, Pogo Cashman,” she said, “— summoned by the joining of two sundered souls. I am that place, that moment, where seeming opposites are reconciled. Wrong needs right to exist; night must have its sibling day. The red queen and the white are in truth inseparable.” She raised her arms and held the sword over her head. It was oddly unreflective. “You might call me Harmony — or Memory, or even History. I am that which holds the fabric of Time together — its guardian.”

“Kind of like Glinda from the Wizard of Oz?”

“You have played your part. Now I am free to play mine.” As she spoke, she rose from his hand like a wind-tossed dandelion seed, and hovered. He wanted to look at her body — she was exquisite — but it seemed wrong, like wanting to touch up the Virgin Mary or something. She smiled as if she sensed his thought. Just the sight made his heart skip two beats.

“Your time here is almost done,” she said. “But the multiverse holds many adventures for you... if you only look for them.”

Abruptly she turned and was gone, tlying just like a comic-book heroine toward the hideous smear on the horizon, the gray sword lifted before her. Pogo thought she was unutterably, heartbreakingly beautiful. At the same time, she sort of reminded him of the hood ornament on a Rolls Royce.

He quickly lost sight of her against the pulsating black of the Chronophage, although he felt as though a part of him had gone with her. Deciding there was nothing more he could do, Pogo sat down on the ground, then allowed himself to shrink back to his normal size. He sighed with pleasure as his natural stature returned: it was like taking off the world’s tightest pair of shoes.

Something flickered on the horizon. As Pogo stared, still dizzy from changing sizes, the Chronophage writhed; then a searing streak of light moved across one of the tentacles. A soundless howl tremoloed through Pogo, a noiseless vibration that shook his very bones. The great black arm withered and vanished; where it had been, the sun seemed to be growing back.

More streaks of light, like the contrails of science fiction spaceships, ripped across the Chronophage. Pogo found himself back on his feet again and cheering. One by one the other arms shriveled and disappeared, and the blighted sky and earth began to return.

When the arms had all gone, there was a moment when the rest of the Chronophage’s black body began to swell, growing larger and larger against the sky until the sun was once more obscured. Pogo’s heart pounded. Then a star, a sparkling point of white light, bloomed in the midst of the darkness. An even deeper shuddering ran through Pogo as the Chronophage erupted in great shreds of tearing black. He was shaken so hard that for a moment everything swam away from him, and as he tumbled into oblivion he wondered if in fact the battle had been lost after all.

When Pogo opened his eyes again, Elric and Jimi were lying on the ground beside him. The sky contained nothing more sinister than a few clouds and the setting sun.

The albino struggled to sit up. Beside him, Jimi was slower to rise. Despite their weariness, a single look at the horizon showed both men that they had triumphed. Elric embraced the dark prince, then turned to Pogo, full of questions, but as the albino reached out a thin white hand to him, Pogo realized he could see the grass through it. Elric saw, too.

“I am being drawn back to my world,” he cried. “I sense that you and I are not to remain too long together in the same place, Shemei Uendrijj.” He looked at something Pogo could not see, and grinned wolfishly. “Ah, it seems that at least I will be granted my revenge against Badichar Chon. Hah! That is something!” He raised a nearly transparent Stormbringer in salute. “Farewell, Pogokhashman. You have performed a great service, and for more than just me. If we do not meet again, remember you have Elric of Melnibone’s undying gratitude!”

“Same to you. Take it easy, dude!” Pogo was genuinely sorry to see the albino go. He stood watching, his eyes suspiciously itchy, as Elric began to fade. “Wait a sec,” he said suddenly. “Elric — how do I get back?”

“Farewell...” The albino’s voice still echoed, but he was gone.

Pogo slumped to the ground, stunned. He was marooned. Like Alice, but down the rabbit-hole forever with no way out. And no ruby slippers.

No, that was Oz again. Anyway, he was stuck.

A hand touched his shoulder.

“I am sorry you have lost your companion, Pogokhashman,” Jimi said. “But I would be honored if you would return with me to my world. You will be acclaimed as a hero. There is much that is beautiful there.”

“Yeah...?” This was better than nothing, that was for sure. Still, though the necessities of the moment had distracted him, he had not realized until now just how much he had been longing for his true home. “Suppose so. Is there stuff to do?”

“To do?” Uendrijj laughed. “Aye, much and much. There are places to see

— the febrile and primitive swamps of Baahyo, the glittering buildings and fragrant alleys of Noj Arleenz and Jhiga-Go. There is music to be heard — I am myself known as something of a harpist, when I am allowed some peace from battle. And women, beautiful women....”

“Women? I did think this whole trip was kinda short on chicks....” He remembered the creature called Harmony, and felt a moment of sweetly painful mourning. “And... and would you teach me to play?”“Certainly,” Uendrijj said, smiling. “Come, take my hand! You shall be my companion, then, Pogokhashman

— the whole multiverse shall know your name ”

But as Pogo’s hand closed about his, Jimi, too, became faint, passing into translucency. The plain on which they stood became dim as well. For a moment Pogo suspected that he and Jimi were merely undergoing more magical travel, but his last diminishing sight showed him that the Gypsy Prince still gripped the hand of another Pogo, who was disappearing along with him as the world fell away....

“Man! That was some intense acid, huh?” Sammy was bouncing around the room like a hamster whose wheel was out for repairs. “You wouldn’t believe what happened to me while you were lying there all out of it! I looked out the window and the mailman looked like some kind of monster! Unbelievable! And the street was, like, bubbling....”

Pogo leaned back in the beanbag nursing a joint. Sammy’s non-stop monologue was as reassuring as the sound of night traffic to a cityMweller.

“Sounds good, man,” he drawled, and stared up from the spots of blood on the soles of his desert boots to the poster of Jimi Hendrix on the wall. Was it really true, then.⁷ That somewhere in the multiverse an albino guy with a magic sword was remembering his time with Pogo? And, even weirder and cooler, that somewhere else in the multiverse, Jimi — the Man himself — and his new buddy Pogo Cashman were having adventures together?

Sammy put Surrealistic Pillow on the stereo, skipping as always to his favorite song. “One pill makes you larger... ” he tunelessly crooned, anticipating the actual beginning of the vocals by several seconds — something that usually drove Pogo mildly crazy.

“Sounds good, man,” Pogo said, smiling.

Sammy wandered over to take the joint from him, then stood contemplating