Imajica. Clive Barker

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СКАЧАТЬ CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

       CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

       CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

       CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

       CHAPTER THIRTY

       CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

       CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

       CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

       CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

       CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

       CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

       CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

       CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

       CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

       CHAPTER FORTY

       CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

       CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

       CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

       CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

       CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

       CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

       CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

       CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

       CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

       CHAPTER FIFTY

       CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

       CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

       CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

       CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

       CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

       CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

       CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

       CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

       CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

       CHAPTER SIXTY

       CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

       CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

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       About the Author

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       About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

      It was the pivotal teaching of Pluthero Quexos, the most celebrated dramatist of the Second Dominion, that in any fiction, no matter how ambitious its scope or profound its theme, there was only ever room for three players. Between warring kings, a peacemaker; between adoring spouses, a seducer, or a child. Between twins, the spirit of the womb. Between lovers. Death. Great numbers might drift through the drama, of course - thousands in fact - but they could only ever be phantoms, agents or, on rare occasions, reflections of the three real and self-willed beings who stood at the centre. And even this essential trio would not remain intact, or so he taught. It would steadily diminish as the story unfolded, three becoming two, two becoming one, until the stage was left deserted.

      Needless to say, this dogma did not go unchallenged. The writers of fables and comedies were particularly vociferous in their scorn, reminding the worthy Quexos that they invariably ended their own tales with a marriage and a feast. He was unrepentant. He dubbed them cheats, and told them they were swindling their audiences out of what he called the last great procession, when, after the wedding songs had been sung and the dances danced, the characters took their melancholy way off into darkness, following each other into oblivion.

      It was a hard philosophy, but he claimed it was both immutable and universal, as true in the Fifth Dominion, called Earth, as it was in the Second.

      And more significantly, as certain in life as it was in art.

      Being a man of contained emotion, Charlie Estabrook had little patience with the theatre. It was, in his bluntly stated opinion, a waste of breath; indulgence, flummery, lies. But had some student recited Quexos’s First Law of Drama to him this cold November night he would have nodded grimly, and said: all true, all true. It was his experience precisely. Just as Quexos’s Law required, his story had begun with a trio: himself, John Furie Zacharias, and between them, Judith. That arrangement hadn’t lasted very long. Within a few weeks of setting eyes on Judith he had managed to supersede Zacharias in her affections, and the three had dwindled to a blissful two. He and Judith had married, and lived happily for five years, until, for reasons he still didn’t understand, their joy had foundered, and the two had become one.

      He was that one, of course, and the night found him sitting in the back of a purring car being driven around the frosty streets of London in search of somebody to СКАЧАТЬ