The Enchantress of World's End
- Автор: Картер Лин Спрэг
- Серия: Gondwane Epic #2
- Год: 101
- Язык: английский
- Год: DAW
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Enchantress of World's End». Краткое содержание книги:
Gondwane... When all the kingdoms of all the peoples of Earth had come and gone and new ones arose, it was on Gondwane they created their ephemeral glories.
On Gondwane, amid the turmoil of the last wars and the last quests and the last efforts of scientists and alchemists, there arose one final hero, the mighty Ganelon Silvermane.
The saga of Ganelon is the telling of master fantasist Lin Carter. And it is in the story of the Scarlet Enchantress that Ganelon first found the meaning of manhood.
The feast had obviously been in progress ever since Moonrise, the sacrifice was long since over and two ritually-slain Androsphinxes were impaled on the Moon Altar. Ganelon glanced, then looked away in distaste; he might be only a simple, untutored oaf from the back-alleys of Zermish, but he did not believe that the ceremonial execution of fabulous monsters could avert the doom of the Falling Moon. And, in his opinion, anyone who did was lacking somewhat in intelligence.
He was not particularly hungry, only picked at his food, and drank lightly from the sparkling beverages set before him. There was no point in trying to examine his nutriment for the presence of narcotics; since he was completely in the power of Queen Zelmarine, she could drug him in any number of ways, at any time she wished to. With an elaborate pretence of indifference, he merely toyed with his food.
Dancing-girls, their stark nudity veiled only in that their sinuous bodies had been rubbed with adhesive, then sprinkled with dust-of-gold, undulated in the aisles between the rows of feasters. The thud and whiffle of small drums, the tootle and whine of pipes, came from musicians seated in the shadow of the nearer pillars.
Only one individual was seated on the steps of the dais in greater proximity to Zelmarine than himself. This was a lean, sour-faced personage in tight, narrow robes of eye-blinding indigo, with a silver hat and jangling bracelets which adorned his long bony wrists. His skin was sallow and umber, his large eyes black, fiery and magnetic. He seemed to be staring at Ganelon with an intensity that was almost rude, so Silvermane returned it, stare for stare.
Zelmarine, who had been covertly studying Silvermane’s every expression and movement from behind her thick lashes, noticed this and spoke in her clear, low voice that had almost a growl in it.
“Permit me to make you known, Ganelon Silvermane, to my aide and confidant, Varesco, one of the Mentalists of Ning. He provides me with invaluable assistance in my researches on the human brain, a subject in which the Ningevite savants have attained to a mastery far surpassing my own.”
Ganelon nodded briefly at the blue-robed Mind Worshipper, who returned it with a curt nod of equal brevity, and thereafter devoted his full attentions to his wine-cup.
At the conclusion of the feast, Zelmarine descended to where Ganelon had politely come to his feet, and gave him another of those lush, delighted smiles.
“I trust my servitors are doing all that is within their power to make your stay in our court comfortable,” she said demurely. He bowed, and said quietly that the enforced inactivity wearied him, since he was used to violent exercise.
“If I might be permitted to work-out with your guardsmen, I would be grateful,” he said somberly.
“Certainly!” She turned to a burly-shouldered, deep-chested officer, his red-lacquered leather armor crested and gilt with decorations of rank, who had been seated at the nearest tabouret. He had gotten to his feet, as had all the throng, when she herself had risen from her crystal throne. “Colonel Turmus, will you see to it that our honored guest is given the freedom of the exercise-yard? Under proper escort, of course!”
“It shall be done, my lady,” the officer said, saluting by touching his left shoulder with the palm of his right hand.
“Farewell, then, for the moment,” the Red Queen said to Silvermane. He bowed again and thanked her, whereupon she smiled and sauntered off, hips swaying languidly as she strolled down the aisle between the tables, to vanish from the hall behind the thick velvet draperies which masked a doorway between two pillars.
The throng stood in utter silence while she moved gracefully from the room.
Ganelon was a little surprised to notice that, while from the front she had worn at least a modicum of jewelry, from the back she looked completely naked from the nape of her neck to the heels of her gem-twinkling slippers,
The bronze giant, slightly disconcerted, turned his eyes away from the plump rondure of her perfectly-proportioned buttocks. In so doing, he chanced to look in the direction of the lean Ningevite Mentalist.
Varesco was staring after the Enchantress with avid hunger in his burning eyes. Oblivious to all else but the languid swaying of her nude back and bottom, her long, lithe legs, he watched with fascination glittering in his black, hot eyes, He wet his thin lips a little with a pointed tongue as she strolled out of sight.
Ganelon frowned heavily. The tensions and undercurrents at this weird court were beyond his limited sophistication. How he wished the old Illusionist could be here to advise him on his words and actions!
10. GRRFF THE XOMBOLIAN
Bright and early the next morning Ganelon rose from his sumptuous bed, breakfasted lightly, and under a heavy guard of clanking Automatons, went forth into the exercise-yard of the Red Legion to work out with the local weaponry. For the occasion he had put aside the silken gowns of the wardrobe which Zelmarine had furnished, in favor of his plain, worn war-harness of black leathern straps and the swash-topped boots.
The Red Legion was quartered in long rows of barracks behind the Palace of Red Magic, screened from view by tall, flowering tamerinkus trees. The exercise-yard itself was spacious in the extreme, almost the size of a gladiatorial arena, with stadium seats in a half-circle around it. There was a variety of gear wherewith the warriors of the Legion practiced daily, in preparation for war, invasion, riot or insurrection.
The officer who had been in the forefront of the feast was there to observe the foreign giant as he worked out. This Colonel—“Turmus,” the Red Queen had called him—was stout and aging, with grizzled, close-cropped hair and a ruddy face; his eyes were cold, ice-gray, unfriendly. He nodded imperceptibly in reply to Ganelon’s greeting, wordlessly indicating racks of weaponry and instruments wherewith the visitor presumably might make free—under constant supervision, of course.
Ganelon looked the racks over approvingly. There were swords of every size and description; spears, javelins, pikes, billhooks, hammers and axes, yarmaks and bows, volusks, discus-dags, war-boomerangs, and other examples of weaponry familiar to him from his service in the militia of Zermish. There were also several kinds of war-instruments unfamiliar to him; he selected one of these, a throwing-trident with hollow glass prongs, and hefted its weight curiously, wondering just how it was used.
“Ho, there, friend! You seem unaccustomed to the mer-spike; if so, let Grrff caution you to avoid fracturing the tips of the triple point,” said a husky, rough-edged voice from behind him. He turned to see a powerful Karjixian Tigerman stripped to his barred, tawny fur, clad only in black-leather groincup and high-strapped sandals.
“Thanks for the advice,” said Ganelon. “As a matter of fact, I’ve never seen one of these before: how are they used?”
The Tigerman took it in his paw and upended it. “The Merfolk of the Second Inland Sea use these when hunting sea snakes,” he growled. “The prongs alone are frangible, containing nerve poison; the sea people hurl these like spears at the aquatic reptiles; they break on their scaly backs, injecting venom which causes paralysis. Galendil only knows why the Red Bitch has her soldiers train in their use, unless mayhap she plans to add the Inland Sea to her cursed empire, with all the rest!”
Ganelon pricked up his ears at the expletive. They were some yards away from where Colonel Turmus stood watching with cold, sullen eyes, and the Karjixian had spoken in gruff, low tones which had probably not been overheard.