Lankar of Callisto
- Автор: Картер Лин Спрэг
- Серия: Callisto #6
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Lankar of Callisto». Краткое содержание книги:
...in the mysterious and treacherous domain of the insidious Mind Wizards. Searching for him is a fearless armada of his loyal friends, and a stranger who knows him better than anyone on Callisto. The stranger, Lankar, is none other than Lin Carter, accidentally transported through the Gate Between the Worlds to the land of the Thanatorians. Aware of Jandar's plight, Lankar joins the search beyond the world's edge and suddenly finds himself battling for his own existence against the most nightmarish creatures on the planet - the gruesome flesh robots of Kuur and the fiendish Mind Wizards of Callisto themselves...
But his father had died under the fangs of a yathrib, leaving the boy a homeless orphan. Well, not exactly homeless, I suppose, for the hunters of the village would have opened their hearts to him and raised him among them as one of their own. But the boy yearned for strange scenes, unfamiliar vistas, curious adventures. Thus, when the Xaxar returned from her epic voyage to the other side of the world and began enlisting warriors for a second journey into the unknown, and word of this penetrated even to the little colony of Ku Thad huntsmen,. the heart of the boy had thrilled to the lure of far-off lands among weird, uncanny peoples, and he had run away from home to enlist in the Second Armada, as it would be called.
However, the journey across the breadth of the jungle country is difficult enough for a full-grown man such as 1, even with the full-hearted aid of a mighty othode like Bozo. For a small boy like Taran, all alone in the world, it could easily have proven impossible. Prowling predators had chased him; he had flung aside his weapons and gear and provisions, with the sole exception of the small rapier his father had given him. Striving to elude the jungle beasts, he had sought to hide in the tunnel of trees, only to become caught and entangled within the web of the ximchak. Even the hunting beasts who had been close on his trail were wary of falling into the power of the horrible ximchak, and thus they had turned aside, not daring to enter the tunnel trap.
In time the ximchak had returned to its lair, spinning a new web at the very mouth of the tunnel―the very one into which I had blundered, when I had foolishly ignored the warnings of Bozo. Had I not done so, Taran might well be dead by now. For, while the ximchak do not feed very often, when hunger does arise in their hideous little bodies, the ghastly treedwelling arachnidae can strip the flesh from a fullgrown man, leaving a white skeleton to bleach in the jungle shadows.
This, then, was the tale of Taran, although I did not learn it until much later. I understood the basic situation, for I had read of the loss of the First Armada and of the disappearance of Jandar himself, believed a captive of the mysterious Mind Wizards. These things had all been in the manuscript I read on the plane which bore Noel and me to Cambodia. Like Taran, I too had worried and wondered over the unknown fate of Jandar of Callisto. .
It was then we heard the voices.
We had just turned from the streamlet and were heading back to the trail we had been following. Suddenly there came the murmur of voices not far ahead, mixed with a curious harsh, grating cry that I soon came to know was the squawk of riding-thaptors.
Taran and I stopped short, exchanging a startled glance. Bozo froze, ears pricking, sounding a low growl of warning. Together we cautiously crept forward until we could look out on the trail from the dense shadow of the trees that bordered it.
We saw a party of about a dozen men, mounted on fantastic beaked and clawed and feathered steeds. These creatures were four-legged riding-beasts about the size of horses, but there all resemblance to the terrene quadrupeds ceased. For thaptors are bird-horses, like the hippogriffs of myth and legend―four-legged, befeathered birds, with cruel hooked beaks and mad, round, glaring eyes like parrots. I stared upon them with awe and amazement, for all that I had read their description before and knew what they were.
As for the men, they were a lean, hard-faced, rangy-looking lot who had the military bearing of soldiers. They were golden-skinned, green-eyed, redhaired men of the same race as Taran, and wore leather helmets and open-throated, supple tunics and high boots, with scarlet loincloths under their short tunics and loose-sleeved blouses covering their upper torso and arms. All of them wore swords slung across their shoulders on broad brass-studded baldrics, and a few carried long, leaf-bladed spears and small, round, leather-stretched-across-wicker-frame shields or targes. Over his heart, each man carried a peculiar yellow hieroglyph worked into the leather of his tunic, and the foremost spearman had a regimental guidon which flapped from his spearhead.
Recognizing the golden symbol emblazoned on the breast of each soldier, Taran uttered a gleeful cry, jabbered something at me brightly, then jumped out into the trail before the men before I had a chance to stop him.
The foremost soldier uttered an exclamation and jerked back on the reins, drawing his steed up short. He fired off a volley of sharp questions at Taran, to which the boy eagerly replied in a stream of similarly incomprehensible volubility. Other men slid down from their steeds and strode forward to question the excited boy. Taran gestured in my direction, and my heart sunk, knowing there was no further point in trying to conceal myself. So, signaling to Bozo, I climbed through the brush fringing the edge of the trail and stepped out in full view of the soldiers.
They stared at me in surprise which rapidly changed into slack-jawed amazement. It was the color of my hair and of my eyes which most impressed them―at least until Bozo timidly emerged from the brush to stand trembling, pressed up against my thigh. The sight of a man accompanied by a tame othode was incredible to them―that much I could read in their expressions.
One of them, a tall, broad-shouldered, young man with a firm jaw and clear, steady eyes―I later discovered him to be the captain of this troop―addressed me in a polite, but grimly questioning, manner.
There wasn’t much I could do―I didn’t even understand what it was he had asked me. So, getting my wits together, and marshaling what little I knew of the language, I took a deep breath and attempted to make my first sentence in Thanatorian:
“E - Lankar-chan! Kandol a Jandar a Shondakor Saoma!”
It wasn’t a bad sentence at all, considering. In fact, I felt mighty proud of myself.
My pronunciation of the words was probably a bit off―but, what the hell, they understood me! I could tell that from the bright gleam that flashed into the eyes of their leader, who repeated my phrases, halfwonderingly to himself. Then he fired off another phrase of his own, in which the only word I could recognize was Thanator, the native name for this world.
I shook my head and pointed into the sky.
They got my meaning again, and stared at one another in utter and dumbfounded amazement.*
For the captain, noting my racial resemblance to Jandar―who also had grayish eyes and a fair skin, although his hair was yellow and not brown like mine, sprang to the conclusion that I was, like Jandar, a visitor from another world. (The existence of the Gate is, of course, no secret to the Thanatorians; and Jandar has never sought to conceal his extra-Thanatorian origin, which is widely known.) When I shook my head in answer to his startled query and pointed aloft, he understood me to say that 1, too, like Jandar, had come from a distant world.
The captain looked me over with awe and wonder written in his face. I could read the thoughts traveling through his brain as if by telepathy: to him I was a mysterious being from a distant world, doubtless a personage of vast importance. He mumbled some remark I did not catch; then he whipped off his scarlet cloak and gave it to me to cover my nakedness with, making a little bow of respect. He did not dare approach too closely because of Bozo. The great othode stood between me and the troop of soldiers, his burly shoulders firmly pressed against my thighs, watching with alert, wary eyes every motion made by these strangers. From time to time a warning rumble came from his mighty chest.
I quieted him with a word and a touch and slung the cloak about me, sheathing the toy sword Taran had given me. The boy was trembling with excitement, his bright green eyes sparkling as he drank in the splendid vision of the mounted warriors, their gleaming weapons and splendid accouterments, the restless thaptors pawing at the dust, arching their proud necks restlessly, the brilliant bannerol snapping in a brisk breeze. This was the sort of thing he had dreamed of: and now it was actually happening!