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.
Foot-pedals controlled the aerial craft. Manipulating them, Erigon eased the floating craft out into the courtyard under the blazing stars. They were unobserved. From the street beyond came happy cries, drunken singing and the jingle of shattering glass. The Chxians were busily in pursuit of their nocturnal pleasures.
Instructing them in the mode by which the kayak fabric could be drawn snugly about their waists and secured, the Prince sent the kayak arrowing skywards. Rooftops swung below the kayak’s keel; towers and spires of scarlet stone whizzed by; soon the mad city of Chx fell behind, swallowed in night’s gloom, save for the ruddy glow of several burning buildings.
“Whither now, magister?” asked Erigon, cupping his hands around his mouth and shouting the question.
The Illusionist shouted back that he had no idea where Ganelon might have gone, once he had managed to escape from the Administratium.
“What about your Third Eye, prithee?” sang the clear soprano of the girl knight above the wind, which snatched her words away. The Illusionist peered about, then shrugged.
“From this height I should be able to detect his Auric pattern, were he anywhere in this city. Evidently, he is not.”
“I can’t understand why the big lug would just go off and leave us in jail,” sang Xarda with some asperity. “He may be stupid, but he was always loyal!”
“Perhaps he had no voice in the matter,” replied the Illusionist, whose agile wits had perceived something like the truth in the fact that the Bazonga and Silvermane were both inexplicably absent. He knew the ungainly and absurdly motherly Bird was devoted to the simple youth.
“Well, where would he have most likely gone, had he been able to choose?” asked Prince Erigon. Xarda shrugged angrily: “Over the border, I guess, towards Jemmerdy. That was where we were all heading.”
“Yes, but does Ganelon know in which direction Jemmerdy lies?” inquired the Illusionist. “The dear boy is not the brightest creature that ever trod Old Earth, you know!”
“Well, please, someone make up their mind. Tell me in which direction to fly,” begged the Prince of Valardus.
“Oh, very well! Just fly in an ever-widening circle, with Chx in the middle, until I am able to spy Ganelon’s aura on the Astral plane,” said the Illusionist, despairing of a better plan.
They flew in a lazy spiral, gradually drawing further and further away from the Scarlet City. An interminable vista of farmlands and woods, plains and fields swung beneath them under the glittering stars and the awful cyclopean glare of the Falling Moon.
The Illusionist sat in the foremost of the bucket-like seats of the kayak, the cowl of his robe drawn up until it covered his face, the better to employ his powers of vision on the Astral.
Around and around they swung, until then* spiral had widened to a width of many miles, with the walled city of Chx a clutter of miniature houses far off. No sign of Ganelon Silvermane could be perceived. The Illusionist said nothing, but inwardly he wondered how Ganelon could have come so far, unless he had indeed been mounted on the Bazonga bird. If such proved not to be the case, was it possible that the heroic Construct was dead? At death, the Astral counterpart of the physical body departs for a higher plane of being, to rejoin the Soul, the Spirit and the Zaliph. This is the innermost soul-of-souls, usually resident on the Akashic plane. From the viewpoint of the Akashic, time past, present and future is seen as one continuous palimpsest, he knew. He could not believe that Ganelon Silvermane had been slain. However, every hour their flight continued in an ever-widening circle, it became less likely that the mighty youth could have come so far unaided.
Suddenly, Xarda uttered a stifled shriek. Erigon. voiced a startled cry and paddled frantically, as if striving to avert a collision. The magister, whose physical eyes were muffled to insure his higher vision a clearer, un-confused vista, snatched back his cowl and blinked into the wind.
Directly ahead, swinging towards them, an immense flying monster loomed with spread wings black against the argent immensity of the Falling Moon.
13. THE OMEGA TRISKELION
Very early the following morning, Silvermane, accompanied by his escort of metal men, went out on the exercise field and worked himself into a sweat with the pornoi, the yarmak and the war-hammer. He still felt just a trifle sleepy from the narcotics in his wine at dinner the night before, and it was a pleasure to practice with the weapons, stripped to a loincloth, under the cool red rays of the aging sun.
Grrff the Tigerman had been working out at the opposite side of the field, practicing with sting-sword, dart-thrower and the traditionally Tigermanic weapon, the ygdraxel. Silvermane had never seen the ygdraxel used before, and studied the Xombolian’s technique with claw-tipped, tridentiform billhook appraisingly.
They met, after an hour or so, at the water-butt. Between deep draughts they managed to exchange a few surreptitious morsels of conversation, even though they were under the alert, suspicious eye of Turmus. The Colonel stood near the bleachers, himself conversing with Drng, chief of Zelmarine’s Death Dwarves, careful to keep upwind of the bowlegged green monster. He had been imbibing rather heavily of mixed cobra-venom and hydrochloric-acid cocktails the night before, and his breath had to be smelled to be believed.
“Prison scuttlebutt has it the Red Bitch is trying to seduce you; any truth to the rumor?” growled Grrff in low tones, while ostensibly guzzling at the water-pail. Ganelon, who was not too certain what “seduce” meant, made a noncommittal reply. The Tigerman shrugged, took another gulp from the pail, put it down, and began to preen his muzzle and chest-fluff. “None of GrrfFs business, eh? Well, maybe so: but you’d better watch your step, big man. Varesco, who nurses a jealous and frustrated passion for the minx, has his eyes on you, and would slay you if he dared. Which he does not. Zelmarine wants to breed a race of supermen wherewith to dominate the world, and needs your,”—he chuckled—“services to that end. She’d skin the old Mind Worshipper alive if she caught him trying to slip some poison into your wine. Keep your eyes^ peeled when you’re alone with Varesco: he knows every sneaky method of assassination and has a hundred ways to kill without leaving clues. The only reason he hasn’t put you under the sod already is that he would be the first suspect on the Witch’s list if you suddenly turned up your toes and went to Galendil.”
Ganelon digested this thoughtfully, while dousing his steaming, naked torso with cold water. “What can we do to escape from this place?” he asked. The cat-yellow eyes of the Tigerman flashed with excited fires. “Now you’re talking! Old Grrff has a few ideas along that line—have you ever heard of the so-called ‘Cavern of a Thousand Perils’?”
Ganelon nodded somberly. “I’ve heard Zelmarine is the last of the Red Amazons, and came hither from Thoph by means of this Cavern. But I don’t really understand just what it’s supposed to be …”
Grrff snorted, blowing water-drops from his whiskers. In his snarling, growly voice he explained: ” ‘Tis a hyperspatial tube, Grrff’s heard, a veritable labyrinth of ‘em; connecting different parts o’ Gondwane together with other worlds, planes and strata of existence. These hyperspatial tubes collapse space in upon itself; inside one of ‘em, a step can take you a hundred leagues, or a thousand, or a quintillion, if you’re not careful. Tricksey things, hyperspatial tubes. Nobody knows who built the system, or when, nor even why. Some say the Tensors o’ Pluron, others the Fabricators of Dirdanx or the Dional Moralists, or the High Advo-cats o’ Tring or the Ptelian Dynasts, or the Technarchs of Grand Phesion. They’ve been around since the Age of the Glaspenfells, at least, if not since the Eon of the Blind Philosophers.”