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.
“Oh, magister, let me! I am young and agile—”
“But completely untutored in crystalloid lifeforms,” he said curtly. “You wouldn’t know what to look for. No talking now!” The kayak wobbled drunkenly as the old magician climbed from it into the bronze vehicle. When the magician was safely ensconced in the cockpit Erigon released, with a whoosh of relief, the breath he had been holding.
“I shall have to climb out on her neck to examine her skullcase,” the Illusionist announced. “If she did indeed run into the mountain wall, the collision may have jarred a few of her electrodes loose, or broken a connection.” Xarda bit her lip and gripped Prince Erigon’s hand tightly as the old man got out on the neck of the Bazonga, to sit astride it as one sits on a tree-branch. Reaching forward, he grasped the Bird’s bronze top-knot and pulled himself up the neck. The Bazonga bobbed as his weight shifted, and her beak dipped earthwards. Fumblingly he snapped the catches, opened her skullcase, and peered within.
The brilliance of the Falling Moon was nearly as bright as a flashlight would have been. A moment or two later, he called back to them that the sentient crystalloid which served as the creature’s brain seemed not to have been harmed, nestled snugly in its velvet padding, but three of the copper wire electrodes which connected the crystal brain to the flying and sensory apparatus were indeed out of their sockets. Probing within the skull cavity, and cursing under his breath as he tried to recall the color code with which the proper terminal connections had originally been marked, he carefully inserted the electrodes one by one.
It seemed to take forever. When it was over and the mood of suspense broke, only then did the girl knight of Jemmerdy realize she had been holding onto Prince Erigon’s hand for dear life. She snatched her hand away, crimsoning with embarrassment: the engaging young Valardian, however, seemed to have rather enjoyed their fleeting moment of closeness. He grinned at her; she flashed him a disdainful glance and looked away, furious at her momentary display of unfeminine weakness.
It took a few minutes for the dear Bird to recover herself. When she was herself again, she was surprised and pleased to see them again and shyly made the Prince’s acquaintance. Privately, she too thought him remarkably good-looking—for a True Man, that is.
“It was like taking a little nap,” the garrulous Bird marveled to herself. “Everything was so cozy and dreamy again—just like being snugly nested back in the bowels of Old Earth (if I may be forgiven so unladylike a phrase!), with all my brother and sister crystalloids beside me, warm and snuggy in the pre-Diluvian strata. Now I know what you human beings experience when you ‘go to sleep’, as you so quaintly term it! Why, it’s rather pleasant and comfy, after all …”
The magister, seated stiffly in the cockpit once again, ground his teeth together and swore under his breath by the Twelfth Mystery of Pesh, the Black Vortex, and the Magneto-gravitic Nexus.
“If you are quite done,” he snapped, “we are more than a little concerned to find out just what has been happening! How did you get here? What have you done with Ganelon Silvermane?”
“Oh, pish-tush, you old fussbudget,” sang the Bird carelessly. “Why, he’s right back there, where I left him only a moment before!” With a casual flip of her wing, she indicated an area of broken slabs on the first slopes of the Vanishing Mountains.
“D-do you mean there . . . where all the Death Dwarf corpses are?” asked Xarda fearfully. The Bird admitted that was where she had deposited the young giant, before flying back to fetch to safety the rest of them.
“But I see you have managed to rescue yourselves! And this nice young Prince,” she added in a coyly flirtatious manner, which the old magician found faintly sickening. For the nine-hundredth tune, he wondered why “that senile old idiot”* had seen fit to give his creation the psychic orientation of a talkative old aunt, when he had electrically educated the intelligent crystalloid.
* Meaning Miomivir Chastovix, the wizard who built the Bazonga.
They brought the kayak and the Bazonga bird down to the surface; Erigon hopped out to investigate the situation at first hand. He returned a while later to say that Ganelon’s corpse was not to be seen, but that the evidence suggested the giant had fought a terrific battle against the Death Dwarves, slaying many.
“Could he have wandered off, injured perhaps, or dazed?” inquired the old magician. Prince Erigon shook his head unhappily.
“I really don’t believe so,” he said regretfully. “I would say the surviving Dwarves finally overpowered him and carried him off to their lairs. This seems to be what happened, from the fact that the dwarf corpses have been plundered of their weapons, which Ganelon Silvermane would not have done. He might have armed himself with a sword, club, axe or two, but not a dozen or more.”
The knightrix of Jemmerdy swallowed a painful lump and measured the moonlit distances with grimly resolute eyes.
“If he’s captive somewhere in Dwarfland, then we must go after him,” she said determinedly. “By my halidom, ‘tis the very least we owe the great lout!”
The Illusionist agreed anxiously: he had become very fond of the youthful Construct by now, and would have deeply regretted losing him. They took to the air again, Xarda and Erigon in the flying kayak and the old magician riding in the Bazonga’s cockpit. The night was half done; by dawn they had traversed the Country of the Death Dwarves from north to south, from east to west. Nowhere, in all this realm of sterile mountains and bleakly barren plains, had the Illusionist managed to detect the distinctive spectrum of Ganelon’s Auric radiation.
“Isn’t it true that the little abominations lair in caverns and holes in the ground?” asked Xarda when the search had ended at dawn, in failure. The Illusionist nodded wearily.
“Quite true, but solid matter is completely transparent on the Astral plane. Ganelon’s Aura would be perfectly visible to Third Eye vision, even were he penned in subterranean regions. No, we shall have to give up on Dwarf country.”
“What then?” inquired Erigon, trying unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn.
“The Land of Red Magic,” said the Illusionist. “The little monsters who attacked Ganelon must have come from those tribes over which the Red Enchantress has gained dominance.”
“That means we must begin our search for the boy all over again, in the next kingdom!” groaned the knightrix. “And I can hardly keep my eyes open, after so busy and eventful a night.”
“Well, we can safely nap while en route,” said the magician. “We do require sleep, for we must be sharp, alert and have all our wits about us when we confront Zelmarine in the very fortress of her power …”
“How can we do that, though?” countered Prince Erigon. “You can safely snooze in your quaint vehicle, who flies herself … but Istrobian’s flying kayak is a bird of a different feather, if you will permit me the lame jest.”
“Tether the kayak to the Bird’s tail with the sentient rope, then join us in the cockpit for a snooze,” suggested the Illusionist, practically. “Our search has ended here at the westernmost corner of Dwarfland, facing on the Voormish desert; we have, I should say, three or four hours of flight before reaching the vicinity of Shai, the Red Queen’s capitol. Luckily, the dear Bird requires no rest, and can fly herself while we yield to the demands of nature.”
The plan made excellent sense. By this time, Prince Erigon was falling asleep. Securing the kayak to the peacock tail of the Bazonga, he clambered into the rear seat of the cockpit, snuggled down in his cloak, and fell sound asleep in an instant. Xarda and the old magician were not far behind him, entering the embrace of Morpheus.