The Reluctant Shaman and Other Fantastic Tales
- Автор: Де Камп Лайон Спрэг
- Год: 1970
- Язык: английский
- Год: Pyramid Books
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Reluctant Shaman and Other Fantastic Tales». Краткое содержание книги:
And plunge headlong into the always wild, constantly weird, and frequently whimsical realm of fantasy as invoked by that master magician L. SPRAGUE DE CAMP!
* A social protestor who just happens to be a ghost...
* A mail-order magic business that conjures up a universe of trouble...
* A fledgling wizard who doesn't know the strength of his own power...
And these are only a sprinkling of the outrageous and amazing creatures and things you'll encounter as you whir through a world where everything is probable--
THE RELUCTANT SHAMAN
THE HARDWOOD PILE
NOTHING IN THE RULES
THE GHOST OF MELVIN PYE
THE WISDOM OF THE EAST
MR. ARSON
KA THE APPALLING
"I was just gonna ask you that," said Buckminster.
"Yes, yes, I suppose so. It's a difficult problem. From what you've told me, the Rolamander is practically indestructible by physical means; water and bullets don't bother him in the least"
"How about freezing him?" asked Grinnig.
"I don't know; I think you'd practically have to incase him in an iceberg. He gets his energy from the fire world."
Buckminster here suggested: "Maybe we could lure him into a big refrigerator and shut the door!" "Not likely; he's too crafty."
"We could call out the army," said Grinnig hopefully. "They could bomb him."
"Perhaps; but the time we convinced them, he'd have found a way to let his fellow hellions into this world."
Buckminster asked: "What does he wanna do that for?"
"To burn everything combustible, I suspect. And don't ask me why they want to burn things. They just do."
"Unreasonable sorta guys," commented the little salesman.
"Not necessarily; it's that their scale of moral values is entirely different from ours. We can't understand them. Fire's a good servant but an ill master, you know. Let's see; let's see. The printed nigromancy course is no more; the first two volumes were all in the printshop, except for Grinnig's copy, and those that weren't burned up will be ruined by the water. The manuscript in the typesetting room went, too, I fancy. There remains only my copy of the manuscript. Neither we nor Mr. Arson want that destroyed; we want to use it to banish him, and he wants to use it to invoke his fellow Rolamanders. But if he finds us with it, he'll force us to perform the conjuration spell on pain of a horrible death, since he can't handle the papers himself without burning them."
Buckminster asked: "Couldn't we pretend to do the conjuring spell, but really do the banishing spell?"
"That's the trouble; he'd know in a minute we were trying to fool him, and with his fiery disposition you can imagine what would happen. These spells aren't simple things that you can say 'hocus pocus' and the elemental vanishes, you know. Since he escaped from Grinnig's control, we'd have to get him back into a servile state first, and I confess I'm not sure how to do it. Dear, dear. Oh, what's he wearing?"
"An asbestos fire fighter's suit," responded Buckminster.
"Aha, now perhaps—" Thurtle broke off and stared past the other two men, horror growing in his face.
"Ha!" The rasping monosyllable and the feeling of warmth on their backs told Buckminster and Grinnig that their enemy was behind them. "Foolish wights, I grow weary of these pastimes. Fetch me forthwith a set of the rest of those books!"
Thurtle spoke: "I ... I'm sorry, Mr. Arson, but they're all destroyed. No, no, don't blame us, old fellow; you started the fire yourself!"
"So I did," grinned Arson. "But I know something of the habits of you of the Cold World. Do not try to tell me that all copies of the work were burned up; you would have an extra somewhere. Lead me to it, and attempt no stratagems such as burning it, unless you wish a speedy but painful death."
"I swear there are no more copies!" cried Thurtle. But Arson simply grinned more widely and began to toss his salamander meaningfully from hand to hand.
"Will you lead me to it, for the last time?" purred the elemental.
"I tell you it doesn't ex—" That was as far as Julian Thurtle got, for the salamander swooped at him and ignited one end of Ms magnificent mustache. Thurtle, with a small shriek, clapped a hand to smother the blaze. When he removed the hand, the right side of the mustace was intact, but of the left wing only a short black stubble on the upper lip remained. The salamander whirled in a small circle around the dean's head.
"All right," groaned Thurtle. "Follow me."
He led them for several blocks into a grimy district, whose buildings were largely devoted to the sale of raw materials, chemicals, and agricultural and industrial machinery. There were few people on the depressing street, most of the people who did business in this neighborhood having gone home to supper.
"Hasten," growled Arson, "for it grows dark, and I cannot wander abroad in this village at night with my face lighting the way like a beacon." His face was in fact becoming pretty conspicuous, though the sun would not set for another hour.
Thurtle stopped the procession in front of an old wooden frame building bearing the sign:
WILLIAMS & GIBBON
Welding Equipment & Supplies
Buckminster almost asked why the devil Thurtle chose to keep the spare copy of his manuscript in such a place, but thought better of it. Thurtle himself said: "Wait here, Mr. Arson, and I'll get the papers."
"Ha, so think you. I'll come with you—"
"Oh, no, you won't, unless you want to set this house on fire, too! Then there really wouldn't be any more copies."
"Very well," grumbled the fire elemental. "I will keep these two as hostages. Do you but attempt a spell behind my back, I shall know, and do them most horribly die!"
Thurtle darted into the building, called, "Tom!" and ran up the stairs.
Buckminster and Grinnig remained uneasily with Arson, who had taken up his statuesque pose in front of the doorway. Buckminster was badly frightened; he was sure that Thurtle was up to something, that it might not work, and that Arson would take it out on him and Grinnig. Maybe the old boy would destroy the manuscript, which would prevent further invocations of elementals, but would leave the invulnerable and vindictive Arson abroad in this world. Buckminster clenched his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering.
A window creaked overhead. Carl Grinnig was too far gone to look up. Clem Buckminster would ordinarily have done so had not the crisis given his otherwise mediocre wits a preternatural sharpness. He fought to control his eyes and face, lest he betray his knowledge of things taking place on the second-story level.
There was a brilliant white flare of light.
Several persons claimed afterward to have seen what happened, but they saw from a distance of a block or more, did not begin to notice until the process was well under way, and told stories differing so widely from each other and from the version of Julian Thurtle, an eminent and respected citizen, that not much credence was given these stories.
The flare was caused by the lighting of a magnesium ribbon stuck in the top of a bucket of gray powder, which Thurtle and his acquaintance, Tom Gibbon, had lowered on a wire from the upstairs window until it was a foot or so over Arson's unsuspecting head. Right after the flash the bottom of the bucket fell out, and a cascade of blindingly incandescent material poured down over Arson while the elemental was just beginning to look up to see what was going on.
Buckminster and Grinnig staggered back, shielding their faces from the scorching heat and blinding light. Buckminster blinked for a few seconds before he could see anything at all.
Where Arson had stood was a shapeless thing about half the stature of a man, which sank and slumped and ran out, across the sidewalk, up and down the gutter, spreading scintillating whiteness over an area twenty feet across. The glare dimmed to a mere yellow that could be looked at directly without scorching the eyeballs, and Julian Thurtle from the upstairs window called: "Fire! You, Buckmaster, turn in the alarm!" In truth, the front of Williams & Gibbon's building had begun to burn; little flames ran up the door posts in businesslike fashion.
An alarm had already been turned in. In a few minutes, a fire truck extended a ladder up to the window. Thurtle and Gibbon scrambled down it, slightly smoke-blackened but otherwise unhurt.