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 meal was washed down with a thin, sour red wine, to the tinkling thumps of tambourines and the hip-wriggjings of dancing-girls. Among these, the stellar role was filled by Yemple’s own daughter, the lissome Slioma. She was a slim but well-rounded lass with dusky skin, flashing black eyes, and warm red lips perpetually open in a lazy, inviting smile, baring teeth of startling perfection and whiteness. Phadia, a severe critic when it came to the fine art of terpsi-chorean endeavor, was captivated by the vivacious princess of the gypsies, who was not very much older than himself. The lad had hardly ever seen a girl before, much less one of his own age, and his fascination proved there was hope for him yet.
As the boy watched her undulate about the room, bare brown legs twinkling amidst the twirling of flounced, scarlet, innumerable petticoats, Ganelon and Grrff observed his entranced, open-mouthed admiration. They beamed fondly and exchanged a grin of paternal satisfaction.
As the wine bottles went back and forth, the hospitable gypsy king waxed talkative. The Mobile City, he understood, was one of the remarkable constructions abandoned by the Technarchs of Vandalex after the collapse of their empire. Originally, the gigantic robot had been designed as a self-mobile, completely automatic metals mine. Equipped with electronic sensors of extraordinary subtlety, the robot mining machine was supposed to navigate the Purple Plain seeking out subterranean ore deposits. Upon finding one, it squatted atop the ground, rather like a nesting hen, extruding from its underneath drill-probes and clutchers. Excavating the, ore, which it drew up into its innards, the giant robot smelted and refined the metals thus extracted from the bowels of the planet, stacking them in neatly aligned ingots.
Once programmed for these multiple functions, the machine could virtually run itself forever. When a portion of its machinery broke down through neglect or decay, the machine was permitted by its standard code of operating procedures to draw upon its stockpile of ingots, set into operation its machine-shops and thus to repair itself. In the long ages since the collapse of Vandalex and the fall of the Technarchs, the giant robot had received no further instructions from Grand Phesion, the capitol. It had been left to its own devices. Becoming over-burdened by the ingot stockpiles, the mining robot had added to its own structure, in lieu of instructions to the contrary. Observing from afar the cities of men, and lacking any other idea, the simple machine had transformed itself into the replica of a city. Since cities require inhabitants, the machine had captured a quantity of them. Its first inhabitants had been a lengthy caravan-train from Jashp, bearing a party of Zealots on pilgrimage to the shrine of the Floating Stones in far-off Klish.
The Zealots had inhabited the city for about one generation, but had died out due to a lack of females. Thereafter, the Mobile City of Kan Zar Kan (so christened by the unhappy Zealots, who named it after the most excruciating of the seventy-three hells in their dire mythology) had been careful to take aboard females as well as males, during her/his/its periodic efforts to add new citizens to the correction. The lomagoths had replaced a dwindling band of Quaylies, one or two of which were still around.
Ganelon found it impossible to get a word in, so talkative was the fat old vagabond prince when in his cups. By the time a tattered band of giggling, bright-eyed gypsy children led them off to the sleeping quarters reserved for guests, he still had not been able to find out if any of his missing friends were also aboard the Mobile Qty.
He reasoned that they must be, for surely Dzimdazoul had directed them into that part of the Purple Plain for the avowed purpose of reuniting him with his friends. He went to sleep still worrying about it.
The next day, Ganelon and his companions explored the City. The gypsies were engaged in hunting meat, and the travellers rather squeamishly preferred not to know how their ruffianly hosts procured food for the table. Declining the invitation to join in the hunt, they were left to their own devices.
Slioma volunteered to be their guide on the tour. The bright-eyed gypsy girl was intrigued by the strangers, who represented ways of life entirely foreign to her experience. Like many girls her age, the thought of far-off lands and strange kingdoms was irresistibly exotic to her, and she had taken to tagging about after them. She proved a lively, amusing guide, with her piquant chatter and provocative, sideward glances.
She led them to the street-level of the City, which was completely deserted, save for machines. Here were built rows on rows of metal houses, or what closely resembled houses. It puzzled Silvennane that the lomagoths ignored these relatively palatial dwellings for the dark, noisome sewers below the streets. Inquiring of Slioma on this point, the girl seemed baffled; Ganelon at length-came to the conclusion that the vagabonds were more accustomed to a furtive life in hiding, than an open, lawful existence in respectable surroundings. It seemed never to have occurred to them to switch their homes to live in the upper air.
Peering inside one of the metal houses, he realized there was more good sense to their preference for the submunicipal warrens than he had at first supposed. For the houses, though neat, light, airy and scrupulously clean, were totally devoid of any furnishings, nor were there interior rooms. They were merely empty containers^Jwhose facades alone—suggested their purpose was to accomodate human families.
“Why, it must be the City’s fault!” exclaimed Phadia eagerly. “Of course! The City could only see houses in other cities from a distance, and had no idea what was supposed to be inside of them!”
” ‘S’ true,” the girl chimed in. “OF City ‘nt know how real folks live. ‘N’ always cleanin’ up after folks, so.” She shuddered fastidiously. Personal cleanliness was a trait observed principally by strict avoidance, among her raffish tribe.
As they explored the perfectly empty buildings, strolled along the spotless but untraveled streets and ventured on some of the nearest aerial walkways, the City observed them benignly from its thousands of “eyes”—binocular vision lenses stationed at odd points about the metal metropolis. These twinkled down at them with a sentient watchfulness that made Griffs nape-fur tingle and his hackles rise. But the continuous observation was somehow kindly and gratified. The City desired to be inhabited, and it pleased the gigantic robot intelligence to see its populace strolling about its usually unpopulated ways.
When they wearied after a time and sought to rest, a bubble car came smoothly to a halt before them and opened its transparent canopy invitingly. Phadia would have clambered in for the pleasures of an aerial ride but Grrff held him back by the scruff of the neck and Slioma indignantly waved the vehicle on its way.
“Go long with you,” the girl scolded shrilly. “Git, now!” The vehicle regarded them calmly but with a trace of sadness in its lenses, then scooted off and floated into the air to join its empty, purposelessly circling comrades. The girl flirted her skirts after it, then came swaggering back to where they stood.
“Ol’ cars, they take us where they want us to go! Nemine where you wanna go!” Ganelon studied the circling swarm of weightless vehicles and observed the traffic pattern, which was utterly regular. He repressed a sudden qualm: had they accepted a ride from the car, they might have remained trapped in it for days or even weeks, helplessly held captive aloft until the balance of the pattern decreed their vehicle should come to rest.