Under the Green Star
- Автор: Картер Лин Спрэг
- Серия: Green Star Rises #1
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Under the Green Star». Краткое содержание книги:
In no way did he resemble the dainty, effeminate men of Phaolon. Where they were small and exquisite, he was tall, broad of shoulder, with great arms and thighs of mighty girth. Where their limbs were delicate as those of smooth young girls, his were corded with sinews, thick with swelling thews. Where their faces were fine-boned and elfin, his was a rude frame of jutting bone, square and massive of jaw, swarthy of hue, and, lacking their smoothness, rough and harsh as from the burning kiss of tropic suns and the lash of stinging tempests.
He had been a mighty warrior, I guessed, and perhaps had led many a war-host in the field: for the stern, grim-lipped air of command lay about him like a crimson cloak.
He was unclothed, the Sleeping One—which, as I later learned, was what the folk of Phaolon called the warrior in the crystal coffin—and his great arms lay folded upon his breast, where they were clenched about the massive pommel of a gigantic broadsword of blue steel. A glittering scarlet crystal flashed and winked in the pommel of that sword.
Something about the Sleeping One caught my attention, drew me to the glass sarcophagus wherein he lay enshrined. I cannot explain the fascination that mighty form exerted upon my imagination; it was as if every line and lineament of those grim features was engraved upon the tablets of my memory—as if I had known him, somewhere, somewhen, perhaps in some former life …
I drifted down toward the great figure, where it lay stretched out upon a pallet of sumptuous velvets. And then there occurred a miracle, the strangest among the many I had thus far experienced; for my spirit-self floated down to scrutinize the body of the Sleeping One—and entered it
And lived again in human flesh!
The transition from disembodied spirit to a spirit which dwelt in living flesh was instantaneous and utterly astounding. In my spirit-state I had been aware of no bodily sensations whatsoever—now the pulse thundered in my temples, the heart labored in my breast, and my lungs ached, starving for air!
With an involuntary start of surprise, my thews convulsed; I rose from my pallet, brandishing my arms, and the great broadsword to which I clung clove through the glass sarcophagus, shattering it to ten thousand ringing shards!
The explosion of shattering glass filled the hall with ringing echoes. A hundred startled eyes turned to see me rise from my place among the glorious dead. The miracle of my resurrection wrung a gasp of stupefied amazement from a hundred throats.
But none in all that place were more astounded at this turn of events than was I myself!
For I had not willed myself down into that dead or sleeping form. Hovering near, I had been caught helpless in the attraction of some force unknown to me, sucked down as by a vortex into that body, helpless to resist the suction as any chip caught in a maelstrom.
Niamh stared at me with unbelief in her wide eyes and astonishment written in her face.
From where he stood before the throne, Akhmim regarded me as if I were an apparition. I sensed that something in my resurrection—perhaps its timing, which had come almost as if in answer to his ultimatum—disconcerted him, shook his arrogance, struck doubt into the armor of his confidence.
For a breathless moment he stood, twisted about awkwardly in his stiff robes, looking uncomfortable and somehow foolish. And he knew it, for he paled and bit his lip and tugged at his garments as if to rearrange them.
For a long moment the entire company stood frozen in shock. No one spoke or moved. Then, from among a rank of courtiers who stood in a semicircle behind Niamh’s throne, one elderly sage thrust himself to the fore and addressed me. From the rising lilt of his tones I gathered it was an interrogation. The only trouble was that the question was spoken in a language completely unknown to me—a fluid, musical tongue that sounded rather like a cross between Hawaiian and French, with a sibilant tang of old Castilian.
The question thus addressed to me was spoken in loud, clear tones fully audible to all who stood within the ruby-domed hall. Whatever the nature of the query may have been, I sensed from the breathless silence that followed upon the old man’s words, and from the keen and alert fixity with which all eyes were trained upon me, that it was one of enormous importance. Without exception, all who stood there waited in tense expectancy for my reply.
From the moment I had stood up, shattering free of the glass sarcophagus, I had stood motionlessly, my face impassive, clenching the mighty broadsword in one scarred fist. I had not chosen this immobile stance consciously—the fact of the matter was that I was suffering exquisitely from the torment of renewed circulation. How long this trance-bound body had slept in its transparent tomb I did not know, but the pins-and-needles sensation of numb flesh awakening and the intolerable ache of long-unused muscles forced to work again, combined in a torture beyond description.
In my agony, I scarcely heard the sage’s query, and it was not until long after that I realized its importance, and the import of my answer. By pure accident, without even thinking, I did precisely the right thing.
I nodded.
And in the next instant the ruby dome above rang to a peal of thunderous acclamation. Joy blazed in the eyes of the throng; exaltation shone in their happy faces. Indescribable relief and bliss glowed in the face of Niamh the Fair. Her eyes shone down on me, brilliant with an inexplicable fervor, and she clasped her small hands to her throbbing heart in an ecstasy beyond all my comprehension.
A burly, hard-faced guard captain, who stood very near the foot of his princess’ dais, turned upon me a gaze of wordless adoration. Then he removed his sword from his scabbard and raised it aloft in salute to me.
A hundred swords leaped from their scabbards to flash aloft like narrow mirrors in the rich glory from above.
And from a hundred throats rang one word
“Chong! Chong! CHONG!”
And I knew it was no word, but a name.
My name!
Chapter 5
THE WISDOM OF KHIN-NOM
At the command of my royal hostess, a gorgeously-appointed suite of apartments was reserved for me, and a squadron of guards-warriors vied for the honor of serving me, led by the hard-faced captain who had been the first of all to hail me. His name was Panthon.
My own name I first mistook to be Kyr-Chong, for thus I was addressed by all who spoke to me, including Panthon and his warriors. It was only later, as I became familiar with the oddly musical language spoken by the Laonese, as the folk of Phaolon term their race, that I came to understand the phoneme kyr was a prefix of honor, denoting something like “Lord Chong” or perhaps “Sir Chong”; as for “Chong” itself, it was an affectionate diminutive, used in a blending of respect and love, as the Englishmen of old referred to Richard the Lionhearted as “stout old Rick” or as those of a later age spoke of Henry V as “Hal” or “Harry.”
My full name, it seemed, was Chongaphon tai-Vena-Vena, and the allusions above to the Lionheart and the victor of Agincourt are not far off the mark. For Lord Chong had been a warrior hero of mythic fame, a doer of legendary deeds. No doubt existed in those who clustered about me on my rare public appearances but that I was that mighty man, reborn again in my original body, which had been perfectly preserved against just such an eventuality. An ancient prophecy had been made that someday in great time of need I would return again to lead the warriors of Phaolon the Jewel City to victories and triumphs as of old, and to save the realm from doom in its hour of ultimate peril.