The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate
- Автор: Де Камп Лайон Спрэг
- Год: 1968
- Язык: английский
- Год: Lancer Books
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate». Краткое содержание книги:
Dragon is probably closest in mood to de Camp's fantasy novels, while Bronze God and Arrows are closer to his science fiction, with their description of engineering problems, and personality clashes among researchers and engineers. Dragon also reflects de Camp's then-recent acquaintance with the Conan stories and other works of Robert E. Howard. Bessas, the huge Persian nobleman, is not only a close match for Conan in physique, but his mood swings, fixation on his mother, and tendency to toss of verses, seems a reflection of Howard himself. (Fortunately, his poems reflect de Camp's verbal dexterity and wit, not Howard's melancholy.)
"Certainly," said Myron.
The girls completed their baths, and all returned to the camp. Myron ate, squatting with the rest. Shimri, across the fire from him, looked up with popping eyes. For an instant the Judaean, his mouth too full for speech, could only point and gurgle. Myron looked around and scrambled up.
A dark shape, rising to an incredible height, towered over Myron's head. The eyes alone, showing their whites in the firelight, seemed to be at twice the height of a man. Myron had to lean back a little to see to the top of the thing. From each side of the central mass spread a pair of objects that looked at first like bat's wings, save that they were a hundred times the size of those of a proper bat.
As Myron's eyes adapted themselves to looking away from the fire, he saw that from the central mass sprang another feature. This was like an enormous blind snake, which reared and weaved this way and that, as if questing for a victim. The mass seemed to be perched on the trunks of a pair of great gray trees, which had not been there when Myron sat down.
The women screamed; an Arab shouted: "Fîl!". Somebody threw a stick of firewood, whirling so that its burning end etched a looping curve of ruddy light in the darkness.
Below the questing serpent, a great red mouth fell open. A high-pitched bellow, between a scream and a roar, like the blast of a bronzen trumpet befouled with spittle, came from the cavernous opening. As the monster turned, the moonlight flashed on a pair of long white tusks.
Then the elephant was gone with a crashing of vegetation, leaving a frantic jabber of voices behind it. Myron looked for his leader. Bessas had leaped for his Parthian bow and now stood with arrow nocked.
"Praise Mithra, at least we were not stamped flat!" said the Bactrian. " 'Twas bigger, than any elephants they have in Hind."
"D-did you see the horns on it?" cried Shimri.
Myron reproved the young man: "Those were not horns; they were tusks."
Bessas snorted. "Some day our beloved Myron will be trampled by one of these great African monsters. And when somebody runs for help, crying: 'A hippopotamus is killing Myron!' he will look up, and his dying words will be: 'You err, my dear fellow. This is not a hippopotamus; it is a rhinoceros!'" He glared around the camp. "Where in the seven Babylonian hells is Skhâ? He was supposed to patrol."
They found the Karian asleep against a tree trunk. Despite his howls that the crocodiles would devour him, they threw him into the Astasobas.
The next day, Myron took the shaykh aside and broached Bessas' proposal. Zayd thoughtfully pulled his beard.
"The Banu Khalaf is flattered that so great a lord and hero should ask for one of our daughters," said the shaykh. "Natheless, I must tell you that it may not be."
"She is surely old enough," said Myron.
"True, but that is not the issue. She should have been wed to some good clansman years ago, but she has overblown thoughts as to what sort of man she wishes. I fear that even becoming wife to Xerxes would scarcely satisfy her; and, being less strong in my dealings with her than a proper Arab father, I have not compelled her. Besides, she has threatened to stab in his sleep any man to whom I gave her against her will."
"She seems to like Bessas well enough."
"True, Master Myron, but that is not the point."
"What is the point, then?" said Myron with a touch of impatience, for the aged Arab showed a tendency to ramble.
"Craving your pardon, we are most particular about the purity of our blood. Lord Bessas is not an Arab, let alone a Khalafi. So pray tell him thanks, and thanks again, but let him seek a wife elsewhere than in the tents of the Banu Khalaf." The old man sighed. "Betimes I wish he were a Khalafi. I shall not live forever. I have no living sons; my brother Naamil, though well-loved in the clan, is too mild and indolent. Moreover he, too, has daughters only. No other man in the clan has the strength and wisdom required to ward us from disaster in this wicked world."
"Your daughter seems to be a better man than most men."
"All, true. But stones will sprout leaves or ever the badawin submit to being ruled by a woman. And that is why I should like some magician to turn Captain Bessas into an authentic Arab, complete with pedigree." When Myron reported back to Bessas, his news cast the other into the deepest gloom. "Of what avail my noble achievements, if there be no sweet woman to share them with?" said the Bactrian, wiping away a tear.
Myron suggested: "If you want a wife so badly, you could have Phyllis. She is desperately eager to find a husband, and she gazes upon you with that same gods-but-he's-wonderful look that you bend upon Salimat."
"Phyllis is a good lass and I like her. For a second wife she would suit me well—that is, if you did not wish to keep her for yourself. But for the first, I will have Salimat bint-Zayd and no other. I burn for her like an iron founder's furnace." He sighed. "It never occurred to me that the lesser races might hold the same interdicts regarding purity of blood as we Aryans do."
"Live and learn. I trust you'll keep your passions well reined in. For, if a man lay lustful hands on Salimat, Zayd and his lads would think themselves in honor bound to have the fellow's heart. Not to mention that she's quick as a snake with a dagger herself."
"Fear not. In my younger days as a soldier on the frontier, I committed a few rapes with the rest, at the taking of towns. But when I saw the dole I thus made, I swore never again to take a woman against her will. This is between you and me, of course; for some might deem such self-denying resolutions unmanly." Bessas managed a wan smile. "So Zayd thinks I should make a good shaykh, eh, but for the detail that I'm no Arab? One could fare farther and do worse. Betimes I weary of forever flitting about the world like a bat in a banquet hall, without home or ties."
On the twenty-fifth of Abu, a weary column reached the point on the east bank of the river opposite Tenupsis, the capital of the southern Nubae. A large village with huts of wattle and thatch swam into view across the flume. A low stockade surrounded it, and a pair of skulls grinned from lofty poles at the sides of the gate.
Gazing at Bessas' party, Myron thought they looked travel-worn and exhausted after nearly a month of marching. Their clothes were faded from the sun and stained from the rain, which became ever heavier and more frequent as they proceeded south. He himself felt that he would be in the Elysian fields, could he but lie down and do nothing for a fortnight. And if he could do his loafing in a good library, reading for hours every day, he would be on Olympos itself.
The march had borne heavily on men and beasts. One camel and one more horse had died. One Arab was sick with a persistent cough. Large biting flies buzzed menacingly about the caravan.
A grinning, naked Nuba scrambled up the river bank and spoke in broken Kushite to Merqetek, who translated to Kothar, who translated to Bessas. "He says he will ferry us across for one string of beads a passenger."
Bessas looked towards a distant cluster of conical huts, rising from the grassy plain on the eastern side of the river, where grazed a huge herd of cattle. "Myron, you and Merqetek go across to buy food ere we starve. I must needs think on how to set up a defensible camp. Or do you need Kothar as well to make yourself understood?"
"No," said Myron. "I now know enough Egyptian and Kushite to converse with Merqetek. Don't you find it curious that in Egypt the official language is Syrian, in Kush the official language is Egyptian, and here, where they speak the gods know what tongues, the language of trade is Kushite?"
"Get me a proper store of victuals, and one day I'll talk about the theory of languages all you like. But go."