The Best of L. Sprague de Camp
- Автор: Де Камп Лайон Спрэг
- Год: 1978
- Язык: английский
- Год: Del Rey / Ballantine
- ISBN: 0-345-25474-0
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Best of L. Sprague de Camp». Краткое содержание книги:
The beggar chuckled. "Close, but not in the gold. This Nanka was a scoundrel of deepest dye, who supplemented his earnings as an informer by robbery and extortion. He skated into Ajendra's hut with the simple, wholesome intention of breaking the old man's neck and seizing Ajendra's rumored weapon."
"Hm. Well?"
"Well, Nanka never came out. A patrolman of the regular police found Ajendra sitting cross-legged in meditation and no sign of the erstwhile spy. Since Nanka was large and the hovel small, the corpse could not have been hidden. As it is said, the digger of pitfalls shall at last fall into one of his own."
"Hm," said Tsotuga. "I must look into this. Enough Sachi for the nonce. You must let me show you my latest acquisition!"
Reiro groaned inside and braced himself for an hour's lecture on the history and beauty of some antique bibelot. The thought of the palatial cookery, however, stiffened his resolve.
"Now, where did I put that little widget?" said Tsotuga, tapping his forehead with his folded fan.
"What is it, chum?" asked the beggar.
"A topaz statuette of the goddess Amarasupi, from the Jumbon Dynasty. Oh, curse my bowels with ulcers! I grow more absentminded day by day."
"Good thing your head is permanently affixed to the rest of you! As the wise Ashuziri said, hope is a charlatan, sense a bungler, and memory a traitor."
"I distinctly remember," muttered the Emperor, "telling myself to put it in a special place where I should be sure to remember it. But now I cannot recall the special place."
"The Proscribed Palace must have ten thousand special places," said Reiro. "That is the advantage of being poor. One has so few possessions that one need never wonder where they are."
"Almost you tempt me to change places with you, but my duty forbids. Damn, damn, what did I with that silly thing? Oh, well, let us play another game instead. You take the red this time, I the green."
Two days later, Emperor Tsotuga sat on his throne of audience, wearing his towering crown of state. This plumed and winged headgear, bedight with peacock feathers and precious stones, weighed over ten pounds. It even had a secret compartment. Because of its weight, Tsotuga avoided wearing it whenever he felt that he decently could.
The usher led in Ajendra. The Mulvanian magician was a tall, gaunt, bent old man, who supported himself on a stick. Save for the long white beard flowing down from his wrinkled, mahogany-hued face, he was brown all over, from dirty brown bulbous turban and dirty brown robe to dirty brown bare feet. His monotone contrasted with the golds and vermilions and greens and blues and purples of the Chamber of Audience.
In a cracked voice, speaking Kuromonian with an accent, Ajendra went through the formal greeting: "This wretched worm humbly abases himself before Thine Ineffable Majesty!" The wizard began, slowly and painfully, to get down on hands and knees.
The Emperor motioned him up, saying, "In respect for your years, old man, we will omit the prostration. Simply tell us about this invincible weapon of yours."
"Your Imperial Majesty is too kind to this unworthy wretch. Sees Your Majesty this?"
From his ragged sleeve, the Mulvanian produced a large painted fan. Like the others present, Ajendra kept his gaze averted from the Emperor's face, on the pretense that one who looked the ruler full in the face would be blinded by his awful glory.
"This," continued Ajendra, "was made for the king of the Gwoling Islands by the noted wizard Tsunjing. By a series of chances too long to bore Your Imperial Majesty with, it came into the unworthy hands of this inferior person."
At least, thought Tsotuga, the fellow had learnt the polite forms of Kuromonian address. Many Mulvanians were informal to the point of rudeness. Aloud he said, "It looks like any other fan. What is its power?"
"Simple, 0 Superior One. Any living thing that you fan with it disappears."
"Oho!" exclaimed the Emperor. "So that is what befell the missing Nanka!"
Ajendra looked innocent. "This loathsome reptile does not understand Your Divine Majesty."
"Never mind. Whither go the victims!"
"One theory of my school is that they are translated to a higher dimension, coexistent with this one. Another holds that they are dispersed into constituent atoms, which, however, retain such mutual affinities that they can be reassembled when the signal for recall is—"
"Mean you that you can reverse the effect and fetch back the vanished beings?"
"Aye, Superhuman Sire. One folds the fan and taps one's wrists and forehead according to a simple code, and presto! there is the evanished one. Would Your Majesty see a demonstration? There is no danger to the demonstratee since this humble person can bring him back instanter."
"Very well, good wizard. Just be careful not to wave that thing at us. On whom propose you to try it?"
Ajendra looked about the Chamber of Audience. There was a stir amongst ushers, guardsmen, and officials. Light winked on gilded armor and glowed on silken robes as each tried to make himself inconspicuous behind a pillar or another courtier.
"Who will volunteer?" asked the Emperor. "You, Dzakusan?"
The Prime Minister prostrated himself. "Great Emperor, live forever! This lump of iniquity has not been well lately. Moreover, he has nine children to support. He humbly begs Your Supremacy to excuse him."
Similar questions to other functionaries produced similar responses. At length Ajendra said, "If this lowly one may make a suggestion to Your Magnificence, it might be better to try it first on a beast—say, a dog or a cat."
"Aha!" said Tsotuga. "Just the thing. We know the animal, too. Surakai, fetch that cursed dog belonging to the Empress—you know, that yapping little monstrosity."
The messenger departed on his roller skates. Soon he was back, leading on a leash a small woolly white dog, which barked incessantly.
"Go ahead," said the Emperor.
"This negligible person hears and obeys," said Ajendra, opening the fan.
The dog's yelp was cut off as the draft from the fan struck it. Surakai trailed an empty leash. The courtiers started and murmured.
"By the Heavenly Bureaucrats!" exclaimed the Emperor. "That is impressive. Now bring the creature back. Fear not if you fail. The thing has bitten us twice, so the Empire will not fall if it remain in that other dimension."
Ajendra produced from his other sleeve a small codex, whose pages he thumbed. Then he held a reading glass to his eye. "Here it is," he said. " 'Dog. Two left, three right, one to head'."
Having folded the fan, Ajendra, holding it in his right hand, rapped his left wrist twice. Transferring the fan to his left hand, he then tapped his right wrist thrice and his forehead once. Instantly the dog reappeared. Yapping, it fled under the throne.
"Very good," said the Emperor. "Leave the creature where it is. What is that, a code book?"
"Aye, supreme sire. It lists all the categories of organic beings subject to the fan's power."
"Well, let us try it on a human being—an expendable one. Mishuho, have we a condemned criminal handy?"
"Live forever, Incomparable One!" said the Minister of Justice. "We have a murderer due to lose his head tomorrow. Shall this miserable creature fetch him?"
The murderer was fetched. Ajendra fanned him out of existence and tapped him back again.
"Whew!" said the murderer. "This contemptible one must have suffered a dizzy spell."
"Where were you whilst you were vanished?" said the Emperor.
"I knew not that I was vanished, great Emperor!" said the murderer. "I felt dizzy and seemed to lose my wits for an instant—and then here I was, back in the Proscribed Palace."
"Well, you disappeared, all right. In consideration of his services to the state, Mishuho, commute his sentence to twenty-five lashes and turn him loose. Now, Doctor Ajendra!"