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A WORLD CALLED CAMELOT COPYRIGHT ©, 1976, BY ARTHUR H. LANDIS All Rights Reserved.e-book ver. 1.0An earlier and somewhat different version of this novel was published as a serial under the titleLet There Be Magick with the by-line of "James R. Keaveny," and is copyright, 1969, by Camelot Publishing Company."There are two fundamental principles of magic. The first is that like produces like and effect resembles cause. The second is that things that have once been in contact ever afterward act on each other. Number One is the law of similarity, Number Two is the law of contagion. Practices based upon the law of similarity may be termed Homeopathic magic: those on the law of contagion, Contagious magic."* Both derive, in the final analysis, from a false conception of natural law. The primitive magician, however, never examines the assumptions upon which his performance is based—never reflects upon the abstract principles involved. With him, as with the vast majority of sentient life, logic isimplicit, notexplicit; he knows magic only as a practical thing. And to him it is always anart, never ascience. The very idea of science is quite alien to his thinking.*Sir James Frazer,The New Golden Bough (Anno: circa 2000) Introduction, p. 35.The road was a simple, well-traveled cart path, undulating gracefully through the forested hills and deep valleys that led to the distant river. Birds sang in the afternoon sunlight, their voices blending with the sound of bees and insects, completing a picture of summer quietude in a countryside that seemed both wild and virgin.It was something like Vermont-land, I mused, thinking of Earth and the Foundation Center. Or better yet, England-Isle. They were both like this. I shifted my weight from one heel to the other while I crouched lower on the flat rock of the promontory that overlooked the road some hundred yards below. Yes, theywere like this: England-Isle naturally so, and Vermont-land deliberately, artificially. In fact, I recalled, there were great keeps and castles of runic and eld taste all over Vermont-land today, and they were owned by the most obviously "opportuned" people. I sighed inwardly.But, hey! Wouldn't those same yokels be purple with envy at the wondrous rockpile which I estimated to be but a short twenty miles distant? My eyelids focused purple contact lenses to six magnitudes while I admired the crenelated ramparts, great turrets dour aeries, and brave pennons fluttering against a background of mountain crag and heavy, blue-black forest. Then I took a deep breath and returned regretfully to the cleft in the hill through which the road came.Just as the sun was sinking on the far horizon of late afternoon, so clouds were beginning to appear now, especially in the direction of the forested hills and the castle.Anyone looking in my direction from the road below would see a somewhat tall, rangy-looking Earth male (disguised), sporting a heavily tanned face and an air of smug complaisance. I was dressed—from the point of view of my adopted milieu—loudly and romantically. I wore green ski pants tucked into soft leather boots with golden spurs to show that I was a fullheggle— or knight; a heavy green shirt opened to the waist in the purported style of the country, and a green jacket and green cap with a contrasting bright red feather. Over my left shoulder and around my waist, respectively, was a six-foot bow with a quiver of arrows, a broadsword, a dagger, and a leather pouch. It had been suggested aboard theDeneb-3 a few short hours ago that I could easily be from the mythical Sherwood Forest, or from fabulous Gabtsville on Procyon-4. Kriloy and Ragan, the Adjusters, and Foundation crewmates of the starshipDeneb-3, had most enviously concurred. But just as the forest ensemble that elicited envy was not the natural state of affairs, neither were a lot of other things which just might put a damper to both their envy and my pleasure.The blue-purple contact lenses covered a pair of worried brown eyes—mine. The bow and the sword—except for neural preconditioning—were strangers to my hands. The ground I trod was alien to my feet. And, in just a few minutes perhaps, I would be witness to something which all the science of the Galaxy would deem impossible. The "something" was a part of a bigger thing that I was either to prevent or to control. I was to play it by ear, actually, for in terms of alternatives we of the Foundation were at a loss. The facts were that we did not know where failure would lead. We could only surmise, and our conclusions were anything but pleasant.The planet, in Galactic listings, was Camelot; to the natives it was Fregis. The situation, as stated, was a mixed-up mess. I was Kyrie Fern, thirty Earth years old, Foundation graduatecum-spectacular, and expert in the lore, customs, mores, and idiosyncrasies of feudal societies. I had been chosen as the Adjuster.We had known of Camelot for some time. Over a period of two Galactic centuries, ten pairs of Watchers had spent an equal number of months there. Unlike Adjusters, Watchers worked in opposite-sexed pairs of high compatibility potential. Their work was what their name implied—to observe, to avoid boredom and frustration (thus the pair), and to report accordingly.This they had done. And to read a Camelot report was a joy indeed; that is except the last one. The fun and games, it seemed, were over. Bloody war, though seemingly the usual state of affairs, was now of a scope to involve the entire planet. The circumstances were such that all we had watched, all that had evolved, in a positive sense, might well be destroyed.And how did we know all this?Well, that's an introductory point, you see. For our last pair of Watchers—living in the guise of wealthy tavernkeepers in the seacoast village of Klimpinge in the land of Marack— had witnessed the unfolding of a predicted, most perilous series of events in which Camelot's forces for progress were ruined, driven back upon their heartland by dark hordes, so that extinction threatened. . . .And all this in the crystal ball of a wandering soothsayer.But since the planetwas Camelot-Fregis, second of the sun-star Fomalhaut,they believed it.And, since all the zaniness of the preceding nine reports, across two centuries of Camelot time, inclusive of prophesies, had proved true—we believed it, too.Even to the final point—that sorcery would pluck the princess Murie Nigaard, daughter of King Caronne of Marack, from the king's highway on this very day. It would somehow be the opening gambit of the dark forces of Om for the disruption of the land of Marack, as a part of the total plan for planetary conquest. ... I was here to prevent this—or at least to come up with an explanation as to how it was done.All things considered—the black arts were never a part of my curriculum as fact—I felt abysmally inadequate I awaited my fate with most ambivalent feelings The musical tinkle of bells preceded the fact. Then withins space of seconds, there came over the hill a dappled low-slung, and ponderous six-legged steed trotting dog fashion and followed by another, then by three more in single file.I got to my feet and quickly pressed one of a series of brightly colored stones that adorned my belt. It glowed warmly pink. "Contact," I said softly. "Contact, dear hearts. The sacrifice—to wit, me—is about to offer his throat to the fal-dirk. I'm going in now. The princess has arrived—with entourage.""Why, the Adjuster's palpitating," a voice sang blithely in my brain. "His nerves are shot already."The voice, coming like a webbed aura from the metal node imbedded at the base of my skull, was Ragan's. "In the archaic," he continued, "the princess is a woolly little dolly, and you are an ungrateful, cowardly flimpl.""Bless you," I said. Then I ignored him. "The lifeboat's been damped," I reported. "If you wish to recover, in case I can't, the grid numbers are three-seven, two-nine, four-one."Kriloy asked "Any butterflies? Any regrets?""Lots of both." I said. "But, sirs and gentlemen, the momentis one of action." I was heading down the steep bank to the road below as I talked. "And I'm going to have to cut out. I'll check back as arranged. Keep me open on the sixth hour, Greenwich. That's it. Bless you again.""Bless you."Ragan and Kriloy echoed my farewell just as the stone Went cold and the realities of a predicted peril closed around me. I paused to gaze for a fleeting second at the blue sky, trying to penetrate its depths to the primal dark beyond, where a great ship became translucent, then disappeared from the environs of the second planet, Camelot, of the sun-star Fomalhaut.The last thirty feet was a seemingly solid wall of vines and brush. When I came out on the road, I was breathless. I halted to wipe the bits of dirt and leaves from the fur of my throat and chest. I had made it just in time. The first animal, all white, was rounding the bend. On its lacquered, wooden saddle sat a petite, .well-rounded, pouting young female in resplendent traveling attire. She had golden hair, golden fur, languid purple eyes that were almost blue, an elfish face, and an imperious demanding tilt to her chin.Behind her rode a somewhat dumpy, middle-aged female in austere gray; behind her a young girl, black-eyed and frowning. Two armored heggles, or knights, completed the company. At sight of me they shouted, snatched swords from then-scabbards, and instantly pushed their mounts to the fore. Right then and there I learned what I had already been taught: that fighting on Camelot was akin to eating and sleeping. If you didn't swing at somebody at least once a day, you weren't completely alive.I breathed deeply to stil... [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]