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Dozois Gardner - Unicorns! / Дозуа Гарднер - Единороги! [2013, EPUB, ENG]

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Gardner Dozois & Jack Dann - Unicorns!

Название: Unicorns! / Единороги!
Год выпуска: 2013
Под редакцией: Dozois Gardner & Dann Jack / Дозуа Гарднер & Данн Джек
Издательство: Baen
eISBN: 978-1-62579-117-7
Формат: EPUB
Качество: eBook
Язык: английский

Описание:
В развитие темы фантастических животных (начало см.: Gardner Dozois & Jack Dann - Bestiary!): антология о единорогах. Одно из самых романтических фантастических животных, в большой степени благодаря своей неодолимой тяге к девственницам ab . И ведет себя с ними на удивление целомудренно, на чем нередко попадается ab
    The Spoor of the Unicorn (An Adventure in Unhistory) by Avram Davidson
    The Silken Swift / Быстрый, как молния, гладкий, как шелк by Theodore Sturgeon
    Eudoric's Unicorn / Единорог Эвдорика by L. Sprague de Camp
    The Flight of the Horse / Полет лошади by Larry Niven
    The Night of the Unicorn by Thomas Burnett Swann
    Mythological Beast by Stephen R. Donaldson
    The Final Quarry by Eric Norden
    Elfleda by Vonda N. Mclntyre
    The White Donkey / Белый ослик by Ursula K. Le Guin
    Unicorn Variations / Вариант Единорога by Roger Zelazny
    The Sacrifice by Gardner Dozois
    The Unicorn by Frank Owen
    The Woman the Unicorn Loved by Gene Wolfe
    The Forsaken by Bev Evans
    The Unicorn by T. H. White
EUDORIC'S UNICORN
L. Sprague de Camp


When Sir Eudoric Dambertson's stagecoach line was running smoothly, Eudoric thought of expansion. He would extend the line from Kromnitch to Sogambrium, the capital of the New Napolitanian Empire. He would order a second coach. He would hire a scrivener to relieve him of the bookkeeping . . .
The initial step would be to look over the Sogambrian end of the route. So he posted notices in Zurgau and Kromnitch that, on a certain day, he would instead of turning around at Kromnitch to come back to Zurgau, continue on to Sogambrium, carrying those who wished to pay the extra fare.
Eudoric got a letter of introduction from his silent partner, Baron Emmerhard of Zurgau, who once had almost become Eudoric's father-in-law. The letter presented Eudoric to the Emperor's brother, the Archduke Rolgang.
"For a gift," said Emmerhard, fingering his graying beard, "I'll send one of my best hounds with thee. Nought is done at court without presents."
"Very kind of you, sir," said Eudoric.
"Not so kind as all that. Be sure to debit the cost of the bitch to operating expenses."
"At what value?"
"Klea should fetch at least fifty marks—"
"Fifty! Good my lord, that's absurd. I can pick up—"
"Be not impertinent with me, puppy! Thou knowest nought of dogs . . ."
After an argument, Eudoric got Klea's value down to thirty marks, which he still thought much too high. A few days later, he set out with a cage, containing Klea, lashed to the back of the coach. In seven days the coach, with Eudoric's helper Jillo driving, rolled into Sogambrium.
Save once when he was an infant, Eudoric had never seen the imperial capital. By comparison, Kromnitch was but a small town and Zurgau, a village. The slated gables seemed to stretch away forever, like the waves of the sea.
The hordes who seethed through the flumelike streets made Eudoric uneasy. They wore fashions never seen in rural parts. Men flaunted shoes with long, turned-up toes, attached by laces to the wearer's legs below the knee; women, yard-high conical hats. Everyone seemed in a hurry. Eudoric had trouble understanding the metropolitan dialect. The Sogambrians slurred their words, dropped whole syllables, and seldom used the old-fashioned, familiar "thou " and "thee."
Having taken quarters at an inn of middling grade, Eudoric left Jillo to care for the coach and team. Leading Klea, he made his way through a gray drizzle to the archducal palace. He tried on one hand to take in all the sights but, on the other, not conspicuously to stare, gape, and crane his neck.
The palace, sheathed in stonework carved in fantastic curlicues, in the ornate modern style, rose adjacent to the Cathedral of the Divine Pair. Eudoric had had enough to do with the court of his own sovran, King Valdhelm III of Locania, to know what to expect at the palace: endless delays, to be shortened only by generous tipping of flunkies. Thanks to this strategy, Eudoric got his audience with the Archduke on the second day.
"A bonny beast," said Rolgang, stroking Klea's head. Clad in gold-and-purple Serican silks, the Archduke was a fat man with beady, piercing little eyes. "Tell me, Sir Eudoric, about this coach-wagon enterprise."
Eudoric told of encountering regular coach service, unknown in the Empire, on his journey to Pathenia. He recounted bringing the concept back to his home in Arduen, Barony of Zurgau, County of Treveria, Kingdom of Locania, and of having a coach of Pathenian style constructed by local wainwrights.
"This bears thinking on," said the Archduke. "I can foresee some effects adverse to good government. Miscreants could use your coach to flee from justice. Bankrupts could leave the site of their indebtedness and set up in business elsewhere. Subversive agitators could travel 'bout, spreading discontent and rousing the rabble 'gainst their betters."
"On the other hand, Your Highness," said Eudoric, "if the business prosper, you may be able to tax it some day."
The beady eyes lit up. "Aha, young sir! Ye've a shrewd instinct for the jugular vein! With that consideration in mind, I'm sure his Imperial Majesty will impose no obstacle to your enterprise. I'll tell you. His Imperial Majesty holds a levee at ten tomorrow. Be there with this pass, and I'll present you to my 'perial brother."
Leaving the palace cheered by this unexpected stroke of good fortune, Eudoric thought of buying a fashionable new suit, although his thrifty nature winced at the thought of spending capital on another such garment before his present best had begun to show wear. He cheered up at the thought that he might well make a better impression as an honest rustic, clean and decent if not stylish, than as an inept imitation of a metropolitan dandy.

Next morning Eudoric, stocky, dark, square-jawed, and of serious mien, stood in plain russet and black, in line with half a hundred other gentry of the Empire. Emperor Thorar IX and his brother passed slowly down the line, while an official, introduced each man:
"Your Imperial Majesty, let me present Baron Gutholf of Drin, who fought in the Imperial forces to put down the late rebellion in Aiona. Now he doth busy himself with the reconstruction of his holding, dyking and draining a new polder."
"Good, my lord of Drin!" said the Emperor. "We must needs show our deluded subjects, stirred to rebellion by base-born agitators, that we love 'em in spite of all." Thorar was tall, thin, and stooped, with a gray goatee, an obvious hair piece, and a creaky voice. He was clad all in black, against which blazed a couple of jeweled decorations.
"Your Imperial Majesty," said the usher, "this is Sir Eudoric Dambertson of Arduen. He hath instituted the coach line from Zurgau to Kromnitch."
"'Tis he of whom I told you," said the Archduke.
"Ah, Sir Eudoric!" creaked the Emperor. "We know of your enterprise. We'll see you anon on this matter. But—are ye not that Eudoric who slew a dragon in Pathenia and later fought the monstrous spider in the forest of Dimshaw?"
Eudoric simpered with modesty. "Indeed, 'twas I, Your Imperial Majesty, albeit I came through more by good hap than by good management." He did not add that Jillo had killed the dragon, largely by accident, and that Eudoric, when he had the giant spider Fraka under his crossbow, had let her go on a sentimental whim.
"Stuff, my boy!" said the Emperor. "Good luck comes to those prepared to make the most of it. Since ye've shown such adroitness with strange beasts, we have a task for you." The Emperor turned to the Archduke. "Have ye a half-hour to spare after this, Rolgang?"
"Aye, sire."
"Well, bring the lad to the Chamber of Privy Audience, pray. And tell Heinmar to dig Sir Eudoric's dossier out of the file." The Emperor passed on.
In the Chamber of Privy Audience, Eudoric found the Emperor, the Archduke, the Minister of Public Works, the Emperor's secretary, and two bodyguards in silver cuirasses and crested helms. The Emperor was turning the pages of a slim folder.
"Sit down, Sir Eudoric," said Thorar. "This bids fair to take time, and we'd not needlessly inflict sore knees 'pon loyal subjects. Ye are unwed, we see, albeit nearly thirty. Why is this?"
Eudoric thought, the old boy might give the appearance of doddering, but there was nothing wrong with his wits. He said: "I have been betrothed, Your Imperial Majesty, but chance hath each time snatched away my promised bride. That I am single is not from lack of inclination towards the other sex."
"Hm. We must needs 'mend this condition. Rolgang, is that youngest daughter of yours promised yet?"
"Nay, sire."
The Emperor turned back. "Sir Eudoric, the gist is this. Next month, the Grand Cham of the Pantorozians comes on a visit of state, bringing a young dragon to add to the 'perial menagerie. As ye may've heard, our zoological collection is, after the welfare of the empire, our greatest passion. But, for the honor of the Empire, we can't let this heathen Easterling outdo us in generosity.
"Dragons are extinct in the Empire, unless a few still lurk in the wilder wastes. We're told, howsomever, that west of Hessel, in your region, lies the wilderness of Bricken, where dwell many curious beasts. Amongst these is the unicorn."
Eudoric raised his eyebrows.
. . .
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