Callipygia, p.1
Callipygia, page 1
Callipygia
Lin Carter
www.sfgateway.com
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Contents
Title Page
Gateway Introduction
Contents
Author’s Note
Book One: Trouble in Taprobane
1: Consequences of Getting Caught in the Rain
2: The Gentleman with the Walrus Mustache
3: A Picnic in the Clouds
4: Heresy in Taprobane
5: The Bronze Ring, Again
Book Two: The Ogre’s Den
6: Carpet to the Rescue!
7: The Absconding-With of Braggadocio
8: One Teacup Too Many
9: The Brazen Steed
10: Introducing Sir Blundamore
Book Three: Sorcery in Sangaranga
11: Of Cambuscan and Other celebrities
12: Welcome to the Poorest Kingdom
13: About Alibeck the Avaricious
14: The Whereabouts of Angelica
15: This Way to the Captive Princess
Book Four: The Topless Tower
16: The Barbed Barrier
17: Why the Tower was Called “Topless”
18: A Stitch in Time
19: Sir Blundamore to the Rescue
20: The Undoing of Alibeck
Book Five: The Secret of the Ring
21: The Fairy Whitethorn
22: Farewell to Sangaranga
23: The Spell of Sleep
24: ZZZZYYTPX
25: Happily Ever After!
The Notes to Callipygia
Website
Also by Lin Carter
Dedication
About the Author
Copyright
Author’s Note
This tale is laid in Terra Magica, the world next to our own, and as close to ours as are two pages in a book … so very close, in fact, that our most sensitive poets and artists and tellers-of-tales and dreamers have glimpsed something of its history and geography and zoology, which they have recorded in our myths and legends, travelers’ tales and bestiaries and fairy-stories.
The time of this story is the twilight of the Golden Age.
BOOK ONE
_______________________
Trouble in Taprobane
1
Consequences of Getting
Caught in the Rain
Now, it was getting rather well along into midafternoon there on the broad and grassy plains of Pontus near the shores of the Euxine Sea, when a sizable party came riding due east, toward the river Thermodon, whose broad and glistening floods formed the border between this country—it was the famous country of the Amazons, I will have you know—and the next, of whose name I am not at all certain, not that it matters in the least, since whatever country it was, it does not at all enter into our story. But where was I?
Oh, yes—they came riding at a moderate pace, rather slower than they would ordinarily have ridden, but that was because of the mule. Her name was Minerva, and she served the two main riders—for the rest of them were a sort of honor guard, or escort, you might say—served them, I was saying, as their packmule, and carried their luggage, including a picnic hamper liberally stocked with food and drink, a parting gift from the palace cook, who had rather taken a fancy to Sir Mandricardo.
That is him, Mandricardo, I mean, riding in front, next to the rather plump young woman in the Amazonian armor (what there was of it, and there was not very much, for, while certainly not immodest, the Amazons tend rather to be contemptuous of wearing too much armor, priding themselves on their martial spirit and womanly courage.
Now this Mandricardo was the son of King Agricane of Tartary—no, neither the Mandricardo nor the Agricane in your Song of Roland, but descendants of theirs, both Mandricardo and Agricane being in the manner of family names—and a famous knight-errant, our Mandricardo, whose exploits are celebrated in a work entitled the Chronicle Narrative of the Deeds of Mandricardo of Tartary, from which this book of mine is taken.
He was tall, with broad shoulders and long legs, of swarthy complexion, being a Tartar, with dark eyes, drooping mustaches and an aquiline nose which had been broken once, or, it may be, twice, and had been set rather askew, giving him a slightly rakish look to his features. He wore plate armor, and had a lot of lion-skins knotted together and slung about his shoulders, after the fashion currently popular in Tartary.
You may be wondering what on earth a Tartar was doing riding about on the verdant plains of Amazonia, but the answer lies in the robust young person riding at his left hand; this was Callipygia, one of the seventeen daughters of the Queen of the Amazons, and Mandricardo’s betrothed. He and his lady-love were presently engaged on riding the width of the world: they had begun in the gloomy pine forests of the Kingdom of the Franks, in the world’s west, and were en route to Tartary, Sir Mandricardo’s homeland, which is about as far east as you can possibly go without either riding into the waters of the Unknown Sea, or falling off the Edge of the World.* To be a bit more precise, it is right next door to China, where the son of the famous Emperor Aladdin rules, and just a shade north of the Empire of Prester John.
Callipygia had long hair blowing behind her in the breeze, and a long spear, a small round sort of shield called a targe, a bow and a quiver of arrows—your Amazon, you know, is famous for her archery—and some bits of burnished steel armor. That is, a breastplate, greaves to guard her shins, a mail-skirt like a short kilt, made of leather straps studded with disks of steel and silver-gilt, gauntlets, a stout girdle, and so on. Oh, yes, upon her upper left forearm she wore a peculiar bronze ring with uncouth markings upon it in an unknown tongue.
She was mounted on a handsome roan mare named Blondel, while Sir Mandricardo rode astride a magnificent black charger whom he called Bayardetto. And you have already been introduced to Miranda.
For the past two weeks, Mandricardo had been an honored guest at the court of Queen Megamastaia in her splendid capital of Themiscyra (or at least it is by that name that the historian Herodotus refers to it, and he knows much more about these matters than I do, certainly): but now they were on their way, as I have already explained, to Tartary.
Sixteen well-mounted young Amazon women rode with them, as an honor guard or whatever, escorting them at least as far as the border, where they intended to ford the shallow floods of the river Thermodon and continue on into the east.
These young women were, as you might have expected, the sisters of Dame Callipygia, and as they rode along they were chattering away to each other (but mostly to Callipygia) like a flock of magpies. Sisters tend to be chatty in Amazonia as elsewhere, I have found.
“I say, Cally, you will write home, won’t you, when you get to Tartary, and tell us all about the wedding and what it’s like there, and so forth—you know,” said a splendid tall girl with red hair and green eyes and freckles.
“Well, I will try to, dear,” said Callipygia. “But, Antiope, I have no way of knowing what the postal system is like in Tartary, and you know how unreliable the mail service is hereabouts—”
“Oh, but Cally, you must tell us about the wedding!” cried another, a fair-skinned maid with shining black tresses and huge dark eyes.
“As I say, I’ll certainly try, Penthesileia—”
“Oh, and Sir Mandricardo, when the baby is born—well, don’t blush so, there’s bound to be a baby, isn’t there?—couldn’t you get the court painter of Tartary to do a nice miniature to send us, so we’ll know what the little darling looks like, and which one of you it takes after?” This request came from a striking blonde girl with a lovely golden tan and clear blue eyes; her name was Hippolyta, and by now it must be as obvious as the nose on your face that the seventeen daughters of the Amazonian Queen were each fathered by a different husband. Such was, in fact, the case, for Amazonian Queens do not marry for life, you know, but only for the season. It makes for variety, as Megamastaia always said.
“Oh, here now, dash it all, Hippolyta, what,” said Mandricardo helplessly, crimson to the tips of his ears. “Dashed rot you’re talking, gel … haven’t even had the dashed weddin’ yet, Cally, and these dashed sisters of yours are anticipatin’ babies and all, I say! Rawther a bit much, what?”
And the sixteen young women giggled at his discomfiture and exchanged whispered comments, one to the other.
“Now, now, girls, stop teasing Mandricardo, do,” laughed Callipygia indulgently. They were, just then, passing a dilapidated stone monument, much overgrown with weeds, which marked the site of a battle famous in the history of Amazonia; it commemorated a former incursion into Lycia, when the Amazonian army had invaded that realm but had been so gloriously defeated by the celebrated hero Bellerophon that the Amazons, ever eager to recognize valor, even in their foes, had erected (by popular subscription) the monument to commemorate his prowess. Real sports, those Amazons …
But another of Callipygia’s numerous sisters was speaking: a platinum blonde with ripe curves and striking amethystine eyes, and Cally was just answering her question. “Yes, Kaydesa, dear, I expect that Mandricardo and I will be able to visit on vacation at least once a year—don’t you think we can, Mandro?—because, after all, we have the Magic Flying Carpet that Mandro purloined from that wicked magician, and a Magic Carpet does so help one to get around more swiftly and easily than on horseback—”
“Looks like we’re in for a spot of rain,” remarked another girl with auburn, wavy hair and big brown eyes. Her name was Radigund. They glanced aloft, to see that her observation seemed quite accurate. The day had been bright and sunny and clear when they had set out from the gates of Themiscyra that morning, but now it was definitely clouding up and a pall of shadow lay over the lush green plain and the edge of the wind had that damp excitement that foreshadows a coming storm.
Yes, even as they looked, there was a grumble above them in the dark-bellied clouds, that sort of digestive noise that thunder makes, and they winced at the uncanny flicker of lightning.
By this time large fat droplets had begun to come splattering down, and this was annoying, since all of the riders were armed and you know how awfully steel rusts in the rain, of course, but it was particularly annoying to Sir Mandricardo. During his recent travels and adventures across the broad face of Terra Magica he simply had not been able to find the time in his busy schedule of confronting giants and witches and genies and dragons and pirates and enchanters and so on and so forth, to keep his armor quite as oiled and cleaned and polished as he would ordinarily have done. Indeed, one of the reasons he had lingered so long in Themiscyra, enjoying the lavish hospitality of Queen Megamastaia, was so that the royal armorer could give his suit a good going over, tightening the rivets and scouring and oiling and polishing and whatever … and now he was about to get drenched in what looked to be a veritable downpour.
“Oh, I say, dash it all!” he growled disgustedly. “Filthy luck, what?”
“Girls, it looks like a real deluge coming,” said Callipygia. “Mandro and I will take shelter under those trees over there, but there doesn’t look like there’s room enough for all of you, so why don’t you head back home? Thanks for escorting us, but I know the way from here, and with the least little bit of luck you can all get back indoors before the rain begins really falling hard, and I know poor Penthesileia just had her hair done … ?”
The sixteen sisters quickly agreed this was the wisest thing to do, and each gave Callipygia and her betrothed a good-bye kiss and a hug, and before very much longer, the troop of young Amazons turned about and went galloping back across the plains to where the towers and ramparts of Themiscyra gleamed in the distance; as they rode, waving their spears like so many Valkyries in a production of Die Walkure, they shrilled their famous Amazon war-cries to the welkin, whatever that is, and these ringing cries of, “Yoicks! Yoicks! Tally-ho! Hark-forrard!”—the which had oft, ere this, struck terror into the hearts of their foemen on many a famous field—sounded eerily over the broad plain under the lowering sky.
“Fine gels, those sisters of yours, m’love,” grinned Mandricardo. “Have to invite the whole family out to Tartary, what, to the christenin’.”
“What christening?” demanded Callipygia, blushing violently, “we haven’t even had the honeymoon yet, you great lout!”
He chuckled, and they headed toward the distant stand of trees, as the raindrops were pelting down by now, fat and heavy.
The trees, oddly enough, were not at all the sort of trees that grew in these parts of Terra Magica (as a matter of fact, there were remarkably few trees that grew at all on the grassy plains of Amazonia, which more or less explains why they had grassy plains, instead of mighty forests. They were, I say, oddly enough, chestnuts and oaks and beech and Australian pines* and teakwood and bamboo and baobabs and, well, I-don’t-know-what-all, but I distinctly remember seeing the sort of date palms they have growing in desert oases (or do I mean oasi?), and apple trees, a lime tree in full bloom, and several tropicalish-looking things that might have been mango and guava trees, not to mention tall banana stalks.
However, this unusual mixture of vegetation was far—I might even say very far—from being the most peculiar thing about that clump of thickly-grown trees that grew there on the green verdant plains of Amazonia, near the gliding silver floods of the mighty Thermodon.
For not more than three minutes after Mandricardo and his lady-love and their animals entered the little grove, vanishing from our view, the whole dashed great clump of trees (as the Tartar knight would probably say) picked itself up and flew away, soon dwindling to a green mote in the distance, traveling at a fairly good clip in the general direction of Hindoostan.
2
The Gentleman with the
Walrus Mustache
The two wasted no time in seeking shelter from the storm, and got out of the saddle and under the thickest foliage they could find, while Mandricardo fussed and fretted, dabbing rain-spots from his gleaming suit of armor. Callipygia stared thoughtfully around with a puzzled expression on her face, noticing the ilex bushes (which grow on the parched plains of Persia), clumps of hibiscus from South America, boxwood shrubs from the northern countries, blackberry bushes, rhododendrons from Southeast Asia … which were growing in between orange trees and banyans, palms and pines, birch, teak, and … well, you get the idea.
Shortly thereafter, and before she had a chance to mention the strange mixed nature of the trees and bushes, there came distantly to their ears the sound of someone singing, if that is quite the word I want. The voice made up in vigor what it lacked in pitch, and the song was none other than “Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled,” and never you mind writing to me and pointing out that this is an anachronism.*
Mandricardo looked at Callipygia, and Callipygia looked at Mandricardo. They loosened their swords in their scabbards, except that, come to think of it, Callipygia didn’t have a sword, having misplaced it somewhere along the way, so she just sort of hefted her spear. And they headed through the swishing bushes, paying no heed to the wet slap of the leaves against them, and Mandricardo clanked down his visor … then, as he took a good look at the spectacle before him, he clicked it up again and stared in amazement.
Before them on the edge of a little pond was one of those folding lawn chairs of wooden slats and painted canvas, you know the kind. Seated therein was a long-legged individual clad only in a suit of long red woolen underwear with a buttoned drop-seat. He also wore a green celluloid eyeshade like croupiers wear in gambling casinos, and a pair of dilapidated, well-worn carpet slippers. He was dividing his attention in about equal thirds between refreshing himself with long, glugging swigs from a fat little jug of black glass, taking deep puffs from a battered briar pipe whose capacious bowl seemed stuffed with some noxious, some downright poisonous smelling shredded weed (from whose nasty stench the smoldering stuff could well have been employed in fending off ravenous mosquitoes, and, come to think of it, there wasn’t a single mosquito in sight), and, devoted the last third of his attention, now that his song was over, to his regular afternoon pastime of cheating himself at solitaire. This he accomplished by means of a greasy pack of well-thumbed playing cards which he slapped down on the back of his shield, which was spread across his lap. A heap of dented, rusty armor stood under a nearby tree.
