"Michael Swanwick - A Small Room in Koboltown" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swanwick Michael)

A SMALL ROOM IN KOBOLDTOWN
by Michael Swanwick

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“I was an unpublished gonnabe writer back in 1977 when the first issue of Isaac
Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine appeared. Since it came out during a
convention that Asimov attended, I joined the little throng that materialized about
him in the hallway to get his autograph on the cover. Because I was nobody in
particular and rather acutely aware of it, I was last in line. So it was just we two
when the convention’s guest of honor, a writer who had rocketed up out of
nowhere, but whose name I won’t mention, passed by, surrounded by sycophants
and well wishers. ‘Look at that,’ Asimov said quietly, handing me back my
magazine. ‘A year ago, everybody was saying, “Who is So-and-So?” And ten
years from now, they’re all going to be saying, “Who is Isaac Asimov?” ‘“ ‘Oh,
bullshit!’ I said reflexively. But Asimov didn’t hear me. He was staring off into the
future at his oncoming oblivion. “I realized then that if I tiptoed away
immediately, I could always claim to be the man who said ‘Bullshit!’ to Isaac
Asimov and left him speechless. So I did. “It’s been thirty years and in this one
respect I proved a better prophet than the master. He isn’t forgotten—far from it.
Not only are his books still in print, but every month the magazine that bears his
name comes out and is read everywhere. I have yet to hear anybody pick it up and
ask, ‘Who is Isaac Asimov?’”—Michael Swanwick

The author has just finished writing his latest book, The Dragons of
Babel—excerpts from which have been published in Asimov’s as “The Word
That Sings the Scythe” (October/November 2004), “An Episode of Stardust”
(January 2006), “Lord Weary’s Empire” (December 2006), and now “A
Small Room in Koboldtown.” Michael tells us, “One chapter from the end,
my wife Marianne was convinced that it was all going to end miserably, as so
many of my stories do. Imagine her surprise when she discovered that it all
comes out happily. No, really. An honest-to-gosh happy ending. Honest. I
mean it.”
****
That winter, Will le Fey held down a job working for a haint politician named
Salem Toussaint. Chiefly, his function was to run errands while looking
conspicuously solid. He fetched tax forms for the alderman’s constituents, delivered
stacks of documents to trollish functionaries, fixed L&I violations, presented boxes
of candied john-the-conqueror root to retiring secretaries, absent-mindedly dropped
slim envelopes containing twenty-dollar bills on desks. When somebody important
died, he brought a white goat to the back door of the Fane of Darkness to be
sacrificed to the Nameless Ones. When somebody else’s son was drafted or went to
prison, he hammered a nail in the nkisi nkonde that Toussaint kept in the office to
ensure his safe return. He canvassed voters in haint neighborhoods like Ginny Gall,
Beluthahatchie, and Diddy-Wah-Diddy, where the bars were smoky, the music was
good, and it was dangerous to smile at the whores. He negotiated the labyrinthine
bureaucracies of City Hall. Not everything he did was strictly legal, but none of it
was actually criminal. Salem Toussaint didn’t trust him enough for that.
One evening, Will was stuffing envelopes with Ghostface while Jimi Begood
went over a list of ward-heelers with the alderman, checking those who could be