Щит судьбы

Земля, ЗАВОЕВАННАЯ расой пришельцев-гуманоидов джао...　

РАБСТВО — или защита от ИНЫХ завоевателей — эсхатов, куда более могущественных и ЧУДОВИЩНО ЖЕСТОКИХ?　

Новые «властители Земли» искренне пытаются сделать людей своими СОЮЗНИКАМИ — но методы, которыми они этого добиваются, вызывают ГНЕВ и НЕНАВИСТЬ побежденных.　

На Земле зреет МЯТЕЖ, грозящий смести джао с планеты — именно тогда, когда эсхаты готовы нанести им РЕШАЮЩИЙ УДАР.　

Будущее Галактики зависит от того, СУМЕЕТ ЛИ новый посланник джао договориться с предводителями землян!..

An anthology of stories edited by Esther M. Freisner and Martin Harry Greenberg

In a collection of fantasy stories, warrior women take on pirates invading a charity ball, bring an obnoxious loremaster to justice, protect children from magically-summoned barbarian hordes, and rescue Tokyo from destructive reptiles.

Lackey, Flint and Freer whip up a luscious bouillabaisse of politics, intrigue, love and black magic set in an "Other-worldly, New-Age Venice." Like the actual 16th-century city-state, the authors' Venice of the 1530s is a dangerous place, filled with as many illicit love affairs as murders. Garbage and occasional dead bodies float in the stinking canals. The city is also a target for would-be foreign conquerors: the Vatican, the Holy Roman Empire, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland, and the small city-state of Ferrara, ruled by Enrico Dell'este, who surreptitiously watches his grandsons, Marco and Benito, the story's water-rat heroes. Around Benito, a thief, and Marco, a canal doctor, swirl a host of characters, major and minor: the men and women who ply the gondolas and rafts; the spy Caesare Aldanto, the boys' supporter; plus courtesans, whores, monks, priests, knights, shamans, undines and the demon Chernobog. Meanwhile, the winged lion of St. Mark's, symbol of Venice, is stirring, and its shadow falls on Marco as the city's future ruler.