by Jack Vance
Rhialto snatched the device and sprang high through the air, into the clouds and out, to stand in the acrid vermilion radiance. He put the pleurmalion to his eye, but, as Osherl had asserted, the sky-spot no longer could be seen.
For a period Rhialto stood on the white expanse, casting a long pale blue shadow. With frowning attention he examined the pleurmalion, then again looked around the sky, to no avail.
Something was amiss. Staring thoughtfully off across the white cloud-waste, Rhialto pondered the conceivable cases. Had the Perciplex been moved? Perhaps the pleurmalion had lost its force?... Rhialto returned to the pavilion.
Osherl stood to the side, gazing vacantly toward the mouldering ruins. Rhialto called out: "Osherl! A moment of your time, if you please."
Osherl approached without haste, to stand with hands thrust into the pockets of his striped pantaloons. Rhialto stood waiting, tossing the pleurmalion from one hand to the other, and watching Osherl with a pensive gaze.
"Well then, Rhialto: what now?" asked Osherl, with an attempt at ease of manner.
"Osherl, who suggested to you that the projection of the Perciplex might be captured by the overcast?"
Osherl waved one of his hands in a debonair flourish. "To an astute intellect, so much is apparent."
"But you lack an astute intellect. Who provided this insight?"
"I learn from a multitude of sources," muttered Osherl. "I cannot annotate or codify each iota of information which comes my way."
"Let me imagine a sequence of events," said Rhialto. "Osherl, are you paying close attention?"
Osherl, standing disconsolate with hanging jowls and moist gaze, muttered: "Where is my choice?"
'Then consider these imagined events. You climb above the overcast where Sarsem greets you. A conversation ensues, in this fashion:
"Sarsem: 'What now, Osherl? What is your task?'
"Osherl: 'That stone-hearted Rhialto wants me to search about the sky for signs of the Perciplex, using this pleurmalion.'
"Sarsem: 'Indeed? Let me look. ... I see nothing.'
"Osherl: 'No? Most singular! What shall I tell Rhialto?'
"Sarsem: 'He is easily confused. Tell him that the image is trapped in the clouds. This pleurmalion is now worthless. Take it back.'
"Osherl: 'But this is a different pleurmalion from the one I gave you! It is only a trifle of ordinary glass!'
"Sarsem: 'What then? Both are now equally useless. Take it back and give it to that mooncalf Rhialto; he will never know the difference.'
"Osherl: 'Hm. Rhialto is a mooncalf, but a cunning mooncalf.'
"Sarsem: 'He is very troublesome to our friend Hache-Moncour, who has promised us so many indulgences. .. . My advice is this: by some subterfuge induce him to cancel your indenture; then leave him to cool his heels here in this dank and tiresome epoch.'
"Osherl: 'The concept has much to recommend it.'
"So saying, the two of you chuckled together, then you took leave of your crony and descended with the false pleurmalion and the news that the sky showed no projection, owing to the overcast."
Osherl cried out with quivering jowls: "Is this not plausible? You have no reason to believe either that the new pleurmalion is false, or that Sarsem's views are incorrect!"
"First of all: why did you not report your conversation with Sarsem?"
Osherl shrugged. "You failed to ask."
"Explain, if you will, why the sky-spot was clear and evident last night, through this self-same overcast?"
"I am mystified."
"Would you not say that either the Perciplex was moved or that the true pleurmalion was exchanged for a falsity?"
"I suppose that a case could be made along these lines."
"Precisely so. Osherl, the game is up! I here and now fine you three indenture points for faulty and faithless conduct."
Osherl uttered a wild cry of emotion. Rhialto raised his hand to induce quiet. "Further, I will now put to you a most earnest question, which you must answer with truth and any elaboration necessary to provide me a practical and accurate picture of the situation. Sarsem took from you the pleurmalion. Did he also take, touch, hide, move, alter, destroy, make temporal transfer of, or any other sort of transfer, or in any other way disturb or influence the condition of the Perciplex? Here I refer to that true Perciplex he guarded at Fader's Waft. I dislike verbosity, but it must be used in dealing with you."
"No."
" 'No'? No what? I myself have become confused."
"Sarsem, despite the urgings of Hache-Moncour, does not dare to touch the Perciplex."
"Bring Sarsem here."
After another interchange of acrimony Sarsem, as usual in the form of the lavender-scaled youth, appeared before the pavilion.
"Sarsem, return to me the pleurmalion," said Rhialto evenly.
"Impossible! By order of the new Preceptor I destroyed it."
"Who is the new Preceptor?"
"Hache-Moncour, of course."
"And how do you know this for a fact?"
"He so assured me from his own mouth, or at least implied that this would shortly be the case."
"He told you incorrectly. You should have ascertained the facts from Ildefonse. I fine you three indenture points!"
Like Osherl, Sarsem set up an outcry. "You have no such authority!"
"Hache-Moncour's lack of authority worried you not at all."
"That is different."
"I now order you and Osherl to search the forest and find the Perciplex, and then immediately bring it here to me."
"I cannot do so. I am working to other orders. Let Osherl search. He has been assigned to your service."
"Sarsem, listen carefully! Osherl, you must be my witness! I hesitate to call out that Great Name on such small affairs, but I am becoming ever more annoyed by your tricks. If you interfere once again in my recovery of the Perciplex, I will call upon—''
Both Osherl and Sarsem set up a fearful outcry. "Do not so much as mention the Name; he might hear!"
"Sarsem, is my meaning clear?"
"Most clear," muttered the youth.
"And how will you guide your conduct now?"
"Hmmf. .. I must use evasive tactics in the service of Hache-Moncour so as to satisfy both him and you."
"I warn you that I am henceforth highly sensitive. Your three points have been justly earned; already you have caused me far too much travail."
Sarsem made an inarticulate sound and was gone.
14
Rhialto turned his attention to Osherl. "Yesterday I thought to locate the Perciplex near that tall button-top. Now there is work to be done!"
"By me, no doubt," gloomed Osherl.
"Had you been faithful, the work would have been done, we would be at Boumergarth arranging Hache-Moncour's well-earned penalties; you would have earned probably two points, instead of being fined three: a difference of five indenture points!"
"It is a tragedy over which I, alas! have little control!"
Rhialto ignored the implicit insolence. "So then: shoulders to the wheel! A scrupulous search must be made!"
"And I must work alone? The task is large."
"Exactly so. Range around the forest and assemble here, in order and discipline, all bogadils, ursial lopers, manks and flantics, and any other creatures of sentience."
Osherl licked the ropy lips of his shop-keeper face. 'Do you include the anthropophages?"
"Why not? Let tolerance rule our conduct! But first, elevate the pavilion upon a pedestal twenty feet high so that we need not be subjected to the crush. Instruct all these creatures to civil conduct."
In due course Osherl assembled the specified creatures before the pavilion. Stepping forward, Rhialto addressed the group: remarks which his glossolary, working at speed, rendered into terms of general comprehension.
"Creatures, men, half-men and things! I extend to you my good wishes, and my deep sympathy that you are forced to live so intimately in the company of each other.
The creatures cried out in pain and departed on the run.
Only moments passed before an ursial loper returned with a fragment of blue porcelain, and demanded the reward. Rhialto bestowed upon him a collar woven of red feathers and sent him out once again.
During the morning a variety of blue objects were laid hopefully before Rhialto, who rejected all and increased both the frequency and force of the stimulating pangs.
Somewhat before noon Rhialto noticed unusual conduct on the part of Osherl, and instantly made inquiry: "Well then, Osherl: what now?"
Osherl said stiffly: "It is actually none of my affair, but if I kept my own counsel, you would never let me hear the end of it. There might even be spiteful talk of indenture points—"
Rhialto cried: "What do you have to tell me?"
"It is in connection with the Perciplex, and since you have made certain efforts to secure this crystal—"
"Osherl, I command you! Get to the point! What of the Perciplex?"
"To make a long story short, I tend to believe that it has been discovered by a flantic7, who at first thought to bring it to you, and then was diverted by a counter-offer from someone who shall go nameless, but the flantic now swoops here and there in indecision. . . . There! See him now! He is coming in this direction. The Perciplex is clutched in his dextral claw. ... No! He wavers. ... He has changed his mind; no doubt he has heard more persuasive terms."
"Quick then! After him! Strike him with pervulsions! Turn him back, or wrest away the Perciplex! Osherl, will you make haste?"
Osherl stood back. "This is a matter between you and Hache-Moncour; I am not allowed to enter such contests, and here Ildefonse will support me."
Rhialto roared furious curses. 'Then come; I will chase down the creature! He will learn more of sorrow than even he cares to know! Put a full charge of speed into my air-boots!"
Rhialto sprang into the air and ran on great lunging strides after the flapping black flantic, which, swinging its gray head about and observing Rhialto, only flew the faster.
The chase led to the south and west: over a range of mountains and a forest of ocher and gray palmatics, then across a swamp of slime-puddles, trickling watercourses and tufts of black rushes. In the distance the Santune Sea reflected a leaden gleam from the overcast.
The flantic began to tire; its wings beat down with ever less force, and Rhialto, leaping across chasms of air, began to overtake the creature.
With the sea below and no haven in sight, the flantic turned suddenly to attack Rhialto with claws and battering wings, and Rhialto was almost taken unawares. He dodged the furious lunge, but by so close a margin that the wingedge struck his shoulder. He reeled and toppled; the flantic dived upon him, but Rhialto desperately twisted away. Osherl, standing to the side, uttered a compliment: "You are more agile than I expected. That was a deft contortion."
Rhialto jerked aside a third time, and the flantic's claws tore his cloak and sent Rhialto whirling away. He managed to scream a spell of effectiveness and threw a handful of Blue Havoc toward the swooping hulk, and the dazzling slivers penetrated the torso and slashed holes in the wings. The flantic threw back its head and vented a scream of fear and agony. "Manling, you have killed me; you have taken my one precious life, and I have no other! I curse you and I take your blue crystal with me where you can never recover it: to the Kingdom of Death!"
The flantic became a limp tangle of arms, wings, torso and long awkward neck, and toppled into the sea, where it sank quickly from sight.
Rhialto cried out in vexation. "Osherl! Down with you; into the sea! Recover the Perciplex!"
Osherl descended to look diffidently into the water. "Where did the creature fall?"
"Precisely where you stand. Dive deep, Osherl; it is by your negligence that we are here today."
Osherl hissed between his teeth and lowered a special member into the water. Presently he said: "There is nothing to be found. The bottom is deep and dark. I discover only slime."
"I will hear no excuses!" cried Rhialto. "Dive and grope, and do not show yourself until you have found the Perciplex!"
Osherl uttered a hollow moan and disappeared below the surface. At last he returned.
Rhialto cried: "You have retrieved it? Give it to me, at once!"
"All is not so simple," stated Osherl. "The gem is lost in slime. It shows no radiance, and it has no resonance. In short, the Perciplex must be considered lost."
"I am more sanguine than you," said Rhialto. "Anchor yourself on this site, and on no account allow either Hache-Moncour or Sarsem to interfere. I will consult with you shortly."
"Make haste," called Osherl. "The water is deep, dark and cold, and unknown creatures toy with my member."
"Be patient! Most important: do not shift your position by so much as an inch; since you are now like a buoy marking the location of the Perciplex."
Rhialto returned to the pavilion beside the ruins of Luid Shug. He terminated the search and allowed the stimulations to lapse, to the relief of the company.
Rhialto flung himself wearily into a chair and gave his attention to Shalukhe, the Paragon of Vasques Tohor, where she sat pensively on the couch. She had recovered much of her self-possession, and watched Rhialto with eyes dark and brooding. Rhialto thought: "She has had time to reflect on her plight. She sees nothing optimistic in her future."
Rhialto spoke aloud: "Our first concern is to leave this dismal place forever. And then—"
"And then?"
"We will study the options open to you. They are not entirely cheerless, as you will presently learn."
Shalukhe gave her head a shake of perplexity. "Why do you trouble yourself for me? I have no wealth; my status is now gone. I have few skills and no great diligence. I can climb hyllas trees for pods and squeeze hyssop; I can recite the Naughty Girls' Dream of Impropriety; these are skills of specialized value. Still—" she shrugged and smiled "—we are strangers and you owe me not even caste-duty."
Rhialto, happy in the absence of Osherl's cynical gaze, went to sit beside her. He took her hands in his. "Would you not rescue a helpless civilized person from a cannibal's cutting-table if you were able?"
"Yes, naturally."
"I did the same. Then, with so much accomplished, I became aware of you as a person, or rather, a combination of persons: first a lost and forlorn waif; then as Shalukhe the Swimmer, a maiden of remarkable charm and urgent physical attributes. This combination, for a vain and pompous person like myself, exerts an irresistible appeal. Still, as a man of perhaps inordinate self-esteem, I would not think it proper to intrude unwelcome intimacies upon you; so, whatever your fears in this regard, you may put them aside. I am first and last a gentleman of honour."
Shalukhe the Swimmer's mouth twitched at the corners. "And also a master of extravagant sentiments, some of which perhaps I should not take seriously."
Rhialto rose to his feet. "My dear young lady, here you must trust to the accuracy of your instincts. Still, you may look to me for both comfort and protection, and whatever may be your other needs."
Rhialto sighed and turned away. "Now we must go off to deal with Osherl. I suspect that he is acting in concert with my enemies, if only passively. This of course is intolerable. We will now fly this pavilion south, across the Mag Mountains, over the Santune Sea, to where Osherl has stationed himself. There we will make further plans."
Rhialto uttered a cantrap of material transfer, to convey the pavilion across the land and over the sea to where the flantic had sunk beneath the waves. Osherl, for the sake of convenience, had assumed the form of a buoy, painted red and black to conform with maritime regulations. A human head wrought in iron protruded from the top, with a navigation light above.