“The study…the laboratory?”
“Yes. I met someone there. I…It was an old man, I think. He gave me these clothes and spoke to me of many things. Yet I cannot picture him, nor do I recall a word he said.”
“Pandelume,” said Thiago.
“If it was he, I cannot remember.”
A curious white flickering, a discharge of some type, passed across the face of the sun. They stared hopefully, but it remained a molten horror, like an emblem on an evil flag. Some of the cracks in the black crust were sealing over and the coating of orange plasma looked to have thinned; but it was otherwise unchanged.
“We have to go!” Derwe Coreme sprang to her feet.
“It is a fine notion, but how?”
She went to the wall, pressed an indentation next to the one Cugel had pressed. A wide section of the floor retracted with an accompanying grinding noise. Light streamed upward from a hole. Another staircase spiraled downward. Thiago asked how she had known about the stair. She shook her head and set about retrieving her knives. To remove the blade from Diletta’s neck, she was forced to wrench and tug, her foot pinning the corpse’s shoulder in place, until it came free with a sucking noise. She wiped it clean on her trousers and started down the stairs. Thiago could find no reason to stir himself. One death was like another.
A whisper, one that seemed shaped by the tower itself, as if it were a vast throat enclosing them, said, “Go. Goooo…” The walls of the room wavered like smoke and Thiago had an apprehension that Pandelume was all around them, that the voice was his, and that his substance was the stuff of the walls, the floors, that this was not merely his place…it was him. Deciding that the prospect of a bottomless stair was less fearful than what he might face were he to remain, Thiago came wearily to his feet and began his descent.
It was a long way to the bottom of the stair, longer than would accord with the tower’s height, and they stopped to rest on several occasions. During one such rest period, Derwe Coreme said, “How could those women stay with him?”
“You were with him once.”
“Yes, but I would have left at the earliest opportunity. Our association was based solely on necessity.”
“The women may have been no different from you at the outset. Cugel has a knack for bending people to his will, even when they do not care for him.”
“Do you think he is alive?”
Thiago shrugged. “Who can say?”
At the bottom of the tower was a partly open door. They passed through it and into the field of boulders. The sun was at meridian, shining down a reddish light that, though a shade dimmer than usual, was well within its normal range of brightness. They gazed at it, silent and uncomprehending, shielding their eyes against the glare.
“I am afraid,” said Derwe Coreme as they walked toward the edge of the Great Erm. “Did the sun rekindle as we descended? Have we crossed over to another plane of existence? Did Pandelume intercede for us? Life offered few certainties, but now there are even fewer.”
The high sun burnished the massy dark green crowns of the trees, causing them to seem drenched with blood. Derwe Coreme passed beneath the first of them and along an avenue that ran between two mandouars. Thiago glanced back and saw the tower dissolve into a swirling mist; from the mist another image materialized, that of a gigantic figure who looked to be no more than emptiness dressed in a hooded robe, the features invisible, the body apparent yet unreal. For an instant, something sparkled against the caliginous blackness within the cowl, a blue oval no bigger than a firefly. The same blue, Thiago noted, as the egg in which Cugel had escaped, pulsing with the same vital energy, twinkling like a distant star. It winked dark to bright to dark and then vanished, swallowed by the void.
Intially, Thiago was distressed to think that Cugel might be alive, but when he considered the possibilities, that Cugel might travel on forever in that void, or that he might be bound for some hell of Pandelume’s device, or for one of the worlds they had glimpsed at the ends of the corridors, for the table in the workshop, say, where he would be imprisoned beneath a glass bell and subject to exotic predation…though a clear judgment on the matter was impossible, these notions dispelled his gloom.
Pandelume’s figure dispersed, fading and fading until only the feeble red sun and some puffs of cloud were left in the sky. Thiago broke into a jog in order to catch up with Derwe Coreme. Following her trim figure into the shadows, he recognized that though nothing had changed, everything had changed. The sun or something like it lived on, and the world below was still ruled by magicians and magic, and they themselves were ruled by the magic of doubt and uncertainty; yet knowing this no longer felt oppressive, rather it envigorated him. He was free for the moment of gloom, lighter at heart by one hatred, and the next time Derwe Coreme asked one of her imponderable questions, some matter concerning fate or destiny or the like, he thought he might be inclined, if he deemed the occasion auspicious, to provide her with a definitive answer.
Afterword:
I first encountered Jack Vance’s work in junior high, when I read a paperback edition of The Dying Earth sheathed in one or another textbook (I hated mathematics, so most often I read it during math class). I was immediately hooked. I searched the newsstands for Mr. Vance’s books—I recall being exhilarated when I stumbled across The Languages of Pao, and later, in college, when I discovered the first three novels of his Demon Princes series, which I also read hidden in textbooks. I think I began to associate the reading of Vance with a certain criminality and, in this particular instance, with an aversion to a certain history professor who spoke with a Southern drawl and pronounced “feudalism” as fee-yood-a-lism.
Of the many books I have read by Jack Vance, and I think I’ve read them all, I suppose it was The Dying Earth that was the biggest influence on my writing simply because it was the first to introduce me to the Vance-ian syntax and formality of language. I was already on a path that would lead to a complicated syntax and formal style, thanks to my father’s pushing me that way, but Vance was my discovery and I accepted the lessons more willingly and more naturally from him than from an authority figure. Aside from the odd movie, Vance was my first exposure to science fiction—my father had forbidden all such reading material—and as such he was a revelation. That one could write stories about a dying sun and the peculiar folk who lived beneath it came as a shock, one from which I never recovered. Most of my stories are set in contemporary times, but were it not for Vance I think I might have been one of those writers who examine the psychological nuances of their failed marriages. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but this way it’s been so much more fun…
Thanks, JV.
—Lucius Shepard
Tad Williams
The Lamentably Comical Tragedy (or The Laughably Tragic Comedy) of Lixal Laqavee
A well-worn adage of the present day tells us that “it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, but how you play the game.” But millions of years in the future, on the Dying Earth, as the comical tragedy (or tragic comedy) that follows makes clear, it does matter whether you win or lose. In fact, it couldn’t matter more…
Tad Williams became an international bestseller with his very first novel, Tailchaser’s Song, and the high quality of his output and the devotion of his readers have kept him on the top of the charts ever since as a New York Times and London Sunday Times bestseller. His other novels include The Dragonbone Chair, The Stone of Farewell, To Green Angel Tower, City of Golden Shadow, River of Blue Fire, Mountain of Black Glass, Sea of Silver Light, Caliban’s Hour, Child of an Ancient City (with Nina Kiriki Hoffman), The War of the Flowers, Shadowmarch, and Shadowplay. His most recent book is a collection, Rite: Short Work. In addition to his novels, Williams writes comic books, and film and television scripts, and he and his wife, Deborah Beale, are about to publih their first collaboration, The Dragons of Ordinary Farm. He lives with his family in Woodside, California.
The Lamentably Comical Tragedy (or The Laugh
ably Tragic Comedy) of Lixal Laqavee
Tad Williams
“I am not a magician,” Lixal Laqavee announced to the shopkeeper who had come forward at the ringing of the bell upon the counter, “but I play one in a traveling show.”
“Then you have come to precisely the right place, sir,” the man said, smiling and nodding. “Twitterel’s Emporium is known throughout the length of Almery for its unrivaled selection of effects, marvels, and confidence enhancers.”
“And are you Twitterel?” Lixal inquired. “The one whose name is above the door of this establishment?”
“I have that honor,” said the small, bewhiskered man and brushed a fleck of dust from his velvet robe. “But let us not waste time on such trivia as my name. How may I serve you, sir? Flash-dust, perhaps? It gives the impression of a great outrush of thaumaturgical energies while posing no great danger to its employer.” Twitterel reached into a ceramic jar on the scarred counterop and produced a handful of silvery dust, which he threw to the floor with a flick of his wrist. It burst with a percussive crack and produced a voluminous puff of white smoke. The shopkeeper then fanned vigorously with his hand until he and Lixal were face to face again. “As you see, it also provides ample distraction for a well-conceived disappearance or sleight-of-hand effect.”
Lixal nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, I think a portion or two of flash-dust might serve admirably, although by no means will it fulfill all my needs.”
“Ah!” Twitterel smiled, showing fewer teeth than one might expect even in a man his age. “A gentleman who wishes his impostures to be both believable and exciting. May I say, sir, that your audience will thank you for your care. Perhaps this length of rope, which when properly exhibited seems to have the living qualities of a serpent? Or this Benaraxian Cabinet, whose interior can comfortably contain a shapely female assistant—the type whose curvaceous form, and your menacing of same with these cleverly constructed sabers, will particularly stimulate your audience…”
“No, no,” said Lixal, waving his hand. “You have incorrectly conceived my needs. I do not wish to employ mere trickery, especially of the expensive variety embodied in this monstrous, mirrored sarcophagus.” He flicked a finger at the lacquered surface of the Benaraxian Cabinet. “The performing troop with which I ply my trade is a small one, accustomed to the back roads of Almery, and we have but one wagon to carry all our goods. Also, and far more importantly, in the vicinities we frequent the distinction between performing the role of magician and being a magician is often a blurry one.”
The shopkeeper Twitterel paused. He reached up and plucked out a bit of his breakfast that had lodged in his beard (or at least Lixal hoped it was from a meal no less recent.) The old man seemed oddly disturbed by his customer’s words. “I am not sure I grasp the sum of your meaning, sir,” Twitterel said. “Elucidate, please, so that I may better serve your needs.”
Lixal frowned. “You force me to greater crudity than I would prefer. However, I will do my best to make plain my desire.” He cleared his throat. “I travel with a troop of performers, providing entertainment and instruction, and sometimes even hope to those who previously found that quality in short supply. Not all perceive us in this wise—in fact, some ungenerous souls have suggested that I and my associates are little better than venal tricksters, a claim I reject vigorously.
“In the course of our educational performances, we offer to our auditors certain medicines and tonics of a curative nature. Despite the slurs of the uncomprehending, our record of cure is bettered by no other similar organization, and even compares favorably with the more common medicinal advice offered by the sort of physic to which our rustic audiences generally have access. Do you grasp my meaning?”
“You sell dubious cures to the peasantry.”
“In a nutshell, good shopkeeper, in a nutshell, although I might take exception to the word ‘dubious’. By certain measures, life itself is dubious. However, generally speaking, your perception is admirable. Now, because my part in this organization is a portrayal of magicianship, at times I am approached by members of the buying public separately from the rest of the cast, customers who believe the illusions they have seen are real. Many of them wish only to know whether the silver coin I produced had truly been lodged in their ear in the first place, and if so, should it not then belong to them.” Lixal shook his head ruefully. “Others, though, have requests for magical assistance of a more precise nature, usually concering some petty problem in their lives—a failure of certain human apparatus of a privy nature being the most common. Then there are those who would like to see a family member hastened to peace so that the division of his or her possessions might be practiced sooner rather than later.” Lixal held up his finger. “These commissions I would not take, I hasten to assure you, even had I the means, and not only because of my naturally ethical composition. Our rural folk tend to carry both grudges and sharp hand tools, so I have no urge to excite malice.” He cleared his throat. “Other supplicants have desired lost objects found, unpleasant creatures or relatives confined, and so on—in short, a galaxy of requests, most of which I am unable to fulfill, and so a healthy sum remains dispersed in the pockets of the rustic population instead of concentrated in my own, where it might form the foundation of a burgeoning fortune.” Lixal shook his head sadly. “I have come to tire of this woefully imbalanced state of affairs. So I come to you, good shopkeeper.”
Twitterel looked back at Lixal with more consternation than the casual observer might have expected. “I still do not grasp with certainty your desires, sir,” the old man said nervously. “Perhaps you would be better off visiting the shop of my good friend and colleague Dekionas Kroon, a scant four leagues away in the pleasant hamlet of Blixingby Crown Gate—he also specializes in fine acoutrements for the performing of magic to discerning audiences…”
“You tease me, sir,” said Lixar sternly. “You must have grasped by now that I am not interested in the acoutrements of the magical arts, not in elaborate stage artifices, or even the potware and piping of alchemy or other scholarly but unsatisfying pursuits. I wish to buy actual spells. There—I can make it no clearer. Just a few, selected for one like myself who has no magical training—although, it must be said, I do have a wonderful, firm voice that any magician might envy, and a certain physical presence concomitant with a true thaumaturge, as you must have noticed yourself.” Lixal Laqavee stroked his full brown beard slowly, as if comparing its lushness to the sparse clump of yellowed whiskers which decorated the shopkeeper’s receding chin.
“Why would I, a mere merchant, have such things?” Twitterel questioned in what was almost a squeak. “And why, even if I did possess such objects of powerful wisdom, would I share them with someone whose only claim to wizardly dessert is a velvet robe and an admittedly handsome beard? Sooner would I put a flaming brand into the hands of a child residing in a house made of twigs and dry leaves!”
“You misunderstand me again, good Twitterel,” Lixal replied. “You protest that you are a mere merchant, and yet unless I much mistake things, the name etched above your door does not conform to your true identity. In other words, I believe you are in fact not ‘Twitterel’ at all, but rather Eliastre of Octorus, who was once reknowned in the most powerful circles as ‘The Scarlet Sorceror’—a pleasantly dramatic name, by the way, that I would quickly adopt for my own performances were it not that I make a better appearance in dark colors such as blacks and moody, late-evening blues.” Lixal smiled. “You see, it happens that by mere chance I studied your career while honing my impersonation of someone in your line of endeavor. That is also how I recognized you when I saw you drinking in the tavern up the road yesterday and began to conceive of my current plan. What a piece of luck!”
“I…I do not understand.” Twitterel, or Eliastre, if that was indeed his name, retreated a little farther from the countertop behind which he stood. “Why would such an unlikely set of affairs mean luck for you?”
“Step back in this directio
n, please. Do not think to escape me,” Lixal said. “And neither should you attempt to bluff me with the powers you once so famously owned. I know full well that after you failed in an attempt to seize leadership among your fellow magicians and wizards, the Council of Thaumaturgic Practitioners removed said powers and placed you under a ban of trying to regain them or in any other way dabbling in the profession of wizardry, under pain of humiliating, excruciating, and lingering death. Please understand that I will happily inform the Council of your whereabouts and your current occupation if you resist me. I am inclined to believe your current profession, peddling alembics and flash-dust, might well fall within the scope of their ban.”
Twitterel seemed to have aged twenty years—decades he could ill-afford to add to his tally—in a matter of moments. “I could find no other way to make a living,” he admitted sadly. “It is the only craft I know. The Council did not take that into account. Better they should have executed me outright than condemn me to starve. In any case, I wished only to reform certain insufficiencies of the transubstantive oversight process—what was once a mere prophylactic has become a hideous, grinding bureaucracy…”
Lixal held up his hand. “Spare me. I care not for the details of your rebellion, but only for what you will do next—namely, provide me with several easily-learned spells that will allow me to supplement my performing income by rendering assistance to those pastorals who seek my aid. I am not a greedy man—I do not wish to raise the dead or render gold from dry leaves and river mud. Rather, I ask only a few simple nostrums that will put me in good odor with the country-folk—perhaps a charm for the locating of lost livestock…” He considered. “And surely there is some minor malediction which would allow the sending of a plague of boils to unpleasant neighbors. Such a thing has been requested of me many times, but heretofore I had no means of answering the call.”
Songs of the Dying Earth Page 40