by Jack Vance
Midway through the afternoon of the third day, the maiden entered the clearing. She wore a long black cloak flared over a pale tan gown. The hood was thrown back to reveal a circlet of white and purple violets around her black hair. She looked about the meadow in a frowning reverie, as if wondering why she had come. Her gaze fell upon Shimrod, passed him by, then dubiously returned.
Shimrod rose to his feet and approached her. He spoke in a gentle voice: "Dream-maiden, I am here."
Sidelong, over her shoulder, she watched him approach, smiling her half-smile. Slowly she turned to face him. She seemed, thought Shimrod, somewhat more self-assured, more certainly a creature of flesh and blood than the maiden of abstract beauty who had walked through his dreams. She said: "I am here too, as I promised."
Shimrod's patience had been tried by the wait. He made a terse observation: "You came in no fury of haste."
The maiden showed only amusement. "I knew you would wait."
"If you came only to laugh at me, I am not gratified."
"One way or the other, I am here."
Shimrod considered her with analytical detachment, which she seemed to find irksome. She asked: "Why do you look at me so?"
"I wonder what you want of me."
She shook her head sadly. "You are wary. You do not trust me."
"You would think me a fool if I did."
She laughed. "Still, a gallant reckless fool."
"I am gallant and reckless to be here at all."
"You were not so distrustful in the dreaming."
"Then you were dreaming too when you walked along the beach?"
"How could I enter your dreams unless you were in mine? But you must ask no questions. You are Shimrod, I am Melancthe; we are together and that defines our world."
Shimrod took her hands and drew her a step closer; the odor of violets suffused the air between then. "Each time you speak you reveal a new paradox. How could you know to call me Shimrod? I named no names in my dreams."
Melancthe laughed. "Be reasonable, Shimrod! Is it likely that I should wander into the dream of someone even whose name I did not know? To do so would violate the precepts of both politeness and propriety."
"That is a marvelous and fresh viewpoint," said Shimrod. "I am surprised that you dared so boldly. You must know that in dreams propriety is often disregarded."
Melancthe tilted her head, grimaced, jerked her shoulders, as might a silly young girl. "I would take care to avoid improper dreams."
Shimrod led her to a bench somewhat apart from the traffic of the fair. The two sat half-facing, knees almost touching.
Shimrod said: "The truth and all the truth must be known!"
"How so, Shimrod?"
"If I may not ask questions, or—more accurately—if you give me no answers, how can I not feel uneasiness and distrust in your company?"
She leaned half an inch toward him and he again noticed the scent of violets. "You came here freely, to meet someone you had known only in your dreams. Was this not an act of commitment?"
"In a certain sense. You beguiled me with your beauty. I gladly succumbed. I yearned then as I do now, to take such fabulous beauty and such intelligence for my own. In coming here I made an implicit pledge, in the realm of love. In meeting me here, you also made the same implicit pledge."
"I spoke neither pledge nor promise."
"Nor did I. Now they must be spoken by both of us, so that all things may be justly weighed."
Melancthe laughed uncomfortably and moved on the bench. "The words will not come to my mouth. I cannot speak them. Somehow I am constrained."
"By your virtue?"
"Yes, if you must have it so."
Shimrod reached and took her hands in his. "If we are to be lovers, then virtue must stand aside."
"It is more than virtue alone. It is dread."
"Of what?"
"I find it too strange to talk about."
"Love need not be dreadful. We must relieve you of this fear."
Melancthe said softly: "You are holding my hands in yours."
"Yes."
"You are the first to hold me."
Shimrod looked into her face. Her mouth, rose-red on the pale olive of her face, was fascinating in its flexibility. He leaned forward and kissed her, though she might have turned her head to avoid him. He thought her mouth trembled under his.
She drew away. "That meant nothing!"
"It meant only that as lovers we kissed each other."
"Nothing truly happened!"
Shimrod shook his head in perplexity. "Who is seducing whom? If we are working to the same ends, there is no need for so many cross-purposes."
Melancthe groped for a reply. Shimrod pulled her close and would have kissed her again, but she pulled away. "First you must serve me."
"In what fashion?"
"It is simple enough. In the forest nearby a door opens into the otherwhere Irerly. One of us must go through this door and bring back thirteen gems of different colors, while the other guards the access."
"That would seem to be dangerous work. At least for whomever enters Irerly."
"That is why I came to you." Melancthe rose to her feet. "Come, I will show you."
"Now?"
"Why not? The door is yonder through the forest."
"Very well, then; lead the way."
Melancthe, hesitating, looked askance at Shimrod. His manner was altogether too easy. She had expected beseechments, protests, stipulations and attempts to force her into commitments which so far she felt she had evaded. "Come then."
She took him away from the meadow and along a faint trail into the forest. The trail led this way and that, through dappled shade, past logs supporting brackets and shelves of archaic fungus, beside clusters of celandines, anemones, monks-hood and harebells. Sounds faded behind them and they were alone.
They came to a small glade shadowed under tall birch, alders and oaks. An outcrop of black gabbro edged up from among dozens of white amaryllis, to become a low crag with a single steep face. Into this face of black rock an iron-bound door had been fitted.
Shimrod looked around the clearing. He listened. He searched sky and trees. Nothing could be seen or heard.
Melancthe went to the door. She pulled at a heavy iron latch, drew it ajar, to display a wall of blank rock.
Shimrod watched from a little distance with a polite if detached interest.
Melancthe looked at him from the corner of her eye. Shimrod's unconcern seemed most peculiar. From her cape Melancthe brought a curious hexagonal pattern, which she touched to the center of the stone, where it clung. After a moment the stone dissolved to become luminous mist. She stood back and turned to Shimrod. "There is the gap into Irerly."
"And a fine gap it is. There are questions I must ask if I am to guard effectively. First, how long will you be gone? I would not care to shiver here all night through."
Melancthe, turning, approached Shimrod and put her hands on his shoulders. The odor of violets came sweetly across the air. "Shimrod, do you love me?"
"I am fascinated and obsessed." Shimrod put his arms around her waist and drew her close. "Today it is too late for Irerly. Come, we will return to the inn. Tonight you will share my chamber, and much else besides."
Melancthe, with her face three inches from his, said softly, "Would you truly wish to learn how much I could love you?"
"That is exactly what I have in mind. Come! Irerly can wait."
"Shimrod, do this for me. Go into Irerly and bring me thirteen spangling jewels, each of a different color, and I will guard the passage."
"And then?"
"You will see."
Shimrod tried to take her to the turf. "Now."
"No, Shimrod! After!"
The two stared eye to eye, Shimrod thought, I dare press her no further; already I have forced her to a statement.
He closed his fingertips against an amulet and spoke between his teeth the syllables of a spell which had lain heavy in his
mind, and time separated into seven strands. One strand of the seven lengthened and looped away at right angles, to create a temporal hiatus; along this strand moved Shimrod, while Melancthe, the clearing in the forest and all beyond remained static.
Chapter 14
MURGEN RESIDED AT SWER SMOD, a stone manse of fifty vast echoing chambers, high in the Teach tac Teach.
At the best speed of the feathered boots Shimrod flew, bounded and leapt along the East-West Road from Twitten's Corner to Oswy Undervale, then by a side trail to Swer Smod. Murgen's dreadful sentries allowed him to pass unchallenged.
The front door opened at Shimrod's approach. He entered to find Murgen awaiting him at a large table laid with a linen cloth and silver utensils.
"Be seated," said Murgen. "You will be both hungry and thirsty."
"I am both."
Servants brought tureens and platters; Shimrod satisfied his hunger while Murgen tasted trifles of this and that, and listened silently while Shimrod told of his dreams, of Melancthe and the opening into Irerly.
"I feel that she came to me under compulsion, otherwise her conduct can't be explained. At one moment she shows an almost childlike cordiality, the next she becomes totally cynical in her calculations. Purportedly she wants thirteen gems from Irerly, but I suspect that her motives are otherwise. She is so sure of my infatuation that she barely troubles to dissemble."
Murgen said: "The affair exudes the odor of Tamurello. If he defeats you he weakens me. Then, since he uses Melancthe, his agency cannot be proved. He toyed with the witch Desmei, then tired of her. For revenge she contrived two creatures of ideal beauty: Melancthe and Faude Carfilhiot. She intended that Melancthe, aloof and unattainable, should madden Tamurello. Alas for Desmei Tamurello preferred Faude Carfilhiot who is far from aloof; together they range the near and far shores of unnatural junction."
"How could Tamurello control Melancthe?"
"I have no inkling of how it might be, if indeed he is involved."
"So then—what should I do?"
"Yours is the passion; you must fulfill it as you choose."
"Well then, what of Irerly?"
"If you go there as you are now, you will never return; that is my guess."
Shimrod spoke sadly: "I find it hard to join such faithlessness with such beauty. She gambles a dangerous game, with her living self for her stake."
"No less do you, with your dead self as yours."
Shimrod, daunnted by the thought, sat back in his chair. "Worst of all she intends to win. And yet..."
Murgen waited. "'And yet?'"
"Only that."
"I see." Murgen poured wine into the two glasses. "She must not win, if for no other reason than to thwart Tamurello. Now and perhaps forever hence I am preoccupied with Doom. I saw the portent in the form of a tall sea-green wave. 1 must address myself to the problem and you may have my power perhaps before you are ready for it. Prepare yourself, Shimrod. But first: purge yourself of the infatuation, and there is but a single means to this end."
Shimrod returned to Twitten's Corner on his feathered feet. He proceeded to the glade where he had left Melancthe; she stood as he had left her. He searched the glade; no one skulked in the shade. He looked into the portal: green striations swam and swirled to blur the passage into Irerly. From his pouch he took a ball of yarn. After knotting the loose end into a crack in the iron of the door, he tossed the ball into the opening. Now he rewove the seven strands of time, and re-entered the ordinary environment. Melancthe's words still hung in the air: "And then you will see."
"You must promise."
Melancthe sighed. "When you come back, you shall have all my love."
Shimrod reflected. "And we shall be lovers, in spirit and body; so you promise?"
Melancthe winced and closed her eyes. "Yes. I will praise you and caress you and you may commit your erotic fornications upon my body. Is that definite enough?"
"I will accept it in lieu of anything better. Tell me something of Irerly and what I must look for."
"You will find yourself in an interesting land of living mountains. They bellow and yell, but for the most part it is all braggadocio. I am told that they are ordinarily benign."
"And should I encounter one of the other sort?"
Melancthe smiled her pensive smile. "Then we shall avoid the qualms and perplexities of your return."
That remark, thought Shimrod, might as happily been left unsaid.
Melancthe went on in an abstracted voice. "Perceptions occur by unusual methods." She gave Shimrod three small transparent disks. "These will expedite your search; in fact, you will go instantly mad without them. As soon as you pass the portal, place these on your cheeks and your forehead; they are sandestin scales and will accommodate your senses to Irerly. What is that pack you carry? I had not noticed it before."
"Personal effects and the like; don't concern yourself. What of the gems?"
"They occur in thirteen colors not known here. Their function, either here or there, I do not know, but you must find them and bring them away."
"Exactly so," said Shimrod. "Now kiss me, to demonstrate good will."
"Shimrod, you are far too frivolous."
"And trusting?"
Melancthe, as Shimrod watched, seemed to flicker, or give a quick jerk of movement. Now she was smiling. "'Trusting'? Not altogether. Now then, even to enter Irerly, you will need this sheath. It is stuff to protect you from emanations. Take these as well." She tendered a pair of iron scorpions crawling at the end of golden chains. "These are named Hither and Thither. One will take you there; the other will bring you here. You need nothing more."
"And you will wait here?"
"Yes, dear Shimrod. Now go."
Shimrod enveloped himself in the sheath, placed the sandestin scales to his forehead and cheeks, took the iron charms. "Thither! Take me to Irerly!" He slipped into the passage, picked up his ball of yarn and went forward. Green fluctuations swarmed and pulsed. A green wind whirled him afar, another force of mingled mauve and blue-green sent him careening in other directions. The yarn spun out between his fingers. The iron scorpion known as Thither gave a great bound and pulled Shimrod to a passing luminosity, and down into Irerly.
Chapter 15
IN IRERLY CONDITIONS WERE LESS EASY than Shimrod had hoped. The sheath of sandestin-stuff lacked consistency and allowed sound and two other Irerlish sentiments, toice and gliry, to chafe against his flesh. The iron insects, both Hither and Thither, at once shriveled into mounds of ash. The fabric of Irerly was viciously malign, or—so Shimrod speculated—the creatures might not have been sandestins after all. Further, the disks intended to assist perception were out of proper adjustment, and Shimrod experienced a startling set of dislocations: a sound that reached him as a jet of ill-smelling liquid; other scents were red cones and yellow triangles which, upon adjustment of the disks, disappeared completely. Vision expressed itself as taut lines striking across space, dripping fire.
He worked at the disks, testing various orientations, quivering to implausible pains and sounds which crawled across his skin on spider-legs, until by accident the incoming percepts made contact with the appropriate areas of his brain. The unpleasant sensations dwindled, at least temporarily, and Shimrod gratefully took stock of Irerly.
He apprehended a landscape of vast extent dotted with isolated mountains of gray-yellow custard, each terminating in a ludicrous semi-human face. All faces were turned toward himself, displaying outrage and censure. Some showed cataclysmic scowls and grimaces, others produced thunderous belches of disdain. The most intemperate extruded a pair of liver-colored tongues, dripping magma which tinkled in falling, like small bells; one or two spat jets of hissing green sound, which Shimrod avoided, so that they struck other mountains, to cause new disturbance.
Shimrod in accordance with Murgen's instructions, called out in an amicable voice: "Gentlemen, gentlemen! Tranquility! After all, I am a guest in your remarkable domain, and I deserve your consi
deration!"
One great mountain, seventy-five miles distant, roared in a crescendo: "Others named themselves guests, but instead proved to be thieves and predators! They came to plunder us of our thunder-eggs; now we trust no one. I request the mountains Mank and Elfard to concatenate upon your substance."
Shimrod again called for attention. "I am not what you think! The great magicians of the Elder Isles recognize the harms you have endured. They marvel at your stoic patience. Indeed, I have been sent here to make commendations for these qualities and your general excellence. Never have I witnessed magma ejected with such precision! Never before have there been such grotesque gesticulations."
"That is easy to say," grumbled the mountain who previously had spoken.
"Further," declared Shimrod, "I and my fellows vie in our detestation of thieves and predators. We have killed several and now wish to restore the booty. Gentlemen, I have here as many of your thunder-eggs as was possible to recover on short notice." He opened his knapsack and poured out a' number of river pebbles. The mountains displayed doubt and bafflement, and several began to produce small jets of magma.
A strip of parchment emerged from Shimrod's sack. He plucked it from the atmosphere and read:
"I, Murgen, write these words. You now know that beauty and faith are not interchangeable qualities! After you deceived the witch Melancthe with a hiatus, she worked a similar trick and plucked you clean of your thunder-eggs, so that the mountains might strike you with jets of magma. I suspected such a trick and stood by, to work a third hiatus, during which I replaced in your pouch the thunder-eggs and all else she had stolen. Proceed as before, but go warily!"
Shimrod called out to the mountains: "And now, the thunder-eggs!" He groped into his pouch and brought forth a sack. With a flourish he spread the contents upon a nearby excrescence. The mountains became at once mollified and gave over their displays. One of the most notable, at a distance of a hundred and twenty miles, projected a meaning: "Well done! Accept our friendly welcome. Do you intend to reside here at length?"