by Jack Vance
Aillas instructed Tatzel: “Now we must be wary! According to Cwyd, an evil creature lives here, and he may appear in any guise. We must accept neither gifts nor favors! Do you understand? Take nothing whatever, from anyone or anything, or the ghoul will take your life! Now! Let us cross this brake with all possible speed.”
The second brake, like the first, was a long ribbon of meadow a mile or so wide. At intervals grew solitary oaks and on the left a forest of elm and horse-chestnut obscured their view to the west.
Halfway across they met a young man trudging up the brakes. He was stalwart and handsome, with a fresh complexion, a crisp golden beard, and a head of short golden curls. He carried a staff, a rucksack and a small lute; a dagger hung at his belt. His brown smock and trousers were plain and serviceable; his green cap boasted a jaunty red feather. As he drew near Aillas and Tatzel he halted and raised his hand in greeting. “Bonaventure, and where do you ride?”
“Toward Godelia; that is our immediate destination,” said Aillas. “What of you?”
“I am a vagabond poet; I wander where the wind blows me.”
“It would seem a pleasant and careless life,” said Aillas. “Do you never yearn to find a true home for yourself?”
“It is a bittersweet dilemma. I often find places which urge me to tarry, and so I do, until I remember other places where I have found joys and marvels, and I am compelled again to my journey.”
“And no single place satisfies you?”
“Never. The place I seek is always beyond the far mountain.”
“I can offer you no sensible advice,” said Aillas. “Except this: do not delay your wandering here! Climb to the top of the brakes before this day is done; you will live a longer life.”
The vagabond gave a carol of easy laughter. “Fear comes only to those already frightened. Today the most alarming sights have been several hummingbirds and a tangle of fine wild grapes which now I am tired of carrying.” He proffered fresh purple grapes in a pair of clusters to both Aillas and Tatzel.
Tatzel reached out in pleasure; Aillas, leaning, struck aside her arm and reined back the horses. “Thank you; we do not care to eat. On these brakes you are well-advised to take nothing and to give nothing. Goodday to you.”
Aillas and Tatzel rode away, with Tatzel resentful. Aillas said shortly: “Did I not warn you to accept nothing while on this brake?”
“He did not seem a ghoul.”
“Would that not be his intent? Where is he now?” They looked back the way they had come but the young vagabond had vanished from view.
“It is very strange,” muttered Tatzel.
“As the ghoul himself asserted: the world is a place of marvels.”
Almost as Aillas spoke, a Hide girl in a white frock jumped up from under a tree where she had been tying garlands of wild-flowers. Her hair was long and golden; her eyes were blue; she was as pretty as one of her own flowers.
The girl came forward and spoke: “Sir and lady, where do you ride, and why in such haste?”
“To Lake Quyvem and beyond,” said Aillas. “We ride in haste the sooner to join those we love. What of you? Do you always wander these wild places so freely?”
“This a region of peace. True, on moonlit nights the ghosts come out and march to their ghostly music, and it is a sight to behold, since they wear armour of gold, black iron and silver, and helmets with tall crests. It is a fine sight to see!”
“So I should think,” said Aillas. “Where do you live? I see neither house nor hut.”
“Yonder, by the three oak trees: there is my home. Will you not come to visit? I was sent out to gather nuts but I have delayed among the flowers. Here: this garland is for you, since your face is so handsome and your voice so soft.”
Aillas jerked back his horse. “Away with you and your flowers! They make me sneeze! Hurry now, before Tatzel pulls your nose! You will find no nuts under the poplar trees.”
The girl moved back and cried out: “You are a coarse cruel man, and you have made me cry!”
“No great matter.” Aillas and Tatzel rode away, leaving the little girl forlorn and wistful, but after a moment, when they turned to look back, she was gone.
The sun rose up the sky, and without further interruption they came to the edge of the brake. Aillas halted to pick out the best way down the slope; the packhorse, meanwhile, took advantage of the occasion to lower its head and snatch a mouthful of grass from the meadow. Instantly, from behind a nearby tree came running an old man with a shock of white hair and a long white beard. “Hola!” he cried. “How dare you steal my good pasturage for your use, and almost under my very nose? You have compounded larceny and trespass with insolence!”
“Not so!” Aillas declared. “Your charges have no merit.”
“What! How can you contradict me? Each of us saw the dereliction in process!”
“I could testify to no dereliction,” said Aillas. “First, you have not marked off your property with a fence, as the law requires. Second, you have erected neither sign nor way-post challenging what in any case is our right by the common law: which is to say, harmless passage across unfilled meadows and pastures. Third, where are the cattle for which you are conserving this pasturage? Unless you can prove a damage, you have suffered no loss.”
“Legalisms! Sophistries! You have the sleight of words, by which poor peasants like me are mulcted and left helpless! Still, I would not have you think me a curmudgeon, and I hereby make you a gift of that fodder sequestered from my private reserve by your horse.”
“I reject your gift!” declared Aillas. “Can you show articles from King Gax? If not, you can prove no title to the grass.”
“I need prove nothing! Here on the second brake, the giving of a gift is certified by acceptance. Your horse, acting as your agent, accepted the gift, and you therefore become an extensionary donee.”
At this moment the packhorse raised high its tail and voided the contents of its gut. Aillas pointed to the pile of dung. “As you see, the horse tested your gift and rejected it. There is no more to be said.”
“Fie! That is not the same grass!”
“It is near enough, and we cannot wait while you prove otherwise. Goodday, sir!” Aillas and Tatzel led their horses over the brink and descended toward the third brake. From behind came a rageful howling and a tirade of curses, then a melodious voice calling: “Aillas! Tatzel! Come back, come back!”
“Make no acknowledgment,” Aillas warned Tatzel. “Do not even look back!”
“Why not?”
Aillas pulled his head down and bent forward. “You might see something you would rather not see. I have this hint from my instinct.”
Tatzel struggled with her curiosity but at last followed Aillas’ advice, and soon the calls were heard no more.
The descent was steep and the going slow; two hours into the afternoon they came down upon the third brake: another pleasant parkland of trees, meadows, grassy banks, ponds and small meandering streams.
Aillas looked around the serene landscape. “This is the brake in which the god Spirifiume takes a special interest, and it seems as if he has dealt lovingly with the land.”
Tatzel looked about with no great interest.
Half an hour later, while riding through a grove of oak trees, they surprised a young boar rooting for acorns. Aillas instantly nocked an arrow to his bow, and said: “Spirifiume, if yonder beast is of special value to you, cause the boar to jump aside or, if you prefer, divert my arrow.” He let the arrow fly, and it struck deep into the heart of the boar.
Aillas dismounted and, while Tatzel looked fastidiously in another direction, he did what needed to be done and presently came away with the choicest parts strung on a twig for convenience of transport.
Mindful of Cwyd’s third information, Aillas called out: “Spirifiume, we thank you for your bounty!” … .Aillas blinked. Something had happened. What? A twinkling of a hundred colours across the sunlight? A whisper of a hundred soft chords? He loo
ked at Tatzel. “Did you notice anything?”
“A crow flew past.”
“No colours? No sound?”
“None.”
Once more they set off, and entered a forest. Noticing a clump of morels growing soft and graceful in the shade, Aillas pulled up his horse and dismounted. He signalled to Tatzel. “Come. You no longer have the excuse of a tender leg. Help me gather mushrooms.”
Tatzel wordlessly joined him, and for a space they picked mushrooms: morels, delicate shaggy-manes, golden chanterelles, pepper-tops, savory young field mushrooms.
Again Aillas acknowledged Spirifiume’s bounty, and the two rode onward.
With the sun still two hours high they arrived at the edge of the brake, with a steep and difficult descent below. Lake Quyvem now dominated the landscape to the north. A dozen forested islets rose from the surface and on two of these the ruins of two ancient castles faced each other across a mile of water. The air between them seemed to quiver with the memory of a thousand adventures: griefs and delights, romantic yearnings and dreadful deeds, treacheries by night and gallantries by day.
Aillas found within himself no inclination to scramble down yet another slope on this day. Cwyd had recommended the third brake for an overnight camp, and the advice seemed good. Aillas turned away from the edge and rode to a little meadow where a stream trickled from the forest; here he decided to camp.
Dismounting, he dug a shallow trench in which he built a fire of dry oak. To the side he arranged the meat on a spit, where it might roast and drip into the pannikin, with Tatzel turning the spit as needful. The drippings in the pannikin would later be used to fry the mushrooms, which Tatzel also had been ordered to clean and cut. Glumly accepting reality, she set to work.
Aillas staked out the horses, set up the tent and gathered grass for a bed, then, returning to the fire, sat with his back to a laurel tree with the wine-sack ready to hand.
Tatzel knelt beside the fire, her black locks tied back with a ribbon. Thinking back to his time at Castle Sank, Aillas tried to remember his first sight of Tatzel: then a slender creature of thoughtless assurance walking with long swaggering strides by reason of natural verve.
Aillas sighed. Upon a heartsick young man, Tatzel, with her fascinating face and jaunty vitality, had made a deep impression.
And now? He watched her as she worked. Her assurance had been replaced by sullen unhappiness, and the bitter facts of her present existence had taken the luster from her verve.
Tatzel felt the pressure of his attention and turned a quick glance over her shoulder. “Why do you look at me so?”
“An idle whim.”
Tatzel looked back to the fire. “Sometimes I suspect you of madness.”
” ‘Madness’?” Aillas considered the word. “How so?”
“There would seem no other reason for your hatred of me.”
Aillas laughed. “I feel no such hatred.” He drank from the wine-sack. “Tonight I am kindly disposed; in fact, I see that I owe you a debt of gratitude.”
“That debt is easily paid. You may give me a horse and let me go my way.”
“In this wild country? I would be doing you no favor. My gratitude, moreover, is indirect. You have earned it despite yourself.”
Tatzel muttered: “Again the madness comes on you.”
Aillas raised the wine-sack and drank. He offered the sack to Tatzel, who disdainfully shook her head. Aillas drank again from a sack now sadly flabby. “My remarks are probably somewhat opaque. I will explain. At Castle Sank I became enamored of a certain Tatzel, who in some respects resembled you, but who was essentially an imaginary creature. This phantom which lived in my mind possessed qualities which I thought must be innate to a creature of such grace and intelligence.
“Ah well, I escaped from Sank and went my way, encumbered still with this phantom, which now only served to distort my perceptions. At last I returned to South Ulfland.
“Almost by chance my most farfetched daydreams were realized, and I was able to capture you: the real Tatzel. So then-what of the phantom?” Aillas paused to drink, tilting the wine-sack high. “This impossibly delightful creature is gone, and now is even hard to remember. Tatzel exists, of course, and she has freed me from the tyranny of my imagination, and here is the source of my gratitude.”
Tatzel, after a single brief sideglance, turned back to the fire. She rearranged the spit, where the roasting pork exhaled a splendid odor. She prepared batter for griddlecakes, then started the mushrooms to fry in the drippings from the roasting pork, while Aillas went to gather a salad of watercress from the stream.
In due course the pork was done to a turn; the two dined on the best the land could afford. “Spirifiume!” called Aillas. “Be assured that we take great pleasure in your bounty, and we thank you for your hospitality! I drink to your continued health!”
Spirifiume gave back neither flux of colour nor whisper of sound, but when Aillas went to lift the wine-sack, which had arrived at a state of discouraging flatness, he found that it bulged to its fullest capacity. Aillas tasted the wine; it was soft and sweet and tart and fresh, at one and the same time. He cried out: “Spirifiume! You are a god after my own heart! Should you ever tire of North Ulfland, please establish yourself in Troicinet!”
The sun still illuminated the panorama. Tatzel came to sit under the tree and idly picking little blue daisies, strung them into a chain. Suddenly she spoke. “I have been thinking of what you told me. … I feel a whole torrent of emotions! Because you brooded over your daydreams, I all unwittingly must suffer! Discomforts, dangers, indignities-I have known them all! Even though at Sank I spoke never a word to you-”
“Ah, but you did! After a trifle of sword-play with your brother! And do you not recall stopping in the gallery to talk with me?”
Tatzel looked blank. “Was that you? … I barely noticed. Still, no matter how closely I resembled your illusion, the realities remain.”
“And what are they?”
“I am Ska; you are Otherling. Even in dreams, your ideas are unthinkable.”
“Apparently so.” Aillas looked back across his memories. “Had I known you better at Castle Sank, I might never have troubled to capture you. The joke is on both of us. But again, no matter. You are you and I am I. The phantom is gone.”
Tatzel took up the wine-sack and drank. Then, rising to her knees, and sitting back on her heels, she swung around to face squarely upon Aillas, displaying for almost the first time the animation of the old Tatzel. She spoke with fervour: “You are so wonderfully wrongheaded I can almost find it within myself to laugh at you! After chasing me over the moors, breaking my leg and causing me a dozen humiliations, you expect me to come creeping to you with adoration in my eyes, happy to be your slave, soliciting your caress, hoping with all my heart that I may compare favorably with your erotic daydream. You profess to find the Ska lacking in pathos, but your conduct toward me is absolutely self-serving! And now you sulk because I do not come sobbing to you and begging for your indulgence. Is it not a farce?”
Aillas heaved a deep sigh. “Everything you say is true. In all justice, I must admit as much. I have been driven by romantic passion to act out a dream. I will say this, with only glancing reference to the fact that the Ska made me their slave and that I am entitled to retaliation: you are a prisoner of war. Had the Ska not taken our town Suarach, we would not have attacked Castle Sank. If you had submitted at once to capture, you would not have broken your leg, nor been exposed to humiliation, nor isolated here on the moors with me.”
“Bah! In my place, would you have done other than try to escape?”
“No. In my place, would you have done other than try to capture me?”
Tatzel looked at him for a full five seconds. “No… . Still, prisoner of war or slave or whatever, I am Ska and you are Otherling, and that is the way of it.”
III
IN THE MORNING, while packing the wine-sack, Aillas found it bulging full as if it had never been br
oached, and he gave a most fervent thanks to the genial god Spirifiume for what would seem an incalculable treasure. After ordering the campsite with meticulous care, out of respect for their host, Aillas and Tatzel set off down the slope. There was an easier quality to their relationship, as if the air had been cleared, though camaraderie was still lacking.
The slope was steep, the brambles and thickets troublesome, but in due course they came down upon the fourth brake: the narrowest and most heavily forested of all the brakes, and in some areas less than half a mile in width. Tall trees: maple, chestnut, ash, oak, held high green umbrellas of foliage to shroud the brake in sun-flecked shadow.
Cwyd had ignored the fourth brake in his informations; Aillas, therefore, had no reason to dread some imminent danger. Still, an odd and troubling odor hung in the air, of a sort Aillas found both mystifying and, at a primordial level, frightening, the more so since he could not identify it.
Tatzel looked about with a puzzled expression, glanced at Aillas; then, observing his own perplexity, she said nothing.
The horses, taking note of the odor, jerked their heads and sidled stiff-legged, adding to Aillas’ uneasiness. He pulled up and searched the forest aisles in all directions, but found only shaded ground, carpeted with dead leaves and dappled with morning sunlight.
Aillas bestirred himself; nothing could be gained by delay. He shook the reins and once more the party set off across the brake.
They rode through an uncanny quiet. Aillas watched warily to right and left, and twisted in the saddle to look back the way they had come. He saw nothing. Tatzel, absorbed in her own thoughts, rode with her gaze directed between the ears of her horse, at a point in the middle distance, and ignored Aillas’ tension.
For ten minutes they rode through the silence; sunlight, filtering through foliage, working odd tricks on the vision. Suddenly a remarkable illusion appeared to Aillas so that he sucked in his breath, blinked and stared with bulging eyes… . Illusion? No illusion whatever! Two great creatures fifteen feet tall watched placidly from a distance of barely thirty yards. They stood on squat yellow legs, of human conformation. The torsos and arms might have been those of monstrous gray-yellow bears. Stiff yellow bristles surrounded the round heads, producing an effect much like enormous yellow sat in pincushions, with no discernible facial features. Here, clearly, was the source of the stench.