Masters of the Maze

by Avram Davidson

  Mr. Bellamy’s expression lightened, brightened. “It came, though, you know, as a slow surprise to me, that the highest form of self-gratification could come about only through self-fulfillment, and that duty could be the most certain path to this … Eh?”

  Nate said, “Mmm …”

  Bellamy waited a moment, then he sat back, looked away into the eye of the fire. It was a good, big fire tonight; his young visitor made no work at all of feeding it. He might be getting through to him, then, again, he absolutely might not; they might have other things in mind altogether. Well. He would not rush it. So far the approach was purely on the level of philosophy and attitudes. Specifics and tangibles must come later, if they came at all. He would not hurry. Either this not-quite-kinsman of his would stay long enough … for if he did not, if the loneliness overmastered him and bore him away, then he was clearly not the man for the work.

  But, clearly, from the way he nursed his drink, he was not a common drunkard like his older brother.

  Bellamy after all could not know that Nate Gordon didn’t care for cocktails and was wondering if he might, should, could, later on, try to put through a call to Peggy Stone in New York. Or that one corner of Nate’s mind was comforting itself with the safe recollection of a bottle of hundred-proof rye in the valise in the guest house.

  • • •

  Word was brought to Et-dir-Mor that a great red fish, a veritable mer-mother, was seen slowly making her way up River Rahanarit, pausing to graze along the way in the shallow eel-meadows, lifting her head above water with increasing frequency, trying her long-unaccustomed lungs. The gongs sounded slowly and the great drums beat with measured, signal pulse, and at each village the folk trooped down, joyful and sedate, with flowers and festal bread to strew upon the water. And as the signals resounded slowly over land and water, the fen-men obediently removed all nets and stakes and weirs and retreated to the thinlets where the red mother would not go. For who knew in what marsh or estuary it might please her at last to heave her great bulk from water long enough to scour out a nest and — panting and whispering — deposit her clustering eggs.

  Then she would ease her vast scarlet body back into the channel and drift down-river to the sound of quick and joyful bells and further offerings. But when the huge he-fish made his own journey up along the river-road not a gong would beat nor a drum sound, nor any offering be made, for the fish-fathers never ate at such times. Unfailingly, infallibly, he would find the nest and there do his own part, as no one watched. She was scarlet, he was crimson, she was huge, he was more huge. And as he in his own turn descended the river, from each riverine village one boat of chosen men would follow him until, as the great red mer-father disembogued into the bay, an entire procession of boats followed him, paddles flashing in the sun. Each group of six vessels would choose among its number by the odd-or-even paddle game, and then the choices would repeat this until one boat was selected.

  And then the boatmen would draw lots.

  At this time, and not before, was silence broken. The great shell-horns brayed and boo-boo’d from every boat. Thus they signaled the great red fish-father. Then, spread out now into a crescent formation, they approached, the winning boat apart and first, and in formal, fitting language, they challenged him.

  If he withdrew, then, being excused, they mocked him and cursed him and covered him with scorn, and returned to the river in a fine bitter humor. Subsequently they would get drunk.

  But if he chose to accept, if he turned for fight, then none but the fighting boat met him, the man of choice poised with his lances ready. One boat less might return to the river, or they might all return, towing the honored form of the great red fish behind the flotilla. They would honor him, praise him, mourn him, eat him.

  Such was the nature of things; it was like wind and rain and sunlight and the acts of love and birth and dance.

  Et-dir-Mor smiled when he heard that a red mer-mother was ascending River Rahanarit, the same warm smile with which he heard that a young man had been seen going off into the woods with one of his granddaughters. Life continued, the wheel turned, the earth moved, and even death — that delightful biological necessity — was an aspect of life. It delighted him to think how much he had to reflect upon this day: the appearance of a great red fish, a number of absolutely new mathematical problems sent him by the Council to be solved at his leisure, the promise shown as a Watcher by his twin grandsons — and, as always, the amusing speculation as to who their begetting father might have been! — and the promised visit of his old friend, Am-bir-Ros.

  “I think I might cheer me by seeing the old mother,” he said, aloud. It was casually said, merely vocal expression of what, after all, was no more than a thought. But Ro-ved-Per was so immediately pleased at the notion of his grandfather having his pleasure that the thought became at once an intention, and so, a fact.

  He looked at the flower-colored thing beneath his grandson’s gaze. He pointed. “The lines … here … are, it seems to me, in more of a state of flux than usual. If you see any extension of that from the present level down along,” his finger traced, “this group of lines, do, my daughter’s son, send word to me directly.”

  “I will.”

  Et-dir-Mor pinned a light mantle over one shoulder and, going, turned only to ask, “Where is your twin? Is he studying?”

  “No,” said the young man, cheerfully; “copulating.”

  “Oh, that’s nice … Still … He should study sometimes. One cannot always be copulating.”

  As he went out he heard Ro-ved-Per say, “One can — at his age!”

  The High Physicist chuckled. Ro-der-Per was precisely six moments younger than his twin. So when the twin came romping in, singing and sweating and slapped him on the back and said something to him, he got up with no trace of visible senility. “Where is she?” he asked. “By the brook?”

  “By the brook — go on, what are you waiting for? She won’t take root there, you know!”

  Ro-ved-Per nodded and hastened, swiveling around to point and say, “Watch those lines along you-know-where, grandfather says.”

  Ro-der-Per said he would. And he did. Then he recollected that he would be expected to have studied, when next he saw his grandfather. So he got up and looked for his book; not here, not there; never mind, he knew where it must be; he would just trot over for it and be back in a moment. And as it happened, fortunately, whilst trotting he met Nin-dar-Anna, and they stopped to talk about the coming of the fish-mother; she walked back with him as he went looking for his book, and eventually he found it. But … as his twin had remarked with the swift, thrusting accuracy of youth, “One can — at his age!”

  He felt somewhat guilty at returning to his Watching later than he had expected, but when he looked at the ward, glittering lines and sparkling points, all seemed as before. He pursed his lips in a silent whistle, and, with one eye still on the stone, opened his book.

  NNNonnggg … went the great bronze saucer-bell as Et-dir-Mor reached the river, and … tuuummm … went the huge drum-trunk. He concentrated on observing and naming by their proper, distinctive names, fifty-three shades of green in the foliage and the fields, hill, stream, sky, as he walked along; not including any which contained visible blue or visible yellow. It was one of the better days for this, clear air, although fifty-three was nothing much remarkable. His eye observed before he even subvocalized the fifty-fourth — the dress of the girl in the tiny cockle-craft not far offshore. She was calling something …

  “What?”

  “… seen her? … you seen her?”

  He had cupped his hands to shout that he had not yet seen any sign of the red mer-mother, when something else occupied his eyes and mind. It was but a flash in the middle distance, but he was trained to note such flashes, distant or near. His monocular was clapped to his better eye so swiftly it was almost like a reflex. And there he recognized it. No one else hereabouts might have, but to him it was unmistakable.

  A Chulpex.<
br />
  He knew it by its gait alone: torso tipped slightly forward, arms held slightly away from the sides. The untrained eye might never notice these things — unless, perhaps, it might see (most unlikely) several of the creatures together. Et-dir-Mor knew, too, what he would see when (or if) he drew close, the skin unnaturally white and always damp, “like humans who have been living under a rock for a long time,” was the way Am-bir-Ros put it; the scant and colorless stringy hair; the voice flat and harsh and deep; the digit-nails unusually thick and yellow; the smell like rank earth….

  He knew as well the path it was hurrying along, which led to the hills, and he considered as he started off the quickest way of reaching it. The girl in the boat called again. Automatically, Et-dir-Mor turned, he saw her standing up, waving, gesturing, but he couldn’t tarry now to await the passing of the great red fish … The silly child will fall if she’s not careful, he thought: she almost immediately did so. This meant no more than if she had tripped and fallen on the shore, for there was no one in Red Fish Land who was not able to swim. Still … he waited a moment … her head did not reappear …

  Without drawing breath for a sigh, Et-dir-Mor ran to the banks, cast off his mantle, and dived in.

  • • •

  “A pretty little chitty,” Am-bir-Ros said, stroking his white mustaches. He had picked up many Anglo-Indian expressions during his many years in England, and if he did not always use them correctly, it made no difference here. The girl was drying her long black hair in the soft sunlight of Et-dir-Mor’s courtyard, chatting with the twins, showing no ill effects from having bumped her head on the boat.

  “Yes,” his host and friend said, in a considering tone. “Her bosom at this stage is interesting, though not — in my opinion — beautiful. One never knows how the dugs will develop.”

  The other old man frowned. “Don’t be so damned clinical. Oh, well, who am I to criticize? Do you realize that there was a time, in my old time and country, when I favored adultery yet abhorred nudity?”

  “I’ve never fully understood the concept of adultery. Your place of origin seems fascinating. Perhaps I may yet visit it.”

  “Don’t. It’s a dung heap, a cesspool, everything’s the opposite from here. My sons, at that age, for instance, would be skulking around trying to get first shot at that girl, I’m sure — instead of waiting politely, as the twins are doing, for someone else to relieve them of the untidy task of defloration. Well. ‘If youth knew, if age could.’ And here, age doesn’t have to want to ‘could’. So you think one of those critters got past here, do you?”

  Et-dir-Mor said that he was sure of it, had asked — but without making a great point of it — to be informed of any strangers observed. “Sooner or later he will give himself away. This time, I hope, without having caused much trouble. Ah, the things which pass along! It was when I was no older than the twins that I encountered on one path three levels off (how can one say up or down there?) perhaps the strangest sight of all: a man mounted upon an animal and both beast and rider were clothed in metal. He had something in his hand like a lance and he opened a window in his metal mask and — ”

  “You silly, six-fingered freak, you’ve told me that story half a hundred times! Oh, hey there! Another entry for the never-to-be-published New, Revised Edition of The Devil’s Dictionary: FREAK. A man who, in your world, has only ten fingers; in my world, one who has twelve.” He got up, went over to the ward-stone, peered into it.

  “I suppose,” he said, slowly, “that in the hands of someone like Joseph Smith this could be an Urim and Thummim. It almost unsettled me forever, I can tell you, oh, not the stone, but coming through. I knew those Mexicans meant to shoot me for sure, I didn’t care, it seemed just a damned stupid joke, a fitting end to what I’d always regarded as a damned stupid performance — life, I mean. There was another American there, never did learn his name, weeping and wailing till I got tired of it. So I walked away a bit to be by myself, thinking, ‘All the Rebel bullets in creation couldn’t get you, Brose, and now — ’

  “My first thought was that they’d shot me in the back and that it was the moment of my death, prolonged just enough for me to have delusions, like the hanged man in one of my stories, can’t remember its name, doesn’t matter. Then I came to realize that that couldn’t be so, but I still didn’t know what was so. It was dark and it shone with light. It wasn’t anywhere and it led everywhere. It had its false heavens and its private hells. And then, finally, I came out here. By rights I ought to’ve died there on that hill from a Villista bullet. Still alive, though. Funny thing is, I don’t mind that any more.”

  One of the twins had come in and was listening, preoccupiedly indulging in the typical gesture of running his palms along the smooth, sparse hair which covered the skin in all the males of his people. “If the experience changed you, Am-bir-Ros,” he said, “might it not change the Chulpex, too?”

  Old Bierce shook his head. “It never has. It never will. It never can. Don’t you see, boy, they aren’t critters such as the rest of us. It isn’t just a matter of their having different bodies or anything like that. They aren’t just another little group using or wanting to use a fraction of the Maze and not aware of the Whole. They are aware, everything indicates it. But their attitude toward it can never be anything but an aberrant one, boy, because the world they come from ought not properly to be there at all. It’s on an arm of the Maze that doesn’t fit in with the rest. Look. Look there — ”

  Grandson and grandson followed his tracing finger. “Don’t you see how it’s different? Of course you do. It’s an aberration, boy. It’s an aberration. Just like a tumor is an aberration. And if it ever spreads — ”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Tas-tir-Hella was out hunting mushrooms in the hills. At least, so she said, and even partially convinced herself that this was so. She had a basket with her to put the mushrooms in, if she found any good ones; also in the basket was a lunch. This was what Am-bir-Ros might have called “the giveaway,” because the lunch was ample enough for two, and Tas-tir-Hella had not that large an appetite.

  At least, not for food.

  However, she did like mushrooms, so, even if …

  It was three months since she’d left the Observatory and it was another month before it would be time to go back. She had no particular preference for life in the Centra over life in the Villages, or the other way around, for that matter. Each had its own distinctive worth: in the Villages, no thousand player orchestras; in the Centra, no deep and leafy woods. The cool, slightly damp air was pleasant; here there were tiny pools and moss and ferns; here the honey-lizards did their mating dances, shimmering and iridescent and sounding like tiny bells. She kept her eyes open for ark trees, at the base of which the tasty little noars grew. Too, Tas-tir-Hella kept her eyes open for the spaces in between the tarra bushes, for here grew the big and meaty bondas.

  But, for the most part, she just kept her eyes open. Her ears, too.

  In such a mood she was, expectant, hopeful, well prepared for disappointment. She paused to consider an urge to go uphill against all her intentions of going downhill. It was rather a strong urge, and so, with a shrug, she decided to yield to it. Grayfowl generally frequented the glades and dells, but it was far from unusual for them to be found on the upper slopes. Besides, even hunters who favored grayfowl might take a notion to seek other game, upland game.

  Her luck could hardly be worse than it had so far been.

  She felt rather pleased on reaching the giant, towering, rounded rocks which seemed to burst like broken bones from the upper temples of the hills. It lacked the feeling of the wooded parts below but it seemed somehow encouraging, she could not say why; so she continued to climb. This was no place, certainly, for mushrooms, although … Tas-tir-Hella stopped a bit, frowning slightly, trying to follow the rest of the thought; then, suddenly, it came to her. Caves. No place for mushrooms, although there were … weren’t there? … caves up here, and in some of them might be f
ound the pale and coronet-shaped dwarthu, the smoky-tasting. Dwarthu were excellent, a good day’s work if she could fill even the bottom of the basket with them.

  Tas-tir-Hella felt a faint desire to damn all mushrooms, but it was faint.

  She saw someone as she climbed over a smooth limb of rock, someone down below, a stranger. She little reckoned on just how very strange, though.

  “We greet you, maiden,” the stranger said, touching his mouth as he bowed. She stifled an inclination to smile at the archaic manner and address — indeed, the stranger’s dress itself was archaic, swathed as he was in the darkest garments she had ever seen. Into her mind came lines from an old poem:

  Black is his robe from crown to toe. His flesh is white and warm below …

  White, his flesh certainly was, almost as though he had been living in a cave himself for years. But … warm? No … warm, his flesh certainly did not look. However, she was not interested in his flesh. Not in his. “Our name is Ten-pid-Ar,” he said.

  “Mine is Tas-tir-Hella, and I think I should tell you that it’s not the custom here, in our country, that is, to speak of one’s self in the plural.”

  “The N — We — that is, I was not informed. I will remember,” Ten-pid-Ar sounded startled for a moment; then the entire tenor of his voice changed, as he added, “I will reward you …”

  This time she did smile, but it trailed away, for, somehow, the man from … wherever it was, it must be far …! — the man no longer seemed to be amusing. What then? Faintly frightening, stranger than merely strange, yet … impressive? … awesome? Well! What odd thoughts!

  “Reward me for for what, Ten-pid-Ar? And how?”

  He had seemed to slump forward just a trifle; now he quickly became erect. “For assisting me, a stranger. For assistance, also, yet to be given. Thus, for what. And how, the Tas-tir-Hella? This is how. With what you desire. I will give you Far-ven-Sul, he who hunts; I will give you the use of his body and — ”