What Entropy Means to Me

by George Alec Effinger

  "Are you Glorian?" asked Dore doubtfully.

  "Yes. I have changed because the environment of our relationship has changed. Your studies are near an end, and soon you must take up your burden of responsibility. But first I must make clear to you what has happened, for you have not acted wisely and cannot afford to continue thus in the future."

  "And you are familiar to the Princess in your current guise?"

  "Very much to her chagrin," said Glorian. "Her family refuses my Knowledge."

  "Not I," said the Princess in a quavering voice. "My brother and my father force their will upon me."

  "Tell Dore your name," said Glorian sternly. When she did not reply, he answered for her.

  "The Princess Dawn des Malalondes is a fiction. This young woman is Narlinia von Glech, the daughter of the impoverished Baron Glaub von Glech. Her brother often teams with her to waylay unsuspecting swains such as yourself. Your crown and your jeweled scabbard will stock next month's sculleries, but your sword Battlefriend will be put to other uses. Your reputation is wider than your modesty admits, and your ensorcelled blade is desired by many. It remains to be seen what results your ardor may have in the wide world, but you have not by any means met the last of the Von Glechs. I begin to think that perhaps this encounter was ordained, and that my decision to leave you to your honor was more momentous than I dreamed. In any event, you are without the protection of your sword, and are in no manner prepared to gain it back."

  Dore was ashamed. "It is only now that my judgment begins to uncloud," he said. "What do you suggest I do?"

  "Bid this trollop of a princess farewell, and come along," said Glorian.

  "I'm sorry, Dore, really I am," she said, with genuine tears in her eyes. "I want to see you again. Can you believe me? I . . . I think I love you." Dore said nothing, but walked away and left her beneath the giant tree. He did not turn around again, and followed with Glorian the forest stream as it led back toward the River.

  "You sure make Dore look like a fool," says Lalichë, failing to understand the allegorical device of moral education. I do not intend this history to be merely a collection of simulated exploits. There is in it the potential for a truly useful homiletic tool.

  Tere comes into the room, filling it with his officious humor. He always appears to be occupied, but he seems busier than he is. "Women!" he says with a deprecatory laugh and a snort. "Excuse me, Lalichë, but it's true. You can't trust women as far as you can throw 'em."

  "Have you ever thrown one, Tere?" asks my sister from within the refuge of youth. Tere doesn't answer. He smiles at me, only apparently amused by her remark.

  "Lalichë," he says pointedly, "it was you for whom I was looking. I'd like to speak with you for a few minutes, if you don't mind. Perhaps it isn't a good idea to interrupt our brother at his Gongorism."

  "It doesn't make any difference," she says, and both Tere and I wonder at her meaning. Tere takes her skinny arm and the two of them leave my room without a word.

  Chapter Four

  The Song of the Sword

  I do not here attempt to derogate my brother's reading habits, but merely to indicate the disparity in our interests. Had Dore been as educated in the drama as I, he could easily have found solace. Such topics as love, betrayal, and revenge have fascinated playwrights continuously, for these themes lend themselves excellently to the generation of motion, passion, and dead bodies. Molière, that surpassing non-English Thalian, says that if everyone were clothed in integrity, and every heart were just, sincere, and kindly, the other virtues would be practically useless, since their part is to enable us to stand the prejudices of our fellows. Elsewhere another person, George Chapman, in his All Fools of 1605, tells us that "Love is Nature's second sun, causing a spring of virtues where he shines." Thus we have on one hand the recommendation that those noble qualities are necessary to abide the pettiness of the world, and on the other hand a prescription for the cultivation of those virtues: Love. I hope I am not acting presumptuously to add that Love, meaning here either the spiritual or the sensual sort, might best in most practical circumstances be employed when it is an amalgam of the two.

  Although the lady was not, after all, the Princess Dawn des Malalondes, Dore recognized in her a certain quality, as though the crimes of her greedy father and brother had failed to win over her soul. Along the way after their meeting our brother found himself giving much thought to her, and to Glorian's veiled promise that Dore would have the opportunity to meet her again. Dore began to hold to that assurance with great hope, perhaps to the detriment of his journey's more worthy goals.

  This ability to consider one problem even when most engrossed with another is a typical distortion of one of Our Father's impressive traits. There was nothing Our Father was if not resourceful; he had an answer for everything, and if sometimes that answer was unrealistic, he was rarely at a loss for another. He could juggle a plurality of weighty matters with little effort. Now, of course Dore tries, and he certainly considers a lot, but he somehow lacks the same capacity to distinguish priorities. Our Father always knew the relative importance of his problems, and treated them accordingly.

  When the great space-traveling capsule landed in the waters of Life here on Home, rather than the salty ocean toward which it had been aimed, Our Father was little dismayed. Plans began forming before he ever soaked his foot in the River. If he could manage to haul that capsule onto the shore, it would make an ideal cabin and base of explorations. Home was an uncharted world and, even if Our Father had known where he was, he would have known nothing of the dangers of his new environment. A secure shelter was needed before nightfall.

  I have already shown how the River itself aided Our Parents by sweeping the capsule up on the muddy banks. Once it rested precariously on the land, Our Father began to give thought to how it might be moved to a safer location. He thought of inclined planes, screws, rollers, blocks and tackles, pendulums, and other simple engines. So lost was he in thought that he did not notice the eyes that stared at him from the leafy verges of the forest. Soon the animals grew bolder, and Our Mother's frantic scratching at the capsule's window attracted his attention. Our Father was surrounded by scores of animals, ranging in size from tiny shrews and dobs to huge, slavering doglike beasts and venomous grass dragons.

  Our Father smiled slowly, careful not to make any sudden or threatening motions. He looked at the animals, and they looked at him. He pointed first at the capsule, then up the small slope of the bank. Our Father was amazed when the animals nodded, but said nothing when, one by one, they slid down the declivity and began rocking and dragging the capsule until it rested on the lip of the escarpment.

  "I want to get it a little more inland, if you'd give me a hand," said Our Father, and he laughed with the animals at his faux pas. Together they wrestled it all the way across the strip of land that separates our house from the River. They stopped when Our Father judged it to be in a satisfactory place; indeed, it was never moved again, and our house was built up around it. Unfortunately, the construction was done so that the foundation was completed and the upper stories finished before Our Father discovered no doors or windows had been provided for access to the capsule. It was a lucky thing that by this time the books and Our Mother and Dore had been offloaded. We would have a fine museum piece in that space capsule now if we could get to it, but there is an unwritten prohibition against destroying any part of the house.

  Later that evening some of the animals returned with a vast assortment of fruits and edible tubers, and placed them before the capsule's hatch as a sort of offering; Our Father wrote in the ship's log—his first and last entry—"We seem to have found our milieu."

  The stream that Dore and Glorian were following grew larger as it joined with others along its route toward the River. Soon the two travelers were walking within the confines of a small valley; beyond the rims of the depression grew the towering trees of the forest, obliterating the traces of the sun's light but for the part of the sk
y immediately above the water. The hollow was carpeted with soft grass and the way was easier, unobstructed by the boles of huge trees. But at night the men climbed the ridge to sleep among the michas and oaks, because the low, wet valley was home for a great variety of predatory insects.

  One morning Dore was awakened by the noise of many persons shouting in the valley below. He thought for a moment that he had dreamed the racket, but when it began again, louder still, he knew that another strange encounter was about to begin. He looked around for Glorian but, not much to his surprise, he discovered that the puzzling man was nowhere to be seen. Dore decided to peer quietly over the lip of the low cliff.

  As soon as his face looked over the edge the shouting grew louder. Dore could not help but think that the party of men below knew of his presence and had come to speak with him. He stood up and sighed; among these eccentric peoples he never knew what to expect. He would not run from them, and the only way to maintain his unarmed peace was to go down to them.

  "Oh, puissant Ugid," shouted one of the feather-robed men when Dore appeared, "we pray that you aid us in our coming battle. Know, oh mighty god of military robustness, that we your servants have followed your laws and made our sacrifices, every one. The Seduevii are your priests and your disciples, no matter what the lying Nomitians have said. Come to us in your guise of loving uncle. Don your lightning helm and thunder sword and whatever else you need. Help us to drive the thieves and rapists from our land."

  Dore was quick to realize that these chanting men thought that he was an avatar of some heathen god. It would be a difficult role, but perhaps it would bring him closer to the Princess Dawn. He wished that he could remember her real name.

  Love's melancholy is a crippling disorder. In extremities of passion a heroine may do herself or others grievous bodily harm, and the steadiest of military heroes may go sullen to his tent. The symptoms of love's distress are too familiar and unpleasant to be listed again, but the proper treatment, which is simple and effective, is virtually unknown. The secret is diet and exercise. Diet and exercise. A handy formula, recommended by the best classical authorities, easy to remember and easy on your pocketbook, too.

  If I may be permitted to light my way with Robert Burton's candle, I will describe the methods given to us by Our Mother. One time my younger brother Auel asked her why one of our sisters recently rejected by the young man of her choice was behaving so strangely. We all laughed with delight at his innocence, but Our Mother, always quick to spot an opening for a lesson, said that his question was not as stupid as it sounded. From behind her veil of tears she began a lengthy and somewhat pointless discourse on the rebuffed suitor and the abandoned mistress. This developed into a practical demonstration, and for weeks thereafter we improved our skills upon a lifelike dummy, "treating" it for shock, water and smoke inhalation, and unrequited affection.

  Ovid instructs us that poverty has not the means to fatten love. From this oversimplified maxim Our Mother developed what she called her Sorrow Drill. Whenever we felt the poison of heartache, we were to forswear our lovely clothes and put on rough, unpleasant garments. We were to go barefoot at all times. Most of all we were to fast, for saith St. Ambrose, hunger is a friend of virginity and an enemy to lasciviousness. Further, Ovid relates that Love yields to business. Diet and exercise.

  None of us were too excited by Our Mother's ideas, and some of the classicists among us searched for equally authoritarian refutations. One was found in Horace, where he counsels the lovelorn to take refuge in a nearby servingmaid or whatever. Soon, few of us paid any more attention to either side of the dispute and continued at our pleasure, leading to the usual number of broken hearts and blackened eyes. How often must the trite old romantic dramas be played? Is it that we enjoy the distressing scenes and encourage the midnight aches? It is not for me to supply an arbitrary answer.

  It is only indirectly that we have learned of love for other than a desirable sexual object. Our Mother never told us of love of beauty, love of one's home, or love of nature; these things we have inferred from her wide- though damp-eyed recitations of Our Father's excellences. Such papers as Sabt's perceptive "Man of the Hour: Our Father's Eternal Integrity" and Talavesía's "The Failure of Mediocrity" have expanded our understanding of the finer things in life.

  Our Father lived simply, holding few things dear beyond his home and family. But these beloved ideas he defended with all the occult weapons at his command. Our Mother could never quite grasp the abstract forces that drove her husband to provide and protect. Only when she slept did her misty conscious mind cease to interfere. When she was unconscious her tears were clearer, her dreams gentler, her sentiments more humane. It is a great pity that when awake she was never able to share them with us, for she became unable to express or remember them.

  It was not long before other men tried to take for themselves some of the bounties of Home. One day, while making a cool potato salad in the reconverted space capsule, Our Mother heard strange voices. She ran crying outside, where Our Father and his four-footed forest friends were hard at work building our house. She told him wonderingly of the voices from the ether. He knew at once what they meant; he brushed past her and hurried to the capsule. Sure enough, Our Mother had heard radio transmissions through the capsule's receiver.

  "Hello, uncharted world. This is Sagittarius. One Five Four Three Three Seven, do you read me? Over," said a small, distant voice.

  Our Father leaned over the panel and spoke into the radio. "This is the Master of Home. What do you want? Over."

  "Hello, Home. We are lost and are low on supplies. We request permission to land. Over."

  "Roger, Sagittarius," said Our Father confidently, "you may manent thralldom. Do you wish to discuss terms? Over."

  "Negative, Home. Feudal circumstances entirely unacceptable. Your world is certainly large enough for all of us. We have your transmission monitored and your position plotted. We shall land far enough away so you needn't worry. Over."

  "Roger, Sagittarius," said Our Father confidently, "you may try. Will speak with you later. Over and out." It did not take long. After Our Father put the matter out of his head and returned to his construction work, the intruders tried to put their plan into action. They programed their landing module for a soft touchdown exactly halfway around the planet from Our Parents' settlement. But at an altitude of 60,000 feet the module, floating gently down on several large parachutes, struck something "solid" in the atmosphere. In some magic way Our Father had caused a barrier to exist around our entire world. Perhaps the River aided him. Our Mother didn't know; she was making potato salad at the time. But so on there was another frantic message.

  "Hello, Home Master. Do you copy? Come in. Home!" Our Father listened patiently. "Hello, Home. We're stuck up here. Let us down! You can't let us die up here. Any terms you like, but get us down! Over."

  Our Father smiled grimly to himself, and assured the immigrants that they would land safely. They came down not far from our clearing and, after swearing fealty and eternal loyalty. Our Father allowed them to begin building their new home. These folk became the Second family. More and more spacecraft attempted to violate Our Father's territorial franchise, and each time they were compelled to bow to Our Father's demands. Through Our Father's farsightedness, we enjoy eminence over all others on Home, from the Lawrence P. Seconds (who have become close friends, coming over often for canasta and coffee cake, and who maintain a certain distinction among the other tenants) down to the poorest of the Sixties and Seventies.

  Of course, once the families were safely established in they hierarchic lives, they felt that nothing could stand in the way of their forceful usurpation of power. Several times an armed revolt was put down by Our Father and his animal allies. Since Our Father's disappearance we have feared to mention the possibility of a new rebellion, for Our wise Father often remarked to Our Mother that thoughts of hostility attract an enemy. We have been trained to think only happy thoughts.

  O
f what did Dore think as he climbed carefully down the steep bank to the group of men below? We cannot say with any assurance. When he reached the floor of the valley he thought it best to let the others initiate the meeting. He stood quietly, observing the two leaders disdainfully as befitted the human aspect of a mighty god. One of the men was tall and gaunt, with a large head shaved bald. He wore a long robe of orange feathers, and Dore was curious about their origin; there are no orange birds on Home with which we are familiar. The other man was shorter and quite heavy. He looked very unhappy, and his plump face and neck were dripping with sweat. He wore a feathered robe also, but his was a dazzling collection of rainbow colors. His shoulder-length black hair was crowned with a heavy golden helmet. The bald man stepped forward, offering Dore his hand. Dore grasped it, and the bald man smiled.

  "My name is Palaschine," he said. "I am the leader and chief priest of your cult. This is the king of the Seduevii, King Lebrodias." The king smiled, and Dore shook hands with him, to the dismay of Palaschine. "The king is the head of our secular arm," said the priest, emphasizing the word secular for Dore's benefit, and, no doubt, also for Lebrodias'.

  "And I?" said Dore pleasantly.

  "You, of course, are the great god Ugid," said Palaschine. "No doubt your memory is cloudy after your journey from Heaven."

  "Possibly," said Dore. "Do you know of a family called Von Glech?"

  The priest looked at the king, who shook his head slowly. "That's all right," said Dore, "I was just checking. I don't have a great deal of time, so why don't you outline the situation for me."

  King Lebrodias smiled broadly. "Certainly, sir, if you will follow me. Our encampment is not far away, and we have tables and maps and miniature troop markers just waiting for you. Come, and I will briefly sketch in the history of our troubles."