by Jack Vance
O.Z. Garr turned on his heel, swept back up the avenue into the castle, followed by the most traditional-minded of his comrades. A few moved aside and talked among themselves in low tones, with one or two black looks for Xanten and Hagedorn.
From the ramparts of the castle came a sudden outcry: “The Meks! They are taking the castle! They swarm up the lower passages! Attack, save us!”
The men below stared up in consternation. Even as they looked, the castle portals swung shut.
“How is this possible?” demanded Hagedorn. “I swear all entered the tunnels!”
“It is only too clear,” said Xanten bitterly. “While they undermined, they drove a tunnel up to the lower levels!”
Hagedorn started forward as if he would charge up the crag alone, then halted. “We must drive them out. Unthinkable that they pillage our castle!”
“Unfortunately,” said Claghorn, “the walls bar us as effectually as they did the Meks.”
“We can send up a force by Bird-car! Once we consolidate, we can hunt them down, exterminate them.”
Claghorn shook his head. “They can wait on the ramparts and flight-deck and shoot down the Birds as they approach. Even if we secured a foothold there would be great bloodshed: one of us killed for every one of them. And they still outnumber us three or four to one.”
Hagedorn groaned. “The thought of them reveling among my possessions, strutting about in my clothes, swilling my essences—it sickens me!”
“Listen!” said Claghorn. From on high they heard the hoarse yells of men, the crackle of energy-cannon. “Some of them, at least, hold out on the ramparts!”
Xanten went to a nearby group of Birds who were for once awed and subdued by events. “Lift me up above the castle, out of range of the pellets, but where I can see what the Meks do!”
“Care, take care!” croaked one of the Birds. “Ill things occur at the castle.”
“Never mind; convey me up, above the ramparts!”
The Birds lifted him, swung in a great circle around the crag and above the castle, sufficiently distant to be safe from the Mek pellet-guns. Beside those cannon which yet operated stood thirty men and women. Between the great Houses, the Rotunda and the Palace, everywhere the cannon could not be brought to bear, swarmed Meks. The plaza was littered with corpses: gentlemen, ladies and their children—all those who had elected to remain at Castle Hagedorn.
At one of the cannon stood O.Z. Garr. Spying Xanten he gave a shout of hysterical rage, swung up the cannon, fired a bolt. The Birds, screaming, tried to swerve aside, but the bolt smashed two. Birds, car, Xanten fell in a great tangle. By some miracle, the four yet alive caught their balance and a hundred feet from the ground, with a frenzied groaning effort, they slowed their fall, steadied, hovered an instant, sank to the ground. Xanten staggered free of the tangle. Men came running. “Are you safe?” called Claghorn.
“Safe, yes. Frightened as well.” Xanten took a deep breath and went to sit on an outcrop of rock.
“What’s happening up there?” asked Claghorn.
“All dead,” said Xanten, “all but a score. Garr has gone mad. He fired on me.”
“Look! Meks on the ramparts!” cried A.L. Morgan.
“There!” cried someone else. “Men! They jump!…No, they are flung!”
Some were men, some were Meks whom they had dragged with them; with awful slowness they toppled to their deaths. No more fell. Castle Hagedorn was in the hands of the Meks.
Xanten considered the complex silhouette, at once so familiar and so strange. “They can’t hope to hold out. We need only destroy the sun-cells, and they can synthesize no syrup.”
“Let us do it now,” said Claghorn, “before they think of this and man the cannon! Birds!”
He went off to give the orders, and forty Birds, each clutching two rocks the size of a man’s head, flapped up, circled the castle and presently returned to report the sun-cells destroyed.
Xanten said, “All that remains is to seal the tunnel entrances against a sudden eruption, which might catch us off guard—then patience.”
“What of the Peasants in the stables—and the Phanes?” asked Hagedorn in a forlorn voice.
Xanten gave his head a slow shake. “He who was not an Expiationist before must become one now.”
Claghorn muttered, “They can survive two months—no more.”
But two months passed, and three months, and four months: then one morning the great portals opened and a haggard Mek stumbled forth. He signaled: “Men: we starve. We have maintained your treasures. Give us our lives or we destroy all before we die.”
Claghorn responded: “These are our terms. We give you your lives. You must clean the castle, remove and bury the corpses. You must repair the spaceships and teach us all you know regarding them. We will then transport you to Etamin Nine.”
2
Five years later Xanten and Glys Meadowsweet, with their two children, had reason to travel north from their home near Sande River. They took occasion to visit Castle Hagedorn, where now lived only two or three dozen folk, among them Hagedorn.
He had aged, so it seemed to Xanten. His hair was white; his face, once bluff and hearty, had become thin, almost waxen. Xanten could not determine his mood.
They stood in the shade of a walnut tree, with castle and crag looming above them. “This is now a great museum,” said Hagedorn. “I am curator, and this will be the function of all the Hagedorns who come after me, for there is incalculable treasure to guard and maintain. Already the feeling of antiquity has come to the castle. The Houses are alive with ghosts. I see them often, especially on the nights of the fêtes…Ah, those were the times, were they not, Xanten?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Xanten. He touched the heads of his two children. “Still, I have no wish to return to them. We are men now, on our own world, as we never were before.”
Hagedorn gave a somewhat regretful assent. He looked up at the vast structure, as if now were the first occasion he had laid eyes on it. “The folk of the future—what will they think of Castle Hagedorn? Its treasures, its books, its tabards?”
“They will come, they will marvel,” said Xanten. “Almost as I do today.”
“There is much at which to marvel. Will you come within, Xanten? There are still flasks of noble essence laid by.”
“Thank you, no,” said Xanten. “There is too much to stir old memories. We will go our way, and I think immediately.”
Hagedorn nodded sadly. “I understand very well. I myself am often given to reverie these days. Well then, goodbye, and journey home with pleasure.”
“We will do so, Hagedorn. Thank you and goodbye.”
Afterword to “The Last Castle”
Sometimes the source of a story is a mystery even to the writer himself: a seepage from his subconscious. Other times the derivation is clear and direct. In the case of “The Last Castle,” both situations are equally true.
The germ of the story was contained in an article dealing with Japanese social interactions. As is well known, Japanese society is highly formalized—much more thoroughly so in the past than during the relatively egalitarian times since the last war.
During the nineteenth century, when a samurai deigned to converse with a person of lower rank, each used markedly different vocabularies, with honorifics precisely calculated to the difference in status. When the person of lower degree discussed the samurai’s activities or intentions, he used a special convention. Never would he pose a simple question such as: “Will your lordship go boar-hunting tomorrow?” This would impute to his lordship a coarse and undignified fervor, a sweating, earnest, lip-licking zeal, which his lordship would have found offensively below his dignity. Instead the underling might ask: “Will your lordship tomorrow amuse himself by trifling at the hunting of a boar?”
In short, the aristocrat was conceded sensibilities of such exquisite nicety, competences of such awful grandeur, that he need only toy with all ordinary activities, in a mood of whimsy
or caprice, in order to achieve dazzling successes.
So, “The Last Castle” concerns a society of somewhat similar folk, and examines their behavior when the society is subjected to great stress.
—Jack Vance 1976
Biographical Sketch & Other Facts
Jack Vance
As of this writing, I have just finished a book—Ports of Call—about a hundred thousand words, complete with punctuation, paragraphs, mistakes, corrections. The book has been consigned to the mail and I am done with it, a fine feeling. The book is different from anything I have done before which is not in itself a sign of excellence, but I do have modest hopes for its success.
In any case, the time has come when I must start a new book. This is not a trivial matter. Characters parade before me; some I like and admire, others I find not useful. The ones I use become very real, and many stay with me always: Cugel, Madouc, Navarth the Mad Poet, Howard Alan Treesong and Wayness Tamm, for instance. Besides the characters to be interviewed, there are a dozen concepts to be pieced together, a locale selected, perhaps a whole new way of life to be studied and evaluated; and every story has, or should have, a mood: the connective tissue which holds the story together. In this regard some writers are adroit, others don’t have a clue.
In short, writing is more difficult than it seems. Nevertheless, it is an occupation which suits me very nicely, and I can’t imagine doing anything else. I am not group-minded by basic preference; I like functioning to my own inclinations, although when necessary I will conform, if only to avoid being ejected from the dinner party.
I decided at a relatively early age that I would be a writer, which, along with the obvious advantages, would allow me to gratify my already well-developed streak of wanderlust. As far back as I can recall, I have been fascinated by exotic destinations: the ‘far-off places with sweet-sounding names’. The romance of travel then was vastly more vivid and compelling than it is now. On the news-stands were Argosy, Blue Book, Adventure, Golden Book—all vehicles of romance. Where are their like now?
My first work of fiction, when I was nine, was a cowboy story written on a typewriter in my grandfather’s office which, unluckily, was never finished. Next came a story which I not only finished but sent off to the Saturday Evening Post. It was a tale of the South Seas, complete with schooners, copra, and rascally Lascars. I don’t know whether or not the Post accepted the story; they never returned it and I was never paid.
The glamour of travel affected me more directly, as well. When I was eleven or twelve, I resolved to float down the Danube by folboot, from Donaueschingen to the Black Sea, and began making serious plans to do so. First, I procured dozens of maps, brochures, travel guides from the German Tourist Office. I planned the trip in detail, deciding which castle to visit, at which village to halt for the night. Lovely dreams! I was not deterred by the fact that I had not a chance in the world to finance the venture. It is rather sad that in my later travels, hither and yon, never did I float down the Danube in any sort of boat whatever.
I was born in San Francisco, in that stylish and high-class district known as Pacific Heights, the third of five children. We had a large three-story house with a beautiful view over the bay. My older brothers were skilled at recognizing the passenger liners steaming in through the Golden Gate by their colour, smokestacks and other insignia. I was too young to participate but I thought it sophisticated and desirable to know. From this perspective, those years seem to quiver through a golden glow. Life was placid and full of small joys, like riding my velocipede on the sidewalk, and playing games with a little girl who lived down the street.
Somewhat belatedly, my father discovered he was not inclined to domesticity. He stood austerely aloof from his five children, so far as this was possible. He was a large handsome man: bluff, dogmatic and a bit of a bully. I remember him with awe, apprehension and dislike.
My maternal grandfather was a prominent lawyer in those days. He owned a ranch over the hills in Contra Costa County, adjacent to Little Dutch Slough, one of the many waterways meshing the region. At this time the family moved up to the ranch, purportedly for the summer, but my father rented out our San Francisco house for a large sum to a millionaire. He then took off for Mexico and used the rent to pay child support. We never returned to the city. At the time we were baffled and angry, especially my mother, who blamed my father’s sister, my terrible Aunt Nellie. No doubt my mother was right, but I think it was all for the best. I spent an idyllic childhood at the ranch. My bedroom overlooked a beautiful view of Mount Diablo and the Coast Range, running from far in the north to far south.
The ranch was a wonderful place. The kids could swim, sail, ride horses, camp along the river, go barefoot in the sand, climb trees and read books. I built a variety of fancy kites, which I flew out in the alfalfa fields. I also built several sailboats, of scrap lumber and painted canvas, which did not sail very well.
Every weekend my grandfather would arrive in his Twin-Six Packard, along with my grandmother, great-grandmother, several cronies, supplies of various kinds: an exciting time. He would arrive late Friday afternoon. We would have the yard raked and tidy; there would be an atmosphere of imminence. Presently we would see the big old car coming along the road, and the shout would go up. The car would turn into the driveway, half under the trees, discharge passengers and supplies amid happy confusion. For two days the ranch would hum with activity while my grandfather prosecuted his various projects, most often assisted by my younger brother David, who was more obliging than I.
Sunday afternoon was the climactic dinner, usually a six-rib roast beef or something similar. Then the party would climb into the Packard and depart the way it had come. My mother would heave a sigh of relief and collapse into a chair, but next week it would happen all over again. Lovely!
I grew up a country boy. I attended the two-room Iron House School and then the high school at Brentwood (not the Brentwood near Beverly Hills, but the Brentwood near the conflux of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers). When we originally moved up from the city, my mother brought along her books, cases and cases of them. They were a disparate lot: serious books, frivolous romances such as the works of Robert W. Chambers and others similar; also a surprising amount of fantasy and tales of the occult. Chambers himself wrote some odd books: The Tracer of Lost Persons, The King in Yellow, The Maker of Moons, perhaps others. There were also the books of E.R. Burroughs: the Tarzan books and the Barsoom set. There were a few byJules Verne; I remember particularly The Mysterious Island.
With five children in the family we also had hundreds of books from the Edward Stratemeyer fiction factory: The Motor Boys, Dave Porter, Tom Swift, Bobbsey Twins, Jack Lorimer, etcetera. I have read all of them a hundred times. We also had the Oz books, Uncle Wiggily, much else which I have forgotten. All of the children received books for birthday and Christmas. I remember that my devious Aunt Nellie gave me The Greene Murder Case by S.S. Van Dine for Christmas, when I was about twelve. Clearly someone had given it to her and she did not know what else to do with it. However, I enjoyed it.
Edward Stratemeyer also produced a remarkable set under the house name ‘Roy Rockwood’. I often wonder who wrote them. The titles were Through Space to Mars, Lost on the Moon, Voyage to the Center of the Earth, and others. So far as I know, these were the first popular science fiction books published—not counting Wells and Verne.
In any event, these books were my earliest reading. I went on from there. I was a precocious child, and I resolved to read everything I could get my hands on, in order to encapsulate the whole of human knowledge. At the time the project seemed less impractical than it does today. I did as best I could and by the time I was ten or twelve had read what I suspect was equivalent to a college education. No question but that I was bright, but probably not very likeable, nor dripping with charm. In the first place, I was quietly arrogant, also introverted, with my own view on how the world should be run. I was not at all gregarious, and without social skills.
I was considered something of a freak by my brothers and sister. The older boys never altered their opinions; they are now dead. I hasten to say that there is no macabre connection between these two facts.
There were various factors involved, but I like to think my immature behavior was for the most part attributable to my youth, only fifteen at graduation from high school. I was shy around girls. The ones I admired and tried to impress would have nothing to do with me, which caused me bafflement. My intentions were honourable enough, as I recall; I merely wanted someone beautiful to listen to my daydreams and admire the scope of my intelligence. I see now that I did everything wrong.
Fortunately, I had other interests than girls. I played tennis; I was an excellent swimmer. I began to write poetry at this time, which I considered quite good. It was at least fervent and unconventional in subject matter. At a dinner party at my Aunt Nellie’s house in the city, I met Stanton Coblentz, an early science fiction writer and editor of Wings, a poetry magazine. I allowed him to read some of my works, but he was not at all impressed.
Meanwhile, I had discovered Weird Tales and Amazing Stories. Also the works of P.G. Wodehouse, Jeffrey Farnol and Lord Dunsany, all of whom I consider important influences in my own development. Wodehouse I consider a tremendously underrated writer.
Upon graduation from high school I took stock of myself, and saw much room for improvement. I decided to make myself over, avoiding childish eccentricities, changing myself into a person competent, skilful, adroit and a devil with the girls. It would mean lifting myself by the bootstraps, since there was no one to give me instructions. I would succeed by sheer force of will, if necessary.
First, the girls. I let my hair grow a bit longer, smeared on a teaspoon of Vaseline and combed it back in the style of Jack Teagarden and Rudolph Valentino, but to no avail. The girls still laughed when I sashayed past. I bought a motorcycle which I enjoyed tremendously, and performed a number of rash, dangerous deeds which I will not enumerate, since I am a bit doubtful concerning the statute of limitations.