by Jack Vance
“My dear Mr. See, I have already collected.”
“You’ve done nothing of the sort—and if I catch you in my boat again, I’ll break your scrawny little neck!”
Magnus Ridolph held up his hand. “The hundred thousand munits I wrote off immediately; however, there were six other bets which I placed by proxy; these were paid, and my share of the winnings came to well over three hundred thousand munits. Actually, I regard this sum as return of the capital which I placed with the Outer Empire Investment and Realty Society, plus a reasonable profit. Everything considered, it was a remunerative as well as instructive investment.”
“Ridolph,” muttered See, “one of these days—”
Mrs. Chaim shouldered forward. “Did I hear you say ‘Outer Empire Realty and Investment Society’?”
Magnus Ridolph nodded. “I believe that Mr. See and Mr. Holpers were responsible officials of the concern.”
Mrs. Chaim took two steps forward. See frowned uneasily; Bruce Holpers began to edge away. “Come back here!” cried Mrs. Chaim. “I have a few words to say before I have you arrested.”
Magnus Ridolph turned to Captain Bussey. “You return to Methedeon on schedule, I assume?”
“Yes,” said Captain Bussey dryly.
Magnus Ridolph nodded. “I think I will go aboard at once, since there will be considerable demand for passage.”
“As you wish,” said Captain Bussey.
“I believe No. 12 is your best cabin?”
“I believe so,” said Captain Bussey.
“Then kindly regard Cabin No. 12 as booked.”
“Very well, Mr. Ridolph.”
Magnus Ridolph looked up the mountainside. “I noticed Mr. Pilby running along the ridge a few minutes ago. I think it would be a real kindness if he were notified that the war is over.”
“I think so too,” said Captain Bussey. They looked around the group. Mrs. Chaim was still engaged with Julius See and Bruce Holpers. Mrs. Borgage was displaying her bruises to Mrs. Chickering. No one seemed disposed to act on Magnus Ridolph’s suggestion.
Magnus Ridolph shrugged, climbed the gangway into the Archaeornyx. “Well, no matter. In due course he will very likely come by himself.”
The New Prime
Music, carnival lights, the slide of feet on waxed oak, perfume, muffled talk and laughter.
Arthur Caversham of 20th-century Boston felt air along his skin, and discovered himself to be stark naked.
It was at Janice Paget’s coming out party: three hundred guests in formal evening-wear surrounded him.
For a moment he felt no emotion beyond vague bewilderment. His presence seemed the outcome of logical events, but his memory was fogged and he could find no definite anchor of certainty.
He stood a little apart from the rest of the stag line, facing the red and gold calliope where the orchestra sat. The buffet, the punch-bowl, the champagne wagons, tended by clowns, were to his right; to the left, through the open flap of the circus tent, lay the garden, now lit by strings of colored lights, red, green, yellow, blue, and he caught a glimpse of a merry-go-round across the lawn.
Why was he here? He had no recollection, no sense of purpose…The night was warm. The other young men in the full-dress suits must feel rather sticky, he thought…An idea tugged at a corner of his mind, nagged, teased. There was a significant aspect to the affair which he was overlooking. Refusing to surface, the idea lay like an irritant just below the level of his conscious mind.
He noticed that the young men nearby had moved away from him. He heard chortles of amusement, astonished exclamations. A girl dancing past saw him over the arm of her escort; she gave a startled squeak, jerked her eyes away, giggling and blushing.
Something was wrong. These young men and women were startled and amazed by his naked skin to the point of embarrassment. The gnaw of urgency came closer to the surface. He must do something. Taboos felt with such intensity might not be violated without unpleasant consequences; such was his understanding. He was lacking garments; these he must obtain.
He looked about him, inspecting the young men who watched him with ribald delight, disgust or curiosity. To one of these latter he addressed himself.
“Where can I get some clothing?”
The young man shrugged. “Where did you leave it?”
Two heavy-set men in dark blue uniforms entered the tent; Arthur Caversham saw them from the corner of his eye, and his mind worked with desperate intensity.
This young man seemed typical of those around him. What sort of appeal would have meaning for him? Like any other human being, he could be moved to action if the right chord were struck. By what method could he be moved?
Sympathy?
Threats?
The prospect of advantage or profit?
Caversham rejected all of these. By violating the taboo he had forfeited his claim to sympathy. A threat would excite derision, and he had no profit or advantage to offer. The stimulus must be more devious…He reflected that young men customarily banded together in secret societies. In the thousand cultures he had studied this was almost infallibly true. Long-houses, drug-cults, tongs, instruments of sexual initiation—whatever the name, the external aspects were near-identical: painful initiation, secret signs and passwords, uniformity of group conduct, obligation to service. If this young man were a member of such an association, he might react to an appeal to this group-spirit.
Arthur Caversham said, “I’ve been put in this taboo situation by the brotherhood; in the name of the brotherhood, find me some suitable garments.”
The young man stared, taken aback. “Brotherhood?…You mean fraternity?” Enlightenment spread over his face. “Is this some kind of hell-week stunt?” He laughed. “If it is, they sure go all the way.”
“Yes,” said Arthur Caversham. “My fraternity.”
The young man said, “This way then—and hurry, here comes the law. We’ll take off under the tent. I’ll lend you my topcoat till you make it back to your house.”
The two uniformed men, pushing quietly through the dancers, were almost upon them. The young man lifted the flap of the tent, Arthur Caversham ducked under, his friend followed. Together they ran through the many-colored shadows to a little booth painted with gay red and white stripes near the entrance to the tent.
“You stay back, out of sight,” said the young man. “I’ll check out my coat.”
“Fine,” said Arthur Caversham.
The young man hesitated. “What’s your house? Where do you go to school?”
Arthur Caversham desperately searched his mind for an answer. A single fact reached the surface.
“I’m from Boston.”
“Boston U.? Or M.I.T.? Or Harvard?”
“Harvard.”
“Ah.” The young man nodded. “I’m Washington and Lee myself. What’s your house?”
“I’m not supposed to say.”
“Oh,” said the young man, puzzled but satisfied. “Well—just a minute…”
Bearwald the Halforn halted, numb with despair and exhaustion. The remnants of his platoon sank to the ground around him, and they stared back to where the rim of the night flickered and glowed with fire. Many villages, many wood-gabled farmhouses had been given the torch, and the Brands from Mount Medallion reveled in human blood.
The pulse of a distant drum touched Bearwald’s skin, a deep thrumm-thrumm-thrumm, almost inaudible. Much closer he heard a hoarse human cry of fright, then exultant killing-calls, not human. The Brands were tall, black, man-shaped but not men. They had eyes like lamps of red glass, bright white teeth, and tonight they seemed bent on slaughtering all the men of the world.
“Down,” hissed Kanaw, his right arm-guard, and Bearwald crouched. Across the flaring sky marched a column of tall Brand warriors, rocking jauntily, without fear.
Bearwald said suddenly, “Men—we are thirteen. Fighting arm to arm with these monsters we are helpless. Tonight their total force is down from the mountain; the hive must be nea
r-deserted. What can we lose if we undertake to burn the home-hive of the Brands? Only our lives, and what are these now?”
Kanaw said, “Our lives are nothing; let us be off at once.”
“May our vengeance be great,” said Broctan the left arm-guard. “May the home-hive of the Brands be white ashes this coming morn…”
Mount Medallion loomed overhead; the oval hive lay in Pangborn Valley. At the mouth of the valley, Bearwald divided the platoon into two halves, and placed Kanaw in the van of the second. “We move silently twenty yards apart; thus if either party rouses a Brand, the other may attack from the rear and so kill the monster before the vale is roused. Do all understand?”
“We understand.”
“Forward, then, to the hive.”
The valley reeked with an odor like sour leather. From the direction of the hive came a muffled clanging. The ground was soft, covered with runner moss; careful feet made no sound. Crouching low, Bearwald could see the shapes of his men against the sky—here indigo with a violet rim. The angry glare of burning Echevasa lay down the slope to the south.
A sound. Bearwald hissed, and the columns froze. They waited. Thud thud thud thud came the steps—then a hoarse cry of rage and alarm.
“Kill, kill the beast!” yelled Bearwald.
The Brand swung his club like a scythe, lifting one man, carrying the body around with the after-swing. Bearwald leapt close, struck with his blade, slicing as he hewed; he felt the tendons part, smelled the hot gush of Brand blood.
The clanging had stopped now, and Brand cries carried across the night.
“Forward,” panted Bearwald. “Out with your tinder, strike fire to the hive. Burn, burn, burn—”
Abandoning stealth he ran forward; ahead loomed the dark dome. Immature Brands came surging forth, squeaking and squalling, and with them came the genetrices—twenty-foot monsters crawling on hands and feet, grunting and snapping as they moved.
“Kill!” yelled Bearwald the Halforn. “Kill! Fire, fire, fire!”
He dashed to the hive, crouched, struck spark to tinder, puffed. The rag, soaked with saltpeter, flared; Bearwald fed it straw, thrust it against the hive. The reed-pulp and withe crackled.
He leapt up as a horde of young Brands darted at him. His blade rose and fell; they were cleft, no match for his frenzy. Creeping close came the great Brand genetrices, three of them, swollen of abdomen, exuding an odor vile to his nostrils.
“Out with the fire!” yelled the first. “Fire, out. The Great Mother is tombed within; she lies too fecund to move…Fire, woe, destruction!” And they wailed, “Where are the mighty? Where are our warriors?”
Thrumm-thrumm-thrumm came the sound of skin-drums. Up the valley rolled the echo of hoarse Brand voices.
Bearwald stood back to the blaze. He darted forward, severed the head of a creeping genetrix, jumped back…Where were his men? “Kanaw!” he called. “Laida! Theyat! Gyorg! Broctan!”
He craned his neck, saw the flicker of fires. “Men! Kill the creeping mothers!” And leaping forward once more, he hacked and hewed, and another genetrix sighed and groaned and rolled flat.
The Brand voices changed to alarm; the triumphant drumming halted; the thud of footsteps came loud.
At Bearwald’s back the hive burnt with a pleasant heat. Within came a shrill keening, a cry of vast pain.
In the leaping blaze he saw the charging Brand warriors. Their eyes glared like embers, their teeth shone like white sparks. They came forward, swinging their clubs, and Bearwald gripped his sword, too proud to flee.
After grounding his air-sled Ceistan sat a few minutes inspecting the dead city Therlatch: a wall of earthen brick a hundred feet high, a dusty portal, and a few crumbled roofs lifting above the battlements. Behind the city the desert spread across the near, middle and far distance to the hazy shapes of the Altilune Mountains at the horizon, pink in the light of the twin suns Mig and Pag.
Scouting from above he had seen no sign of life, nor had he expected any, after a thousand years of abandonment. Perhaps a few sand-crawlers wallowed in the heat of the ancient bazaar, perhaps a few leobars inhabited the crumbled masonry. Otherwise the streets would feel his presence with great surprise.
Jumping from the air-sled, Ceistan advanced toward the portal. He passed under, stood looking right and left with interest. In the parched air the brick buildings stood almost eternal. The wind smoothed and rounded all harsh angles; the glass had been cracked by the heat of day and chill of night; heaps of sand clogged the passageways.
Three streets led away from the portal and Ceistan could find nothing to choose between them. Each was dusty, narrow, and each twisted out of his line of vision after a hundred yards.
Ceistan rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Somewhere in the city lay a brass-bound coffer, containing the Crown and Shield Parchment. This, according to tradition, set a precedent for the fief-holder’s immunity from energy-tax. Glay, who was Ceistan’s liege-lord, having cited the parchment as justification for his delinquency, had been challenged to show validity. Now he lay in prison on charge of rebellion, and in the morning he would be nailed to the bottom of an air-sled and sent drifting into the west, unless Ceistan returned with the Parchment.
After a thousand years, there was small cause for optimism, thought Ceistan. However, the lord Glay was a fair man and he would leave no stone unturned…If it existed, the chest presumably would lie in state, in the town’s Legalic, or the Mosque, or in the Hall of Relicts, or possibly in the Sumptuar. He would search all of these, allowing two hours per building; the eight hours so used would see the end to the pink daylight.
At random he entered the street in the center and shortly came to a plaza at whose far end rose the Legalic, the Hall of Records and Decisions. At the façade Ceistan paused, for the interior was dim and gloomy. No sound came from the dusty void save the sigh and whisper of the dry wind. He entered.
The great hall was empty. The walls were illuminated with frescoes of red and blue, as bright as if painted yesterday. There were six to each wall, the top half displaying a criminal act and the bottom half the penalty.
Ceistan passed through the hall, into the chambers behind. He found but dust and the smell of dust. Into the crypts he ventured, and these were lit by oubliettes. There was much litter and rubble, but no brass coffer.
Up and out into the clean air he went, and strode across the plaza to the Mosque, where he entered under the massive architrave.
The Nunciator’s Confirmatory lay wide and bare and clean, for the tesselated floor was swept by a powerful draft. A thousand apertures opened from the low ceiling, each communicating with a cell overhead; thus arranged so that the devout might seek counsel with the Nunciator as he passed below without disturbing their attitudes of supplication. In the center of the pavilion a disk of glass roofed a recess. Below was a coffer and in the coffer rested a brass-bound chest. Ceistan sprang down the steps in high hopes.
But the chest contained jewels—the tiara of the Old Queen, the chest vellopes of the Gonwand Corps, the great ball, half emerald, half ruby, which in the ancient ages was rolled across the plaza to signify the passage of the old year.
Ceistan tumbled them all back in the coffer. Relicts on this planet of dead cities had no value, and synthetic gems were infinitely superior in luminosity and water.
Leaving the Mosque, he studied the height of the suns. The zenith was past, the moving balls of pink fire leaned to the west. He hesitated, frowning and blinking at the hot earthen walls, considering that not impossibly both coffer and parchment were fable, like so many others regarding dead Therlatch.
A gust of wind swirled across the plaza and Ceistan choked on a dry throat. He spat and an acrid taste bit his tongue. An old fountain opened in the wall nearby; he examined it wistfully, but water was not even a memory along these dead streets.
Once again he cleared his throat, spat, turned across the city toward the Hall of Relicts.
He entered the great nave, past squ
are pillars built of earthen brick. Pink shafts of light struck down from the cracks and gaps in the roof, and he was like a midge in the vast space. To all sides were niches cased in glass, and each held an object of ancient reverence: the Armor in which Plange the Forewarned led the Blue Flags; the coronet of the First Serpent; an array of antique Padang skulls; Princess Thermosteraliam’s bridal gown of woven cobweb palladium, as fresh as the day she wore it; the original Tablets of Legality; the great conch throne of an early dynasty; a dozen other objects. But the coffer was not among them.
Ceistan sought for entrance to a possible crypt, but except where the currents of dusty air had channeled grooves in the porphyry, the floor was smooth.
Out once more into the dead streets, and now the suns had passed behind the crumbled roofs, leaving the streets in magenta shadow.
With leaden feet, burning throat and a sense of defeat, Ceistan turned to the Sumptuar, on the citadel. Up the wide steps, under the verdigris-fronted portico into a lobby painted with vivid frescoes. These depicted the maidens of ancient Therlatch at work, at play, amid sorrow and joy: slim creatures with short black hair and glowing ivory skin, as graceful as water-vanes, as round and delectable as chermoyan plums. Ceistan passed through the lobby with many side-glances, thinking sadly that these ancient creatures of delight were now the dust he trod under his feet.
He walked down a corridor which made a circuit of the building, and from which the chambers and apartments of the Sumptuar might be entered. The wisps of a wonderful rug crunched under his feet, and the walls displayed moldy tatters, once tapestries of the finest weave. At the entrance to each chamber a fresco pictured the Sumptuar maiden and the sign she served; at each of these chambers Ceistan paused, made a quick investigation, and so passed on to the next. The beams slanting in through the cracks served him as a gauge of time, and they flattened ever more toward the horizontal.
Chamber after chamber after chamber. There were chests in some, altars in others, cases of manifestos, triptychs, and fonts in others. But never the chest he sought.