by Jack Vance
“Ghosts? Nonsense. They are men, exactly like the Grays, except that they wear green. Your brain refuses to see men in green … I have heard of such things, such obstructions of the mind …”
She said in an injured tone, “No other Grays see them. Perhaps it is you who suffers the hallucinations.”
“Perhaps,” agreed Ulan Dhor with a wry grin. They sat for a space in the dusty stillness of the old tower, then Ulan Dhor sat forward, clasped his knees, frowning. Lethargy was the precursor of defeat. “We must consider this Temple of Pansiu.”
“We shall be killed,” she said simply.
Ulan Dhor, already in better spirits, said, “You should practice optimism … Where can I find another air-car?”
She stared at him. “Surely you are a madman!”
Ulan Dhor rose to his feet. “Where may one be found?”
She shook her head. “You are resolved on death, one way or another.” She rose also. “We will ascend the Shaft of No-weight to the tower’s highest level.”
Without hesitation she stepped into the void, and Ulan Dhor gingerly followed. To the dizziest height they floated, and the walls of the shaft converged to a point far below. At the topmost landing they pulled themselves to solidity, stepped out on a terrace high up in the clean winds. Higher than the central mountains they stood, and the streets of Ampridatvir were gray threads far below. The harbor was a basin, and the sea spread away into the haze at the horizon.
Three air-cars rested on the terrace, and the metal was as bright, the glass as clear, the enamel as vivid as if the cars had just dropped from the sky.
They went to the nearest; Ulan Dhor pressed the entry button, and the dome slid back with a thin dry hiss of friction.
The interior was like that of the other car — a long cushioned seat, a globe mounted on a rod, a number of switches. The cloth of the seat crackled with age as Ulan Dhor prodded it with his hand, and the trapped air smelt very stale. He stepped inside, and Elai followed. “I will accompany you; death by falling is faster than starvation, and less painful than the rocks …”
“I hope we will neither fall nor starve,” replied Ulan Dhor. Cautiously he touched the switches, ready to throw them back at any dangerous manifestation.
The dome snapped over their heads; relays thousands of years old meshed, cams twisted, shafts plunged home. The air-car jerked, lofted up into the red and dark blue sky. Ulan Dhor grasped the globe, found how to turn the boat, how to twist the nose up or down. This was pure joy, intoxication — wonderful mastery of the air! It was easier than he had imagined. It was easier than walking. He tried all the handles and switches, found how to hover, drop, brake. He found the speed handle and pushed it far over, and the wind sang past the air-boat. Far over the sea they flew, until the island was blue loom at the rim of the world. Low and high — skimming the wave crests, plunging through the magenta wisps of the upper clouds.
Elai sat relaxed, calm, exalted. She had changed; she seemed closer to Ulan Dhor than to Ampridatvir; some subtle tie had been cut. “Let’s go on,” she said. “On and on and on — across the world, past the forests …”
Ulan Dhor glanced at her sideways. She was very beautiful now — cleaner, finer, stronger than the women he had known in Kaiin. He said regretfully, “Then we would starve indeed — for neither of us has the craft to survive in the wilderness. And I am bound to seek the tablets …”
She sighed. “Very well. We will be killed. What does it matter? All Earth dies …”
Evening came, and they returned to Ampridatvir. “There,” said Elai, “there is the Temple of Cazdal and there the Temple of Pansiu.”
Ulan Dhor dropped the boat low over the Temple of Pansiu. “Where is the entrance?”
“Through the arch — and every place holds a different danger.”
“But we fly,” Ulan Dhor reminded her.
He lowered the boat ten feet above the ground and slid it through the arch.
Guided by a dim light ahead, Ulan Dhor maneuvered the boat down the dark passage, through another arch; and they were in the nave.
The podium where the tablet sat was like the citadel of a walled city. The first obstacle was a wide pit, backed by a glassy wall. Then there was a moat of sulfur-colored liquid, and beyond, in an open space, five men kept a torpid watch. Undetected Ulan Dhor moved the boat through the upper shadows and halted directly over the podium.
“Ready now,” he muttered, and grounded the boat. The glistening tablet was almost within reach. He raised the dome; Elai leaned out, seized the tablet. The five guards gave an anguished roar, rushed forward.
“Back!” cried Ulan Dhor. He warded off a flying spear with his sword. She drew back with the tablet, Ulan Dhor slammed the dome. The guards leapt on the ship, clawing at the smooth metal, beating at it with their fists. The ship rose high; one by one they lost their grip, fell screaming to the floor.
Back through the arch, down the black passageway, through the entrance and out into the dark sky. Behind them a great horn set up a crazy clangor.
Ulan Dhor examined his prize — an oval sheet of transparent substance bearing a dozen lines of meaningless marks.
“We have won!” said Elai raptly. “You are the Lord of Ampridatvir!”
“Half yet remains,” said Ulan Dhor. “There is still the tablet in the Temple of Cazdal.”
“But — it is madness! Already you have —”
“One is useless without the other.”
Her wild arguments subsided only as they hovered over the arch into Cazdal’s Temple.
As the boat glided through the dark gap it struck a thread which dropped a great load of stones from a chute. The first of these, striking the sloping side of the air-car, buffeted it away. Ulan Dhor cursed. The guards would be alert and watchful.
He drifted along at the very top of the passage, hidden in the murk. Presently two guards, bearing torches and careful of their steps, came to investigate the sound. They passed directly below the boat, and Ulan Dhor hastened forward, through the arch into the nave. As in the Temple of Pansiu, the tablet gleamed in the middle of a fortress.
The guards were wide awake, nervously watching the opening.
“Boldness, now!” said Ulan Dhor. He sent the boat darting across the walls and pits and seething moat, settled beside the podium, snapped the dome back, sprang out. He seized the tablet as the guards came roaring forward, spears extended. The foremost flung his spear; Ulan Dhor struck it down and tossed the tablet into the boat.
But they were upon him; he would be impaled if he sought to climb within the boat. He sprang forward, hewed off the shaft of one spear, chopped at one man’s shoulder on the back-sweep, seized the shaft of the third spear, and pulled the man into range of his sword point. The third guard fell back, shouting for help. Ulan Dhor turned, leapt into the boat. The guard rushed forward, Ulan Dhor whirled and met him with the point of his sword in his cheek. Spouting blood and wailing hysterically, the guard fell back. Ulan Dhor threw the lift lever; the boat rose high and moved toward the opening.
And presently the alarm horn at Cazdal’s Temple was adding its harsh yell to the sound from across the city.
The boat drifted slowly through the sky.
“Look!” said Elai, grasping his arm. By torchlight men and women crowded and milled in the streets — Greens and Grays, panicked by the message of the horns.
Elai gasped. “Ulan Dhor! I see! I see! The men in Green! Is it possible … Have they always been …”
“The brain-spell has broken,” said Ulan Dhor, “and not only for you. Below they see each other, too …”
For the first time in memory, Greens and Grays looked at each other. Their faces twisted, contorted. In the flicker of torches Ulan Dhor saw them drawing back in revulsion from each other, and heard the tumult of their cries: “Demon! … Demon! … Gray ghost! … Vile Green Demon! …”
Thousands of obsessed torch-bearers sidled past each other, glowering, reviling each other, screaming in
hate and fear. They were all mad, he thought — tangled, constricted of brain …
As by a secret signal, the crowd seethed into battle, and the hateful yells curdled Ulan Dhor’s blood. Elai turned sobbing away. Terrible work was done, on men, women, children — no matter who the victim, if he wore the opposite color.
A louder snarling arose at the edge of the mob — a joyful sound, and a dozen shambling Gauns appeared, towering above the Greens and Grays. They rended, tore, ripped, and insane hate melted before insane fear. Greens and Grays separated, and ran to their homes, and the Gauns roamed the streets alone.
Ulan Dhor tore his glance away and held his forehead. “Was this my doing? … Was this a deed of mine?”
“Sooner or later it would have happened,” said Elai dully. “Unless Earth waned and died first …”
Ulan Dhor picked up the two tablets. “And here is what I sought to attain — the tablets of Rogol Domedonfors. They pulled me a thousand leagues across the Melantine; I have them in my hands now, and they are like worthless shards of glass …”
The boat floated high, and Ampridatvir became a setting of pale crystals in the starlight. In the luminescence of the instrument panel, Ulan Dhor fitted the two tablets together. The marks merged, became characters, and the characters bore the words of the ancient magician:
Faithless children — Rogol Domedonfors dies, and so lives forever in the Ampridatvir he has loved and served! When intelligence and good will restore order to the city; or when blood and steel teaches the folly of bridled credulity and passion, and all but the toughest dead: — then shall these tablets be read. And I say to him who reads it, go to the Tower of Fate with the yellow dome, ascend to the topmost floor, show red to the left eye of Rogol Domedonfors, yellow to the right eye, and then blue to both; do this, I say, and share the power of Rogol Domedonfors.
Ulan Dhor asked, “Where is the Tower of Fate?”
Elai shook her head. “There is Rodeil’s Tower, and the Red Tower and the Tower of the Screaming Ghost, and the Tower of Trumpets and the Bird’s Tower, and the Tower of Gauns — but I know of no Tower of Fate.”
“Which tower has a yellow dome?”
“I don’t know.”
“We will search in the morning.”
“In the morning,” she said leaning against him drowsily.
“The morning …” said Ulan Dhor, fondling her yellow hair.
When the old red sun rose, they drifted back over the city and found the people of Ampridatvir awake before them, intent on murder.
The fighting and the killing was not so wild as the night before. It was a craftier slaughter. Stealthy groups of men waylaid stragglers, or broke into houses to strangle women and children.
Ulan Dhor muttered, “Soon there will be none left in Ampridatvir upon whom to work Rogol Domedonfors’ power.” He turned to Elai. “Have you no father, no mother, for whom you fear?”
She shook her head. “I have lived my life with a dull and tyrannical uncle.”
Ulan Dhor turned away. He saw a yellow dome; no other was visible: The Tower of Fate.
“There.” He pointed, turned down the nose of the air-car.
Parking on a high level, they entered the dusty corridors, found an anti-gravity shaft, and rose to the topmost floor. Here they found a small chamber, decorated with vivid murals. The scene was a court of ancient Ampridatvir. Men and women in colored silks conversed and banqueted and, in the central plaque, paid homage to a patriarchal ruler with a rugged chin, burning eyes, and a white beard. He was clad in a purple and black gown and sat on a carved chair.
“Rogol Domedonfors!” murmured Elai, and the room held its breath, grew still. They felt the stir their living breath made in the long-quiet air, and the depicted eyes stared deep into their brains …
Ulan Dhor said, “‘Red to the left eye, yellow to the right; then blue to both.’ Well — there are blue tiles in the hall, and I wear a red coat.”
They found blue and yellow tiles, and Ulan Dhor cut a strip from the hem of his tunic.
Red to the left eye, yellow to the right. Blue to both. A click, a screech, a whirring like a hundred bee-hives.
The wall opened on a flight of steps. Ulan Dhor entered, and, with Elai breathing hard at his back, mounted the steps.
They came out in a flood of daylight, under the dome itself. In the center on a pedestal sat a glistening round-topped cylinder, black and vitreous.
The whirring rose to a shrill whine. The cylinder quivered, softened, became barely transparent, slumped a trifle. In the center hung a pulpy white mass — a brain?
The cylinder was alive.
It sprouted pseudopods which poised wavering in the air. Ulan Dhor and Elai watched frozen, close together. One black finger shaped itself to an eye, another formed a mouth. The eye inspected them carefully.
The mouth said cheerfully, “Greetings across time, greetings. So you have come at last to rouse old Rogol Domedonfors from his dreams? I have dreamed long and well — but it seems for an unconscionable period. How long? Twenty years? Fifty years? Let me look.”
The eye swung to a tube on the wall, a quarter full of gray powder.
The mouth gave a cry of wonder. “The energy has nearly dissipated! How long have I slept? With a half-life of 1,200 years — over five thousand years!” The eye swung back to Ulan Dhor and Elai. “Who are you then? Where are my bickering subjects, the adherents of Pansiu and Cazdal? Did they kill themselves then, so long ago?”
“No,” said Ulan Dhor with a sick grin. “They are still fighting in the streets.”
The eye-tentacle extended swiftly, thrust through a window, and looked down over the city. The central jelly twitched, became suffused with an orange glow. The voice spoke again, and it held a terrible harshness. Ulan Dhor’s neck tingled and he felt Elai’s hand clenching deep into his arm.
“Five thousand years!” cried the voice. “Five thousand years and the wretches still quarrel? Time has taught them no wisdom? Then stronger agencies must be used. Rogol Domedonfors will show them wisdom. Behold!”
A vast sound came from below, a hundred sharp reports. Ulan Dhor and Elai hastened to the window and looked down. A mind-filling sight occupied the streets.
The ten-foot vestibules leading below the city had snapped open. From each of these licked a great tentacle of black transparent jelly like the substance of the fluid roads.
The tentacles reached into the air, sprouted a hundred branches which pursued the madly fleeing Ampridatvians, caught them, stripped away their robes of gray and green, then whipping them high through the air, dropped them into the great central square. In the chill morning air the populace of Ampridatvir stood mingled naked together and no man could distinguish Green from Gray.
“Rogol Domedonfors has great long arms now,” cried a vast voice, “strong as the moon, all-seeing as the air.”
The voice came from everywhere, nowhere.
“I am Rogol Domedonfors, the last ruler of Ampridatvir. And to this state have you descended? Dwellers in hovels, eaters of filth? Watch — in a moment I repair the neglect of five thousand years!”
The tentacles sprouted a thousand appendages — hard horny cutters, nozzles that spouted blue flame, tremendous scoops, and each appendage sprouted an eye-stalk. These ranged the city, and wherever there was crumbling or mark of age the tentacles dug, tore, blasted, burnt; then spewed new materials into place, and when they passed, new and gleaming structures remained behind.
Many-armed tentacles gathered the litter of ages; when loaded they snapped high through the air, a monstrous catapult, flinging the rubbish far out over the sea. And wherever was gray paint or green paint a tentacle ground off the color, sprayed new various pigments.
Down every street ran the tremendous root-things and off-shoots plunged into every tower, every dwelling, every park and square — demolishing, stripping, building, clearing, repairing. Ampridatvir was gripped and permeated by Rogol Domedonfors as a tree’s roots clench the grou
nd.
In a time measured by breaths, a new Ampridatvir had replaced the ruins, a gleaming, glistening city — proud, intrepid, challenging the red sun.
Ulan Dhor and Elai had watched in a half-conscious, uncomprehending daze. Was it possibly reality; was there such a being which could demolish a city and build it anew while a man watched?
Arms of black jelly darted over the hills of the island, threaded the caves where the Gauns lay gorged and torpid. It seized, snatched them through the air, and dangled them above the huddled Ampridatvians — a hundred Gauns on a hundred tentacles, horrible fruits on a weird tree.
“Look!” boomed a voice, boastful and wild. “These whom you have feared! See how Rogol Domedonfors deals with these!”
The tentacles flicked, and a hundred Gauns hurtled — sprawling, wheeling shapes — high over Ampridatvir; and they fell far out in the sea.
“The creature is mad,” whispered Ulan Dhor to Elai. “The long dreaming has addled its brain.”
“Behold the new Ampridatvir!” boomed the mighty voice. “See it for the first and last time. For now you die! You have proved unworthy of the past — unworthy to worship the new god Rogol Domedonfors. There are two here beside me who shall found the new race —”
Ulan Dhor started in alarm. What? He to live in Ampridatvir under the thumb of the mad super-being?
No.
And perhaps he would never be so close to the brain again.
With a single motion he drew his sword and hurled it point-first into the translucent cylinder of jelly — transfixed the brain, skewered it on the shaft of steel.
The most awful sound yet heard on Earth shattered the air. Men and women went mad in the square.
Rogol Domedonfors’ city-girding tentacles beat up and down in frantic agony, as an injured insect lashes his legs. The gorgeous towers toppled. The Ampridatvians fled shrieking through cataclysm.
Ulan Dhor and Elai ran for the terrace where they had left the air-car. Behind they heard a hoarse whisper — a broken voice.