The Exotic Enchanter

by L. Sprague De Camp

  “Hey, you pretty spear-shaft! How about a little quick fucky-fucky? As you can see, I have the equipment! He glanced down to where he displayed the physical symptom of lust for all to see, since Barsoomian costume made no attempt to conceal the private parts. Angrily, Betphebe spat:

  “Begone, sir! I am an honest wife?”

  “Is that so?” said the assassin, loosening his longsword in its scabbard. “Is one of those two behind you wearing Heliumite metal, your husband? Tell me which, and I’ll make you an instant widow. Then I’ll show you some lovemaking, the like of which you have never enjoyed!”

  Shea tapped the man’s shoulder, at the same time bringing up his revolver. He grated: “Sir. I am the husband in question. If you bother us, I shall shoot you dead!”

  “Shea!” cried Ras Thavas, “Put that pistol away! You know not what you do! To use a gun is a capital offense, even in self-defense! I will take care of this jackanapes, and you must not interfere! Stand clear! The code does not permit you to help me.” Ras Thavas drew his own longsword, saying:

  “Sir guardsman, anyone who confronts my friend here must answer to me. He is a foreigner who does not fully understand local customs, whereas you am a mannerless ulsio. Draw, scoundrel!”

  The guardsman’s sword came out with a wheep. Slaves rushed out from behind the food counters and shooed people away to clear a space. The guardsman roared:

  “Lay on!”

  Ras Thavas and the guardsman crossed blades. In an instant they were at it, zip-whisht-clang!

  Shea watched uncertainly, torn between a natural urge to help Ras Thavas and the command laid upon him not to interfere. He expected the guardsman to make mincemeat of the scientist, whom he persisted in viewing as elderly despite his youthful body. But to his surprise, after a few short passages, Ras Thavas nailed his opponent with a coupé and lunge, driving his sword through the guardsman’s beefy chest and out his back. The guardsman folded upon the floor.

  Ras Thavas wiped his blade with a napkin that someone handed him and sheathed his sword. A couple of slaves picked up the corpse by wrists and ankles and bore it out, while another cleaned up a small puddle of blood with a mop. Another staff member chivvied people back into line at the serving tables.

  Shea paid for their meals and said: “Doctor, I never expected to see you such a swashbuckler?”

  “That was nothing,” said Ras Thavas. “I have listened to your words and practised with you at singlesticks, and I simply put my knowledge to use. Now, I trust, there will be no more aspersions on my courage!”

  Evidently, thought Shea, his remarks about the incident of the pack of wild calots had rankled. Otherwise Ras Thavas might not have been so ready to take up Shea’s quarrel with the guardsman. Shea was tempted to twit Ras Thavas on displaying a common human weakness, despite his profession of lofty superiority to such sentiments, but thought better of it. Instead he said:

  “You certainly picked up fencing skill in record time. On Earth it takes years of practice to attain that level.”

  Ras Thavas smiled thinly. “I would attribute that accomplishment to my superior mind, did I not know that allusions thereto displease you. Let us assume that my youthful athlete’s body retains some reflexes from its former life.”

  “What will be done about the guardsman’s death? Shall we be arrested?”

  “Naught, since he met it in a fair fight. I have committed no legal offense. But if you had fired that gun, we should all have been in deep trouble.”

  “Kindly explain. Why is it all right to puncture a man with a sword but illegal to do the same thing to him with a bullet?”

  “That requires thought to make dear. For many centuries, slaves have been forbidden, for obvious reasons, to wear weapons. So a sword has, as it were, become the symbol of a free man — what one of you aliens would call a gentleman.

  “At the same time, the tradition grew up that, to prove his free manhood, a man must be prepared to defend his honor with his sword. So sword fights to the death, like that between me and the late guardsman, were accepted as the normal order of things. Of course, there is an element of luck in the outcome of such a duel; but at least most Barsoomians accepted the notion that such a fight was mainly decided by the skill of the fighters.

  “Then, a few centuries ago, they invented guns. This obviously enlarged the role of luck in the outcome. Hence death by shooting was no longer deemed a ‘fair fight’ and was considered illegal. I do not personally consider these fine distinctions logically sound. To me, courage is an irrational sentiment, even though my glands may force me betimes to attempt to display it. But that is how things now stand on Barsoom.”

  “Seems to me,” said Shea, “that Barsoom has a strong case of class rule here: a majority of slaves, bossed around and bullied by a minority of sword-wearing free men.”

  “True, O Shea. But from what I hear of Jasoomian — or perhaps I should say Earthly — social systems, all embody a similar distinction betwixt the ruling minority and the subject majority. Laws are passed and constitutions adopted to enlarge the power of the ruled majority over their own destinies, but the ruling minority somehow keeps a grip on power, whether they pass under the name of counts, colonels, capitalists, or commissars. It must be a tendency built into the species’ makeup.

  “If the ruled revolt and expel or exterminate the ruling class, almost instantly the more aggressive and energetic members of the ruled class form a new ruling class, lording it over the rest. In theory, a free man is not supposed to use his sword on a slave, since that is obviously unfair. But every day we hear of cases where a free Barsoomian lost his temper with a slave and sworded him to death.”

  “Is anything ever done to the swording bully?”

  “Not unless the slave’s owner takes offense at the loss of his servitor and challenges the slayer. The result of the duel, of course, depends on the strength and skill of the combatants — and, inevitably, on luck.”

  “So justice has nothing to do with it,” said Shea, rising to leave the eatery. Belphebe and Ras Thavas followed him out. The scientist said:

  “What is justice? An ideal, which everyone interprets to his own advantage. Methinks the hostelry we are now passing might furnish us and our beasts with suitable accommodations.”

  Belphebe said: “Darling your telling me what sexual puritans the Barsoomians were was a little premature.”

  Shea sighed. “Live and learn.”

  * * *

  The following morning, Shea and Ras Thavas had to wait at the entrance to the hostelry for Belphebe to appear from the women’s half of the building. Ras Thavas pestered the clerk to draw him a map showing how to find the house where dwelt Mar Vas, his local informant.

  “Turn right as you leave,” said the clerk, “and at the third street on the right, turn right again. Number fourteen is the last house at the end of a long block on your left. You cannot miss it.”

  Shea muttered: “I’ve had people tell me before that I couldn’t miss the place I was looking for, and gotten as thoroughly lost as ever.”

  Ras Thavas: “I hear that on Jasoom, the streets all have names or numbers, shown by signposts; and the houses are numbered in regular order, with number fifteen following number fourteen and so forth.”

  “I don’t know about Jasoom,” said Shea, “but that’s how we do it on Earth. It makes places much easier to find.”

  “You would never get Barsoomians to agree. Why, if anyone could be tracked down from the name of his street and the number of his house, any assassin or enemy could find and kill him! That is the reason that the costlier houses can be raised on telescoping pillars at night.”

  “Since Jed Ur Jan,” said Shea in a lowered voice, “is himself an old assassin, I should think he’d want to make things easier for assassins.”

  Ras Thavas smiled crookedly. “A Jed soon discovers that he cannot rely solely upon one small part of the populace for support, especially in a world as much given to homicide as Barsoom. A rule
r can keep his subjects under control for a while by terrifying penalties. But if he makes himself disliked enough. sooner or later a subject — even a mere slave — will try to shoot or stab him.”

  Belphebe appeared. As she and Shea exchanged a morning embrace, Ras Thavas said: “Lady Belphebe, had I met you a thousand years ago, my life might have followed a different pattern. I have watched with admiration how you and Doctor Shea act in concert, supporting each other. Even though you squabble occasionally, you always present a united front against the outside world. And I believe the building across the street is the one whereto the clerk directed us.”

  The building in question was a rooming house, run by a red Barsoomian landlady with four slaves. She informed them that Mar Vas had gone out earlier and had not returned. He had left word, however, that if Doctor Ras Thavas came, he was to be shown to Mar Vas’ room.

  The room turned out to be used as a home laboratory, with tables here and there bearing unfamiliar pieces of equipment and a tangle of wires everywhere.

  “You behold Mar Vas’ experiments in wireless communication,” said Ras Thavas. “Do you understand this apparatus?”

  “I’m afraid not,” said Shea. “On Earth they used to sell do-it-yourself kits for making such apparatus, but in my time they sold complete sets, contained in a single compact box, so big.” Shea illustrated with gestures. “I never mastered that skill, unfortunately.”

  In answer to further questions, the landlady said: “I remember his saying something about visiting the Arms Fair.”

  “Where is that?” asked Shea.

  “Go that way along the nearest cross street till you come to the public fountain, then turn right. . . .”

  * * *

  Another hour found them before a circus-sized tent, with swarms of Barsoomians going in and out. To one side of the entrance, a stand bore a spacious sign. Shea could not read the writing; for, while Barsoom spoke essentially one language, each nation had evolved its own system of writing. He appealed to Ras Thavas for a translation. The latter studied the sign for some seconds, then spoke:

  “It says; Down with the Restrictionists! They seek to deprive us honest men of means of defending our lives, property, and honor. They would reduce all free Barsoomians to the status of sniveling slaves! Smite the cowardly scoundrels!”

  “What’s that all about?” asked Shea. “Who are the Restrictionists?”

  “They are members of a movement to restrict the right of free Barsoomians to go armed. Since a sword is a symbol of being a free man, any threat to take away a man’s sword incites him to furious resistance.”

  “How about guns?”

  “Meseems they have not got around to considering guns yet, since guns are a fairly new feature of Barsoomian personal armament. The gun was invented in my own lifetime and has not yet acquired the status in Barsoomian culture that the sword has. You have already learned that, if threatened with a sword, it is deemed a dreadful crime to defend oneself with a gun, which is thought a cowardly, unmanly weapon. But, because of its ability to slay at a distance, in some places the gun is inching its way into the status that the sword has long enjoyed.”

  “Will the Barsoomians get around to forbidding guns in private hands?”

  “They may.” Ras Thavas gave a cynical smile. “But even if they manage to stop all carrying of weapons, the only result will be an increase in population, until numbers are again limited by lack of food and water.”

  Shea frowned at the sign. “What’s that squiggle down at the bottom?”

  “That, my good Doctor Shea, is the colophon of the Arms Makers Guild, who paid for the sign. I would not be so misanthropic as to accuse the Guild of erecting the sign purely from selfish motives, to stimulate the arms business.” The scientist snickered. “But you may judge that matter for yourself. Here, Shea, it is up to you to pay for our admission. The entrance fee is small. I trust that you changed enough of your Jasoomian — excuse me; I meant Earthian — gold pieces into local currency?”

  Shea said “I think we shall manage. The kind of man you claim you would like to be would say: Oh, let me pay for all the admissions? Then I would argue the matter, and you would gradually let yourself be talked out of paying.”

  “Meseems a silly business, making an offer that I do not intend to keep. What if you then said: ‘Thank you, Doctor; that is generous of you!’?”

  “You would pay with a good grace, not even looking sour at the prospect. That is how things are done among human beings.”

  Shea handed in the required number of elliptical coins. Inside, they found long aisles between rows of tables, on which arms displayed by dealers were set out in lavish quantities: swords, daggers, muskets, pistols, and less usual arms such as battle-axes, pikes, halberds, maces, and fauchards. Shea remarked:

  “Doctor, one thing about Barsoom puzzles me. For folk who make such a fetish of combat with hand weapons, nobody gives a thought to armor, or even shields. On Earth, at one time the art of making armor was highly developed, so that a fighter could go into battle completely encased in steel, so cleverly made that he could move about almost as freely as he could without any armor.”

  “The matter has been discussed on Barsoom,” said Ras Thavas. “For centuries, the general opinion among the sword-wearing class has been that wearing armor is an open admission of cowardice. Most Barsoomian warriors would rather die bravely than survive by means deemed unmanly.”

  “Seems a little extreme,” said Shea. “We Earthians admire courage, too, but not to the point of suicide.”

  Ras Thavas chuckled. “I know what you mean. As the philosopher Kong Dusar said, any virtue carried to an extreme becomes a vice. But the actual reason for the Barsoomian disdain of armor — albeit Barsoomians are loath to admit it — is that before guns appeared, during the first century or two of my former life, our smiths were too unskilled to make practical suits of the sort you speak of. They would have so weighed down the warrior that he could not make full use of his limbs.

  “Then came the gun, and to make armor bullet-proof it would have to be even thicker and heavier, So sword wearers, unable to obtain suits of practical armor, made a virtue of fighting naked.”

  Shea said: “Some Earthian peoples, like the ancient Greeks and Celts, went through similar stages. When their smiths learned how to make good, practical armor, the warriors put it on. On Earth, the gun had an effect somewhat like that on Barsoom; it caused the virtual abandonment of armor.”

  “Doctor Ras Thavas!” cried a voice in the crowd. It was the informant Mar Vas whom Ras Thavas introduced to the Sheas. Shea was in the midst of asking after the whereabouts of Malambroso and Voglinda, when an infantile shriek of “Mummee! Daddee!” cut through the background noise.

  Between them and the front entrance stood Doctor Malambroso, in his gold-embroidered purple robe conspicuous amid the throng of naked Barsoomians. On his head he wore an obviously Earthly Panama hat. In one hand he held the end of a leash, the other end of which was affixed to a harness securing the small body of three-year-old Voglinda Shea.

  “Laws or no,” snarled Shea, “I’m not taking chances with that guy.” He drew his revolver.

  As he did so, Malambroso’s free hand came out from his robe bearing an egglike object, which he tossed on the ground between himself and the Sheas. Shea began:

  “Your spells are no damned good here! So hands —”

  “No magic!” shouted Malambroso, “Just an ordinaiy smoke —”

  The egglike object burst with a loud pop, emitting a vast cloud of smoke, which filled the area around them. Shea plunged into the cloud, while behind him Belphebe cried:

  “Harold! Where are you?”

  “Here!” shouted Shea, coughing. “Try to reach the front entrance!”

  Shea ran full-tilt into the ticket taker’s booth upsetting the stand. He groped his way out the front entrance, cursing a bruised knee. Behind him the ticket taker, cursing even more vehemently, struggled to right his stan
d.

  As Shea emerged from the tent, he saw Malambroso, carrying Voglinda, leap into the first of a row of taxicarriages at the curb, each harnessed to a single thoat. Malambroso shouted orders to the driver, who vaulted into the saddle of his thoat. Off went thoat, postillion, gig, magician, Shea infant, and all.

  Shea and Belphebe reached the second carriage in the row just as the first disappeared at a gallop around a corner. To the second driver, Shea shouted:

  “Did you hear where that one was going?”

  “To the airport, sir,” said the second driver.

  “Then we’re going to the airport, right away! Catch up with that other rig if you can!”

  He and Belphebe piled into the cab. Ras Thavas, breathing hard from his dash from the tent entrance, squeezed in between them, making three on a seat designed for two. Luckily, all three passengers were lean rather than stout.

  Leisurely, the driver swung into his thoat saddle, and the carriage pulled out. They wove this way and that, rounding corners until Shea felt totally lost. He called:

  “Can’t you go faster?”

  The driver replied: “No, sir. There are three of you, and I shall have to charge extra for the load. But I will not kill poor Blossom when she has all she can do to move the vehicle!”

  * * *

  Shea sat fuming until they came to a broad field on which a score of slaves were at work, filling holes and raking the ground level. Off to one side, several Barsoomian fliers were parked before a row of sheds, evidently the local version of hangars. Shea asked:

  “Does one need a pilot’s license or a series of examinations here?”

  “Not to my knowledge.” said Ras Thavas. “Zodanga is still a citadel of rugged individualism, with all its advantages and disadvantages. If one has money, one can buy or rent a flier and take off whenever one wishes.”

  “Then we’ll get a flier. Doctor, I’ll let you dicker over the fare, and I’ll repay you. Do they tip here, and if so how much?”