Eight Fantasms and Magics

by Jack Vance

  The men dashed ahead. Wasp tubes were leveled. “Halt!” yelled Lord Faide. “Wasps!”

  The wasps came, wings rasping. Nets rose up; wasps struck with a thud. Down went the nets; hard feet crushed the insects. The beetles and the lizard-centipedes appeared, not so many as of the last evening, for a great number had been killed. They darted forward, and a score of men died, but the insects were soon hacked into chunks of reeking brown flesh. Wasps flew, and some struck home;' the agonies of the dying men were unnerving. Presently the wasps likewise decreased in number, and soon there were no more.

  The men faced the First Folk, armed only with thorn-swords and their foam, which now came purple with rage.

  Lord Faide waved his sword; the men advanced and began to kill the First Folk, by dozens, by hundreds.

  Hein Huss came forth and approached Lord Faide. “Call a halt.”

  “A halt? Why? Now we kill these bestial things.”

  “Far better not. Neither need kill the other. Now is the time to show great wisdom.”

  “They have besieged us, caught us in their traps, stung us with their wasps! And you say halt?”

  “They nourish a grudge sixteen hundred years old. Best not to add another one.”

  Lord Faide stared at Hein Huss. “What do you propose?”

  “Peace between the two races, peace and cooperation.”

  “Very well. No more traps, no more plantings, no more breeding of deadly insects.”

  “Call back your men. I will try.”

  Lord Faide cried out, “Men, fall back, Disengage.”

  Reluctantly the troops drew back. Hein Huss approached the huddled mass of purple-foaming First Folk. He waited a moment. They watched him intently. He spoke in their language.

  “You have attacked Faide Keep; you have been defeated. You planned well, but we have proved stronger. At this moment we can kill you. Then we can go on to fire the forest, starting a hundred blazes. Some of the fires you can control. Others not. We can destroy Wildwood. Some First Folk may survive, to hide in the thickets and breed new plans to kill men. This we do not want. Lord Faide has agreed to peace, if you likewise agree. This means no more death traps. Men will freely approach and pass through the forests. In your turn you may freely come out on the moss. Neither race shall molest the other. Which do you choose? Extinction—or peace?”

  The purple foam no longer dribbled from the vents of the First Folk. “We choose peace.”

  “There must be no more wasps, beetles. The death traps must be disarmed and never replaced.”

  “We agree. In our turn we must be allowed freedom of the moss.”

  “Agreed. Remove your dead and wounded, haul away the foam rods.”

  Hein Huss returned to Lord Faide. “They have chosen peace.”

  Lord Faide nodded. “Very well. It is for the best.” He called to his men. “Sheath your weapons. We have won a great victory.” He ruefully surveyed Faide Keep, swathed in foam and invisible except for the parasol roof. “A hundred barrels of vinegar will not be enough.”

  Hein Huss looked off into the sky. “Your allies approach quickly. Their jinxmen have told them of your victory.”

  Lord Faide laughed his sour laugh. “To my allies will fall the task of removing the foam from Faide Keep.”

  XIV

  In the hall of Faide Keep, during the victory banquet, Lord Faide called jovially across to Hein Huss. “Now, Head Jinxman, we must deal with your apprentice, the idler and the waster Sam Salazar.”

  “He is here, Lord Faide. Rise, Sam Salazar, take cognizance of the honor being done you.”

  Sam Salazar rose to his feet, bowed.

  Lord Faide proffered him a cup. “Drink, Sam Salazar, enjoy yourself. I freely admit that your idiotic tinkerings saved the lives of us all. Sam Salazar, we salute you, and thank you. Now, I trust that you will put frivolity aside, apply yourself to your work, and learn honest jinxmanship. When the time comes, I promise that you shall find a lifetime of employment at Faide Keep.”

  “Thank you,” said Sam Salazar modestly. “However, I doubt if I will become a jinxman.”

  “No? You have other plans?”

  Sam Salazar stuttered, grew faintly pink in the face, then straightened himself, and spoke as clearly and distinctly as he could. “I prefer to continue what you call my frivolity. I hope I can persuade others to join me.”

  “Frivolity is always attractive,” said Lord Faide. “No doubt you can find other idlers and wasters, runaway farm boys, and the like.”

  Sam Salazar said staunchly, “This frivolity might become serious. Undoubtedly the ancients were barbarians. They used symbols to control entities they were unable to understand. We are methodical and rational; why can’t we systematize and comprehend the ancient miracles?”

  “Well, why can’t we?” asked Lord Faide. “Does anyone have an answer?”

  No one responded, although Isak Comandore hissed between his teeth and shook his head.

  “I personally may never be able to work miracles; I suspect it is more complicated than it seems,” said Sam Salazar.

  “However, I hope that you will arrange for a workshop where I and others who might share my views can make a beginning. In this matter I have the encouragement and the support of Head Jinxman Hein Huss.”

  Lord Faide lifted his goblet. “Very well, Apprentice Sam Salazar. Tonight I can refuse you nothing. You shall have exactly what you wish, and good luck to you. Perhaps you will produce a miracle during my lifetime.”

  Isak Comandore said huskily to Hein Huss, “This is a sad event! It signalizes intellectual anarchy, the degradation of jinxmanship, the prostitution of logic. Novelty has a way of attracting youth; already I see apprentices and spellbinders whispering in excitement. The jinxmen of the future will be sorry affairs. How will they go about demon-possession? With a cog, a gear, and a push-button. How will they cast a hoodoo? They will find it easier to strike their victim with an axe.”

  “Times change,” said Hein Huss. “There is now the one rule of Faide on Pangborn, and the keeps no longer need to employ us. Perhaps I will join Sam Salazar in his workshop.” “You depict a depressing future,” said Isak Comandore with a sniff of disgust.

  “There are many futures, some of which are undoubtedly depressing.”

  Lord Faide raised his glass. “To the best of your many futures, Hein Huss. Who knows? Sam Salazar may conjure a spaceship to lead us back to home-planet.”

  “Who knows?” said Hein Huss. He raised his goblet. “To the best of the futures!”

  When the Five Moons Rise

  Seguilo could not have gone far; there was no place for him to go. Once Perrin had searched the lighthouse and the lonesome acre of rock, there were no other possibilities—only the sky and the ocean.

  Seguilo was neither inside the lighthouse nor was he outside.

  Perrin went out into the night, squinted up against the five moons. Seguilo was not to be seen on top of the lighthouse.

  Seguilo had disappeared.

  Perrin looked indecisively over the flowing brine of Maurnilam Var. Had Seguilo slipped on the damp rock and fallen into the sea, he certainly would have called out. . . . The five moons blinked, dazzled, glinted along the surface; Seguilo might even now be floating unseen a hundred yards distant.

  Perrin shouted across the dark water: “Seguilo!”

  He turned, once more looked up the face of the lighthouse. Around the horizon whirled the twin shafts of red and white light, guiding the barges crossing from South Continent to Spacetown, warning them off Isel Rock.

  Perrin walked quickly toward the lighthouse; Seguilo was no doubt asleep in his bunk, or in the bathroom.

  Perrin went to the top chamber, circled the lumenifer, climbed down the stairs. “Seguilo!”

  No answer. The lighthouse returned a metallic vibrating echo.

  Seguilo was not in his room, in the bathroom, in the commissary, or in the storeroom. Where else could a man go?

  Perrin l
ooked out the door. The five moons cast confusing shadows. He saw a gray blot—“Seguilo!” He ran outside. “Where have you been?”

  Seguilo straightened to his full height, a thin man with a wise, doleful face. He turned his head; the wind blew his words past Perrin’s ears.

  Sudden enlightenment came to Perrin. “You must have been under the generator!” The only place he could have been.

  Seguilo had come closer. “Yes ... I was under the generator.” He paused uncertainly by the door, stood looking up at the moons, which this evening had risen all bunched together. Puzzlement creased Perrin’s forehead. Why should Seguilo crawl under the generator? “Are you . . . well?”

  “Yes. Perfectly well.”

  Perrin stepped closer and in the light of the five moons, Ista, Bista, Liad, Miad, and Poidel, scrutinized Seguilo sharply. His eyes were dull and noncommittal; he seemed to carry himself stiffly. “Have you hurt yourself? Come over to the steps and sit down.”

  “Very well.” Seguilo ambled across the rock, sat down on the steps.

  “You’re certain you’re all right?”

  “Certain.”

  After a moment, Perrin said, “Just before you . . . went under the generator, you were about to tell me something you said was important.”

  Seguilo nodded slowly. “That’s true.”

  “What was it?”

  Seguilo stared dumbly up into the sky. There was nothing to be heard but the wash of the sea, hissing and rushing where the rock shelved under.

  “Well?” asked Perrin finally. Seguilo hesitated. “You said that when five moons rose together in the sky, it was not wise to believe anything.”

  “Ah,” nodded Seguilo, “so I did.”

  “What did you mean?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Why is not believing anything important?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Perrin rose abruptly to his feet. Seguilo normally was crisp, dryly emphatic. “Are you sure you’re all right?” “Right as rain.”

  That was more like Seguilo. “Maybe a drink of whiskey would fix you up.”

  “Sounds like a good idea.”

  Perrin knew where Seguilo kept his private store. “You sit here, I’ll get you a shot.”

  “Yes, I’ll sit here.”

  Perrin hurried inside the lighthouse, clambered the two flights of stairs to the commissary. Seguilo might remain seated or he might not; something in his posture, in the rapt gaze out to sea, suggested that he might not. Perrin found the bottle and a glass, ran back down the steps. Somehow he knew that Seguilo would be gone.

  Seguilo was gone. He was not on the steps, nowhere on the windy acre of Isel Rock. It was impossible that he had passed Perrin on the stairs. He might have slipped into the engine room and crawled under the generator once more.

  Perrin flung open the door, switched on the lights, stooped, peered under the housing. Nothing.

  A greasy film of dust, uniform, unmarred, indicated that no one had ever been there.

  Where was Seguilo?

  Perrin went up to the top-most part of the lighthouse, carefully searched every nook and cranny down to the outside entrance. No Seguilo.

  Perrin walked out on the rock. Bare and empty; no Seguilo.

  Seguilo was gone. The dark water of Maurnilam Var sighed and flowed across the shelf.

  Perrin opened his mouth to shout across the moon-dazzled swells, but somehow it did not seem right to shout. He went back to the lighthouse, seated himself before the radio transceiver.

  Uncertainly he touched the dials; the instrument had been Seguilo’s responsibility. Seguilo had built it himself, from parts salvaged from a pair of old instruments.

  Perrin tentatively flipped a switch. The screen sputtered into light, the speaker hummed and buzzed. Perrin made hasty adjustments. The screen streaked with darts of blue light, a spatter of quick, red blots. Fuzzy, dim, a face looked forth from the screen. Perrin recognized a junior clerk in the Commission office at Spacetown. He spoke urgently. “This is Harold Perrin, at Isel Rock Lighthouse; send out a relief ship.”

  The face in the screen looked at him as through thick pebbleglass. A faint voice, overlaid by sputtering and crackling, said, “Adjust your tuning ... I can’t hear you. . . .”

  Perrin raised his voice. “Can you hear me now?”

  The face in the screen wavered and faded.

  Perrin yelled, “This is Isel Rock Lighthouse! Send out a relief ship! Do you hear? There’s been an accident!”

  “. . . signals not coming in. Make out a report, send . . .” the voice sputtered away.

  Cursing furiously under his breath, Perrin twisted knobs, flipped switches. He pounded the set with his fist. The screen flashed bright orange, went dead.

  Perrin ran behind, worked an anguished five minutes, to no avail. No light, no sound.

  Perrin slowly rose to his feet. Through the window he glimpsed the five moons racing for the west. “When the five moons rise together,” Seguilo had said, “it’s not wise to believe anything.” Seguilo was gone. He had been gone once before and come back; maybe he would come back again. Perrin grimaced, shuddered. It would be best now if Seguilo stayed away. He ran down to the outer door, barred and bolted it. Hard on Seguilo, if he came wandering back. . . . Perrin leaned a moment with his back to the door, listening. Then he went to the generator room, looked under the generator. Nothing. He shut the door, climbed the steps.

  Nothing in the commissary, the storeroom, the bathroom, the bedrooms. No one in the lightroom. No one on the roof.

  No one in the lighthouse but Perrin.

  He returned to the commissary, brewed a pot of coffee, sat half an hour listening to the sigh of water across the shelf, then went to his bunk.

  Passing Seguilo’s room he looked in. The bunk was empty.

  When at last he rose in the morning, his mouth was dry, his muscles like bundles of withes, his eyes hot from long staring up at the ceiling. He rinsed his face with cold water and, going to the window, searched the horizon. A curtain of dingy overcast hung halfway up the east; blue-green Magda shone through like an ancient coin covered with verdigris. Over the water oily skeins of blue-green light formed and joined and broke and melted. . . . Out along the south horizon Perrin spied a pair of black hyphens—barges riding the Trade Current to Spacetown. After a few moments they disappeared into the overcast.

  Perrin threw the master switch; above him came the fluttering hum of the lumenifer slowing and dimming.

  He descended the stairs, with stiff fingers unbolted the door, flung it wide. The wind blew past his ears, smelling of Maurnilam Var. The tide was low; Isel Rock rose out of the water like a saddle. He walked gingerly to the water’s edge. Blue-green Magda broke clear of the overcast; the light struck under the water. Leaning precariously over the shelf, Perrin looked down, past shadows and ledges and grottos, down into the gloom. . . . Movement of some kind; Perrin strained to see. His foot slipped, he almost fell.

  Perrin returned to the lighthouse, worked a disconsolate three hours at the transceiver, finally deciding that some vital component had been destroyed.

  He opened a lunch unit, pulled a chair to the window, sat gazing across the ocean. Eleven weeks to the relief ship. Isel Rock had been lonely enough with Seguilo.

  Blue-green Magda sank in the west. A sulfur overcast drifted up to meet it. Sunset brought a few minutes of sad glory to the sky: jade-colored stain with violet streakings. Perrin started the twin shafts of red and white on their nocturnal sweep, went to stand by the window.

  The tide was rising, the water surged over the shelf with a heavy sound. Up from the west floated a moon; Ista, Bista, Liad, Miad, or Poidel? A native would know at a glance. Up they came, one after the other, five balls blue as old ice.

  “It’s not wise to believe. . . .” What had Seguilo meant? Perrin tried to think back. Seguilo had said, “It’s not often, very rare, in fact, that the five moons bunch up—but when they do, then there’re h
igh tides.” He had hesitated, glancing out at the shelf. “When the five moons rise together,” said Seguilo, “it’s not wise to believe anything.”

  Perrin had gazed at him with forehead creased in puzzlement. Seguilo was an old hand, who knew the fables and lore, which he brought forth from time to time. Perrin had never known quite what to expect from Seguilo; he had the trait indispensable to a lighthouse-tender—taciturnity. The transceiver had been his hobby; in Perrin’s ignorant hands, the instrument had destroyed itself. What the lighthouse needed, thought Perrin, was one of the new transceivers with self-contained power unit, master control, the new organic screen, soft and elastic, like a great eye. ... A sudden rain squall blanketed half the sky; the five moons hurtled toward the cloud bank. The tide surged high over the shelf, almost over a gray mass. Perrin eyed it with interest; what could it be? . . . About the size of a transceiver, about the same shape. Of course, it could not possibly be a transceiver; yet, what a wonderful thing if it were. . . . He squinted, strained his eyes. There, surely, that was the milk-colored screen; those black spots were dials. He sprang to his feet, ran down the stairs, out the door, across the rock. ... It was irrational; why should a transceiver appear just when he wanted it, as if in answer to his prayer? Of course it might be part of a cargo lost overboard. . . .

  Sure enough, the mechanism was bolted to a raft of Manasco logs, and evidently had floated up on the shelf on the high tide.

  Perrin, unable to credit his good fortune, crouched beside the gray case. Brand new, with red seals across the master switch.

  It was too heavy to carry. Perrin tore off the seals, threw on the power: here was a set he understood. The screen glowed bright.

  Perrin dialed to the Commission band. The interior of an office appeared and facing out was, not the officious subordinate, but Superintendent Raymond Flint himself. Nothing could be better.

  “Superintendent," cried out Perrin, “this is Isel Rock Lighthouse, Harold Perrin speaking."