by Jack Vance
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. 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 brassbound 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 Relics, 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 facade 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 embrasures. 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 tessellated 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. Relics 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 Ther-latch.
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 Relics.
He entered the great nave, past square 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, reflecting 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.
And ahead was the lobby where he had entered the building. Three more chambers were to be searched, then the light would be gone.
He came to the first of these, and this was hung with a new curtain. Pushing it aside, he found himself looking into an outside court, full in the long light of the twin suns. A fountain of water trickled down across steps of apple-green jade into a garden as soft and fresh and green as any in the north. And rising in alarm from a couch was a maiden, as vivid and delightful as any in the frescoes. She had short, dark hair, a face as' pure and delicate as the great white frangipani she wore over her ear.
For an instant Ceistan and the maiden stared eye to eye; then her alarm faded and she smiled shyly.
“Who are you?” Ceistan asked in wonder. “Are you a ghost or do you live here in the dust?”
“I am real,” she said. “My home is to the south, at the Palram Oasis, and this is the period of solitude to which all maidens of the race submit when aspiring for Upper Instruction. ... So without fear may you come beside me, and rest, and drink of fruit wine and be my companion through the lonely night, for this is my last week of solitude and I am weary of my aloneness.”
Ceistan took a step forward, then hesitated. “I must fulfill my mission. I seek the brass coffer containing the Crown and Shield Parchment. Do you know of this?”
She shook her head. “It is nowhere in the Sumptuar.” She rose to her feet, stretching her ivory arms as a kitten stretches. “Abandon your search, and come let me refresh you.”
Ceistan looked at her, looked up at the fading light, looked down the corridor to the two doors yet remaining. “First I must complete my search; I owe duty to my lord Glay, who will be nailed under an air sled and sped west unless I bring him aid.”
The maiden said with a pout, “Go then to your dusty chamber; and go with a dry throat. You will find nothing, and if you persist so st
ubbornly, I will be gone when you return.”
“So let it be,” said Ceistan.
He turned away, marched down the corridor. The first chamber was bare and dry as a bone. In the second and last, a man’s skeleton lay tumbled in a corner; this Ceistan saw in the last rosy light of the twin suns.
There was no brass coffer, no parchment. So Glay must die, and Ceistan’s heart hung heavy.
He returned to the chamber where he had found the maiden, but she had departed. The fountain had been stopped, and moisture only filmed the stones.
Ceistan called, “Maiden, where are you? Return; my obligation is at an end. . . .”
There was no response.
Ceistan shrugged, turned to the lobby and so outdoors, to grope his way through the deserted twilight street to the portal and his air sled.
Dobnor Daksat became aware that the big man in the embroidered black cloak was speaking to him.
Orienting himself to his surroundings, which were at once familiar and strange, he also became aware that the man’s voice was condescending, supercilious.
“You are competing in a highly advanced classification,” he said. “I marvel at your . . . ah, confidence.” And he eyed Daksat with a gleaming and speculative eye.
Daksat looked down at the floor, frowned at the sight of his clothes. He wore a long cloak of black-purple velvet, swinging like a bell around his ankles. His trousers were of scarlet corduroy, tight at the waist, thigh, and calf, with a loose puff of green cloth between calf and ankle. The clothes were his own, obviously: they looked wrong and right at once, as did the carved gold knuckle-guards he wore on his hands.
The big man in the dark cloak continued speaking, looking at a point over Daksat’s head, as if Daksat were nonexistent.
“Clauktaba has won Imagist honors over the years. Bel-Washab was the Korsi Victor last month; Tol Morabait is an acknowledged master of the technique. And then there is Ghisel Ghang of West Ind, who knows no peer in the creation of fire-stars, and Pulakt Havjorska, the Champion of the Island Realm. So it becomes a matter of skepticism whether you, new, inexperienced, without a fund of images, can do more than embarrass us all with your mental poverty.”
Daksat’s brain was yet wrestling with his bewilderment, and he could feel no strong resentment at the big man’s evident contempt. He said, “Just what is all this? I’m not sure that I understand my position.”
The man in the black cloak inspected him quizzically. “So, now you commence to experience trepidation? Justly, I assure you.” He sighed, waved his hands. “Well, well— young men will be impetuous, and perhaps you have formed images you considered not discreditable. In any event, the public eye will ignore you for the glories of Clauktaba’s geometries and Ghisel Ghang’s star-bursts. Indeed, I counsel you, keep your images small, drab, and confined; you will so avoid the faults of bombast and discord. . . . Now, it is time to go to your Imagicon. This way, then. Remember, grays, browns, lavenders, perhaps a few tones of ocher and rust; then the spectators will understand that you compete for the schooling alone, and do not actively challenge the masters. This way then. . . .”
He opened a door and led Dobnor Daksat up a stair and so out into the night.
They stood in a great stadium, facing six great screens forty feet high. Behind them in the dark sat tier upon tier of spectators—thousands and thousands, and their sounds came as a soft crush. Daksat turned to see them, but all their faces and their individualities had melted into the entity as a whole.
“Here,” said the big man, “this is your apparatus. Seat yourself and I will adjust the ceretemps.”
Daksat suffered himself to be placed in a heavy chair, so soft and deep that he felt himself to be floating. Adjustments were made at his head and neck and the bridge of his nose. He felt a sharp prick, a pressure, a throb, and then a soothing warmth. From the distance, a voice called out over the crowd:
“Two minutes to gray mist! Two minutes to gray mist! Attend, Imagists, two minutes to gray mist!”
The big man stooped over him. “Can you see well?”
Daksat raised himself a trifle. “Yes ... all is clear.”
“Very well. At ‘gray mist,’ this little filament will glow. When it dies, then it is your screen, and you must imagine your best.”
The far voice said, “One minute to gray mist! The order is Pulakt Havjorska, Tol Morabait, Ghisel Ghang, Dobnor Daksat, Clauktaba, and Bel-Washab. There are no handicaps; all colors and shapes are permitted. Relax then, ready your lobes, and now—gray mist!”
The light glowed on the panel of Daksat’s chair, and he saw five of the six screens light to a pleasant pearl-gray, swirling a trifle as if agitated, excited. Only the screen before him remained dull. The big man, who stood behind him, reached down, prodded. “Gray mist, Daksat; are you deaf and blind?”
Daksat thought gray mist, and instantly his screen sprang to life, displaying a cloud of silver-gray, clean and clear.
“Humph,” he heard the big man snort. “Somewhat dull and without interest—but I suppose good enough. . . . See how
Cluktaba’s rings with hints of passion already, quivers with emotion."
And Daksat, noting the screen to his right, saw this to be true. The gray, without actually displaying color, flowed and filmed as if suppressing a vast flood of light.
Now, to the far left, on Pulakt Havjorska’s screen, color glowed. It was a gambit image, modest and restrained—a green jewel dripping a rain of blue and silver drops which struck a black ground and disappeared in little orange explosions.
Then Tol Morabait’s screen glowed: a black and white checkerboard with certain of the squares flashing suddenly green, red, blue, and yellow—warm, searching colors, pure as shafts from a rainbow. The image disappeared in a flush mingled of rose and blue.
Ghisel Ghang wrought a circle of yellow which quivered, brought forth a green halo, which in turn bulged giving rise to a larger band of brilliant black and white. In the center formed a complex kaleidoscopic pattern. The pattern suddenly vanished in a brilliant flash of light; on the screen for an instant or two appeared the identical pattern in a complete new suit of colors. A ripple of sound from the spectators greeted this tour de force. .
The light on Daksat’s panel died. Behind him he felt a prod. “Now.”
Daksat eyed the screen and his mind was blank of ideas. He ground his teeth. Anything. Anything. A picture ... he imagined a view across the meadowlands beside the River Melramy.
“Hm," said the big man behind him. “Pleasant. A pleasant fantasy, and rather original."
Puzzled, Daksat examined the picture on the screen. So far as he could distinguish, it was an uninspired reproduction of a scene he knew well. Fantasy? Was that what was expected? Very well, he’d produce fantasy. He imagined the meadows glowing, molten, white-hot. The vegetation, the old cairns slumped into a viscous seethe. The surface smoothed, became a mirror which reflected the Copper Crags.
Behind him the big man grunted. “A little heavy-handed, that last, and thereby you destroyed the charming effect of those unearthly colors and shapes. .. .”
Daksat slumped back in his chair, frowning, eager for his turn to come again.
Meanwhile Clauktaba created a dainty white blossom with purple stamens on a green stalk. The petals wilted, the stamens discharged a cloud of swirling yellow pollen.
Then Bel-Washab, at the end of the line, painted his screen a luminous underwater green. It rippled, bulged, and a black irregular blot marred the surface. From the center of the blot seeped a trickle of hot gold that quickly meshed and veined the black blot.
Such was the first passage.
There was a pause of several seconds. “Now,” breathed the voice behind Daksat, “now the competition begins.”
On Pulakt Havjorska’s screen appeared an angry sea of color: waves of red, green, blue, an ugly mottling. Dramatically, a yellow shape appeared at the lower right, vanquished the chaos. It spread over the screen, the center went lime-
green. A black shape appeared split, bowed softly and easily to both sides. Then turning, the two shapes wandered into the background, twisting, bending with supple grace. Far down a perspective they merged, darted forward like a lance, spread out into a series of lances, formed a slanting pattern of slim black bars.
“Superb!” hissed the big man. “The timing, so just, so exact!”
Tol Morabait replied with a fuscous brown field threaded with crimson lines and blots. Vertical green hatching formed at the left, strode across the screen to the right. The brown field pressed forward, bulged through the green bars, pressed hard, broke, and segments flitted forward to leave the screen. On the black background behind the green hatching, which now faded, lay a human brain, pink, pulsing. The brain sprouted six insectlike legs, scuttled crabwise back into the distance.
Ghisel Ghang brought forth one of his fire-bursts—a small pellet of bright blue exploding in all directions, the tips working and writhing through wonderful patterns in the five colors, blue, violet, white, purple, and light green.
Dobnor Daksat, rigid as a bar, sat with hands clenched and teeth grinding into teeth. Now! Was not his brain as excellent as those of the far lands? Now!
On the screen appeared a tree, conventionalized in greens and blues, and each leaf was a tongue of fire. From these fires wisps of smoke arose on high to form a cloud which worked and swirled, then emptied a cone of rain about the tree. The flames vanished and in their places appeared starshaped white flowers. From the cloud came a bolt of lightning, shattering the tree to agonized fragments of glass. Another bolt into the brittle heap and the screen exploded in a great gout of white, orange, and black.
The voice of the big man said doubtfully, “On the whole, well done, but mind my warning, and create more modest images, since-”
“Silence!” said Dobnor Daksat in a harsh voice.
So the competition went, round after round of spectacles, some sweet as canmel honey, others as violent as the storms that circle the poles. Color strove with color, patterns evolved and changed, sometimes in glorious cadence, sometimes in the bitter discord necessary to the strength of the image.
