Emphyrio

by Jack Vance

  Not long after Amiante shuffled into the shop. His scant gray-gold hair was tousled, his eyes were like puddles of mercury. He looked at Ghyl; Ghyl looked at him. Ghyl asked, “Did—did they harm you?”

  Amiante shook his head. He came a few steps further into the room, looked tentatively here and there. He went to a bench, seated himself, ran his hand across his head, further rumpling his hair.

  Ghyl watched in apprehension, trying to decide whether or not his father was ill. Amiante raised a hand in reassurance. “No need for concern. I slept poorly…Did they search?”

  “Not well.”

  Amiante nodded vaguely. He rose, went to the door, stood looking out across the square, as if the scene—the heelcorn trees, the dusty annel bushes, the structures opposite—were strange to him. He turned, went to his bench, considered the half-carved faces of his new screen.

  Ghyl asked: “Can I bring you something to eat? Or tea?”

  “Not just now.” Amiante went upstairs. He returned a minute later with his old portfolio, which he put down upon the workbench.

  Ghyl asked in terror: “Are the duplicates there?”

  “No. They are under the tiles.” Amiante seemed not to wonder at Ghyl’s knowledge of his activities.

  “But—why?” asked Ghyl. “Why did you duplicate these things?”

  Amiante slowly raised his head, looked eye to eye with Ghyl. “If I did not,” he asked, “who would?”

  “But—the regulations…” Ghyl’s voice trailed off. Amiante made no remark. The silence was more meaningful than anything he could have said.

  Amiante opened the portfolio. “I had hoped for you to discover these for yourself, when you had learned to read.”

  “What are they?”

  “Various documents from the past—when regulations were less irksome, and perhaps less necessary.” He lifted one of the papers, glanced at it, set it aside. “Some are very precious.” He sorted through the documents. “Here: the charter of old Ambroy. Barely intelligible, and now all but unknown. Nonetheless, it is still in force.” He put it aside, touched another. “Here: the legend of Emphyrio.”

  Ghyl looked down at the characters, and recognized them for old Archaic, still beyond his comprehension. Amiante read it aloud. He came to the end of the page, halted, put down the paper.

  “Is that all?” asked Ghyl.

  “I don’t know.”

  “But how does it end?”

  “I don’t know that either.”

  Ghyl grimaced in dissatisfaction. “Is it true?”

  Amiante shrugged. “Who knows? The Historian, perhaps.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Someone far from here.” Amiante went to the cabinet, brought down vellum, ink, a pen. He began to copy the fragment. “I must copy these all; I must disseminate them, where they will not be lost.” He bent over the vellum.

  Ghyl watched a few minutes, then turned as the doorway darkened. A man came slowly into the shop. Amiante looked up, Ghyl stood back. The visitor was a tall man with a big handsome head, a brush of fine gray hair. He wore a jacket of black broadcloth with a dozen vertical ruffles under each arm, a white vest, trousers of black and brown stripe: a rich dignified costume, that of a man of position. Ghyl, who had seen him before at guild-meetings recognized Rt. Blaise Fodo, the Guild-master himself.

  Amiante rose slowly to his feet.

  Fodo spoke in a rich earnest voice, “I heard of your difficulties, Rt. Tarvoke, and I came to extend you the good wishes of the Guild, and wise counsel, should you require it.”

  “Thank you, Rt. Fodo,” said Amiante. “I wish you had been here to counsel Ells Wolleg from turning me in. That would have been ‘counsel’ when I needed it.”

  The Guild-master frowned. “Unluckily I can’t foresee every indiscretion of every member. And Delegate Wolleg of course performed his duty as he saw it. But I am surprised to see you scrivening. What do you do?”

  Amiante spoke in a voice of the most precise clarity. “I copy an ancient manuscript, that it may be preserved for the times to come.”

  “What is the document?”

  “The legend of Emphyrio.”

  “Well, then, admirable—but surely this is the domain of the scriveners! They do not carve wood, we neither indite nor inscribe. What would we gain?” He waved his hand at Amiante’s inexact writing with a small smile of indulgent distaste, as if at the antics of a dirty child. “The copy is by no means flawless.”

  Amiante scratched his chin. “It is legible, I hope…Do you read Archaic?”

  “Certainly. What old affair are you so concerned with?” He picked up the fragment and tilting back his head puzzled out the sense of the text:

  On the world of Aume, or some say, Home, which men had taken by toil and pain, and where they had established farmsteads along the shore of the sea, came down a monstrous horde from the dark moon Sigil.

  The men had long put by their weapons and now spoke gently: “Monsters: the look of deprivation invests you like an odor. If you hunger, eat of our food; share our plenty until you are appeased.”

  The monsters could not speak but their great horns yelled: “We do not come for food.”

  “There is about you the madness of the moon Sigil. Come you for peace? Rest then; listen to our music, lave your feet in the waves of the sea; soon you will be allayed.”

  “We do not come for respite,” bayed the great horns.

  “There is about you the forlorn despair of the outcast, which is irremedial, for love we cannot provide; so you must return to the dark moon Sigil, and come to terms with those who sent you forth.”

  “We do not come for love,” raved the very horns.

  “What then is your purpose?”

  “We are here to enslave the men of Aume, or as some say, Home, to ease ourselves upon their labor. Know us for your masters, and he who looks askance shall be stamped beneath our terrible feet.”

  The men were enslaved, and set to such onerous tasks as the monsters devised and found needful. In due course, Emphyrio, the son of fisher-folk, was moved to rebellion, and led his band into the mountains. He employed a magic tablet, and all who heard his words knew them for truth, so that many men set themselves against the monsters.

  With fire and flame, with torment and char, the monsters from Sigil wrought their vengeance. Still the voice of Emphyrio rang down from the mountain, and all who heard were moved to defiance.

  The monsters marched to the mountains, battering rock from rock, and Emphyrio retired to the far places: the islands of reed, the forests and murks.

  After came the monsters, affording no respite. In the Col of Deal, behind the Maul Mountains, Emphyrio confronted the horde. He spoke, with his voice of truth, and his magic tablet, and sent forth flashing words: “Observe! I hold the magic tablet of truth! You are Monster; I am Man. Each is alone; each sees dawn and dusk; each feels pain and pain’s ease. Why should one be victor and the other victim? We will never agree; never shall you know gain by the toil of man! Submit to the what-must-be! If you fail to heed, then you must taste a bitter brew and never again walk the sands of dark Sigil.”

  The monsters could not disbelieve the voice of Emphyrio and halted in wonder. One sent forth his flashing words: “Emphyrio! Come with us to Sigil and speak in the Catademnon; for there is the force which controls us to evil deeds.”

  (end of fragment)

  Blaise Fodo slowly laid the paper on the desk. For a moment his eyes were unfocused, his mouth pushed forward into a thoughtful pink oval. “Yes… Yes, indeed.” He gave his shoulders a twitch, settled his black jacket. “Amazing, certain of these old legends. Still we must maintain a sense of proportion. You are an expert wood-carver; your screens are excellent. Your fine son, too, has a productive future before him. So why waste valuable work-time inditing old tales? It becomes an obsession! Especially,” he added meaningfully, “when it leads to irregulationary acts. You must be realistic, Rt. Tarvoke!”

  Amiante shrugged, put
the vellum and ink to the side. “Perhaps you are right.” He took up a chisel and began to carve at his screen.

  But Rt. Blaise Fodo was not to be put aside so easily. For another half hour he paced back and forth across the workroom, looking down first across Ghyl’s shoulders, then Amiante’s. He spoke further of Amiante’s trespass and chided Amiante for allowing a collector’s avidity to overcome him, so that he bought illicit reproductions. He also addressed Ghyl, urging industry, devoutness and humility. “The path of life is well-trod; the wisest and best have erected guide- posts, bridges and warning signals; it is either mulishness or arrogance to seek from side to side for new or better routes. So then: look to your welfare agent, to your Guild Delegate, to your Guide Leaper; follow their instructions. And you will lead a life of placid content.”

  Guild-master Fodo at last departed. As soon as the door closed behind him, Amiante put down his chisel and returned to his copying. Ghyl had nothing to say, though his heart was full and his throat hurt with premonition. Presently he went out upon the square to buy food, and as luck would have it met Helfred Cobol on his rounds.

  The welfare agent looked down at him with a quizzical stare. “What has come over Amiante, that he behaves like a Chaoticist?”

  “I don’t know,” said Ghyl. “But he is no Chaoticist. He is a good man.”

  “I realize as much, which is why I am concerned. Surely he cannot profit by irregulationary acts; and you must realize this as well.”

  Ghyl privately thought Amiante’s conduct somewhat queer but by no means hurtful or wrong. He did not, however, argue this with Helfred Cobol.

  “He is too bold, alas, for his own good,” the welfare agent went on. “You must help him. You are a responsible boy. Keep your father safe. Dallying with impossible legends and inflammatory tracts can only richen his rod!”

  Ghyl frowned. “Is that the same as ‘increasing his charge’?”

  “Yes. Do you know what is meant?”

  Ghyl shook his head.

  “Well then, at the Welfare Agency are trays of small rods, each numbered, each representing a man. I am represented by such a rod, as well as Amiante and yourself. Most of the rods are pure inactive iron; others are magnetized. At every offense or delinquency a carefully calculated magnetic charge is applied to the rod. If there are no new offenses the magnetism presently wanes and disappears. But if offenses continue, the magnetism augments and at last pulls down a signal, and the offender must be rehabilitated.”

  Ghyl, awed and depressed, looked away across the square. Then he asked, “When a person is rehabilitated, what happens?”

  “Ha ha!” exclaimed Helfred Cobol dourly, “you ask after our guild secrets. We do not talk of these things. It is enough to know that the offender is cured of irregulationary tendencies.”

  “Do noncups have rods at the Agency?”

  “No. They are not recipients; they are outside the system. When they commit crimes, as often they do, they find no understanding or rehabilitation—they are expelled from Ambroy.”

  Ghyl clutched his parcels to his chest, shivered, perhaps to a gust of cold wind which dipped down out of the sky. “I had best be home,” he told Helfred Cobol in a small voice.

  “Home with you then. I’ll look in on your father in ten or fifteen minutes.”

  Ghyl nodded and returned home. Amiante had fallen asleep at his workbench, head down upon his arms. Ghyl stood back in horror. To right and left, spread out on the bench, was duplicated material: every item that Amiante had processed. It seemed as if he had been attempting to organize his papers when drowsiness had overtaken him.

  Ghyl dropped the parcels of food, closed and bolted the door, ran forward. It was useless to awaken Amiante and expect alertness. Frantically he gathered all the material together, stacked it into a box, covered it over with shavings and scrap and thrust it under his desk. Only now did he try to arouse his father. “Wake up! Helfred Cobol is on his way!”

  Amiante groaned, lurched back, looked at Ghyl with eyes only half-aware.

  Ghyl saw two more sheets of paper he previously had missed. He seized them, and as he did so there came a knock at the door. Ghyl shoved the papers down into the shavings, made a last survey of the room. It appeared to be bare, innocent of illicit paper.

  Ghyl opened the door. Helfred Cobol looked quizzically down at him. “Since when do you bar the door against the arrival of the welfare agent?”

  “A mistake,” stammered Ghyl. “I meant no harm.”

  Amiante by this time had come to his wits and was looking back and forth along the bench with a worried expression.

  Helfred Cobol came forward. “A few last words with you, Rt. Tarvoke.”

  “‘Last words’?”

  “Yes. I have worked this ward many years, and we have known each other just so long. But I am becoming too old for field duty and I am being transferred to an administrative office in Elsen. I came to say goodbye to you and Ghyl.”

  Amiante slowly rose to his feet. “I am sorry to see you go.”

  Helfred Cobol gave his sardonic grimace of a smile. “Well then: my last few words: attend to your wood-carving, try to lead your son into the ways of orthodoxy. Why do you not go leap with him at the Temple? He would profit by your example.”

  Amiante nodded politely.

  “Well then,” said Helfred Cobol, “I’ll say goodby to you both, and commend you to the best attention of Schute Cobol, who will take over in my place.”

  Chapter VII

  Schute Cobol was a man with a style distinctly different from that of Helfred Cobol. He was younger, more punctilious in manner and dress, more formal in his interviews. He was a man brisk and precise, with a lean visage, a down-drooping mouth, black hair bristling up behind his head. On his preliminary rounds he explained to all that he intended to work by the strict letter of Welfare Agency regulations. He made clear to Amiante and Ghyl his disapproval of what he considered a lax way of life. “Each of you, with above-average capacity, according to your psychiatric rating, produces well under the norm for this rate. You, young Rt. Tarvoke, are far from diligent at either guild-school or Temple—”

  “He takes instruction from me,” said Amiante in measured voice.

  “Eh? You teach what, additional to wood-carving?”

  “I have taught him to read and write, such calculation as I know and hopefully a few other matters as well.”

  “I strongly suggest that he prepare more earnestly for his Secondary Status at the Temple. According to my records, he attends without regularity and is not proficient in any of the patterns.”

  Amiante shrugged. “Perhaps later in life…”

  “What of yourself?” demanded Schute Cobol. “It appears that during the last fourteen years you have visited the Temple but twice and leapt but once.”

  “Surely more than that. Are the Agency records accurate?”

  “Of course the Agency records are accurate! What a thing to ask! Do you have records in conflict, may I ask?”

  “No.”

  “Well then, why have you leapt only once during these last fourteen years?”

  Amiante ran his hands fretfully through his hair. “I am not agile. I do not know the patterns…Time presses…”

  Schute Cobol at last departed the shop. Ghyl looked to Amiante for some comment but Amiante merely gave his head a weary shake and bent over his screen.

  Amiante’s screen of the hundred faces received a 9.503, or ‘Acme’ rating at the Judgment*«The Judgment, from the standpoint of the Ambroy craftsman, was the year’s most important event, establishing as it did his stipend for the following year. The judgments were conducted in accordance to an elaborate ritual and generated vast drama—to such an extent that the judges were applauded or criticized for the ceremonial richness of their performances.

  Three separate teams of judges worked independently, at the great Boimarc warehouse in East Town and rated each item of work produced by the Ambroy craftsmen. The first team included
the master of the Craftsman’s Guild, an expert on the particular class of item from one of the trans-stellar depots, and a Boimarc lord, presumably selected also for his expertise. On the second team were the chairman of the Inter-Guild Benevolent Association, the Craft Guidance Director of the Welfare Agency, the Arbiter of Comparative Beatitudes from the Main Temple. The third team consisted of two Boimarc lords and an ordinary recipient chosen by random lot from the population, who received the title Independent Dignitary and a doubled stipend.

  The first team investigated only a single category of objects, with ratings weighted double. The second and third teams inspected all articles.», and his total submission averaged at 8.626, well into ‘First Class’ or export category.

  Ghyl’s single screen received a 6.855 rating, comfortably within the 6.240 limit of the ‘ Second-Class’ or ‘Domestic Use’ category and so went to the holding warehouse in East Town. Ghyl was complimented upon the ease of his design but was urged to greater finesse and delicacy.

  Ghyl, who had been hoping for a ‘First Class’ rating, was dejected. Amiante refused to comment upon the judgment. He said merely: “Start another screen. If we please them with our screens, we produce ‘Firsts’. If we do not, our screens are ‘Seconds’ or ‘Rejects’. Therefore, let us please the judges. It is not too difficult.”

  “Very well,” said Ghyl. “My next screen will be ‘Girls Kissing Boys’.”

  “Hmm.” Amiante considered. “You are twelve years old? Best wait a year or so. Why not produce a standard design: possibly ‘Willows and Birds’?”

  So the months passed. Despite Schute Cobol’s explicit disapproval, Ghyl spent little time at Temple exercises, and avoided guild-school. From Amiante he learned Archaic One and such human history as Amiante himself knew: “Men originated on a single world, a planet called Earth, or so it is generally believed. Earthmen learned how to send ships through space, and so initiated human history, though I suppose there was previous history on Earth. The first men to come to Halma found colonies of vicious insects—creatures as big as children—living in mounds and tunnels. There were great battles until the insects were destroyed. You will find pictures of the things at the Hall of Curios—perhaps you’ve seen them?”