Emphyrio

by Jack Vance

  Ghyl nodded. “I always felt sorry for them.”

  “Yes, perhaps…Men have not always been merciful. There have been many wars, all forgotten now. We are not a historical people; we seem to live for the events of the day—or more accurately, from one Judgment to the next.”

  “I would like to visit other worlds,” mused Ghyl. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could earn enough vouchers to travel elsewhere, and make our living by carving screens?”

  Amiante smiled wistfully. “Other worlds grow no such woods as ing and arzack, or even daban or sark or hacknut… And then the crafts of Ambroy are famous. If we worked elsewhere—”

  “We could say we were Ambroy craftsmen!”

  Amiante shook his head doubtfully. “I have never heard of it being done. The Welfare Agency would not approve, I am certain.”

  On Ghyl’s fourteenth birthday he was accepted into the Temple as a full member, and enrolled in a class for religious and sociological indoctrination. The Guide Leaper explained the Elemental Pattern more carefully than had Ghyl’s previous instructors: “The pattern, of course, is symbolical; nonetheless it provides an infinite range of real relevancies. By now you know the various tablets: the virtues and vices, the blasphemies and devotions which are represented. The sincere affirm their orthodoxy by leaping the traditional patterns, moving from symbol to symbol, avoiding vices, endorsing virtues. Even the aged and infirm endeavor to leap several patterns a day.”

  Ghyl leapt and skipped with the others and finally managed a fair degree of precision, so that he was not singled out for derision.

  During the summer of his fifteenth year his class made a three-day pilgrimage to Rabia Scarp in the Meagher Mounts to inspect and study the Glyph. They rode Overtrend cars to the farm village Libon, then, accompanied by a wagon which carried bed-rolls and provisions, set out on foot toward the hills.

  The first night the group camped at the foot of a rocky knoll, beside a pond fringed with reeds and water-willow. There were fires and singing and talking; Ghyl had never known so merry a time. The adventure was given spice by the not-too-distant presence of Wirwans, a race of semi-intelligent beings about eight feet tall with heavy snouted heads, black opal eyes, rough hard skins mottled purple, black and brown. The Wirwans, according to the Guide Leaper, were indigenous to Halma and had existed in the Meagher Mounts at the time of the human advent. “They are not to be approached should we sight them,” warned the guide, an intense man who never smiled. “They are inoffensive and secretive, but have been known to strike out if molested. We may see some among the rocks, although they live in tunnels and holes and do not range very far.”

  One of the boys, a brash youngster named Nion Bohart, said, “They throw their minds; they read thoughts; isn’t that so?”

  “Nonsense,” said the guide. “That would be a miracle, and they have no knowledge of Finuka, the single source of miracles.”

  “I have heard that they do not talk,” Nion Bohart insisted with a kind of flippant obstinacy. “They throw their thoughts across far distances, by a means no one understands.”

  The leader turned sharply away from the conversation. “Now then, all to your blankets. Tomorrow is an important day; we climb Rabia Scarp to see the Glyph.”

  Next morning, after a breakfast of tea, biscuits and dried sea-plum, the boys set forth. The country was barren: rocks and slopes covered with a harsh thorny scrub.

  About noon they reached Rabia Scarp. During some ancient storm the scarp had been struck by lightning, with the result that a boss of black rock was traced with a set of complicated marks. Certain of these marks, which priests had enclosed in a gold frame, bore the semblance of Archaic characters, and read:

  FINUKA DISPOSES!

  Before the sacred Glyph a large platform had been built, with an Elemental Pattern inlaid in blocks of quartz, jasper, red chert, onyx. For an hour the guide and the students performed ritual exercises, then taking their gear, moved on up to the crest of the scarp, and there pitched camp. The outlook was glorious. Ghyl had never known such far vistas. To the east was a deep valley, then the lowering mass of the Meagher Mounts, the haunt of Wirwans. To north and south the ridges thrust and bulked away, at last to become indistinct, in Bauredel to the north, in the Great Alkali Flats to the south. To the west lay the inhabited areas of Fortinone, an expanse of muted brown, gray, black-green, all toned yellow-brown by the sunlight, as if under a transparent film of old varnish. Far away shone a quicksilver glimmer, like a heat vibration: the ocean. A moribund land, with more ruins than inhabited buildings, and Ghyl wondered how it had seemed two thousand years ago when the cities were whole. Sitting on a flat rock, knees clasped in his arms, Ghyl thought of Emphyrio and imposed the locale of the legend upon the landscape. There, in the Meagher Mounts, Emphyrio had confronted the horde from the mad moon Sigil—which might well have been Damar. There: that great gouge to the northeast: surely the Col of Deal! And there: the field of battle where Emphyrio had called through his magic tablet. The monsters? Who but the Wirwans?… A peremptory summons broke into Ghyl’s musings; it was the group leader announcing a need for firewood. The spell of the moment was broken, presently to be replaced by another: the spectacle of the sunset, with the land and sky to the west drowned in a sad effulgence, the color of antique amber.

  Pots hanging over tripods gave off a savory odor of ham and lentils; bramblewood fires crackled and spat; smoke drifted off against the dusk. The scene twitched a deep-lying node in Ghyl’s mind, sent peculiar chills across his skin. In just such a manner, by just such fires, had crouched his primeval ancestors: on Earth, or whatever far planet men had first asserted their identity.

  Never had food tasted so good to Ghyl. After the meal, with fires burning low and the heavens awesomely immediate, he felt as if he were on the verge of some wonderful new comprehension. Regarding himself? The world? The nature of man? He could not be sure. The knowledge hung at the brink of his mind, trembling…The Guide Leaper also was inspired by the wonder of the night sky. He pointed and stated: “Before us, and I wish all to observe, is magnificence beyond human conception! Notice the brilliance of the Mirabilis stars, and there, somewhat above, the very rim of the galaxy! Is it not glorious? You, Nion Bohart, what do you think? Does not the open sky enthrall you to your very marrow!”

  “Yes indeed,” declared Nion Bohart.

  “It is grandeur of the most excellent and majestic sort. If no other indication offered, here at least is vindication for all the leaping done in praise of Finuka!”

  Recently, among the bits and fragments in Amiante’s portfolio, Ghyl had come upon a few lines of philosophical dialogue which had haunted him; and now, innocently, he spoke them:

  ‘In a situation of infinity, every possibility, no matter how remote, must find physical expression.’

  ‘Does that mean yes or no?’

  ‘Both and neither.’

  The group leader, irked by the interruption and by the break in the mood he was trying to establish, asked in a cold voice, “What is all this obscurantist ambiguity? I fail to understand!”

  “Simple really,” drawled Nion Bohart, a year or so older than Ghyl and inclined to impertinence. “It means that anything is possible.”

  “Not quite,” said Ghyl, “it means more than that; I think it’s an important idea!”

  “Bah, rubbish,” snorted the leader. “But perhaps you will deign to elucidate.”

  Ghyl, suddenly in the focus of everyone’s attention, felt awkward and tongue-tied, the more so that he did not fully comprehend the proposition he had been called upon to explain. He looked around the circle of firelight, to find all eyes upon him. He spoke in a diffident stammer: “As I see it, the cosmos is probably infinite, which means—well, infinite. So there are local situations—a tremendous number of them. Indeed, in a situation of infinity, there are an infinite set of local conditions, so that somewhere there is bound to be anything, if this anything is even remotely possible. Perhaps it is; I re
ally don’t know what the chances—”

  “Come, come!” snapped the leader. “You are blithering! Declare us this dramatic enlightenment in plain words!”

  “Well, it might be that in certain local regions, by the very laws of chance, a god like Finuka might exist and exert local control. Maybe even here, on the North Continent, or over the whole world. In other localities, gods might be absent. It depends, of course, upon the probability of the particular kind of god.” Ghyl hesitated, then added modestly, “I don’t know what this is, of course.”

  The leader drew a deep breath. “Has it occurred to you that the individual who attempts to reckon the possibility or probability of a god is puffing himself up as the spiritual and intellectual superior of the god?”

  “No reason why we can’t have a stupid god,” muttered Nion Bohart in an undertone which the leader failed to catch. With no more than a glare for Nion Bohart, he continued: “It is a posture, may I say, of boundless arrogance. And also, the local situation is not under discussion. The Glyph reads, ‘Finuka disposes!’. This clearly means that Finuka controls all! Not just a few acres here and a few acres there. If this were the case the Glyph would read ‘Finuka disposes across the township of Elbaum, in Brueben Precinct, likewise along the Dodrechten mudflats’ or some such set of qualifications. Is this not obvious? The Glyph reads ‘Finuka disposes!’, which means Finuka rules and judges—everywhere! So then—let us hear no more logic-chopping.”

  Ghyl held his tongue. The leader once again turned his attention to the skies and pointed out various celestial objects.

  One by one the boys dropped off to sleep. Early the next morning they broke camp, leapt a final exercise before the Glyph and marched back downhill to the Overtrend depot at a nearby mining town.

  During the entire return trip the leader said nothing to Ghyl or to Nion Bohart, but upon their next visit to the Temple both were transferred to a special section for difficult, obstreperous or recalcitrant boys, in charge of a resolute special indoctrinator.

  The class, to Ghyl’s surprise, included his old friend Floriel Huzsuis, now a gentle unconventional lad, almost girlishly handsome. Floriel was reckoned a problem not from obstinacy, or insolence, but rather from day-dreaming vagary, compounded by an involuntary half-smile, as if he found the class irresistibly amusing in all its aspects. This was far from the truth, but poor Floriel, by reason of his expression, was continually upbraided for facetiousness and levity.

  The indoctrinator, Saltator Honson Ospude, was a tall grim man with a clenched passionate face. Intensely dedicated to his profession, he was without lightness, flexibility or humor and sought to compel the minds of his charges by the force of his own fervent orthodoxy. Nonetheless he was an erudite man, widely read, and introduced dozens of interesting topics into the classwork routine.

  “Every society is constructed upon a foundation of assumptions,” stated Honson Ospude on one occasion. “There is a multiplicity of such assumptions, from which each society selects: hence the multitude of galactic civilizations, all different. The society of Fortinone, of course, is one of the most enlightened, based as it is upon the most lofty aspirations of the human spirit. We are a lucky people. The axioms which shape our lives are ineffable but indisputable; equally important, they are efficacious. They guarantee us security from want, and offer each of us, so long as he be diligent, the chance to become financially independent.”

  At this, Nion Bohart could not restrain a caw of laughter. “Financial independence? If you kidnap a lord, perhaps.”

  Honson Ospude, neither outraged nor nonplussed by the interruption, met the challenge, for such it was, head on. “If you kidnap a lord, you’ll gain not financial independence but rehabilitation.”

  “If you get caught.”

  “The chances are strong for rehabilitation,” stated Honson Ospude. “Even if you succeeded in kidnaping a lord, you could no longer profit. The lord would not pay. Conditions are no longer barbaric. The lords have bound themselves to pay no further ransoms; hence there is no longer a financial incentive to the crime of kidnaping.”

  Ghyl remarked, perhaps inadvisedly, “It seems to me that if the lords had to choose either payment or death, they would ignore the compact and pay.”

  Honson Ospude looked from Nion Bohart to Ghyl, then around the class, all of whom were attending with great interest. “It seems that we have here a fine collection of would-be bandits. Well, my lads, a word of warning: you’ll encounter grief and woe by working for chaos. Regulation is the single frail barrier between savagery and welfare; break down the barrier and you destroy not only yourselves but all else besides. Enough for the day. Think well upon what I have told you. All to the Pattern.”

  Over the course of time certain members of the class—among them Floriel Huzsuis, Nion Bohart, Mael Villy, Uger Harspitz, Shulk Odlebush, one or two others—drew together to form a clique, with Nion Bohart, a swaggering, restless, reckless youth, the informal leader. Nion Bohart was a year or two older than the others: a tall broad-shouldered youth, handsome as a lord, with beautiful green eyes, a thin mouth twitching first down the right side and up the left, then down the left and up the right. In many ways Nion Bohart was an amusing companion, always ready for deviltry, although he never seemed to be apprehended in mischief. It was always the obstinate Uger Harspitz or dreamy Floriel who were discovered and punished for mischief conceived by Nion Bohart.

  Ghyl held himself apart from the group, though he was fond of Floriel. Nion Bohart’s mischief seemed to verge on irresponsibility, and Ghyl thought his hold upon Floriel’s imagination to be both unfortunate and unhealthy.

  Honson Ospude detested Nion Bohart, but tried to deal as fairly as possible with the contumacious youth. Nion Bohart, however, and others of the clique took pains to attack his equanimity: doubting his assumptions, weighing the value of universal orthodoxy, marking as if by mistake incorrect or even blasphemous symbols during the leaping which opened and closed each class. Ghyl, anxious only to attract a minimum of notice, conducted himself with discretion, to the disgust of Floriel and Nion Bohart, who wanted him to take an active part in their mischief. Ghyl merely laughed at them and his association with the group became so tenuous as to be non-existent.

  The years passed. At last, according to statute, the class was terminated. Ghyl, now eighteen years old, was sent forth as a full recipient of Fortinone.

  To celebrate Ghyl’s discharge from the school Amiante consulted the victuallers and ordered in a grand feast: roast biloa-bird with wickenberry sauce, rag-fish, candied sea-calch, bowls of whelks, corpentine, hemmer garnished with that choice purple-black seaweed known as livret, a profusion of cakes, tarts and jellies, and jugs of edel wine.

  To the feast Ghyl invited Floriel, who had no father and whose ribald mother had refused to take note of the occasion. The two lads gorged themselves on delicacies while Amiante picked at this and tasted that.

  Somewhat to Ghyl’s annoyance Floriel, immediately after the meal, began to show signs of restlessness and hinted that best he should be on his way.

  “What?” exclaimed Ghyl. “The sun’s hardly down on the afternoon! Stay on for supper.”

  “Supper, bah; I’m so stuffed I can’t move…Well, to tell the truth, Nion spoke of a little get-together at a place we know and made sure that I’d be on hand. Why don’t you come along as well?”

  “I’d fear to go to a house where I wasn’t invited.”

  Floriel smiled mysteriously. “Don’t trouble yourself on that score. Nion gave orders to bring you along.” This latter was transparently a fabrication, but Ghyl, after half a dozen mugs of wine, felt rather in a mood for further celebration. He looked across the room to where Amiante was assisting the victualler in the repacking of pots, pans and trays. “I’ll see what my father has in mind.”

  Amiante made no objection to the outing, so Ghyl arrayed himself in new plum-colored breeches, a black coat with scarlet sculptury, a jaunty black hat with the rim aslant. In
his new clothes Ghyl felt that he cut a passably fine figure, and Floriel made no bones about endorsing his opinion. “That’s an absolutely smashing outfit; beside you I look a frump!…Oh well, we can’t all be rich and handsome. Come along then; the sun is down in the west and we don’t want to miss any fun.”

  To mark the occasion they rode Overtrend south through Hoge and into Cato. They surfaced and walked east into a district of peculiar old houses of stone and black brick which by some freak had stood against the last devastation.

  Ghyl was puzzled. “I thought Nion lived across Hoge, toward Foelgher.”

  “Who said we were going to his house?”

  “Where are we going then?”

  Floriel made a cryptic sign. “In a moment you’ll see.” He led the way along a dank alley smelling of the ages, through a gate on which hung a lantern with green and purple bulbs, into a tavern which occupied the whole ground floor of one of the old houses.

  From a table across the room Mael Villy raised a call. “There’s Floriel, and Ghyl as well! Over here, this way!”

  They crossed to where their friends had been making free with ale and wine, found seats and had mugs pressed into their hands. Nion Bohart proposed a toast: “Here’s a pimple on the tongue of Honson Ospude, sore feet for all the Guide Leapers: may they try the Double Sincere Eight-Nine Swing, fall flat and slide to rest with their noses upon Animal Corruption!”