Emphyrio

by Jack Vance

  “Not for me either,” sighed Sonjaly, snuggling against Floriel, with an enigmatic glance toward Ghyl.

  “Not for me either,” confessed Ghyl, “if I knew how to live otherwise.”

  “Go noncup!”

  “What if I did? All I know is carving screens. Where would I sell? Certainly not to the Guild. It looks after its own.”

  “There are ways, there are ways!”

  “No doubt. I don’t care to steal.”

  “It all depends,” stated Sonjaly, with the air of one reciting a liturgy, “from whom one steals.”

  “I regard the lords as fair game,” said Floriel. “And perhaps a few other portly institutions as well.”

  “The lords, yes,” said Ghyl, “or almost yes, at any rate. I’d have to consider each case on its merits.”

  Floriel laughed, waved his goblet. “Ghyl, you are far too serious, far too earnest! Always you want to delve to some impossible fundamental, like an impet diving for a mud-eel.”

  Ghyl laughed also. “If I’m too serious, you’re too irresponsible.”

  “Bah,” retorted Floriel. “Is the world responsible? Of course not! The world is random, vagrant, heedless. To be responsible is to be out of phase, to be insane!”

  Ghyl pondered a moment. “This is perhaps the case, in a world left to itself. But society imposes order. Living in a society, it is not insane to be responsible.”

  “Total bosh!” And Floriel went on to detail the irrationality of certain Guild practices, of Temple ritual, of Agency regulation: none of which Ghyl could refute. “I agree, much of our society is absurd. But should we throw out the baby with the bath? The guilds, the Agency, no matter how insane at times, are necessary instruments. Even the lords serve a purpose.”

  “We need a change!” declared Floriel. “The lords originally provided valuable capital and expertise. Undeniable. But they have earned back their capital many times over. Do you realize how much 1.18 percent of our gross product is? Have you ever calculated the sum? No? Well, it is enormous. Over the course of years, it becomes stupendous. In fact, it is incredible how so few lords are able to spend so much money. Not even space-yachts cost so much. And I’ve heard it said that the eyries are by no means paved with gold. Nion Bohart knows a plumber who services eyrie drains, and, according to this plumber, some of the eyries are almost austere.”

  Ghyl shrugged. “I don’t care where or how they spend their money—though I’d prefer they bought my screens rather than, say, Lu-Hang stain-silk. But I don’t think I’d care to abolish the lords. They provide us with a spectacle, with drama, with vicarious elegance.”

  “My dearest goal is to live like a lord,” declared Floriel. “Abolish them? Never! Parasites though they may be.”

  Sonjaly rose to her feet. She wore only a brief skirt and a bit of a loose blouse. Walking past Ghyl she swung her slender body provocatively. Floriel winked at Ghyl. “Pour us all more punch and less strutting back and forth. We know you’re beautiful!”

  Sonjaly languidly poured punch. “Beautiful, yes. What good does it do me? I want to travel. Floriel won’t take me even so far as the Meagher Mounts.” And playfully she put her hand under Ghyl’s chin. “Would you?”

  “I’m as poor as Floriel,” said Ghyl, “and not even a thief. My traveling must be by shank’s mare, which you’re very welcome to share.”

  Sonjaly made a wry face and went off into the house. Floriel leaned toward Ghyl and muttered hurriedly, “About that girl I wanted to invite: the one I had in mind was busy elsewhere. Sonjaly tried Gedée—”

  “What?” cried Ghyl in consternation.

  “—but she is studying to pass a fish-packing examination.”

  “‘Fish-packing’?”

  “You know—packing preserved fish in cans and cartons. There is an art to the process—so Gedée tells me. You curl the dear little toe fins and place the specimen just so, and with a sweeping motion pull the feelers down into the oral cavity.”

  “Spare me the details,” said Ghyl. “Spare me, likewise, Gedée.”

  “It’s all for the best,” Floriel assured him. “You can go to the ball unencumbered, and your eye can rove as far as it likes. There’s bound to be lords and ladies present.”

  “Really now! How do you know?”

  Floriel pointed. “Look yonder, around the bend. See that bit of white? That’s the County Pavilion. Off beyond is a vast park, the estate of Lord Aldo the Underline. During the summer many lords and ladies—especially the young ones—come down from the eyries, and they all dote on the County Ball! I wager there’ll be fifty on hand.”

  “With a hundred Garrion,” said Ghyl. “Will the Garrion be in costume, with dominoes and all?”

  Floriel laughed. “What a sight! We shall see. Naturally you brought a costume?”

  “Yes. Nothing very much. I’ll be a Zambolian Warrior.”

  “Good enough. I’m a pierrot. Nion is coming as a Jeng serpent-man.”

  “Oh? Nion will be here also?”

  “Of course. Nion and I are associates, so to speak. We do quite well, as you may imagine.”

  Ghyl sipped his punch with a faint frown. Floriel was easy and amiable; Ghyl could relax and enjoy Floriel’s nonsense. Nion, on the other hand, always aroused in Ghyl a vague and formless challenge. Ghyl drained his goblet. He would ignore Nion completely; he would remain calm in the face of all provocation.

  Floriel took the pitcher, went to pour punch, but the pitcher was empty. “Inside there!” he called to Sonjaly. “Mix us punch, there’s a good girl.”

  “Mix it yourself,” came a petulant voice. “I’m lying down.”

  Floriel went inside with the pitcher. There were a few muffled words of altercation, then Floriel came forth with a brimming pitcher. “Now tell me about yourself. How are you making it without your father? Isn’t that great old house lonesome?”

  Ghyl responded that he lived modestly but adequately; that indeed the shop was sometimes lonely.

  The hours passed. They ate cheese and pickles for lunch and later all plunged into the river for a swim. Nion Bohart arrived just as they were emerging from the water. “Halloo, halloo! All you wet creatures! Ghyl too I see! It’s been a long time! And Sonjaly! Adorable creature—especially in that wet clinging trifle. Floriel, you really don’t deserve her.”

  Sonjaly turned Floriel a rather spiteful glance. “I keep telling him the same thing. But he doesn’t believe me.”

  “We’ll have to do something about that… Well then, Floriel, where shall I stow my bags? The usual little den? Anything’s good enough for old Nion, eh? Well, all right, I don’t mind.”

  “Come now,” said Floriel. “You always demand and receive the best bed in the house.”

  “In that case—better beds!”

  “Yes, yes, of course…You’ve brought your costume?”

  “Naturally. This shall be the most exalted County Ball of all time. We’ll make it that way…What is that you’re drinking?”

  “Montarada punch.”

  “I’ll have some, if I may.”

  “Allow me,” said Sonjaly. And bowing sinuously she handed Nion a goblet. Floriel turned away in disgust, obviously not amused.

  Floriel’s disapproval failed to influence either Sonjaly or Nion, and during the remainder of the afternoon they flirted with ever more daring, exchanging glances, casual touches which were barely disguised caresses. Floriel became increasingly disturbed. At last he made a sarcastic comment, to which Sonjaly gave a flippant rejoinder. Floriel lost his temper. “Do what you like!” he sneered. “I can’t control you; I wouldn’t if I could; I’ve seen too much control!”

  Nion laughed in great good humor. “Floriel, you’re an idealist, no less than Ghyl. Control is necessary and even good—so long as I do the controlling.”

  “How strange,” muttered Floriel. “Ghyl tells me the same thing.”

  “What?” asked Ghyl in surprise. “I said no such thing. My point was that organization is
necessary to social living!”

  “True!” stated Nion. “Even the Chaoticists agree to that: paradoxical as it may seem. And you, Ghyl, you’re still a staunch recipient?”

  “Not really…I don’t know what I am. I feel I must learn.”

  “A waste of time. There’s your idealism again. Life is too short for pondering! No indecision! If you wish the sweets of life, you must reach forth to take them!”

  “And also be prepared to run when the owner comes to punish you.”

  “That too. I have no false pride; I’ll run very fast. I have no desire to set anyone a good example.”

  Ghyl laughed. “At least you are honest.”

  “I suppose so. The Welfare Agency suspects me of rascality. However they can’t prove it.”

  Ghyl looked across the brimming river. This sort of life, in spite of Sonjaly’s waywardness and Floriel’s bickering, seemed much more gay and normal than his usual routine: carving, polishing, a walk to the shop for food, eating, sleeping, more of the same. All for the sake of a monthly stipend! If Floriel could earn enough to live in ease and leisure, in a cottage on the river, why could he not do the same?

  Ghyl Tarvoke, a noncup? Why not? He need not steal nor blackmail nor procure. Undoubtedly there were vouchers to be earned legitimately—or almost legitimately. Ghyl turned to Nion: “When a person goes noncup, how in the world does he stay alive?”

  Nion looked at him quizzically, obviously well aware of what was going on in Ghyl’s mind. “No trouble whatever. There are dozens of ways to stay afloat. If ever you make the decision, come to me. You’d very likely do well, with your air of respectability. No one would suspect you of sharp practice.”

  “I’ll keep you in mind.”

  The sun declined; the sky burnt with such a sunset as Ghyl had not seen since his childhood, when he had often watched the sun sink into the ocean from Dunkum’s Heights. “Time we were dressing for the ball,” said Floriel. “The music starts in half an hour, and we want to be on hand for everything. First, I’ll bring up the skiff, to ferry us across the river.”

  He walked ashore by the trestle. Ghyl went to his room, then came out to surprise Nion and Sonjaly locked in an unmistakably ardent embrace. “Excuse me,” said Ghyl.

  Neither heeded him and he returned to his room.

  Chapter XII

  Floriel Huzsuis, Sonjaly Rathe, Nion Bohart, Ghyl Tarvoke: wearing fantastic costumes, with normal personalities suppressed by their dominoes, the four stepped into the skiff.

  Floriel sculled across the river to the pavilion already aglow from flares of chalk-green, pink and yellow, and thousands of tiny sparkling white coruscations.

  Floriel held the skiff while his passengers alighted, then tied the painter to a ring and clambered up to the dock. The pavilion lay before them: an expanse of polished wood, with private boxes and observation areas to either side. At the floor-level a double row of exquisitely decorated booths provided wine and other refreshment for the celebrants.

  An officer accosted the four, collected admission fees. They wandered out upon the floor in company with perhaps a hundred others. Lords? Ladies? Recipients from the surrounding countryside? From the city? Noncups like Floriel, Sonjaly, Nion? Ghyl could not identify one from the other and he wondered if Nion, usually so knowledgeable, would be able to do so.

  At a booth all provided themselves with green crackle-glass flasks of edel-wine and stood watching the spectacle. Now musicians mounted to a dais, all wearing buffoon’s garments of checkered black and white. They tuned instruments: a sound thrilling and premonitory of gayety, as sweet as music itself. Then they scraped their fiddles, droned on their concertinas and struck up a gay tune.

  The dances of the time were extremely sedate, a far cry from the caracoles of the Last Empire or the orgiastic whirling and twitching to be seen at the seaports of the South Continent. There were several types of pavannes, as many promenades, and for the young, a kind of a swinging hand-in-hand skipping dance, of considerable vivacity. In all cases the couples stood side by side, holding hands or locking elbows.

  This first tune was an adagio, the corresponding dance consisting of a slow step, a shuffle, a bow forward, another far back, the knee raised as high as possible, and held stationary, while the music played a fluttering little figure, whereupon the whole series was repeated.

  Ghyl, with neither skill nor inclination, watched as Nion moved purposefully toward Sonjaly, only to have Floriel step quickly in front of him and take the half-amused, half-petulant Sonjaly out upon the floor.

  Nion went back to stand by Ghyl, his grin benign and indulgent. “Poor Floriel, when will he learn?”

  Back and forth along the floor stepped the dancers, graceful-grotesque, grotesque-graceful. There were simulations of a hundred sorts: clowns, demons, heroes; folk from far stars and ancient times; creatures of fantasy, nightmare, faery. The pavilion was rich. There was glitter of metal, the soft sheen of silk; gauze in every color; black leather, black wood, black velvet. Nion touched Ghyl’s arm: “There gather the lords and their ladies, by the archway. Look at them peering this way and that; a shame they must be so cautious. Why cannot they mingle more freely with ordinary folk?”

  Ghyl refrained from pointing out that fear, as well as pride and haughtiness, was at work. He asked curiously, “How do you know them for lords?”

  “Mannerisms. They are distinct in many ways. Look how they stand by the walls. Some say they have learned a fear of space from living so long in the upper air. Their equilibrium is also affected; should you dance with a lady, you’d know at once; she’d be supple but erratic, without feeling for the music.”

  “Oh? Have you danced with ladies?”

  “Danced, and more, if you’ll believe me…Look, watch them now: preening, twittering, debating advisabilities—oh, they’re a sage fastidious people!”

  The lords and ladies had come in several groups, which now fragmented. One by one, they slipped out upon the pavilion, like magical creatures daring a voyage on a perilous sea.

  Ghyl scanned the upper tiers. “Where are the Garrion? Do they stand in the dark booths above?”

  “Perhaps.” Nion shrugged ignorance. “Look at them, those lords! Watch how they stare at the girls! Randy as buck wisnets! Give them ten minutes, they’d impregnate every female in the pavilion!”

  Ghyl followed his gesture, but now all looked alike; lords and ladies were lost in the crowd.

  The music stopped; Sonjaly brought Floriel across the floor.

  “The lords are here,” Nion told them. “One contingent at any rate, and there may be more.”

  Sonjaly wanted the lords pointed out, but now even Nion was hard put to differentiate lord from recipient.

  The music started again: a slow pavanne. Floriel instantly took possession of Sonjaly but she gave her head a shake. “Thank you, no; I’d like to rest.”

  Ghyl, watching the dancers, decided that the step was within his capabilities. Determined to prove himself as rakehelly and gallant as the others, Ghyl presented himself to a shapely girl in a costume of green scales with a green domino, and led her out upon the floor.

  He acquitted himself well enough, or so he congratulated himself. The girl had little to say; she lived in the outlying suburb of Godlep, where her father was a public weighmaster.

  “Weighmaster?” pondered Ghyl. “Does that go to Scriveners’ Guild or Instrument-tenders’? Or Functionaries?”

  “Functionaries.” She signaled to a young man in overlapping rings of black and red stripes. “My fiancé,” she told Ghyl. “He’s a Functionary also, with excellent prospects, though we may have to move south to Ditzim.”

  Sonjaly had recovered from her fatigue; she and Nion were dancing now. Nion moved with a sure precision and far more gusto than Ghyl could summon. Sonjaly clasped his arm and leaned against him without regard for Floriel’s sensibilities.

  The music ended; Ghyl relinquished the girl in green scales to her fiancé, drank a cup of wi
ne to calm his nerves.

  Nion and Sonjaly strolled off to the far side of the pavilion. Floriel scowled and muttered.

  At the far end of the pavilion appeared another contingent of lords and ladies, the lords costumed variously: Rhadamese warriors, druids, Kalks, barbaric princes, mermen. One lady wore gray crystals; another blue flashes of light; another white plumes.

  The musicians readied their instruments; once more there was music. A person in a cuirass of black enamel and brass, breeches striped ocher and black, a bronze and black morion came to bow before Sonjaly. With an arch glance toward Nion, Sonjaly swept away on the stranger’s arm. A lord? wondered Ghyl. So it seemed. A prideful quality of conduct, a poise of head, identified him as such. Ghyl thought Nion appeared vexed.

  So went the evening. Ghyl attempted the acquaintance of several girls with indifferent success. Sonjaly, when visible, kept to the company of the young lord in black, brown and brass. Floriel drank more wine than was good for him and glowered here and there. Nion Bohart seemed even more vexed by Sonjaly’s frivolity than did Floriel.

  The atmosphere at the pavilion loosened. The dancers moved more freely, performing the measures with verve, toes splayed smartly aside, knees crooking sometimes grotesquely high, heads tilting and leaning, this way and that. Ghyl, through perversity or crochet, would not fall in with the general mood. He became disturbed and angry with himself. Was he so dour then, so tightly clenched, that he could not abandon himself to pleasure? He gritted his teeth, determined to out-gallant the gallants, through the exercise of sheer will, if by no other means. He walked around the periphery of the pavilion, to stop short near a delightfully-shaped girl in a white gown, wearing a white domino. She was dark-haired and slender, and very graceful; Ghyl had noticed her previously. She had danced once or twice; she had drunk a certain amount of wine; she had seemed as gay and wild as Ghyl wanted to be. Every movement pressed her gown against her body, which evidently, below the gown, was nude. Observing Ghyl’s attention, she tilted her head teasingly sidewise. Ghyl’s heart expanded, rose into his throat. Step by step he came forward, suddenly shy, though scenes of this sort had occurred a hundred times in his imagination: the girl seemed dear and familiar, and the instant fraught with déjà-vu. The feeling became so intense that, a step or two away, Ghyl halted.