Emphyrio

by Jack Vance

  Shaking his head in perplexity, he considered the girl from the toes of her little white sandals to her white domino.

  She made a sound of amused dismay. “You are so critical! Am I grotesque or startling?”

  “No, no!” stammered Ghyl. “Of course not! You are absolutely enchanting!”

  The corners of her mouth twitched, and she thought to beguile him even more utterly. “Surely others here are beautiful, but you stare only at me! I feel sure that you think me strange or remarkable!”

  “Of course not! But I felt that we have met, that we have known each other… Somewhere…But I can’t imagine the circumstances. I certainly would have remembered!”

  “You are more than polite,” said the girl. “And I would have remembered you, as well. Since I don’t—” here she turned him her most bewitching glance “—Or do I? I seem to recognize—as you say—something familiar, as if somewhere we have known each other.”

  Ghyl stepped forward, his heart pounding, his throat heavy with a wonderfully sweet ache. He took her hands, which she yielded readily. “Do you believe in dreams of the future?”

  “Well…yes. Perhaps.”

  “And predestination and mysterious kinds of love?”

  She laughed, a delightful husky sound, and gave his hands a tug. “A hundred wonderful things I believe in. But won’t folk think us strange, standing here at the ball and declaring our philosophies?”

  Ghyl looked this way and that in confusion. “Well, then—will you dance? Or, if you like, we could sit over yonder and drink a cup of wine together.”

  “I would as lief drink wine…I really don’t care to dance.”

  A startling new thought came to Ghyl, or rather, a bubble of certainty floating up from his subconscious. This girl surely was no recipient; she was a lady! The Difference was manifest! In the quality of her voice, the poise of her head, the tart perfume which surrounded her!

  Exalted, Ghyl procured goblets of Gade wine and led the girl to a cushioned bench in the shadows. “What is your name?”

  “I am Shanne.”

  “I am Ghyl.” He turned her a searching side-glance. “Where do you live?”

  She made an extravagant gesture; she was a vivacious girl, with hundreds of gay tricks and wry expressions. “Here, there, everywhere. Wherever I am, this is where I live.”

  “Of course. And I, as well. But do you live in the city—or up on an eyrie?”

  Shanne held out her hands in mock despair. “Would you rob me of all my secrets? And if not secrets, my dreams? So I am Shanne, a girl vagabond, with no reputation or money or hope.”

  Ghyl was not deceived. The Difference was evident: that indefinable apartness which distinguished lords and ladies from the underfolk. A parapsychic umbra? An almost imperceptible odor, clean and fresh, like ozone, perhaps from long intimate contact with the upper air? Whatever the case, the effect was delightful. Ghyl squirmed at an uncomfortable thought. Might not the reverse be true? Might not the common folk seem louts, dull and lumpish, exhaling a stale reek? The lords who were so keen to seduce recipient girls could not think so. They panted after honest and unaffected passion. Perhaps the same situation prevailed vis-à-vis ladies and undermen…The idea was unwelcome, in fact vaguely repugnant. Ghyl had never been seriously in love. His infatuation with Sonjaly now seemed stupidity. At this moment Sonjaly herself, again with Nion, danced close by. How coarse was Sonjaly in contrast to Shanne!

  Shanne seemed at least favorably disposed toward him, for—wonder of wonders! she tucked her hand under his arm and leaned back with a sigh of relaxation, her shoulder touching his.

  “I love the County Ball,” said Shanne in a soft voice. “There is always such excitement, such wondering who you will meet.”

  “You’ve come before?” asked Ghyl, aching for all the experiences he had not shared with her.

  “Yes, I came last year. But I was not happy. The person I met was—gross.”

  “‘Gross’? How so? What did he do?”

  But Shanne only smiled cryptically and gave his arm a companionable squeeze.

  “The reason I ask,” said Ghyl, “is so I won’t perform any of the same errors.”

  Shanne only laughed, with just the slightest sense of restraint, so that Ghyl was left to wonder what indelicacies and crudities the man had performed.

  Shanne jumped to her feet. “Come; this is music I like: a Mang serenade. I would like to dance.”

  Ghyl looked dubiously out at the floor. “It seems very complicated. I know almost nothing of dancing.”

  “What? Aren’t you trained to leap and skip at the Temple?”

  The girl was a tease, thought Ghyl. Well, he didn’t mind. And his instinct was correct: she was certainly a young lady. “I have done very little leaping,” said Ghyl. “As little as possible. In retribution Finuka has cursed me with a heavy foot, and I would not like you to think me clumsy. But there is a skiff at the dock; would you like me to row you out on the river?”

  Shanne gave him a quick glance of calculation, ran the tip of her pink tongue over her lips. “No,” she said in a thoughtful voice. “That would not be—advantageous.”

  Ghyl shrugged. “I’ll try to dance.”

  “Wonderful!” She pulled him to his feet, and for a breathless second leaned against him so that he felt all the contours of her body. Ghyl’s skin tingled; his knees felt warm and weak. Looking down into Shanne’s face he saw her smile to the side, a slow secret smile, and Ghyl did not know what to think.

  Ghyl danced no better than he had promised, but Shanne seemed not to notice and indeed did very little better, apparently not attending the rhythm of the music; once again Ghyl was assured that she was a young lady.

  Of course! She would not row with him on the river for fear of kidnap; obviously she could not bring a Garrion into the skiff! Ghyl chuckled. Instantly Shanne’s head bobbed up. “Why do you laugh?”

  “Exhilaration,” said Ghyl gravely. “Shanne the girl vagabond is the loveliest creature I have ever known.”

  “Tonight at least I am Shanne the girl vagabond,” she said, somewhat wistfully.

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Sh.” She put her hand across his lips. “Never say the word!” With a quick look to right and left she led Ghyl through the crowd and back to their bench.

  The revelry was approaching abandon. Dancers swayed, kicked, pranced, eyes glittering through their dominoes. Some made extravagant pirouettes; others paused to embrace, feverishly, oblivious to all else.

  Intoxicated by color and sound and beauty as much as by the wine, Ghyl put his arm around Shanne’s waist; she laid her head on his shoulder, looked up into his face. “Did you know that I can read minds?” she said in a husky whisper. “I like yours. You are strong and good and intelligent—but you are far, far, far too severe. What do you fear?” As she spoke her face was close to his. Ghyl, feeling as if he walked in a dream, bent close, close, closer; their faces met, he kissed her. Ghyl’s whole inner being exploded. Never would he be the same, never again! How craven, how dull had been the Ghyl Tarvoke of old! Now nothing exceeded his competence; his previous goals—how abject they seemed!…He kissed Shanne again; she sighed. “I am shameless. I have known you only an hour.”

  Ghyl reached to her domino, lifted it, gazed into her face. “Much longer.” He raised his own domino. “Do you recognize me?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know.”

  “Think back—eight years? Perhaps nine. You were on your space yacht: a black and gold Deme. Two ragamuffins skulked aboard. Now do you remember?”

  “Of course. You were the defiant one. You rascal, but you deserved your beating.”

  “Very likely. I thought you so heartless, so cruel… So remote.”

  Shanne giggled. “I don’t seem so remote now?”

  “You seem—I can’t find the word. But that wasn’t the first time we met.”

  “No? When before?”

  “When I was small my father took me to see H
olkerwoyd’s puppets. You sat in the front row.”

  “Yes. I remember. How strange that you should notice me!”

  “How could I avoid it? I must have foreseen this moment.”

  “Ghyl…” She sighed, sipped her wine. “I do so love the ground! Here are the strong things, the passions! Oh you are lucky!”

  Ghyl laughed. “You can’t really mean that. You wouldn’t trade your life—for, say, hers.” He pointed to Sonjaly. The music had just stopped; Nion and Sonjaly were walking from the floor. Nion spied Ghyl; his stride slowed, he turned his head, stared, continued.

  “No,” said Shanne. “I would not. Do you know her?”

  “Yes. Also the young man.”

  “The swaggerer. I watched him. He wasn’t what—” Her voice dwindled away. Ghyl wondered what she had started to say.

  For a period they sat quietly. The music started again; Sonjaly danced past with the lord in black and brown. In a kind of dreamy curiosity Ghyl looked for Floriel and Nion, but neither was visible.

  “There goes your friend,” whispered Shanne, “with someone I know. And shortly they will be gone…” She squeezed his arm. “I have no more wine.”

  “Oh! I’m sorry. Just a moment.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  They went to a booth. “Buy a whole flask,” whispered Shanne. “The green.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Ghyl. “And then?”

  She said nothing—a meaningful silence. Ghyl secured the wine, took her arm. They walked outside, along the riverbank. A hundred yards along Ghyl halted, kissed Shanne. She responded fervently. They wandered on, and presently found a stretch of grassy bank. Damar, at the quarter, laid a quivering trail of tarnished copper on the water.

  Shanne removed her domino, Ghyl did the same; they drank wine. Ghyl stared at the river, then up to the moon. Shanne said, “You are quiet; are you sad?”

  “In a way. Do you know why?”

  She put her hand across his mouth. “Never speak of it. What must be, will be. What can never be—can never be.”

  Ghyl turned to look at her, trying to divine every last scintilla of her meaning.

  “But,” she added in a soft voice, “what can be—can be.”

  Ghyl drank from the wine bottle, set it down, turned to her, held out his arms. She held out hers, the two were one, and what ensued was as far beyond Ghyl’s fantasies and musings as a magical reappearance of Emphyrio himself.

  There was a pause, while the two sat pressed together. They drank wine. Ghyl’s head whirled. He started to speak but once again Shanne halted him and rising on her knees hugged his head to her bosom, and once again for Ghyl the skies reeled and Damar blurred in and out of focus.

  At last there was calm. Ghyl held the flask up against the moonlight. “Enough for you and for me.”

  “My head whirls,” said Shanne.

  “Mine as well.” He took her hand. “After tonight, what?”

  “Tomorrow I fly back to my tower.”

  “But when will I see you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I must see you! I love you!”

  Shanne, sitting forward, clasped her knees with her arms, smiled up toward Damar. “In one week from today I travel. I travel, I travel, I travel! To distant worlds, beyond the stars!”

  Ghyl cried out, “If you go, I’ll never see you again!”

  Shanne shook her head, her smile wistful. “Very likely that is so.”

  A harsh cold effluvium seethed up through Ghyl’s veins and there turned to ice. He felt stiff, vaguely terrified: aghast at the prospect of the future. He recovered control of his voice. “You provoke me to all sorts of outrageous conduct.”

  “No, no,” said Shanne in her sweet whisper. “Don’t ever consider it! You might be rehabilitated, or whatever dreadful thing they do to you.”

  Ghyl gave a slow fateful nod. “There is that chance.” He turned to Shanne once more; he took her in his arms, kissed her face, her eyes, her mouth. She sighed, melted against him. Ghyl’s mood was now less tender; he felt as old as Damar, wise in the lore of all the worlds.

  At last they rose to their feet. Ghyl asked, “Where will you go now?”

  “To the pavilion. I must find my father; he will be wondering where I am.”

  “Won’t he be worried?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Ghyl put his hands on the girl’s shoulder. “Shanne! Can we go off together, away from Ambroy? To South Continent! Or the Mang Islands! And there live our lives together?”

  Shanne once more touched his mouth with her hands. “It would never be feasible.”

  “And I will never see you more?”

  “Never more.”

  There was a sound behind them, a quiet footstep. Ghyl turned to look, to see a black hulk standing patiently beside the moonlit river.

  “Just my Garrion,” said Shanne. “Come, let us return to the pavilion.”

  Ghyl turned away. They walked back along the riverbank. Behind, at a discreet distance, came the Garrion.

  Chapter XIII

  At the pavilion Shanne kissed Ghyl on the cheek, then, donning her domino, slipped off through the colored shadows to a group of lords and ladies.

  Ghyl watched a moment, then turned away. How different seemed the universe! How strange seemed his life of a week ago! There was Floriel. Ghyl went to him. “Well then, here I am. Where is Sonjaly? Where is Nion?”

  Floriel gave a mirthless laugh. “You missed all the fun.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. A lord in armor—perhaps you noticed him—took interest in Sonjaly. Nion resented his attentions. When the two went outside to walk along the riverbank Nion ran after them, though really it was no affair of his. Mine, if anyone’s. Well, I went behind to watch. Nion challenged the lord; the Garrion seized him, beat him and threw him in the river. The lord went off with Sonjaly. Nion floated off downstream, splashing and cursing. Splendid! I’ve seen no more of him.”

  Ghyl laughed: a caw of such harsh mirth that Floriel looked at him in wonder. “And how did you fare? I saw you earlier with a girl in white.”

  “Are you ready to leave?”

  “Why not? A miserable evening. I’ll not come to the County Ball again. It’s all froth and frivolity, with not an ounce of true entertainment. Well, let us go.”

  They walked through the night to the dock, and Floriel sculled the skiff across the river. Damar had set; an ash-colored light welled up into the eastern sky. A lamp flickered in the main room of the cottage. Here sat Nion, huddled under a blanket, drinking tea. He looked up as Floriel and Ghyl entered, and gave a grunt of mingled greeting and disapproval. “So you’ve finally returned. What kept you so long? Do you know that the Garrion beat me and threw me in the river?”

  “It serves you right,” said Floriel. He poured tea, handed a cup to Ghyl. The three sat in brooding silence. Ghyl at last made a sound, halfway between a sigh and a groan. “Life at Ambroy is futile. It is life wasted.”

  “Are you just now becoming aware of that?” asked Nion bitterly.

  “Life is probably futile anywhere,” remarked Floriel with a sniff.

  “That’s all that’s keeping me at Ambroy,” declared Nion. “That, and the fact that I can make a decent living here.”

  Ghyl clenched his hands around the cup. “If I had any courage—if any of us had courage—we’d go forth to find… something.”

  “What do you mean—‘something’?” asked Nion in a cantankerous voice.

  “I’m not sure. Something meaningful, something grand. The chance to work a remarkable good, to right a terrible wrong, to do high deeds, to inspire men for all time! Like Emphyrio!”

  Nion laughed. “Emphyrio again? We worked him once for what he was worth, which wasn’t much.”

  Ghyl paid no heed. “Somewhere the truth regarding Emphyrio exists. I want to learn the truth. Don’t you?”

  Floriel, more perceptive than Nion, surveyed Ghyl curiously. “Why does th
is mean so much to you?”

  “Emphyrio has haunted me all my life. My father died on the same account; he thought of himself as Emphyrio. He wanted to bring truth to Ambroy. Why else did he dare so much?”

  Nion shrugged. “You’ll never grease your pan with ‘truth’.” He glanced at Ghyl appraisingly. “The girl you were sitting with—wasn’t she a lady?”

  “Yes. Shanne.” Ghyl uttered the name softly.

  “She seemed attractive, judging from her figure. Are you seeing her again?”

  “She’s going traveling. I’ll be left behind.”

  Nion looked at him with raised eyebrows. He gave a sour little bark of a laugh. “I do believe,” he told Floriel, “that the lad’s smitten!”

  Floriel, still smarting over Sonjaly’s faithlessness, was not particularly interested. “I suppose it happens.”

  Nion addressed Ghyl in an earnest, if condescending, voice. “My dear fellow, you should never take these people seriously! Why do you think they come to the County Ball? No other reason but to have a little fling. They purge themselves of tension and emotion; after all, they live unnatural lives up on those eyries. They detest each other’s vanity and arrogance and chill. Hence they come down to the County Ball and warm themselves at the fire of honest passion!”

  “Nonsense,” muttered Ghyl. “The situation was not at all like this.”

  “Ha! Did she say she loved you?”

  “No.”

  “Did she show any shyness or reluctance?”

  “No.”

  “Did she agree to see you again?”

  “No. But she’ll be traveling in a short time. She explained it all to me.”