City of the Chasch

by Jack Vance

  “No,” said Reith. “I only want information; then, so far as I am concerned, you may go on your way.”

  The Dirdirman grimaced. “You are as mad as the Phung. Still, why should I persuade you differently?” He came a step or two forward, to inspect Reith and Traz at closer range. “Do you inhabit this place?”

  “No; we are travelers.”

  “Then you would not know of a place suitable for me to spend the night?”

  Reith pointed to a pedestal. “Climb to the top, as we have done.”

  The Dirdirman gave his fingers a petulant flicker. “That is not to my taste, not at all. And there may well be rain.” He looked back to the slab of concrete under which he had taken shelter, then to the corpse of the Phung. “You are an obliging pair: docile and intelligent. As you see, I am tired and must be allowed to rest. You are at hand; I would like you to stand guard while I sleep.”

  “Kill the nauseous brute!” muttered Traz in a passion.

  The Dirdirman laughed: a queer gasping chuckle. “That’s more the way of a sub-man!” He spoke to Reith. “Now you are a queer one. I can’t place your type. Some strange hybrid? Where, then, is your home region?”

  Reith had decided that the less attention drawn to himself the better; he would say no more of his terrestrial origin. But Traz, stung by the Dirdirman’s condescension, cried out: “Not a region! He is from Earth, a far world! The home of true men like myself! You are a freak!”

  The Dirdirman wagged his head reproachfully. “Of madfolk, a pair. Well, then, what can one expect?”

  Reith, uncomfortable at Traz’s disclosures, quickly changed the subject. “What do you do here? Was the Dirdir flyer searching for you?”

  “Yes, I fear so. They did not find me, I took good care to ensure.”

  “You are a fugitive?”

  “Precisely.”

  “What is your crime?”

  “No matter; you would hardly understand; it is beyond your capabilities.”

  Reith, more amused than annoyed, turned back to the pedestal. “I plan to sleep. If you intend to live till morning, I suggest that you climb high, out of reach of the Phung.”

  “I am puzzled by your solicitude,” was the Dirdirman’s wry remark.

  Reith made no reply. He and Traz returned to their pedestal and the Dirdirman gingerly climbed another nearby.

  The night passed. The clouds pressed heavily upon them, but produced no rain. Dawn came imperceptibly; and presently brought light the color of dirty water. The Dirdirman’s pedestal was bare. Reith assumed that he had gone his way. He and Traz descended to the plaza, built a small fire to dispel the chill. Across the plaza the Dirdirman appeared.

  Observing no signs of hostility, he approached step by step, at last to stand a wistful fifty feet away, a long loose-limbed harlequin with garments much the worse for wear. Traz scowled and prodded the fire, but Reith gave him a civil greeting: “Join us, if you’re of a mind.”

  Traz muttered, “A mistake! The creature will do us harm! Such as he are smooth-tongued and supercilious; and man-eaters to boot.”

  Reith had forgotten this latter characteristic and gave the Dirdirman a frowning inspection.

  For a period there was silence. Then the Dirdirman said tentatively, “The longer I consider your conduct, your garments, your gear, the more puzzled I become. Whence did you claim to originate?”

  “I made no claims,” said Reith. “What of yourself?”

  “No secret there. I am Ankhe at afram Anacho; I was born a man at Zumberwal in the Fourteenth Province. Now, having been declared a criminal and a fugitive, I am of no greater consequence than yourselves, and I will make no pretensions otherwise. So here we are, three unkempt wanderers huddled around a fire.”

  Traz growled under his breath. Reith, however, found the Dirdirman’s frivolity, if such it was, refreshing. He asked, “What was your crime?”

  “You would find it difficult to understand. Essentially, I disregarded the perquisites of a certain Enze Edo Ezdowirram, who brought me to the attention of the First Race. I trusted to ingenuity and refused to be chastened. I compounded my original offense; I exacerbated the situation a dozen times over. At last in a spasm of irritation, I dislodged Enze Edo from his seat a mile above the steppe.” Ankhe at afram Anacho made a gesture of whimsical fatalism. “By one means or another I evaded the Derogators; so now I am here, without plans and no resources other than my—” Here he used an untranslatable word, comprising the ideas of intrinsic superiority, intellectual élan, the inevitability of good fortune deriving from these qualities.

  Traz gave a snort and went off to hunt his breakfast. Anacho watched with covert interest and presently sauntered after him. The two ran here and there through the rubble, catching and eating insects with relish. Reith contented himself with a handful of pilgrim pods.

  The Dirdirman, hunger appeased, returned to examine Reith’s clothes and equipment. “I believe the boy said ‘Earth, a far planet.’ “ He tapped his button-nose with a long white finger. “I could almost believe it, were you not shaped precisely like a sub-man, which renders the idea absurd.”

  Traz said in a somewhat lordly tone, “Earth is the original home of men. We are true men. You are a freak.”

  Anacho gave Traz a quizzical glance. “What is this, the creed of a new sub-man cult? Well then, it is all the same to me.”

  “Enlighten us,” requested Reith in a silky voice. “How did men come to Tschai?”

  Anacho made an airy gesture. “The history is well-known and perfectly straightforward. On Sibot the home-world the Great Fish produced an egg. It floated to the shore of Remura and up the beach. One half rolled into the sunlight and became the Dirdir. The other rolled into the shade and became Dirdirmen.”

  “Interesting,” said Reith. “But what of the Chaschmen? What of Traz? What of myself?”

  “The explanation is hardly mysterious; I am surprised that you ask. Fifty thousand years ago the Dirdir drove from Sibol to Tschai. During the ensuing wars Old Chasch captured Dirdirmen. Others were taken by the Pnume; and later by the Wankh. These became Chaschmen, Pnumekin, Wankhmen. Fugitives, criminals, recalcitrants and biological sports hiding in the marshes interbred to produce the sub-men. And there you have it.

  Traz looked to Reith. “Tell the fool of Earth; explain his ignorance to him.”

  Reith only laughed.

  Anacho gave him a puzzled appraisal. “Beyond question you are a unique sort. Where are you bound?”

  Reith pointed to the northwest. “Pera.”

  “The City of Lost Souls, beyond the Dead Steppe ... You will never arrive. Green Chasch range the Dead Steppe.”

  “There is no way to avoid them?”

  Anacho shrugged. “Caravans cross to Pera.”

  “Where is the caravan route?”

  “To the north, at no great distance.”

  “We will travel with a caravan, then.”

  “You might be taken and sold for a slave. Caravan-masters are notoriously without scruple. Why are you so anxious to reach Pera?”

  “Reasons sufficient. What are your own plans?”

  “I have none. I am a vagabond no less than yourself. If you do not object, I will travel in your company.”

  “As you wish,” said Reith, ignoring Traz’s hiss of disgust.

  They set forth into the north, the Dirdirmen maintaining an inconsequential chatter which Reith found amusing and occasionally edifying, and which Traz pretended to ignore. At noon they came to a range of low hills. Traz shot a skate-shaped ruminant with his catapult. They built a fire, broiled the animal on a spit and made a good meal. Reith asked the Dirdirman, “Is it true that you eat human flesh?”

  “Certainly. It can be the most tender of meats. But you need not fear, unlike the Chasch, Dirdir and Dirdirmen are not compulsive gourmands.”

  They climbed up through the hills, under low trees with soft blue and gray foliage, trees laden with plump red fruits which Traz declared poisonous.
Finally they breasted the ridge, to look out over the Dead Steppe: a flat, gray waste, lifeless except for tufts of gorse and pilgrim plant. Below, almost at their feet, ran a track of two wide ruts. It came up from the southeast, skirted the base of the hills, passed below, then three miles northwest turned among a cluster of rock towers, or outcrops, which rose near the base of the hills like dolmens. The track continued to the northwest, dwindled away across the steppe. Another track led south through a pass in the hills, another swung away to the north-east.

  Traz squinted down at the outcrops, then pointed. “Look yonder through your instrument.”

  Reith brought forth his scanscope, scrutinized the outcrops.

  “What do you see?” asked Traz.

  “Buildings. Not many-not even a village. On the rocks, gun emplacements.”

  “This must be Kazabir Depot,” mused Traz, “where caravans transfer cargo. The guns protect against Green Chasch.”

  The Dirdirman made an excited gesture. “There may even be an inn of sorts. Come! I am anxious to bathe. Never in my life have I known such filth!”

  “How will we pay?” asked Reith. “We have no coin, no trade-goods.”

  “No fear,” declared the Dirdirman. “I carry sequins sufficient for us all. We of the Second Race are not ingrates and you have served me well. Even the boy shall eat a civilized supper, probably for the first time.”

  Traz scowled and prepared a prideful retort; then, noticing Reith’s amusement, managed a sour grin of his own. “We had best depart; this is a dangerous place, a vantage for the Green Chasch. See the spoor? They come up here to watch for caravans.” He pointed to the south, where the horizon was marked by an irregular gray line. “Even now a caravan approaches.”

  “In that case,” said Anacho, “we had best hurry to the inn, to take accommodation before the caravan arrives. I have no wish for another night on the gorse.”

  The clear Tschai air, the extent of the horizons, made distances hard to judge; by the time the three had descended the hills the caravan was already passing along the track: a line of sixty or seventy great vehicles, so tall as to seem top-heavy, swaying and heaving on six ten-foot wheels. Some were propelled by engines, others by hulking gray beasts with small heads which seemed all eyes and snout.

  The three stood to the side and watched the caravan trundle past. In the van three Ilanths scouts, proud as kings, rode on leaphorses: tall men, wide-shouldered, narrow of hip, with keen sharp features. Their skins were radiant yellow; their raven-black hair, tied into stiff plumes, glistened with varnish. They wore long-billed black caps crowned by jawless human skulls, and the plume of hair rose jauntily just behind the skull. They carried a long supple sword like that of the Emblems, a pair of hand-guns at their belts, two daggers in their right boot. Riding past on their massive leap-horses they turned uninterested glances down at the three wayfarers, but deigned no more.

  Great drays rumbled past. Some were top-heavy with bales and parcels; others carried tiers of cages, in which blank-faced children, young men, young women, were mixed indiscriminately. Every sixth vehicle was a gun-cart, manned by grayskinned men in black jerkins and black leather helmets. The guns were short wide-mouthed tubes for the discharge, apparently by propulsor-field, of projectiles. Others, longer, narrow of muzzle, were hung with tanks, and Reith presumed them flame-ejectors.

  Reith said to Traz, “This is the caravan we met at lobu Ford.”

  Traz gave a gloomy nod. “Had we taken it I might yet have carried Onmale ... But I am not sorry. There was never such a weight as Onmale. At night it would whisper to me.”

  A dozen of the drays carried three-story lodges of blackstained timber, with cupolas, decks and shaded verandahs. Reith looked at them with envy. Here was the comfortable way to travel the steppes of Tschai! A particularly massive dray carried a house with barred windows and iron-bound doors. The front deck was enclosed by heavy wire mesh: in effect, a cage. Looking forth was a young woman, with a beauty so extraordinary that it seemed to have a vitality of its own, like the Onmale emblem. She was rather slight, with skin the color of dune sand. Dark hair brushed her shoulders; her eyes were the clear browngold of topaz. She wore a small rose-red skull-cap, a dull red tunic, trousers of white linen, rumpled and somewhat soiled. As the dray lurched past she looked down at the three wayfarers. For an instant Reith met her eyes, and was shocked by the melancholy of her expression. The dray rolled past. In an open doorway at the rear stood a tall woman, bleak-featured, with glittering eyes, an inch-long bristle of brown-gray hair. In vast curiosity Reith applied to Anacho for information, but to no avail. The Dirdirman had neither knowledge nor opinion.

  The three followed the caravan past the fortified rock-juts, into a wide sandy compound. The caravan master, a small intensely active old man, ranged the vehicles in three ranks: the cargo wagons next to the depot warehouse, then the slave-carriers’ houses and barracks, and finally the gun-carts with the weapons directed toward the steppe.

  Across the compound stood the caravansary, a slope-sided two-storied structure of compacted earth. The tavern, kitchen and common-room occupied the lower floor; on the second was a row of small chambers opening upon a porch. The three wayfarers found the innkeeper in the common-room: a burly man in black boots and a brown apron, with skin as gray as wood-ash. With raised eyebrows he looked from Traz in nomad costume to Anacho and his once-elegant Dirdir garments to Reith, in Earthstyle whipcord breeches and jacket, but made no difficulty about providing accommodation and agreed to provide new garments as well.

  The chambers were eight feet wide, ten feet long. There was a bed of leathern thongs across a wooden frame, with a thin pallet of straw, a table with basin and ewer of water. After the journey across the steppe, the accommodations seemed almost luxurious. Reith bathed, shaved with the razor from his survival kit, donned his new garments in which he hoped to be less conspicuous: loose trousers of brown-gray canvas, a shirt of rough white homespun, a black short-sleeved vest. Stepping out on the porch, he looked down into the compound. His old life on Earth: how remote it seemed! Compared to the bizarre multiplicity of Tschai, the old existence was drab and colorless-though not the less desirable for all that. Reith was forced to admit that his initial desolation had become somewhat less poignant. His new life, for all its precariousness, held zest and adventure. Reith looked across the compound toward the dray with the iron-bound house. The girl was a prisoner: so much was evident. What was her destiny that she should display such anguish?

  Reith tried to identify the dray, but among so many humped, peaked and angular shapes it could not be found. Just as well, he told himself. He had troubles enough without investigating the woe of a slave girl, glimpsed for five seconds in all. Reith went back into his room.

  Certain items from his survival kit he thrust into his pockets; the rest he concealed under the ewer. Descending to the common-room, he found Traz sitting stiffly on a bench to the side. In response to Reith’s question, he admitted that he had never before been in such a place and did not wish to make a fool of himself. Reith laughed and clapped him on the shoulder, and Traz managed a painful grin.

  Anacho appeared, less obviously a Dirdirman in his steppedweller’s garments. The three went to the refectory, where they were served a meal of bread and thick dark soup, the ingredients of which Reith did not inquire.

  After the meal Anacho regarded Reith through eyes heavy-lidded with speculation. “From here you fare to Pera?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is known as the City of Lost Souls.”

  “So I understand.”

  “Hyperbole, of course,” Anacho remarked airily. “‘Soul’ is a concept susceptible to challenge. The Dirdir theologies are subtle; I will not discuss them, except to remark that-no, best not to confuse you. But back to Pera, the ‘City of Lost Souls,’ as it were, and the destination of the caravan. Rather than walk, I prefer to ride; I suggest then that we engage the best and most comfortable transport the caravan-master c
an provide.”

  “An excellent idea,” said Reith. “However, I—”

  Anacho fluttered his finger in the air. “Do not concern yourself; I am, for the moment at least, disposed kindly toward you and the boy; you are mild and respectful; you do not overstep your status; hence—”

  Traz, breathing hard, rose to his feet. “I carried Onmale! Can you understand that? When I left camp do you think that I neglected to take sequins?” He thumped a long bag down upon the table. “We do not depend on your indulgence, Dirdirman!”

  “As you wish,” said Anacho with a quizzical glance toward Reith.

  Reith said, “Since I have no sequins, I gladly accept whatever is offered to me, from either of you.”

  The common-room had gradually filled with folk from the caravan: drivers and weaponeers, the three swaggering Ilanths, the caravan-master, others. All called for food and drink. As soon as the caravan-master had eaten, Anacho, Traz and Reith approached him and solicited transportation to Pera. “So long as you are in no hurry,” said the caravan-master. “We wait here until the Aig-Hedajha caravan comes down from the North, then we travel by way of Golsse; if you are in haste you must make other arrangements.”

  Reith would have preferred to travel rapidly: what would be happening to his space-boat? But with no swifter form of transport available, he curbed his impatience.

  Others also were impatient. Up to the table marched two women in long black gowns with red shoes. One of these Reith had seen previously, looking from the back of the dray. The other was thinner, but taller, with a skin even more leaden, almost cadaverous. The tall woman spoke in a voice crackling with restrained anger, or perhaps chronic antagonism: “Sir Baojian, how long do we wait here? The driver says it may be five days.”

  “Five days is a fair estimate.”

  “But this is impossible! We will be overdue at the seminary!”

  Baojian the caravan-master spoke in a professionally toneless voice: “We wait for the southbound caravan, to exchange articles for transshipment. We proceed immediately thereafter.”