Trullion: Alastor 2262

by Jack Vance

  “No doubt they would expunge hussade as well,” said Glinnes.

  “By no means,” said Akadie. “The Fanschers are indifferent to the game; it has no meaning for them, one way or the other.”

  “What a grim fastidious lot!” said Glinnes.

  “They seem even more so by contrast with their varmous parents,” said Akadie.

  “No doubt true,” said Ryl Shermatz. “Still, one must note that an extreme philosophy often provokes its antithesis.”

  “That is the case here on Trillion,” said Akadie. “I warned you that the idyllic atmosphere is delusive.”

  A glare of light flooded the study, persisting only a moment. Akadie uttered an ejaculation and went to the window, followed by Glinnes. They saw a great white cruiser coming slowly across Clinkhammer Broad; the masthead searchlight playing along the shore, briefly touching Akadie’s manse, had illuminated the study.

  Akadie said in a wondering voice, “I believe it’s the Scopoeia, Lord Rianle’s yacht. Why should it be here in Clinkhammer Broad, of all places?”

  A boat left the yacht and made for Akadie’s dock; simultaneously the horn sounded three peremptory blasts. Akadie muttered under his breath and ran from the house. Ryl Shermatz wandered here and there about the room inspecting Akadie’s clutter of mementos, bric-a-brac, curios. A cabinet displayed Akadie’s collection of small busts, each one or another of the personages who had shaped the history of Alastor—scholars, scientists, warriors, philosophers, poets, musicians, and on the bottom shelf, a formidable array of anti-heroes. “Interesting,” said Ryl Shermatz. “Our history has been rich, and the histories before ours as well.”

  Glinnes pointed out a particular bust. “There you see Akadie himself, who fancies himself one with the immortals.”

  Shermatz chuckled. “Since Akadie has assembled the group, he must be allowed the right to include whom he pleases.”

  Glinnes went to the window in time to see the boat returning to the yacht. A moment later, Akadie entered the room, face ash-gray and hair hanging in lank strings.

  “What’s wrong with you?” demanded Glinnes. “You look like a ghost.”

  “That was Lord Rianle,” croaked Akadie. “The father of Lord Erzan Rianle, who was kidnapped. He wants his hundred thousand ozols back.

  Glinnes stared in amazement. “Will he leave his son to rot?”

  Akadie went to the alcove where he kept his telephone and switched the set back into operation. Turning back to Shermatz and Glinnes, he said, “The Whelm raided Bandolio’s haven. They captured Bandolio, all his men and ships; they liberated the captives Bandolio took at Welgen, and many more besides.”

  “Excellent news!” said Glinnes. “So why walk around like a dead man?”

  “This afternoon I sent away the money. The thirty million ozols are gone.”

  Chapter 18

  Glinnes led Akadie to a chair. “Sit down, drink this wine.” He turned a glance toward Ryl Shermatz, who stood looking into the fire. “Tell me, how did you send the money off?”

  “By the messenger you directed here. He carried the correct symbol; I gave him the parcel; he went away, and that is all there is to it.”

  “You don’t know the messenger?”

  “I have never seen him before.” Akadie’s wits seemed to snap back in place. He glared at Glinnes. “You seem very concerned!”

  “Should I be uninterested in thirty million ozols?”

  “How is that you did not hear the news? It’s been current since noon! Everyone has been trying to telephone me.”

  “I was working in my orchard. I paid no heed to the telephone.”

  “The money belongs to the people who paid the ransoms,” declared Akadie in a stern voice.

  “Indisputably. But whoever retrieves it might legitimately claim a good fee.”

  “Bah,” muttered Akadie. “Have you no shame?”

  The gong sounded. Akadie gave a nervous start and stumbled to the telephone. After a moment he returned. “Lord Gygax also wants his hundred thousand ozols. He won’t believe that I sent off the money. He became insistent, even somewhat insulting.”

  The gong sounded again. “You are in for a busy evening,” said Glinnes, rising to his feet.

  “Are you going?” asked Akadie in a pitiful voice.

  “Yes. If I were you I’d turn the telephone off again.” He bowed to Ryl Shermatz. “A pleasure to have met you.”

  Glinnes drove his boat at full speed west across Clinkhamer Broad, under the Verleth Bridge, down Mellish Water. Ahead shone a dozen dim lights: Saurkash. Glinnes drifted into the dock, moored his boat and jumped ashore. Saurkash was quiet except for a few muffled voices and a laugh or two from the nearby Magic Tench. Glinnes walked along the dock to Harrad’s boat agency. An overhead light shone down on the rental boats. He went to the shop and looked in through the door. Young Harrad was nowhere to be seen, though a light glowed in the office. One of the men at the tavern rose to his feet and ambled down to the dock. It was Young Harrad. “Yes, sir, what might you be wanting? If it’s boat repair, nothing till tomorrow… Ah, Squire Hulden, I didn’t recognize you under the light.”

  “No matter,” said Glinnes. “Today I saw a young man in one of your boats, a hussade player I’m anxious to locate. Do you recall his name?”

  “Today? About mid-afternoon, or a trifle earlier?”

  “That would be about the time.”

  “I’ve got it written down inside. A hussade player, you say. He didn’t look the type. Still, you never know. What’s next for the Tanchinaros?”

  “We’ll be back in action soon. Whenever we can collect ten thousand ozols for a treasury. The weak teams won’t play us.”

  “For good reason! Well, let’s look at the register… This might well be his name.” Young Harrad turned the ledger first one way, then the other. “Schill Sodergang, or so I make it out. No address.”

  “No address? And you don’t know where he can be found?”

  “Perhaps I should be more careful,” Young Harrad apologized. “I’ve never yet lost a boat, except when old Zax went blind on soursap.”

  “Did Sodergang have anything to say to you? Anything whatever?”

  “Nothing much, except to ask the way to Akadie’s house.”

  “And when he came back what then?”

  “He asked what time the Port Maheuhl boat came past. He had to wait an hour.”

  “He had a black case with him?”

  “Why yes, he did.”

  “Did he talk to anyone?”

  “He just sat dozing on the bench yonder.”

  “It’s no great matter,” said Glinnes. “I’ll see him another time.”

  Glinnes drove pell-mell down the dark waterways, past the groves of silent trees, black stencils fringed with star-silver. At midnight he arrived in Welgen. He slept at a dockside inn and early in the morning boarded the east-bound ferry.

  Port Maheul, named for its busy spacefield rather than its site on the shores of the South Ocean, was the largest town of Jolany Prefecture and perhaps the oldest city of Trullion. The principal structures were built to archaic standards of solidity with glazed russet brick, timbers of ageless black salpoon, and steep roofs sheathed with blue glass shingles. The square was reckoned as picturesque as any in Merlank, with its perimeter of ancient buildings, black sulpicella trees, and herringbone pavement of russet-brown bricks and cobbles of mountain hornblende. At the center stood the prutanshyr, with its glass caldron, through the sides of which a criminal being boiled and the rapt crowd might inspect each other. Off the square sprawled an untidy market, then a clutter of ramshackle little houses, then the gaunt glass and iron space depot. The field extended east to the Genglin Marshes, where, so it was said, the merlings crept up through the mud and reeds to marvel at the spaceships coming and going.

  Glinnes spent a toilsome three days in Port Maheul searching for Schill Sodergang. The steward of the ferry that plied between the Fens and Port Maheul vaguely remem
bered Sodergang as a passenger but could recall nothing else, not even Sodergang’s point of debarkation. The town roster listed no Sodergangs, nor was the name known to the constabulary.

  Glinnes visited the spaceport. A ship of the Andrujukha Line had departed Port Maheul on the day following Sodergang’s visit to the Fens, but the name Sodergang failed to appear on the manifest.

  On the afternoon of the third day Glinnes returned to Welgen, and then by his own boat to Saurkash. Here he encountered Young Harrad, whom he found bursting with sensational information, and Glinnes had to delay his own questions to listen to Young Harrad’s gossip—which was absorbing enough in itself. It seemed that an act of boldest villainy had been effected almost under Young Harrad’s nose, so to speak. Akadie, whom Young Harrad never had wholly trusted, was the cool culprit who had decided to seize opportunity by the forelock and sequester to himself thirty million ozols.

  Glinnes gave incredulous laugh. “Sheer absurdity!”

  “Absurdity?” Young Harrad looked to see if Glinnes was serious. “The lords all hold this opinion; can so many be wrong? They refuse to believe that Akadie closed off his telephone on the precise day that news of Bandolio’s capture arrived.”

  Glinnes snorted in disparagement. “I did exactly the same thing. Am I a criminal on that account?”

  Young Harrad shrugged. “Someone is thirty million ozols the richer. Who? The proof is not yet explicit, but Akadie has helped himself not at all by his actions.”

  “Come now! What else has he done?”

  “He has joined Fanscherade! He’s now a Fanscher. It’s the common belief that they took him in because of the money.”

  Glinnes clutched his spinning head. “Akadie a Fanscher? I can’t believe it. He’s too clever to join a group of freaks!”

  Young Harrad stuck to his guns. “Why did he depart in the dark of the night and travel up to the Vale of Green Ghosts? And remember, for ever so long he has worn Francher clothes and aped the Francher style.”

  “Akadie is merely somewhat silly. He enjoys a fad.”

  Young Harrad sniffed. “He can enjoy what he likes now, that’s certain. In a way, I respect such audacity, but when thirty million ozols are at stake a switched-off telephone sounds pretty thin.”

  “What else could he say except the truth? I saw the switched-off telephone myself.”

  “Well, I’m sure the truth will be made clear. Did you ever find that hussade player, Jorcom, Jarcom, whatever his name?”

  “Jorcom? Jarcom?” Glinnes stared in wonder. “Sodergang, you mean?”

  Young Harrad grinned sheepishly. “That was somebody else, a fisherman down Isley Broad. I wrote the name in the wrong place.”

  Glinnes controlled his voice with an effort. “The man’s name is Jorcom, then? Or Jarcom?”

  “Let’s take a look,” said young Harrad. He brought out his register. “Here’s Sodergang, and here is the other name; it looks like Jarcom to me. He wrote it himself.”

  “It looks like Jarcom,” said Glinnes. “Or is it Jarcony?”

  ”Jarcony!” You’re right! That’s the name he used. What position does he play?”

  “Position? Rover. I’ll have to look him up sometime. Except that I don’t know where he lives.” He looked at Young Harrad’s clock. If he drove at breakneck speed back to Welgen he could just barely connect with the Port Meheul ferry. He made a gesticulation of fury and frustration, then jumped in his boat and hurtled back east toward Welgen.

  In Port Maheul, Glinnes found the name “Jarcony” as unknown as “Sodergang.” Tired and bored beyond caring, he took himself to the arbor in front of the Stranger’s Rest and ordered a flask of wine. Someone had discarded a journal; Glinnes picked it up and scanned the page. His eyes was caught by an article:

  AN ILL-FATED HOSTILITY AGAINST THE FANSCHERS

  Yesterday news reached Port Maheul of an improper act commuted by a Trevanyi gang against the Fanscher camp in the Vale of Green Ghosts, or, as the Trevanyi know it, the Vale of Xian. The Trevanyi motives are in doubt. It is known that they resent the Fanscher presence in their sacred vale. But also it will be remembered that the mentor Janno Akadie, for many years resident in the Saurkash region, has declared himself a Fanscher and now resides at the Fanscher camp. Speculation links Akadie with a sum of thirty million ozols, which Akadie claims to have paid to the starmenter Sagmondo Bandolio, but which Bandolio denies having received. It is possible that the leader of the Trevanyi gang, a certain Vang Drosset, apparently decided that Akadie had taken the money with him into the Vale of Green Ghosts, and so organized the raid. The facts are these: seven Trevanyi entered Akadie’s tent during the night, but failed to stifle his outcries. A number of Fanschers responded to the call and in the ensuing fight two Trevanyi were killed and several others wounded. Those who escaped took refuge at a Trevanyi conclave nearby, where sacred rites are in progress. Needless to say, the Trevanyi failed to possess themselves of the thirty million ozols, which evidently has been hidden securely. The Fanschers are outraged by the attack, which they deem an act of persecution.

  “We fought like karpouns,” declared a Fanscher spokesman. “We attack no one, but will fiercely protect our rights. The future is for Fanscherade! We summon the youth of Merlank, and all those opposed to the varmous old life-ways: join Fanscherade! Lend us your strength and comradeship!”

  Chief Constable Filidice declares himself perturbed by the circumstance and has launched an investigation. “No further disruptions of the public peace will be tolerated,” he stated.

  Glinnes threw the journal across the table. Slumping into his chair he poured half a goblet of wine down his throat The world he knew and loved seemed in fragments. Fanschers and Fanscherade! Lute Casagave, Lord Ambal! Jorcom, Jarcom, Jarcony, Sodergang! He despised each of the names!

  He finished the wine, then went down to the dock to wait for the boat back to Welgen.

  Chapter 19

  Rabendary Island seemed unnaturally still and lonesome. An hour after Glinnes’ return the gong sounded; he discovered his mother’s face on the telephone screen.

  “I thought you’d gone to join the Fanschers,” said Glinnes in a voice of hollow jocularity.

  “No, no, not I.” Marucha’s voice was fretful and worried. “Janno went to avoid the confusion. You can’t conceive the browbeating, the bluster, the accusations which have come our way! We had no respite and poor Janno finally felt obliged to leave.”

  “So he isn’t a Fanscher after all.”

  “Of course not! You’ve always been such a literal-minded child! Can’t you understand how a person might be interested in an idea without becoming its staunchest advocate?”

  Glinnes accepted the deficiencies imputed to him. “How long will Akadie stay in the Vale?”

  “I feel that he should return at once. How can he live a normal life? It’s quite literally dangerous! Did you hear how the Trevanyi set upon him?”

  “I heard that they tried to rob him of his money.”

  Marucha’s voice raised in pitch. “You shouldn’t say such a thing, even as a joke! Poor Janno! What he hasn’t gone through! And he’s always been such a good friend to you.”

  “I’ve done nothing against him.”

  “Now you must do something for him. I want you to go to the Vale and bring him home.”

  “What? I see no point in such an expedition. If he wants to come home, he’ll do so.”

  “That’s not true! You can’t imagine his mood; he is limp with passivity! I’ve never seen him so before!”

  “Perhaps he’s just resting taking a vacation, so to speak.”

  “A vacation? With his life in danger? It’s common knowledge that the Trevanyi plan a massacre.”

  “Hmmf. I hardly think that is the case.”

  “Very well. If you won’t help me, then I must go myself.”

  “Go where? Do what?”

  “Go to the Fanscher camp and insist that Janno return home.”

  “Confou
nd it. Very well. Suppose he won’t come?”

  “You must do your best.”

  Glinnes rode the air-bus to the mountain town Circanie, hen hired an ancient surface-car to convey him to the Vale of Xian. A garrulous old man with a blue scarf tied around his head was included in the rental price; he manipulated the device as if he were directing a recalcitrant animal. The car at times scraped the ground; at other times it bounded thirty feet into the air, providing Glinnes with startling perspectives over the countryside. Two energy-guns on the seat beside the driver attracted his attention and he inquired as to their purpose.

  “Dangerous territory,” said the driver. “Whoever thought we’d see such a day?”

  Glinnes considered the landscape, which seemed as placid as Rabendary Island. Mountain pomanders stood here and there clouds of pink mist clutched in silver fingers. Blue-green fials marched along the ridge. Whenever the car rose into the air the horizons widened; the land to the south fell away in receding striations of pallid colors.

  Glinnes said, “I see no great cause for alarm.”

  “So long as you’re not a Fanscher, your chances are tolerable,” said the driver. “Not good, mind you, because the Trevanyi conclave is only a mile or two yonder, and they are as suspicious as wasps. They drink racq, which influences the nerves and makes them none the kindlier.”

  The valley grew narrow; the mountains rose steep on either side. A quiet river flowed along the flat floor; on each side stood groves of sombarilla, pomander, deodar.

  Glinnes asked, “Is this the Vale of Green Ghosts?”

  “Some call it so. The Trevanyi bury lesser dead among the trees. The true and sacred Vale lies ahead, behind the Fanschers. There—you can see the Fanscher camp. They are an industrious group, no question as to that… I wonder what they are trying to do? Do they know themselves?”

  The car slid into the camp—a scene of confusion. Hundreds of tents had been erected along the river bank; on the meadow, buildings of concrete foam were under construction.