The Jack Vance Treasury

by Jack Vance

  Carcolo sank back on the couch, lay staring at the sky. “How many are lost?”

  “I do not know. Givven called the retreat; we withdrew in the best style possible.”

  Carcolo lay as if comatose; the cornet flung himself down on a bench.

  A column of dust appeared to the north, which presently dissolved and separated to reveal a number of Happy Valley dragons. All were wounded; they marched, hopped, limped, dragged themselves at random, croaking, glaring, bugling. First came a group of Termagants, darting ugly heads from side to side; then a pair of Blue Horrors, brachs twisting and clasping almost like human arms; then a Jugger, massive, toad-like, legs splayed out in weariness. Even as it neared the barracks it toppled, fell with a thud to lie still, legs and talons jutting into the air.

  Down from the North Trail rode Bast Givven, dust-stained and haggard. He dismounted from his drooping Spider, mounted the ramp. With a wrenching effort, Carcolo once more raised himself on the couch.

  Givven reported in a voice so even and light as to seem careless, but even the insensitive Carcolo was not deceived. He asked in puzzlement: “Exactly where did the ambush occur?”

  “We mounted the Ramparts by way of Chloris Ravine. Where the Skanse falls off into the ravine a porphyry outcrop juts up and over. Here they awaited us.”

  Carcolo hissed through his teeth. “Amazing.”

  Bast Givven gave the faintest of nods.

  Carcolo said, “Assume that Joaz Banbeck set forth during the dawn-storm, an hour earlier than I would think possible; assume that he forced his troops at a run. How could he reach the Skanse Ramparts before us even so?”

  “By my reckoning,” said Givven, “ambush was no threat until we had crossed the Skanse. I had planned to patrol Barchback, all the way down Blue Fell, and across Blue Crevasse.”

  Carcolo gave somber agreement. “How then did Joaz Banbeck bring his troops to the Ramparts so soon?”

  Givven turned, looked up the valley, where wounded dragons and men still straggled down the North Trail. “I have no idea.”

  “A drug?” puzzled Carcolo. “A potion to pacify the dragons? Could he have made bivouac on the Skanse the whole night long?”

  “The last is possible,” admitted Givven grudgingly. “Under Barch Spike are empty caves. If he quartered his troops there during the night, then he had only to march across the Skanse to waylay us.”

  Carcolo grunted. “Perhaps we have underestimated Joaz Banbeck.” He sank back on his couch with a groan. “Well then, what are our losses?”

  The reckoning made dreary news. Of the already inadequate squad of Juggers, only six remained. From a force of fifty-two Fiends, forty survived and of these five were sorely wounded. Termagants, Blue Horrors and Murderers had suffered greatly. A large number had been torn apart in the first onslaught, many others had been toppled down the Ramparts to strew their armored husks through the detritus. Of the hundred men, twelve had been killed by bullets, another fourteen by dragon attack; a score more were wounded in various degree.

  Carcolo lay back, his eyes closed, his mouth working feebly.

  “The terrain alone saved us,” said Givven. “Joaz Banbeck refused to commit his troops to the ravine. If there were any tactical error on either side, it was his. He brought an insufficiency of Termagants and Blue Horrors.”

  “Small comfort,” growled Carcolo. “Where is the balance of the army?”

  “We have good position on Dangle Ridge. We have seen none of Banbeck’s scouts, either man or Termagant. He may conceivably believe we have retreated to the valley. In any event his main forces were still collected on the Skanse.”

  Carcolo, by an enormous effort raised himself to his feet. He tottered across the walkway to look down into the dispensary. Five Fiends crouched in vats of balsam, muttering, sighing. A Blue Horror hung in a sling, whining as surgeons cut broken fragments of armor from its gray flesh. As Carcolo watched, one of the Fiends raised itself high on its anterior legs, foam gushing from its gills. It cried out in a peculiar poignant tone, fell back dead into the balsam.

  Carcolo turned back to Givven. “This is what you must do. Joaz Banbeck surely has sent forth patrols. Retire along Dangle Ridge, then taking all concealment from the patrols, swing up into one of the Despoire Cols—Tourmaline Col will serve. This is my reasoning. Banbeck will assume that you are retiring to Happy Valley, so he will hurry south behind the Fang, to attack as you come down off Dangle Ridge. As he passes below Tourmaline Col, you have the advantage and may well destroy Joaz Banbeck there with all his troops.”

  Bast Givven shook his head decisively. “What if his patrols locate us in spite of our precautions? He need only follow our tracks to bottle us into Tourmaline Col, with no escape except over Mount Despoire or out on Starbreak Fell. And if we venture out on Starbreak Fell his Juggers will destroy us in minutes.”

  Ervis Carcolo sagged back down upon the couch. “Bring the troops back to Happy Valley. We will await another occasion.”

  Chapter VI

  Cut into the cliff south of the crag which housed Joaz’s apartments was a large chamber known as Kergan’s Hall. The proportions of the room, the simplicity and lack of ornament, the massive antique furniture contributed to the sense of lingering personality, as well as an odor unique to the room. This odor exhaled from naked stone walls, the petrified moss parquetry, old wood—a rough ripe redolence which Joaz had always disliked, together with every other aspect of the room. The dimensions seemed arrogant in their extent, the lack of ornament impressed him as rude, if not brutal. One day it occurred to Joaz that he disliked not the room but Kergan Banbeck himself, together with the entire system of overblown legends which surrounded him.

  The room nevertheless in many respects was pleasant. Three tall groined windows overlooked the vale. The casements were set with small square panes of green-blue glass in muntins of black ironwood. The ceiling likewise was paneled in wood, and here a certain amount of the typical Banbeck intricacy had been permitted. There were mock pilaster capitals with gargoyle heads, a frieze carved with conventionalized fern-fronds. The furniture consisted of three pieces: two tall carved chairs and a massive table, all polished dark wood, all of enormous antiquity.

  Joaz had found a use for the room. The table supported a carefully detailed relief map of the district, on a scale of three inches to the mile. At the center was Banbeck Vale, on the right hand Happy Valley, separated by a turmoil of crags and chasms, cliffs, spikes, walls and five titanic peaks: Mount Gethron to the south, Mount Despoire in the center, Barch Spike, the Fang and Mount Halcyon to the north.

  At the front of Mount Gethron lay the High Jambles, then Starbreak Fell extended to Mount Despoire and Barch Spike. Beyond Mount Despoire, between the Skanse Ramparts and Barchback, the Skanse reached all the way to the tormented basalt ravines and bluffs at the foot of Mount Halcyon.

  As Joaz stood studying the map, into the room came Phade, mischievously quiet. But Joaz sensed her nearness by the scent of incense, in the smoke of which she had steeped herself before seeking out Joaz. She wore a traditional holiday costume of Banbeck maidens: a tight-fitting sheath of dragon intestine, with muffs of brown fur at neck, elbows and knees. A tall cylindrical hat, notched around the upper edge, perched on her rich brown curls, and from the top of this hat soared a red plume.

  Joaz feigned unconsciousness of her presence; she came up behind him to tickle his neck with the fur of her neckpiece. Joaz pretended stolid indifference; Phade, not at all deceived, put on a face of woeful concern. “Must we all be slain? How goes the war?”

  “For Banbeck Vale the war goes well. For poor Ervis Carcolo and Happy Valley the war goes ill indeed.”

  “You plan his destruction,” Phade intoned in a voice of hushed accusation. “You will kill him! Poor Ervis Carcolo!”

  “He deserves no better.”

  “But what will befall Happy Valley?”

  Joaz Banbeck shrugged idly. “Changes for the better.”

 
“Will you seek to rule?”

  “Not I.”

  “Think!” whispered Phade. “Joaz Banbeck, Tyrant of Banbeck Vale, Happy Valley, Phosphor Gulch, Glore, the Tarn, Clewhaven and the Great Northern Rift.”

  “Not I,” said Joaz. “Perhaps you would rule in my stead?”

  “Oh! Indeed! What changes there would be! I’d dress the sacerdotes in red and yellow ribbons. I’d order them to sing and dance and drink May wine; the dragons I’d send south to Arcady, except for a few gentle Termagants to nursemaid the children. And no more of these furious battles. I’d burn the armor and break the swords, I’d—”

  “My dear little flutterbug,” said Joaz with a laugh. “What a swift reign you’d have indeed!”

  “Why swift? Why not forever? If men had no means to fight—”

  “And when the Basics came down, you’d throw garlands around their necks?”

  “Pah. They shall never be seen again. What do they gain by molesting a few remote valleys?”

  “Who knows what they gain? We are free men—perhaps the last free men in the universe. Who knows? And will they be back? Coralyne is bright in the sky!”

  Phade became suddenly interested in the relief map. “And your current war—dreadful! Will you attack, will you defend?”

  “This depends on Ervis Carcolo,” said Joaz. “I need only wait till he exposes himself.” Looking down at the map he added thoughtfully, “He is clever enough to do me damage, unless I move with care.”

  “And what if the Basics come while you bicker with Carcolo?”

  Joaz smiled. “Perhaps we shall all flee to the Jambles. Perhaps we shall all fight.”

  “I will fight beside you,” declared Phade, striking a brave attitude. “We will attack the great Basic spaceship, braving the heat-rays, fending off the power-bolts. We will storm to the very portal, we will pull the nose of the first marauder who shows himself!”

  “At one point your otherwise sage strategy falls short,” said Joaz. “How does one find the nose of a Basic?”

  “In that case,” said Phade, “we shall seize their—” She turned her head at a sound in the hall. Joaz strode across the room, flung back the door. Old Rife the porter sidled forward. “You told me to call when the bottle either overturned or broke. Well, it’s done both and irreparably, not five minutes ago.”

  Joaz pushed past Rife, ran down the corridor. “What means this?” demanded Phade. “Rife, what have you said to disturb him?”

  Rife shook his head fretfully. “I am as perplexed as you. A bottle is pointed out to me. ‘Watch this bottle day and night’—so I am commanded. And also, ‘When the bottle breaks or tips, call me at once.’ I tell myself that here in all truth is a sinecure. And I wonder, does Joaz consider me so senile that I will rest content with a make-work task such as watching a bottle? I am old, my jaws tremble, but I am not witless. To my surprise the bottle breaks! The explanation admittedly is workaday: a fall to the floor. Nevertheless, without knowledge of what it all means, I obey orders and notify Joaz Banbeck.”

  Phade had been squirming impatiently. “Where then is this bottle?”

  “In the studio of Joaz Banbeck.”

  Phade ran off as swiftly as the tight sheath about her thighs permitted: through a transverse tunnel, across Kergan’s Way by a covered bridge, then up at a slant toward Joaz’s apartments.

  Down the long hall ran Phade, through the anteroom where a bottle lay shattered on the floor, into the studio, where she halted in astonishment. No one was to be seen. She noticed a section of shelving which stood at an angle. Quietly, timorously, she stole across the room, peered down into the workshop.

  The scene was an odd one. Joaz stood negligently, smiling a cool smile, as across the room a naked sacerdote gravely sought to shift a barrier which had sprung down across an area of the wall. But the gate was cunningly locked in place, and the sacerdote’s efforts were to no avail. He turned, glanced briefly at Joaz, then started for the exit into the studio.

  Phade sucked in her breath, backed away.

  The sacerdote came out into the studio, started for the door.

  “Just a moment,” said Joaz. “I wish to speak to you.”

  The sacerdote paused, turned his head in mild inquiry. He was a young man, his face bland, blank, almost beautiful. Fine transparent skin stretched over his pale bones. His eyes—wide, blue, innocent—seemed to stare without focus. He was delicate of frame, sparsely fleshed; his hands were thin, with fingers trembling in some kind of nervous imbalance. Down his back, almost to his waist, hung the mane of long light-brown hair.

  Joaz seated himself with ostentatious deliberation, never taking his eyes from the sacerdote. Presently he spoke in a voice pitched at an ominous level. “I find your conduct far from ingratiating.” This was a declaration requiring no response, and the sacerdote made none.

  “Please sit,” said Joaz. He indicated a bench. “You have a great deal of explaining to do.”

  Was it Phade’s imagination? Or did a spark of something like wild amusement flicker and die almost instantaneously in the sacerdote’s eyes? But again he made no response. Joaz, adapting to the peculiar rules by which communication with the sacerdotes must be conducted, asked, “Do you care to sit?”

  “It is immaterial,” said the sacerdote. “Since I am standing now, I will stand.”

  Joaz rose to his feet and performed an act without precedent. He pushed the bench behind the sacerdote, rapped the back of the knobby knees, thrust the sacerdote firmly down upon the bench. “Since you are sitting now,” said Joaz, “you might as well sit.”

  With gentle dignity the sacerdote regained his feet. “I shall stand.”

  Joaz shrugged. “As you wish. I intend to ask you some questions. I hope that you will cooperate and answer with precision.”

  The sacerdote blinked owlishly.

  “Will you do so?”

  “Certainly. I prefer, however, to return the way I came.”

  Joaz ignored the remark. “First,” he asked, “why do you come to my study?”

  The sacerdote spoke carefully, in the voice of one talking to a child. “Your language is vague; I am confused and must not respond, since I am vowed to give only truth to anyone who requires it.”

  Joaz settled himself in his chair. “There is no hurry. I am ready for a long discussion. Let me ask you then: did you have impulses which you can explain to me, which persuaded or impelled you to come to my studio?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many of these impulses did you recognize?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “More than one?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Less than ten?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Hmm…Why are you uncertain?”

  “I am not uncertain.”

  “Then why can’t you specify the number as I requested?”

  “There is no such number.”

  “I see…You mean, possibly, that there are several elements of a single motive which directed your brain to signal your muscles in order that they might carry you here?”

  “Possibly.”

  Joaz’s thin lips twisted in a faint smile of triumph. “Can you describe an element of the eventual motive?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do so, then.”

  There was an imperative, against which the sacerdote was proof. Any form of coercion known to Joaz—fire, sword, thirst, mutilation—these to a sacerdote were no more than inconveniences; he ignored them as if they did not exist. His personal inner world was the single world of reality; either acting upon or reacting against the affairs of the Utter Men demeaned him; absolute passivity, absolute candor were his necessary courses of action. Understanding something of this, Joaz rephrased his command: “Can you think of an element of the motive which impelled you to come here?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is it?”

  “A desire to wander about.”

  “Can you think of another?” />
  “Yes.”

  “What is it?”

  “A desire to exercise myself by walking.”

  “I see…Incidentally, are you trying to evade answering my questions?”

  “I answer such questions as you put to me. So long as I do so, so long as I open my mind to all who seek knowledge—for this is our creed—there can be no question of evasion.”

  “So you say. However, you have not provided me an answer that I find satisfactory.”

  The sacerdote’s reply to the comment was an almost imperceptible widening of the pupils.

  “Very well then,” said Joaz Banbeck. “Can you think of another element to this complex motive we have been discussing?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is it?”

  “I am interested in antiques. I came to your study to admire your relicts of the old worlds.”

  “Indeed?” Joaz raised his eyebrows. “I am lucky to possess such fascinating treasures. Which of my antiques interests you particularly?”

  “Your books. Your maps. Your great globe of the Arch-world.”

  “The Arch-world? Eden?”

  “This is one of its names.”

  Joaz pursed his lips. “So you come here to study my antiques. Well then, what other elements to this motive exist?”

  The sacerdote hesitated an instant. “It was suggested to me that I come here.”

  “By whom?”

  “By the Demie.”

  “Why did he so suggest?”

  “I am uncertain.”

  “Can you conjecture?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are these conjectures?”

  The sacerdote made a small bland gesture with the fingers of one hand. “The Demie might wish to become an Utter Man, and so seeks to learn the principles of your existence. Or the Demie might wish to change the trade articles. The Demie might be fascinated by my descriptions of your antiques. Or the Demie might be curious regarding the focus of your vision-panels. Or—”

  “Enough. Which of these conjectures, and of other conjectures you have not yet divulged, do you consider most probable?”