by Jack Vance
Lord Faide paced back and forth across the tent. “Can we cross this planting?”
Hein Huss made a heavy sound of disapproval. “There are many futures. In certain of these futures you pass. In others you do not pass. I cannot ordain these futures.”
Lord Faide had long learned to control his impatience at what sometimes seemed to be pedantic obfuscation. He grumbled, “They are either very stupid or very bold planting across the downs in this fashion. I cannot imagine what they intend.”
Hein Huss considered, then grudgingly volunteered an idea. “What if they plant west from North Wildwood to Sarrow Copse? What if they plant west from South Wildwood to Old Forest?”
“Then Faide Keep is almost ringed by forest.”
“And what if they join Sarrow Copse to Old Forest?”
Lord Faide stood stock-still, his eyes narrow and thoughtful. “Faide Keep would be surrounded by forest. We would be imprisoned…These plantings, do they proceed?”
“They proceed, so I have been told.”
“What do they hope to gain?”
“I do not know. Perhaps they hope to isolate the keeps, to rid the planet of men. Perhaps they merely want secure avenues between the forests.”
Lord Faide considered. Huss’ final suggestion was reasonable enough. During the first centuries of human settlement, sportive young men had hunted First Folk with clubs and lances, eventually had driven them from their native downs into the forests. “Evidently they are more clever than we realize. Adam McAdam asserts that they do not think, but it seems that he is mistaken.”
Hein Huss shrugged. “Adam McAdam equates thought to the human cerebral process. He cannot telepathize with the First Folk, hence he deduces that they do not ‘think’. But I have watched them at Forest Market, and they trade intelligently enough.” He raised his head, appeared to listen, then reached into his cabinet, delicately tightened a noose around the neck of one of the mannikins. From outside the tent came a sudden cough and a whooping gasp for air. Huss grinned, twitched open the noose. “That is Isak Comandore’s apprentice. He hopes to complete a Hein Huss mannikin. I must say he works diligently, going so far as to touch its feet into my footprints whenever possible.”
Lord Faide went to the flap of the tent. “We break camp early. Be alert, I may require your help.” Lord Faide departed the tent.
Hein Huss continued the ordering of his cabinet. Presently he sensed the approach of his rival, Jinxman Isak Comandore, who coveted the office of Head Jinxman with all-consuming passion. Huss closed the cabinet and hoisted himself to his feet.
Comandore entered the tent, a man tall, crooked and spindly. His wedge-shaped head was covered with coarse russet ringlets; hot red-brown eyes peered from under his red eyebrows. “I offer my complete rights to Keyril, and will include the masks, the headdress, the amulets. Of all the demons ever contrived he has won the widest public acceptance. To utter the name Keyril is to complete half the work of a possession. Keyril is a valuable property. I can give no more.”
But Huss shook his head. Comandore’s desire was the full simulacrum of Tharon Faide, Lord Faide’s oldest son, complete with clothes, hair, skin, eyelashes, tears, excrement, sweat and sputum—the only one in existence, for Lord Faide guarded his son much more jealously than he did himself. “You offer convincingly,” said Huss, “but my own demons suffice. The name Dant conveys fully as much terror as Keyril.”
“I will add five hairs from the head of Jinxman Clarence Sears; they are the last, for he is now stark bald.”
“Let us drop the matter; I will keep the simulacrum.”
“As you please,” said Comandore with asperity. He glanced out the flap of the tent. “That blundering apprentice. He puts the feet of the mannikin backwards into your prints.”
Huss opened his cabinet, thumped a mannikin with his finger. From outside the tent came a grunt of surprise. Huss grinned. “He is young and earnest, and perhaps he is clever, who knows?” He went to the flap of the tent, called outside. “Hey, Sam Salazar, what do you do? Come inside.”
Apprentice Sam Salazar came blinking into the tent, a thick-set youth with a round florid face, overhung with a rather untidy mass of straw-colored hair. In one hand he carried a crude pot-bellied mannikin, evidently intended to represent Hein Huss.
“You puzzle both your master and myself,” said Huss. “There must be method in your folly, but we fail to perceive it. For instance, this moment you place my simulacrum backwards into my track. I feel a tug on my foot, and you pay for your clumsiness.”
Sam Salazar showed small evidence of abashment. “Jinxman Comandore has warned that we must expect to suffer for our ambitions.”
“If your ambition is jinxmanship,” Comandore declared sharply, “you had best mend your ways.”
“The lad is craftier than you know,” said Hein Huss. “Look now.” He took the mannikin from the youth, spit into its mouth, plucked a hair from his head, thrust it into a convenient crevice. “He has a Hein Huss mannikin, achieved at very small cost. Now, Apprentice Salazar, how will you hoodoo me?”
“Naturally, I would never dare. I merely want to fill the bare spaces in my cabinet.”
Hein Huss nodded his approval. “As good a reason as any. Of course you own a simulacrum of Isak Comandore?”
Sam Salazar glanced uneasily sidewise at Isak Comandore. “He leaves none of his traces. If there is so much as an open bottle in the room, he breathes behind his hand.”
“Ridiculous!” exclaimed Hein Huss. “Comandore, what do you fear?”
“I am conservative,” said Comandore dryly. “You make a fine gesture, but some day an enemy may own that simulacrum; then you will regret your bravado.”
“Bah. My enemies are all dead, save one or two who dare not reveal themselves.” He clapped Sam Salazar a great buffet on the shoulder. “Tomorrow, Apprentice Salazar, great things are in store for you.”
“What manner of great things?”
“Honor, noble self-sacrifice. Lord Faide must beg permission to pass Wildwood from the First Folk, which galls him. But beg he must. Tomorrow, Sam Salazar, I will elect you to lead the way to the parley, to deflect deadfalls, scythes and nettle-traps from the more important person who follows.”
Sam Salazar shook his head and drew back. “There must be others more worthy; I prefer to ride in the rear with the wagons.”
Comandore waved him from the tent. “You will do as ordered. Leave us; we have had enough apprentice talk.”
Sam Salazar departed. Comandore turned back to Hein Huss. “In connection with tomorrow’s battle, Anderson Grimes is especially adept with demons. As I recall, he has developed and successfully publicized Pont, who spreads sleep; Everid, a being of wrath; Deigne, a force of fear. We must take care that in countering these effects we do not neutralize each other.”
“True,” rumbled Huss. “I have long maintained to Lord Faide that a single jinxman—the Head Jinxman in fact—is more effective than a group at cross-purposes. But he is consumed by ambition and does not listen.”
“Perhaps he wants to be sure that should advancing years overtake the Head Jinxman other equally effective jinxmen are at hand.”
“The future has many paths,” agreed Hein Huss. “Lord Faide is well-advised to seek early for my successor, so that I may train him over the years. I plan to assess all the subsidiary jinxmen, and select the most promising. Tomorrow I relegate to you the demons of Anderson Grimes.”
Isak Comandore nodded politely. “You are wise to give over responsibility. When I feel the weight of my years I hope I may act with similar forethought. Good night, Hein Huss. I go to arrange my demon masks. Tomorrow Keyril must walk like a giant.”
“Good night, Isak Comandore.”
Comandore swept from the tent, and Huss settled himself on his stool. Sam Salazar scratched at the flap. “Well, lad?” growled Huss. “Why do you loiter?”
Sam Salazar placed the Hein Huss mannikin on the table. “I have no wish to keep th
is doll.”
“Throw it in a ditch, then.” Hein Huss spoke gruffly. “You must stop annoying me with stupid tricks. You efficiently obtrude yourself upon my attention, but you cannot transfer from Comandore’s troupe without his express consent.”
“If I gain his consent?”
“You will incur his enmity; he will open his cabinet against you. Unlike myself, you are vulnerable to a hoodoo. I advise you to be content. Isak Comandore is highly skilled and can teach you much.”
Sam Salazar still hesitated. “Jinxman Comandore, though skilled, is intolerant of new thoughts.”
Hein Huss shifted ponderously on his stool, examined Sam Salazar with his water-clear eyes. “What new thoughts are these? Your own?”
“The thoughts are new to me, and for all I know new to Isak Comandore. But he will say neither yes nor no.”
Hein Huss sighed, settled his monumental bulk more comfortably. “Speak then, describe these thoughts, and I will assess their novelty.”
“First, I have wondered about trees. They are sensitive to light, to moisture, to wind, to pressure. Sensitivity implies sensation. Might a man feel into the soul of a tree for these sensations? If a tree were capable of awareness, this faculty might prove useful. A man might select trees as sentinels in strategic sites, and enter into them as he chose.”
Hein Huss was skeptical. “An amusing notion, but practically not feasible. The reading of minds, the act of possession, televoyance, all similar interplay, require psychic congruence as a basic condition. The minds must be able to become identities at some particular stratum. Unless there is sympathy, there is no linkage. A tree is at opposite poles from a man; the images of tree and man are incommensurable. Hence, anything more than the most trifling flicker of comprehension must be a true miracle of jinxmanship.”
Sam Salazar nodded mournfully. “I realize this, and at one time hoped to equip myself with the necessary identification.”
“To do this you must become a vegetable. Certainly the tree will never become a man.”
“So I reasoned,” said Sam Salazar. “I went alone into a grove of trees, where I chose a tall conifer. I buried my feet in the mold, I stood silent and naked—in the sunlight, in the rain; at dawn, noon, dusk, midnight. I closed my mind to man-thoughts, I closed my eyes to vision, my ears to sound. I took no nourishment except from rain and sun. I sent roots forth from my feet and branches from my torso. Thirty hours I stood, and two days later another thirty hours, and after two days another thirty hours. I made myself a tree, as nearly as possible to one of flesh and blood.”
Hein Huss gave the great inward gurgle which signalized his amusement. “And you achieved sympathy?”
“Nothing useful,” Sam Salazar admitted. “I felt something of the tree’s sensations—the activity of light, the peace of dark, the coolness of rain. But visual and auditory experience—nothing. However, I do not regret the trial. It was a useful discipline.”
“An interesting effort, even if inconclusive. The idea is by no means of startling originality, but the empiricism—to use an archaic word—of your method is bold, and no doubt antagonized Isak Comandore, who has no patience with the superstitions of our ancestors. I suspect that he harangued you against frivolity, metaphysics and inspirationalism.”
“True,” said Sam Salazar. “He spoke at length.”
“You should take the lesson to heart. Isak Comandore is sometimes unable to make the most obvious truth seem credible. However, I cite you the example of Lord Faide who considers himself an enlightened man, free from superstition. Still, he rides in his feeble car, he carries a pistol sixteen hundred years old, he relies on Hellmouth to protect Faide Keep.”
“Perhaps—unconsciously—he longs for the old magical times,” suggested Sam Salazar thoughtfully.
“Perhaps,” agreed Hein Huss. “And you do likewise?”
Sam Salazar hesitated. “There is an aura of romance, a kind of wild grandeur to the old days—but of course,” he added quickly, “mysticism is no substitute for orthodox logic.”
“Naturally not,” agreed Hein Huss. “Now go; I must consider the events of tomorrow.”
Sam Salazar departed, and Hein Huss, rumbling and groaning, hoisted himself to his feet. He went to the flap of his tent, surveyed the camp. All now was quiet. The fires were embers, the warriors lay in the pits they had cut into the moss. To north and south spread the woodlands. Among the trees and out on the downs were faint flickering luminosities, where the First Folk gathered spore-pods from the moss.
Hein Huss became aware of a nearby personality. He turned his head and saw approaching the shrouded form of Jinxman Enterlin, who concealed his face, who spoke only in whispers, who disguised his natural gait with a stiff stiltlike motion. By this means he hoped to reduce his vulnerability to hostile jinxmanship. The admission carelessly let fall of failing eyesight, of stiff joints, forgetfulness, melancholy, nausea might be of critical significance in controversy by hoodoo. Jinxmen therefore maintained the pose of absolute health and virility, even though they must grope blindly or limp doubled up from cramps.
Hein Huss called out to Enterlin, lifted back the flap to the tent. Enterlin entered; Huss went to the cabinet, brought forth a flask, poured liquor into a pair of stone cups. “A cordial only, free of overt significance.”
“Good,” whispered Enterlin, selecting the cup farthest from him. “After all, we jinxmen must relax into the guise of men from time to time.” Turning his back on Huss, he introduced the cup through the folds of his hood, drank. “Refreshing,” he whispered. “We need refreshment; tomorrow we must work.”
Huss issued his reverberating chuckle. “Tomorrow Isak Comandore matches demons with Anderson Grimes. We others perform only subsidiary duties.”
Enterlin seemed to make a quizzical inspection of Hein Huss through the black gauze before his eyes. “Comandore will relish this opportunity. His vehemence oppresses me, and his is a power which feeds on success. He is a man of fire, you are a man of ice.”
“Ice quenches fire.”
“Fire sometimes melts ice.”
Hein Huss shrugged. “No matter. I grow weary. Time has passed all of us by. Only a moment ago a young apprentice showed me to myself.”
“As a powerful jinxman, as Head Jinxman to the Faides, you have cause for pride.”
Hein Huss drained the stone cup, set it aside. “No. I see myself at the top of my profession, with nowhere else to go. Only Sam Salazar the apprentice thinks to search for more universal lore; he comes to me for counsel, and I do not know what to tell him.”
“Strange talk, strange talk!” whispered Enterlin. He moved to the flap of the tent. “I go now,” he whispered. “I go to walk on the downs. Perhaps I will see the future.”
“There are many futures.”
Enterlin rustled away and was lost in the dark. Hein Huss groaned and grumbled, then took himself to his couch, where he instantly fell asleep.
Chapter II
The night passed. The sun, flickering with films of pink and green, lifted over the horizon. The new planting of the First Folk was silhouetted, a sparse stubble of saplings, against the green and lavender sky. The troops broke camp with practiced efficiency. Lord Faide marched to his car, leaped within; the machine sagged under his weight. He pushed a button, the car drifted forward, heavy as a waterlogged timber.
A mile from the new planting he halted, sent a messenger back to the wagons of the jinxmen. Hein Huss walked ponderously forward, followed by Isak Comandore, Adam McAdam and Enterlin. Lord Faide spoke to Hein Huss. “Send someone to speak to the First Folk. Inform them we wish to pass, offering them no harm, but that we will react savagely to any hostility.”
“I will go myself,” said Hein Huss. He turned to Comandore, “Lend me, if you will, your brash young apprentice. I can put him to good use.”
“If he unmasks a nettle-trap by blundering into it, his first useful deed will be done,” said Comandore. He signaled to Sam Salazar, who came reluct
antly forward. “Walk in front of Head Jinxman Hein Huss that he may encounter no traps or scythes. Take a staff to probe the moss.”
Without enthusiasm Sam Salazar borrowed a lance from one of the foot soldiers. He and Huss set forth, along the low rise that previously had separated North from South Wildwood. Occasionally outcroppings of stone penetrated the cover of moss; here and there grew bayberry trees, clumps of tarplant, ginger-tea and rosewort.
A half-mile from the planting Huss halted. “Now take care, for here the traps will begin. Walk clear of hummocks, these often conceal swing-scythes; avoid moss which shows a pale blue; it is dying or sickly and may cover a deadfall or a nettle-trap.”
“Why cannot you locate the traps by clairvoyance?” asked Sam Salazar in a rather sullen voice. “It appears an excellent occasion for the use of these faculties.”
“The question is natural,” said Hein Huss with composure. “However you must know that when a jinxman’s own profit or security is at stake his emotions play tricks on him. I would see traps everywhere and would never know whether clairvoyance or fear prompted me. In this case, that lance is a more reliable instrument than my mind.”
Sam Salazar made a salute of understanding and set forth, with Hein Huss stumping behind him. At first he prodded with care, uncovering two traps, then advanced more jauntily; so swiftly indeed that Huss called out in exasperation, “Caution, unless you court death!”
Sam Salazar obligingly slowed his pace. “There are traps all around us, but I detect the pattern, or so I believe.”
“Ah, ha, you do? Reveal it to me, if you will. I am only Head Jinxman, and ignorant.”
“Notice. If we walk where the spore-pods have recently been harvested, then we are secure.”
