Servants of the Wankh

by Jack Vance

  “Who wants him?” Reith asked warily.

  “I have a message.”

  “Give it here.” Reith tore apart the folded paper, puzzled out the sense of the florid symbols:

  The Security Company sends greetings. Be it known that, since you, Adam Reith, have attacked an authorized employee in the innocent pursuit of his duties, spoiling his equipment and inflicting pain and inconvenience, we demand a retributive fee of eighteen thousand sequins. If the sum is not immediately paid at our main office, you will be killed by a combination of several processes. Your prompt cooperation will be appreciated. Please do not depart Settra or seek to deny us in any way, as in that case the penalties must be amplified.

  Reith flung the letter down on the table. “Dordolio, the Wankh, Lord Cizante, and Helsse, the ‘cult,’ the Security Company: who is left?”

  Traz commented: “Tomorrow may hardly be soon enough.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING Reith communicated with Blue Jade Palace by means of the queer Yao telephones, and was allowed to speak to Helsse. “You have naturally canceled the contract with the Security Company?”

  “The contract has been canceled. I understand that they have decided to take independent action, which of course you must deal with as you see fit.”

  “Exactly,” said Reith. “We are leaving Settra at once and we accept Lord Cizante’s offer of assistance.”

  Helsse made a noncommittal sound. “What are your plans?”

  “Essentially, to escape Settra with our lives.”

  “I will arrive shortly and take you to an outlying wheelway station. At Vervodei ships leave daily for all quarters and no doubt you will be able to make a convenient departure.”

  “We will be ready at noon, or before.”

  Reith set out on foot for the Cercade, taking all precautions, and arrived at the rendezvous with fair assurance that he had not been followed. Zarfo stood waiting, his white hair confined in a bonnet as black as his face. He immediately led the way to the cellar of an ale house. They sat at a stone table; Zarfo signaled the pot-boy and they were presently served heavy stone mugs of a bitter earthy ale.

  Zarfo came quickly to business. “Before I disrupt my life by so much as a twitch, show me the color of your money.”

  Without words Reith threw down ten strips of winking purple sequins.

  “Aha!” gloated Zarfo Detwiler. “This is true beauty! Is it to be mine? I will take custody of it at once, and guard it from all harm.”

  “Who will guard you?” asked Reith.

  “Tish, tush, lad,” scoffed Zarfo. “If comrades can’t trust comrades in a cool ale-cellar, how will it go under adversity?”

  Reith returned the money to his wallet. “Adversity is here now. The assassins are disturbed by the affair of yesterday. Instead of taking revenge upon you, they have threatened me.”

  “Yes, they are an unreasonable lot. If they demand money, defy them. A man can always fight for his life.”

  “I’ve been warned not to leave Settra until such a time as they choose to kill me. Nevertheless, I propose to depart, and as soon as possible.”

  “Shrewd.” Zarfo quaffed ale and set the mug down with a thud. “But how will you evade the assassins? Naturally they ponder your every move.”

  Reith jerked around at a noise, only to find the pot-boy at hand to refill Zarfo’s mug. Zarfo pulled at his long black nose to conceal a grin. “The assassins are pertinacious, but we shall outwit them, one way or another. Return to your hotel and make all ready. At noon I will join you and we shall see what we shall see.”

  “Noon? So late?”

  “What difference an hour or two? I must wind up my affairs.”

  Reith returned to the inn, where Helsse had already arrived in the black landau. The atmosphere was strained and taut; at the sight of Reith, Helsse jumped to his feet. “Time is short; we have been waiting! Come; we have only enough time to catch the first afternoon car for Vervodei!”

  Reith asked: “Won’t the assassins be expecting just this? It seems an unimaginative plan.”

  Helsse gave an irritable shrug. “Do you have a better idea?”

  “I’d like to work one out.”

  Anacho asked, “Does Lord Cizante keep an air-car?”

  “It is not in operation.”

  “Are any others available?”

  “For a purpose of this sort? I should think not.”

  Five minutes passed. Helsse said mildly, “The longer we wait, the less time remains to you.” He pointed out of the window. “See the two men in the round hats? They wait for you to come forth. Now we cannot even use the car.”

  “Go out and tell them to go away,” suggested Reith.

  Helsse laughed. “Not I.”

  Another half an hour went by. Zarfo swaggered into the foyer. He saluted the group with a wave of the hand. “Are all ready?”

  Reith pointed to the assassins standing to the side of the Oval. “They are waiting for us.”

  “Detestable creatures,” said Zarfo. “Only in Cath would they be tolerated.” He looked sidelong at Helsse. “Why is he here?”

  Reith explained the circumstances; Zarfo looked out upon the Oval. “The black car with the silver and blue crest-is that the vehicle in question? If so, nothing is simpler. We shall ride off in the car.”

  “Not feasible,” said Helsse.

  “Why not?” asked Reith.

  “Lord Cizante does not care to become involved in this matter, nor do I. At the very least, the Company would include me in the contract.”

  Reith laughed bitterly. “When you contracted with them in the first place? Out to the car, and drive us away from this city of madmen!”

  After a moment of incredulous disdain, Helsse gave a curt nod. “As you wish.”

  The group left the inn and walked to the car. The assassins came forward. “I believe that you, sir, are Adam Reith?”

  “What of it?”

  “May we inquire your destination?”

  “The Blue Jade Palace.”

  “Correct,” said Helsse tonelessly.

  “You understand our regulations and schedule of penalties?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  The assassins muttered together, then one said: “In this case we think it advisable to accompany you.”

  “There is no room,” said Helsse in a cool voice.

  The assassins paid no heed. One started to enter the landau. Zarfo pulled him back. The assassin looked over his shoulder. “Have a care; I am a guildsman.”

  “And I am a Lokhar.” Zarfo struck him a great clout, sending him sprawling. The second assassin stood astounded, then snatched forth a gun. Anacho’s sting snapped forth, to penetrate his chest. The first assassin tried to crawl away; Zarfo gave him a tremendous kick under the chin; he fell flat and limp. “Into the car,” said Zarfo. “It is time to leave.”

  “What a fiasco,” whispered Helsse. “I am ruined.”

  “Away from Settra!” cried Zarfo. “By the least obvious route!”

  The landau rolled along narrow streets, into a narrow lane, and presently out into the countryside.

  “Where are you taking us?” demanded Reith.

  “Vervodei.”

  “Ridiculous!” snorted Zarfo. “Drive east into the back country. We must make our way to the Jinga River and fare downstream to Kabasas on the Parapan.”

  Helsse tried a voice of calm reason. “To the east is wilderness. The car will stop. We have no spare energy cells.”

  “No difference!”

  “Not to you. But how will I return to Settra?”

  “Is this your plan, after what has happened?”

  Helsse muttered something under his breath. “I am a marked man. They will demand fifty thousand sequins, which I cannot pay-all through your insane manipulations.”

  “Whatever you like. But continue east, until the car stops or the road gives out-whichever first.”

  Helsse made a gesture of fatef
ul despair.

  The road led through a weirdly beautiful flatland with slow streams and ponds to either side. Trees with drooping black limbs trailed tobacco-brown foliage into the water. Reith kept a lookout to the rear, but discovered no sign of pursuit. Settra became one with the murk of distance.

  Helsse no longer seemed to be sulking, but watched the road ahead with an expression that almost seemed anticipation. Reith became suddenly suspicious. “Stop a moment.”

  Helsse looked around. “Stop? Why?”

  “What lies ahead?”

  “The mountains.”

  “Why is the road in such good repair? There seems to be no great traffic.”

  “Ho!” crowed Zarfo. “The mountain camp for insane folk! It must lie ahead!”

  Helsse contrived a sickly grin. “You told me to drive you to the end of the road; you did not stipulate that I should avoid taking you to the asylum.”

  “I do so now,” said Reith. “Please, no more innocent errors of this sort.”

  Helsse compressed his lips and once more began to brood. At a crossroad he swung south. The ground began to rise. Reith asked, “Where does the road lead?”

  “To the old quicksilver mines, to mountain retreats, a few peasant holdings.”

  Into a forest hung with black moss rolled the car, and the road slanted up even more steeply. The sun passed behind a cloud, the forest became dark and dank, then gave way to a foggy meadow.

  Helsse glanced at an indicator. “An hour more of energy.”

  Reith indicated the thrust of mountains ahead. “What lies beyond?”

  “Wilderness. The Hoch Har tribes. Black Mountain Lake, source of the Jinga. The route is neither safe nor convenient. It is, however, an exit from Cath.”

  Across the meadow they drove. Thick-trunked trees rose at intervals with leaves like shelves of yellow fungus.

  The road began to fail, and in places was blocked by fallen boughs. The ridge loomed above, a great rocky jut.

  At an abandoned mine the road ended. Simultaneously the power index reached zero. The car halted with a thud and a bump; there was silence except for a sigh of wind.

  The group alighted with their meager possessions. The fog had dissipated; the sun shone cool through a high overcast, washing the landscape in honey-colored light.

  Reith surveyed the mountainside, tracing a path to the ridge. He turned to Helsse. “Well, which is it to be? Kabasas, or back to Settra?”

  “Settra, naturally.” He looked disconsolately at the car.

  “Afoot?”

  “Better than afoot to Kabasas.”

  “What of the assassins?”

  “I must take my chances.”

  Reith brought out his scanscope and studied the way they had come. “There seems no sign of pursuit; you—” He halted, surprised by the expression on Helsse’s face.

  “What is that object?” demanded Helsse.

  Reith explained.

  “Dordolio spoke accurately,” said Helsse in a wondering voice. “He was telling the truth!”

  Half-amused, half-annoyed, Reith said, “I don’t know what Dordolio told you, other than that we were barbarians. Goodbye, then, and my regards to Lord Cizante.”

  “Wait a moment,” said Helsse, staring indecisively west toward Settra. “Kabasas may be safer, after all. The assassins would be sure to consider me an auxiliary to your offense.” He turned, assessed the bulk of the mountain, heaved a gloomy sigh. “Total insanity, of course.”

  “Needless to say, we are not here by our own volition,” returned Reith. “Well, we might as well start.”

  They climbed the tailings dump in front of the mine, peered into the tunnel, from which issued an ooze of reddish slime. A set of footprints led into the tunnel. They were about human size, the shape of a bowling pin or a gourd; two inches ahead of the narrow forward end were three indentations as of toes. Looking down at the marks Reith felt the hairs rise at the nape of his neck. He listened, but no sounds came from the tunnel. He asked Traz, “What sort of prints are these?”

  “An unshod Phung, possibly-a small one. More likely a Pnume. The prints are fresh. It watched our approach.”

  “Come along; let’s leave,” muttered Reith.

  An hour later they reached the ridge and halted to gaze out over the panorama. The land to the west lay drowned in late afternoon murk, with Settra showing as a discolored spot, like a bruise. Far to the east glimmered Black Mountain Lake.

  The travelers spent an eerie night at the edge of the forest, starting up at far noises; a thin uncanny screaming, a rap-rap-rap, like blows against a block of hard wood, the crafty hooting of nighthounds.

  Dawn came at last. The group made a glum breakfast on pods from a pilgrim plant, then proceeded down over a basalt palisade to the floor of a wooded valley. Ahead lay the Black Mountain Lake, calm and still. A fishing boat inched across the water and presently disappeared behind a jut of rock. “Hoch Har,” said Helsse. “Ancient enemies of the Yao. Now they remain behind the mountains.”

  Traz pointed. “A path.”

  Reith looked. “I see no path.”

  “Nevertheless it is there, and I smell wood smoke, from a distance of three miles.”

  Five minutes later Traz made a sudden gesture. “Several men are approaching.”

  Reith listened; he could hear nothing. But presently three men appeared on the trail ahead: very tall men with thick waists, thin arms and legs, wearing skirts of a dirty white fiber and short capes of the same stuff. They stopped short at the sight of the travelers, then turned and retreated along the trail, looking anxiously back over their shoulders.

  After a quarter-mile the trail left the jungle, and angled off across the swampy foreshore of the lake. The Hoch Har village stood on stilts over the water, terminating in a float to which a dozen plank boats were tied. On the shore a score of men stood in attitudes of nervous truculence, striding back and forth, bushknives and long spring-bows at the ready.

  The travelers approached.

  The tallest and heaviest of Hoch Hars called out in a ridiculously shrill voice: “Who are you?”

  “Travelers on the way to Kabasas.”

  The Hoch Hars stared incredulously, then peered back up the trail toward the mountains. “Where is the rest of your band?”

  “There is no band; we are alone. Can you sell us a boat and some food?”

  The Hoch Hars put aside their weapons. “Food is hard to come by,” groaned the first man. “Boats are our dearest possessions. What can you offer us in exchange?”

  “Only a few sequins.”

  “What good are sequins when we must visit Cath to spend them?”

  Helsse muttered in Reith’s ear. Reith said to the Hoch Hars, “Very well then, we shall continue. I understand that there are other villages around the lake.”

  “What? Would you deal with petty thieves and cheats? It is all those folks are. Well, to save you from your own folly, we will strain ourselves to work out some sort of arrangement.”

  In the end Reith paid two hundred sequins for a boat in fair condition and what the Hoch Har chief gruffly claimed to be sufficient provisions to take them all the way to Kabasas: crates of dried fish, sacks of tubers, rolls of pepper-bark, fresh and preserved fruit. Another thirty sequins secured the services, as a guide, of a certain Tsutso, a moon-faced young man somewhat portly, with an affable big-toothed smile. Tsutso declared the first stages of their journey to be the most precarious: “First, the rapids; then the Great Slant, after which the voyage becomes no more than drifting downstream to Kabasas.”

  At noon, with the small sail set, the boat departed the Hoch Har village, and through the long afternoon sailed the dark water south toward a pair of bluffs which marked the outlet of the lake and the head of the Jinga River. At sunset the boat passed between the bluffs, each crowned by a tumble of ruins, black on the brown-ash sky. Under the bluff to the right was a small cove with a beach; here Reith wanted to camp for the night but Tsutso would not
hear of it. “The castles are haunted. At midnight the ghosts of old Tschai walk the pavings. Do you want us all put under a taint?”

  “So long as the ghosts keep to the castle, what’s to prevent us from using the cove?”

  Tsutso gave Reith a wondering look, and held the boat to midstream between the opposing ruins. A mile downstream the Jinga split around a rocky islet, to which Tsutso took the boat. “Here nothing from the forest can molest us.”

  The travelers supped, laid themselves down around the campfire and were troubled by no more than soft whistles and trills from the forest, and once, far in the distance, the mournful call of the night-hounds.

  On the next day they passed across ten miles of violent rapids, during which Tsutso ten times over earned his fee, in Reith’s estimation. Meanwhile the forest dwindled to clumps of thorn; the banks became barren, and presently a strange sound made itself heard from ahead: a sibilant all-pervading roar. “The Slant,” explained Tsutso. The river disappeared at a brink a hundred yards ahead. Before Reith or the others could protest, the boat had pitched over the verge.

  Tsutso said, “Everyone alert; here is the Slant. Hold to the middle!”

  The roar of water almost overwhelmed his voice. The boat was sliding into a dark gorge; with amazing velocity the rock walls passed astern. The river itself was a trembling black surface, lined with foam static in relation to the boat. The travelers crouched as low as possible, ignoring Tsutso’s condescending grin. For minutes they dashed down the race, finally plunged into a field of foam and froth, then floated smoothly out into still water.

  The walls rose sheer a thousand feet: brown sandstone pocked with balls of black starbush. Tsutso steered the boat to a fringe of shingle. “Here I leave you.”

  “Here? At the bottom of this canyon?” Reith asked in wonder.

  Tsutso pointed to a trail winding up the slope. “Five miles away is the village.”

  “In that case,” said Reith, “goodbye and many thanks.”

  Tsutso made an indulgent gesture. “It is nothing in particular. Hoch Hars are generous folk, except where the Yao are concerned. Had you been Yao, all might not have gone so well.”

  Reith looked toward Helsse, who said nothing. “The Yao are your enemies?”