The Moon Moth and Other Stories

by Jack Vance

  “I thought you wanted me to reserve passage.”

  “I do. For Haxo Angmark. He’ll be returning to Polypolis in the brig.”

  “Well, well,” said Rolver. “So you’ve picked him out.”

  “Of course,” said Thissell. “Haven’t you?”

  Rolver shrugged. “He’s either Welibus or Kershaul, that’s as close as I can make it. So long as he wears his mask and calls himself either Welibus or Kershaul, it means nothing to me.”

  “It means a great deal to me,” said Thissell. “What time tomorrow does the lighter go up?”

  “Eleven twenty-two sharp. If Haxo Angmark’s leaving, tell him to be on time.”

  “He’ll be here,” said Thissell.

  He made his usual call upon Welibus and Kershaul, then returning to his houseboat, put three final marks on his chart.

  The evidence was here, plain and convincing. Not absolutely incontrovertible evidence, but enough to warrant a definite move. He checked over his gun. Tomorrow: the day of decision. He could afford no errors.

  The day dawned bright white, the sky like the inside of an oyster shell; Mireille rose through iridescent mists. Toby and Rex sculled the houseboat to the dock. The remaining three out-world houseboats floated somnolently on the slow swells.

  One boat Thissell watched in particular, that whose owner Haxo Angmark had killed and dropped into the harbor. This boat presently moved toward the shore, and Haxo Angmark himself stood on the front deck, wearing a mask Thissell had never seen before: a construction of scarlet feathers, black glass and spiked green hair.

  Thissell was forced to admire his poise. A clever scheme, cleverly planned and executed—but marred by an insurmountable difficulty.

  Angmark returned within. The houseboat reached the dock. Slaves flung out mooring lines, lowered the gang-plank. Thissell, his gun ready in the pocket flap of his robes, walked down the dock, went aboard. He pushed open the door to the saloon. The man at the table raised his red, black and green mask in surprise.

  Thissell said, “Angmark, please don’t argue or make any—”

  Something hard and heavy tackled him from behind; he was flung to the floor, his gun wrested expertly away.

  Behind him the hymerkin clattered; a voice sang, “Bind the fool’s arms.”

  The man sitting at the table rose to his feet, removed the red, black and green mask to reveal the black cloth of a slave. Thissell twisted his head. Over him stood Haxo Angmark, wearing a mask Thissell recognized as a Dragon Tamer, fabricated from black metal, with a knife-blade nose, socketed eyelids, and three crests running back over the scalp.

  The mask’s expression was unreadable, but Angmark’s voice was triumphant. “I trapped you very easily.”

  “So you did,” said Thissell. The slave finished knotting his wrists together. A clatter of Angmark’s hymerkin sent him away. “Get to your feet,” said Angmark. “Sit in that chair.”

  “What are we waiting for?” inquired Thissell.

  “Two of our fellows still remain out on the water. We won’t need them for what I have in mind.”

  “Which is?”

  “You’ll learn in due course,” said Angmark. “We have an hour or so on our hands.”

  Thissell tested his bonds. They were undoubtedly secure.

  Angmark seated himself. “How did you fix on me? I admit to being curious…Come, come,” he chided as Thissell sat silently. “Can’t you recognize that I have defeated you? Don’t make affairs unpleasant for yourself.”

  Thissell shrugged. “I operated on a basic principle. A man can mask his face, but he can’t mask his personality.”

  “Aha,” said Angmark. “Interesting. Proceed.”

  “I borrowed a slave from you and the other two out-worlders, and I questioned them carefully. What masks had their masters worn during the month before your arrival? I prepared a chart and plotted their responses. Rolver wore the Tarn Bird about eighty percent of the time, the remaining twenty percent divided between the Sophist Abstraction and the Black Intricate. Welibus had a taste for the heroes of Kan Dachan Cycle. He wore the Chalekun, the Prince Intrepid, the Seavain most of the time: six days out of eight. The other two days he wore his South Wind or his Gay Companion. Kershaul, more conservative, preferred the Cave Owl, the Star Wanderer, and two or three other masks he wore at odd intervals.

  “As I say, I acquired this information from possibly its most accurate source, the slaves. My next step was to keep watch upon the three of you. Every day I noted what masks you wore and compared it with my chart. Rolver wore his Tarn Bird six times, his Black Intricate twice. Kershaul wore his Cave Owl five times, his Star Wanderer once, his Quincunx once and his Ideal of Perfection once. Welibus wore the Emerald Mountain twice, the Triple Phoenix three times, the Prince Intrepid once and the Shark God twice.”

  Angmark nodded thoughtfully. “I see my error. I selected from Welibus’ masks, but to my own taste—and as you point out, I revealed myself. But only to you.” He rose and went to the window. “Kershaul and Rolver are now coming ashore; they’ll soon be past and about their business—though I doubt if they’d interfere in any case; they’ve both become good Sirenese.”

  Thissell waited in silence. Ten minutes passed. Then Angmark reached to a shelf and picked up a knife. He looked at Thissell. “Stand up.”

  Thissell slowly rose to his feet. Angmark approached from the side, reached out, lifted the Moon Moth from Thissell’s head. Thissell gasped and made a vain attempt to seize it. Too late; his face was bare and naked.

  Angmark turned away, removed his own mask, donned the Moon Moth. He struck a call on his hymerkin. Two slaves entered, stopped in shock at the sight of Thissell.

  Angmark played a brisk tattoo, sang, “Carry this man up to the dock.”

  “Angmark,” cried Thissell. “I’m maskless!”

  The slaves seized him and in spite of Thissell’s desperate struggles, conveyed him out on the deck, along the float and up on the dock.

  Angmark fixed a rope around Thissell’s neck. He said, “You are now Haxo Angmark, and I am Edwer Thissell. Welibus is dead, you shall soon be dead. I can handle your job without difficulty. I’ll play musical instruments like a Night-man and sing like a crow. I’ll wear the Moon Moth till it rots and then I’ll get another. The report will go to Polypolis, Haxo Angmark is dead. Everything will be serene.”

  Thissell barely heard. “You can’t do this,” he whispered. “My mask, my face…” A large woman in a blue and pink flower mask walked down the dock. She saw Thissell and emitted a piercing shriek, flung herself prone on the dock.

  “Come along,” said Angmark brightly. He tugged at the rope, and pulled Thissell down the dock. A man in a Pirate Captain mask coming up from his houseboat stood rigid in amazement.

  Angmark played the zachinko and sang, “Behold the notorious criminal Haxo Angmark. Through all the outer-worlds his name is reviled. Now he is captured and led in shame to his death. Behold Haxo Angmark!”

  They turned into the esplanade. A child screamed in fright, a man called hoarsely. Thissell stumbled; tears tumbled from his eyes; he could see only disorganized shapes and colors. Angmark’s voice belled out richly: “Everyone behold: the criminal of the out-worlds, Haxo Angmark! Approach and observe his execution!”

  Thissell feebly cried out, “I’m not Angmark; I’m Edwer Thissell; he’s Angmark.” But no one listened to him; there were only cries of dismay, shock, disgust at the sight of his face. He called to Angmark, “Give me my mask, a slave-cloth…”

  Angmark sang jubilantly, “In shame he lived, in maskless shame he dies.”

  A Forest Goblin stood before Angmark. “Moon Moth, we meet once more.”

  Angmark sang, “Stand aside, friend Goblin, I must execute this criminal. In shame he lived, in shame he dies!”

  A crowd had formed around the group; masks stared in morbid titillation at Thissell.

  The Forest Goblin jerked the rope from Angmark’s hand, threw it to the groun
d. The crowd roared. Voices cried, “No duel, no duel! Execute the monster!”

  A cloth was thrown over Thissell’s head. Thissell awaited the thrust of a blade. But instead his bonds were cut. Hastily he adjusted the cloth, hiding his face, peering between the folds.

  Four men clutched Haxo Angmark. The Forest Goblin confronted him, playing the skaranyi. “A week ago you reached to divest me of my mask; you have now achieved your perverse aim!”

  “But he is a criminal,” cried Angmark. “He is notorious, infamous!”

  “What are his misdeeds?” sang the Forest Goblin.

  “He has murdered, betrayed; he has wrecked ships; he has tortured, blackmailed, robbed, sold children into slavery; he has—”

  The Forest Goblin stopped him. “Your religious differences are of no importance. We can vouch however for your present crimes!”

  The hostler stepped forward. He sang fiercely, “This insolent Moon Moth nine days ago sought to pre-empt my choicest mount!”

  Another man pushed close. He wore a Universal Expert, and sang, “I am a Master Mask-maker; I recognize this Moon Moth out-worlder! Only recently he entered my shop and derided my skill. He deserves death!”

  “Death to the out-world monster!” cried the crowd. A wave of men surged forward. Steel blades rose and fell, the deed was done.

  Thissell watched, unable to move. The Forest Goblin approached, and playing the stimic sang sternly, “For you we have pity, but also contempt. A true man would never suffer such indignities!”

  Thissell took a deep breath. He reached to his belt and found his zachinko. He sang, “My friend, you malign me! Can you not appreciate true courage? Would you prefer to die in combat or walk maskless along the esplanade?”

  The Forest Goblin sang, “There is only one answer. First I would die in combat; I could not bear such shame.”

  Thissell sang. “I had such a choice. I could fight with my hands tied, and so die—or I could suffer shame, and through this shame conquer my enemy. You admit that you lack sufficient strakh to achieve this deed. I have proved myself a hero of bravery! I ask, who here has courage to do what I have done?”

  “Courage?” demanded the Forest Goblin. “I fear nothing, up to and beyond death at the hands of the Night-men!”

  “Then answer.”

  The Forest Goblin stood back. He played his double-kamanthil. “Bravery indeed, if such were your motives.”

  The hostler struck a series of subdued gomapard chords and sang, “Not a man among us would dare what this maskless man has done.”

  The crowd muttered approval.

  The mask-maker approached Thissell, obsequiously stroking his double-kamanthil. “Pray, Lord Hero, step into my nearby shop, exchange this vile rag for a mask befitting your quality.”

  Another mask-maker sang, “Before you choose, Lord Hero, examine my magnificent creations!”

  A man in a Bright-Sky Bird mask approached Thissell reverently. “I have only just completed a sumptuous houseboat; seventeen years of toil have gone into its fabrication. Grant me the good fortune of accepting and using this splendid craft; aboard waiting to serve you are alert slaves and pleasant maidens; there is ample wine in storage and soft silken carpets on the decks.”

  “Thank you,” said Thissell, striking the zachinko with vigor and confidence. “I accept with pleasure. But first a mask.”

  The mask-maker struck an interrogative trill on the gomapard. “Would the Lord Hero consider a Sea-Dragon Conqueror beneath his dignity?”

  “By no means,” said Thissell. “I consider it suitable and satisfactory. We shall go now to examine it.”

  Green Magic

  Howard Fair, looking over the relicts of his great-uncle Gerald McIntyre, found a large ledger entitled:

  WORKBOOK & JOURNAL

  Open at Peril!

  Fair read the journal with interest, although his own work went far beyond ideas treated only gingerly by Gerald McIntyre.

  “The existence of disciplines concentric to the elementary magics must now be admitted without further controversy,” wrote McIntyre. “Guided by a set of analogies from the white and black magics (to be detailed in due course), I have delineated the basic extension of purple magic, as well as its corollary, Dynamic Nomism.”

  Fair read on, remarking the careful charts, the projections and expansions, the transpolations and transformations by which Gerald McIntyre had conceived his systemology. So swiftly had the technical arts advanced that McIntyre’s expositions, highly controversial sixty years before, now seemed pedantic and overly rigorous.

  “Whereas benign creatures: angels, white sprites, merrihews, sandestins—are typical of the white cycle; whereas demons, magners, trolls and warlocks are evinced by black magic; so do the purple and green cycles sponsor their own particulars, but these are neither good nor evil, bearing, rather, the same relation to the black and white provinces that these latter do to our own basic realm.”

  Fair re-read the passage. The ‘green cycle’? Had great-uncle McIntyre wandered into regions overlooked by modern workers?

  He reviewed the journal in the light of this suspicion, and discovered additional hints and references. Especially provocative was a bit of scribbled marginalia: “More concerning my latest researches I may not state, having been promised an infinite reward for this forbearance.”

  The passage was dated a day before Gerald McIntyre’s death, which had occurred on March 21, 1898, the first day of spring. McIntyre had enjoyed very little of his ‘infinite reward’, whatever had been its nature…Fair returned to a consideration of the journal, which, in a sentence or two, had opened a chink on an entire new panorama. McIntyre provided no further illumination, and Fair set out to make a fuller investigation.

  His first steps were routine. He performed two divinations, searched the standard indexes, concordances, handbooks and formularies, evoked a demon whom he had previously found knowledgeable: all without success. He found no direct reference to cycles beyond the purple; the demon refused even to speculate.

  Fair was by no means discouraged; if anything, the intensity of his interest increased. He re-read the journal, with particular care to the justification for purple magic, reasoning that McIntyre, groping for a lore beyond the purple, might well have used the methods which had yielded results before. Applying stains and ultraviolet light to the pages, Fair made legible a number of notes McIntyre had jotted down, then erased.

  Fair was immensely stimulated. The notes assured him that he was on the right track and further indicated a number of blind alleys from which Fair profited by avoiding. He applied himself so successfully that before the week was out he had evoked a sprite of the green cycle. It appeared in the semblance of a man with green glass eyes and a thatch of young eucalyptus leaves in the place of hair. It greeted Fair with cool courtesy, would not seat itself, and ignored Fair’s proffer of coffee. After wandering around the apartment inspecting Fair’s books and curios with an air of negligent amusement, it agreed to respond to Fair’s questions.

  Fair asked permission to use his tape-recorder, which the sprite allowed, and Fair set the apparatus in motion. (When subsequently he replayed the interview, no sound could be heard.)

  “What realms of magic lie beyond the green?” asked Fair.

  “I can’t give you an exact answer,” replied the sprite, “because I don’t know. There are at least two more, corresponding to the colors we call rawn and pallow, and very likely others.”

  Fair arranged the microphone where it would more directly intercept the voice of the sprite. “What,” he asked, “is the green cycle like? What is its physical semblance?”

  The sprite paused to consider. Glistening mother-of-pearl films wandered across its face, reflecting the tinge of its thoughts. “I’m rather severely restricted by your use of the word ‘physical’. And ‘semblance’ involves a subjective interpretation, which changes with the rise and fall of the seconds.”

  “By all means,” Fair said hastily,
“describe it in your own words.”

  “Well—we have four different regions, two of which floresce from the basic skeleton of the universe, and so subsede the others. The first of these is compressed and isthiated, but is notable for its wide pools of mottle which we use sometimes for deranging stations. We’ve transplanted club-mosses from Earth’s Devonian and a few ice-fires from Perdition. They climb among the rods which we call devil-hair—” he went on for several minutes but the meaning almost entirely escaped Fair. And it seemed as if the question by which he had hoped to break the ice might run away with the entire interview. He introduced another idea.

  “Can we freely manipulate the physical extensions of Earth?”

  The sprite seemed amused. “You refer, so I assume, to the various aspects of space, time, mass, energy, life, thought and recollection.”

  “Exactly.”

  The sprite raised its green cornsilk eyebrows. “I might as sensibly ask, can you break an egg by striking it with a club? The response is on a similar level of seriousness.”

  Fair had expected a certain amount of condescension and impatience, and was not abashed. “How may I learn these techniques?”

  “In the usual manner: through diligent study.”

  “Ah, indeed—but where could I study, and who would teach me?”

  The sprite made an easy gesture, and whorls of green smoke trailed from his fingers to spin through the air. “I could arrange the matter, but since I bear you no particular animosity, I’ll do nothing of the sort. And now, I must be gone.”

  “Where do you go?” Fair asked in wonder and longing. “May I go with you?”

  The sprite, swirling a drape of bright green dust over its shoulders, shook his head. “You would be less than comfortable.”

  “Other men have explored the worlds of magic!”

  “True: your uncle Gerald McIntyre, for instance.”

  “My uncle Gerald learned green magic?”

  “To the limit of his capabilities. He found no pleasure in his learning. You would do well to profit by his experience and modify your ambitions.” The sprite turned and walked away.