Night Lamp

by Jack Vance

  Jaro asked in a hushed voice, “You want me to wear a costume?”

  “Don’t fret, we have a proper costume in mind; it’s wonderfully droll, with a tall crooked hat, green pantaloons, and a funny sheep’s tail fastened at the back, where tails are usually attached.” Lyssel giggled. “A string connects the tail to your knee, so that when you cavort the tail whisks about; it’s truly comical!”

  Jaro sat staring at Lyssel in bemusement. Lyssel happily continued. “As for me, I’ll be a Blue Impling, with blue lace slippers. The costume is mostly me, but everything is a bit daring at the Multiflor: that, in fact, is true Jinker style. Along with the Gradencia we’ll serve iced Titilanthus in authentic milk-glass urns; also a vat of a new recipe created just for the party; it’s called Flurrish Zabamba. They gave Yasher Farkinbeck a taste and it made him very frisky, so I’m told. You’ll enjoy yourself.”

  Jaro reached across the table and took her hands. “Lyssel, we are about to hear the jangling discord of two lawn parties in collision.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I should say, two versions of the same party. Whichever you choose cancels the other.”

  “Oh dear, must we have histrionics?” Lyssel tried to disengage her hands. “You look so grim! Please let me go!” Jaro released her. “I’ll tell you about the two parties. The first is a triumph. The weather is fine; the refreshments are memorable; the garden satyr has played well and amused everyone with his cavorting; Hanafer Glackenshaw is glad; Yasher Farkinbeck is frisky; Lyssel Bynnoc is radiant: her beauty has seduced every boy and antagonized every girl.”

  “Wonderful!” cried Lyssel in rapture. “Let’s go no further, this is the Multiflor I want.”

  “But wait! Listen to the second version! At this Multiflor you and I arrive together. I am your escort and we are wearing similar costumes. You are carrying my suanola, which I may or may not play, depending upon my mood—perhaps after a taste or two of Flurrish Zabamba. We are together during the party, and at the proper time we leave and go off into the evening. It has been a pleasant party.”

  Jaro paused, but Lyssel could only stare at him slack-jawed.

  Jaro said, “If we choose one party, the other disappears. For instance, if you chose the first party, at the end the satyr would take his pay and go off to his camp. It wouldn’t be Jaro, of course.”

  “You can’t be serious!”

  “Certainly I’m serious.”

  “But the second party is utter nonsense! I could not participate in such a fiasco!”

  Jaro rose to his feet. “In that case, nothing more need be said. I’m going home.” He started for the door. A few seconds passed, then Lyssel came running after him. She seized his arm and pulled him to a halt. “I’ve never known anyone so irascible!”

  “But you’re insulting! You hypnotize me and vamp me, just so you can dress me up as a funny satyr, to play the suanola free of charge. You don’t even like me.”

  Lyssel stepped closer. “You catch me up on things I didn’t mean! I think it’s you who just pretends the interest.”

  Jaro held out his arm. “Look! See how my hand shakes? I’m fighting my primitive impulses. They are real.”

  Lyssel grinned up at him and seemed to wriggle, as if by reflex. “So long as you obey my commands, I don’t mind. In fact, I rather like it, since it makes me feel invincible.”

  “It makes me feel nervous and tired. The game is over and I’m going home.” But Jaro hesitated. “I still wonder what you really want of me, and how far you’d go to get it.”

  Lyssel put her hands up to his shoulders. “I made a mistake, I admit it!” She moved even closer, so that Jaro could feel the touch of her breasts. He knew he should back away and leave the Old Den but his feet were reluctant to move. He said: “Tell me the truth.”

  Lyssel grimaced. “What truth? The main truth is that I want everything! But I don’t know how to get it, or any of it. I’m confused.” She fell silent, then spoke in a low voice, more to herself than to Jaro, “I don’t dare! All my comporture would be lost if we were discovered.” Jaro started to draw back. “I want no more intrigues, and I don’t want to disgrace you. So then—”

  From across the room came heavy voices; turning, Jaro saw Hanafer Glackenshaw with two of his friends: the hulking Aimer Gulp, along with the lean and rapacious Lonas Fanchetto.

  Lyssel dropped her arms and stepped away from Jaro. Hanafer cried out in brassy triumph: “They told me I’d find you here, along with old Mooper!”

  “You are being extremely rude!” said Lyssel. “Please leave, and at once!”

  “It’s not rude to explain hard facts! This is a damnable moop, and he must be taught his place.”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying. Jaro is courteous and talented, and he is far more genteel than you are. Now hear me! I’ve invited him to Multiflor. He’ll be a probationary Jinker, so please don’t call him a schmeltzer.”

  “Of course he’s a schmeltzer!” roared Hanafer. “He’s a nimp, isn’t he? How can he be even a probationary Jinker?”

  “Because I’m on the committee, and I can nominate whomever I please!”

  “But not a nimp! That’s sheer farce, and proves he’s schmeltzing!” He swung upon Jaro. “I’ll give you some advice. Keep away from the Multiflor. We don’t want bounders or gaks or schmeltzers at our parties. We strive and claw up the ledges and we don’t want to look up to see some disgusting nimp grinning down at us! So then—you heard me; what do you have to say?”

  Lyssel cried out: “Hanafer, stop trying to bully Jaro! You’re only making a fool of yourself, and I certainly won’t think kindly of you if you go on like this!”

  Hanafer’s face became distorted. “I’m not the fool; it’s you who stands here, letting this bounder nuzzle you! Don’t you realize that he’s a schmeltzer and really repulsive?”

  Lyssel said, “Hanafer, behave yourself. You are definitely not at your best!”

  Hanafer ignored her and turned to glare at Jaro. “Well, nimp? We’d better have an understanding. Are you planning to strut and schmeltz at the Multiflor, or will you behave like the nice little nimp you damned well better be?”

  Jaro spoke with an effort. The situation was embarrassing. He did not wish to attend Multiflor; he was not anxious to fight Hanafer, who was large, heavy and mean, and from whom he could expect a drubbing. Hanafer had public opinion on his side; none of the strivers liked schmeltzers, and Jaro’s status as probationary Jinker was unconvincing. Still, Jaro found that he could not meekly submit to Hanafer and retain his self-respect. Against all logic and inclination and basic common sense he said, “I’ll go where I like, and you’ll have to put up with it.”

  Hanafer took a slow step forward. “And you plan to show yourself at the Multiflor?”

  “My plans are none of your affair.”

  “Schmeltzing is everyone’s affair.”

  Lyssel stepped forward. “He’s coming because I invited him to be my escort! So now, behave yourself.”

  Hanafer stared at her in wonder. “I thought that I was to be your escort! You told me to be sure to wear my Scarlet Knave costume!”

  “I changed my mind. I’m to be a Blue Impling and your costume would clash with mine.”

  Hanafer signaled his two friends. “Grab this bounder and throw him out! If I started, I don’t know where I’d stop.”

  Lonas and Aimer came forward: Lonas with massive shoulders hunched; Aimer with a bony arm extended, long thin fingers like insect claws, clutching at the air, apparently in order to fascinate Jaro and expedite his withdrawal.

  The proprietor appeared. “Stop; that’s enough! I’ll have no rowdy tussles in here! One move and I’ll call the monitors!” He turned to Jaro. “As for you, young man, you had better leave now, while the going is good!”

  Jaro shrugged and departed.

  Lyssel swung upon Hanafer: “You are a boor! I am absolutely ashamed of you!”

  “Not so!” Hanafer blustered. �
��You told me that I would be your escort at the Multiflor and that later we’d go out to the Seven Mile House for supper.”

  “I never agreed to that, and if I did it was only conditional.”

  “So now you want to go with the schmeltzer instead?”

  Lyssel drew herself up. “When I want your advice, I’ll ask for it. Until then, please mind your own business.”

  “Yes, of course. Just as you say.” Hanafer turned and marched from the Old Den, followed by his friends.

  4

  Jaro finished his evening shift at the space terminal and started home. The inter-urban bus, discharged him where Katzvold Road entered the Nain Woods, with Merriehew still half a mile north. The night was warm and heavy, with the blue-green moon Mish drifting among high clouds.

  The bus vanished toward town, leaving silence behind. Jaro set off to the north through the Woods, moving soft-footed along the road, as seemed appropriate on such a night as this one.

  The moon drifted behind a cloud, the road disappeared into darkness, and Jaro slowed his pace, to avoid straying into the roadside thickets. Tonight for some odd reason, the road seemed unfamiliar, as if Jaro had missed the way and now wandered an unknown part of the woods. Foolishness, of course—still, something seemed amiss. Was that a sound? He stopped to listen. Silence. Dubiously he continued along the road. After a few yards he stopped again; no mistake this time! From high in the trees, came a soft doleful sound, stiffening the short hairs at the nape of Jaro’s neck. He listened, but silence had returned to the woods.

  Jaro went on slowly, feeling the way with his feet.

  A moment passed. Again the quiet sound floated down from above. Jaro raised his head to listen; it must be the hooting of a night bird, though like none he had heard before.

  Jaro stirred himself and proceeded, step after step. Clouds parted; the moon drifted out into open sky. Wan moonlight spread down through the foliage, to lay a pattern on the road. Again the sound: an eery clucking. Jaro stopped short, and searched the high foliage. A fluting voice cried out: “The Black Angels fly down from the back of the moon!”

  Something stood in the moonlit road fifty feet ahead. It was seven feet tall, draped in a flowing black gown, with black wings lifting high from the shoulders. Under a black cowl eyes like disks of jet in a gaunt white face stared down at Jaro, holding him transfixed.

  From right and left came four masked shapes in grotesque costumes: capes draped over abnormally wide shoulders, from which wings raised high, like those of the figure in the road. To his sick surprise, Jaro found that he had become a rag doll, helpless either to run or to fight.

  Moving with ponderous deliberation, the four Angels set upon Jaro; they bore him to the ground and struck him with long flexible truncheons. Jaro held up his arm; down came the truncheon; a bone broke. Jaro toppled, and the blows continued. Old memories flooded into his mind: The glare of the hot sun on the Wyching Hills, the taste of roadside dust; the thud-thud of cudgels pounding his thin ribs. He groaned, more from pain than the agony of recollection.

  On this night in Nain Woods the truncheons measured blows meant not to maim, but to punish. A deep voice spoke, its utterance grave and stately: “The Black Angels of Penitence once more do their duty! Let schmeltzers beware, now and forever!”

  From the others came a rumble of antiphony: “It is always thus! Let the schmeltzers beware! It is thus, and thus, and thus!” The truncheons rose and fell in emphasis.

  The deep voice spoke: “You have been adjudged a schmeltzer: now you must make amends. Say you are sorry!”

  Jaro struggled feebly, but was thrust back down and kicked heavily in the ribs.

  The voice intoned: “Declare your falsity! Say you are sorry and will keep to your place! Will you speak? Or do you need further correction? Aha, you will not speak! Well then, so be it, and it’s all your own fault!”

  Down came the truncheons. The Black Angels, affronted by Jaro’s silence, worked with righteous zeal to correct the intransigence of their victim; they struck with heavier arms, their truncheons held high, until Jaro lay passive. Amazing! Even while Jaro’s flesh cringed to the blows, deep inside his head sounded a gust of mocking laughter, as if somewhere, something took joy in the event, and Jaro felt even a deeper fear.

  The Black Angels stood panting. One of the towering figures kicked Jaro heavily. “Speak now! Recite your apology!”

  Another Angel muttered: “It is useless. He is stubborn as bangdong stink.”

  “Stubborn or dead.”

  The four bent over Jaro. “He has had a smart lesson, no more. It will moderate his vanity.”

  Jaro’s senses drained away. He felt almost at peace. It was good, this receptivity! It functioned like a reservoir, into which emotion and purpose drained and were collected, so that none was wasted. His mind went dim, and he lay still.

  The Black Angels performed their other work. They clipped away Jaro’s hair and glued a ridiculous cock’s-comb of white feathers to his scalp. They painted his face black and tucked a long bushy white plume into the waistband at the back of his trousers. They loaded him into the bed of a van and drove off toward Thanet.

  An hour before midnight a group of students leaving a late lecture discovered Jaro in the forecourt of the Lyceum, where he had 21 been lashed upright to the stanchion of a yardlight. A placard hung from his neck. It read:

  I WAS A SCHMELTZER! I APOLOGIZE. THE BLACK ANGELS OF PENITENCE HAVE ORDAINED IT SO!

  5

  An ambulance conveyed Jaro to the hospital, where his hurts and broken bones were treated. He was concussed. Ribs, arms and clavicle had been broken. He was lucky, so it was said, to have escaped a fractured skull. It seemed that the Black Angels had conducted their punitive measures in a frenzy of excitement. The police made routine efforts to identify the Angels, but there was little popular indignation at the punishment of a schmeltzer. Such a creature was no better than a leech, and since the police could not control schmeltzing, then society was forced to protect itself. In general, the deed was considered a students’ lark and a salutory example for everyone concerned.

  Jaro remained in the hospital for two weeks. The Faths came daily to visit him, but found it hard to seem cheerful and optimistic. The police had been casually polite. They claimed that diligent inquiry had produced no clues.

  One day, as if by afterthought, Hilyer asked Jaro if he could put names to any of the Black Angels.

  Jaro seemed surprised. “Of course! There were four: Hanafer Glackenshaw, Kosh Diffenbocker, Aimer Culp, Lonas Fanchetto.”

  “Then we will prosecute.”

  Jaro would not hear of it. “I could prove nothing. There were no witnesses. The Justiciary would never be allowed use of the Truth Machine. Even if they were found guilty, they would only be censured, and I would be warned to avoid future provocation. They emerge with dignity; I look feeble and foolish.”

  “But we cannot let this outrage pass! It would be shameful!”

  “Yes; indeed it would.”

  Hilyer compressed his lips. “You are cold as a fish; you show no emotion! Aren’t you angry?”

  Jaro smiled. “I am angry, no fear as to that. When the time comes, the anger will be there and ready.”

  Hilyer grunted. “I don’t think that I understand you.”

  “No matter.”

  Hilyer studied the pallid face. “Surely you don’t intend to take the law into your own hands!”

  Jaro gave a painful chuckle. “Certainly not at the moment.”

  The response failed to satisfy Hilyer, and he left the hospital in an unsettled mood.

  Jaro was visited by a half dozen fellow students, with whom he had become more or less friendly. All expressed sympathy for both the beating and the humiliation of the feathered headpiece and the rear plume. They were surprised to discover Jaro’s extraordinary sangfroid. “There’s no humiliation, if a person does not feel humiliated,” said Jaro. Basil Krom, who studied sociology, argued the point. “That is a
s may be. Here at Thanet humiliation is almost a thing in itself Why? No mystery. The competitive social system makes them vulnerable to ridicule. At all costs they must maintain face. This is why your friends are baffled by your unconcern.”

  “First of all,” said Jaro, “I have no reputation to destroy.”

  “And second?”

  “Since I am indifferent to ridicule, there is no fun in it, and it will soon stop.”

  “And thirdly?”

  “Thirdly is not yet projected.”

  Lyssel failed to include herself among the visitors, nor had Jaro expected her. Gaing Neitzbeck, however, showed himself as soon as visitors were permitted. At the sight of the battered face Jaro felt a surge of comfort and relief. He had not realized how much stress still weighed upon him.

  Gaing, not a demonstrative man, still gave Jaro a pat on the shoulder, then seated himself. He said gruffly, “You might as well tell me the whole thing.”

  Jaro described the events of the dreadful evening. “I am not proud of myself I heard a weird sound from the tree; I saw the effigy with the high wings and I became paralyzed. I stood numb, like a hypnotized chicken. Now I feel weak and ineffectual.”

  Gaing considered Jaro a moment. “Evidently you want to make changes in yourself.”

  “Yes,” Jaro muttered. “I’ll find some way to cure the weakness, or flaw—whatever it is.”

  “Such an episode is hard on the pride,” Gaing agreed. “But don’t suffer on that account. Pride is intellectual self-judgment. It’s a mixture of hope and fantasy, and should be put aside. ‘Assurance,’ which is a measure of competence, is a more useful standard.”

  Jaro said hollowly, “That’s a very fine remark, but lacking competence, I might as well look for my poor bedraggled pride, nurse it back into shape.”

  Gaing grinned amiably. “You have a few odd competences, but none will protect you from another good beating.”