The Brave Free Men

by Jack Vance

  “The militia! Impossible! My work —”

  “‘Impossible’?” Etzwane ostentatiously made a note of the man’s color code. “I will explain circumstances to the Anome; you had best set your affairs in order.”

  Stunned, white-faced, the man slumped back in his chair.

  Etzwane rode a diligence to Sershan Palace. He found Sajarano in the rooftop garden, playing with a prismatic toy. Etzwane stood watching a moment. Sajarano moved colored spots of light along a white bar, small mouth pursed, eyes studiously averted from Etzwane.

  Under that poet’s forehead what occurred? What impulses actuated those small hands, once so quick and powerful? Etzwane, already in a grim mood, found the bafflement intolerable. He brought forth the newspaper and placed it in front of Sajarano, who put aside the toy to read. He glanced up at Etzwane. “Events rush together. History occurs.”

  Etzwane pointed to the brown and yellow. “What do you make of this?”

  “Tragedy.”

  “You agree that the Roguskhoi are our enemies?”

  “It cannot be denied.”

  “How would you deal with them, had you power once again?”

  Sajarano started to speak, then looked down at his toy. “The avenues of action all lead into dark mist.”

  Sajarano might well be the victim of mental affliction, thought Etzwane; in fact, this almost certainly was the case. He asked, “How did you become Anome?”

  “My father was Anome before me. When he grew old he passed on the power.” Looking off into the sky Sajarano smiled in sad recollection. “The transfer was in this case simple; it is not always so.”

  “Who was to have been Anome after you?”

  Sajarano’s smile faded; he frowned in concentration. “At one time I inclined toward Arnold of Cham, whom I considered qualified by birth, intellect and integrity. I reconsidered. The Anome must be clever and harsh; he can afford no qualms.” Sajarano’s fingers gave a convulsive twitch. “The terrible deeds I have done! In Haviosq, to alarm the sacred birds is a crime. In Fordume the apprentice jade-carver must die if his master-work cracks. Arnold of Cham, a reasonable man, could not enforce laws so grotesque. I considered a man more flexible: Aun Sharah, the Chief Discriminator. He is cool, clever, capable of detachment … I rejected Aun Sharah for reason of style, and settled upon Garstang, now dead … The whole subject is irrelevant.”

  Etzwane pondered a moment. “Did Aun Sharah know that he was under consideration?”

  Sajarano shrugged and picked up the toy. “He is a perceptive man. It is hard to conceal the exercise of power from a person in his position.”

  Etzwane went to the radio-room. He adjusted the filter, to disassociate himself from the previous message; he then called Aun Sharah. “This is Gastel Etzwane. I have taken counsel with the Anome. He has ordered that you and I go forth as plenipotentiaries to all regions of Shant. You are required to visit the cantons east of the Jardeen and north of the Wildlands, including Shkoriy, Lor-Asphen, Haghead and Morningshore. I am assigned the cantons to west and south. We are to stimulate and, if necessary, coerce the mobilization and training of the various militias. Do you have any questions?”

  There was a brief silence. “You used the word ‘coerce’. How is this to be effected?”

  “We are to note particulars of recalcitrance; the Anome will inflict penalties. Conditions vary. I can offer no explicit instructions; you must use your best judgment.”

  Aun Sharah’s voice was a trifle bleak: “When am I to leave?”

  “Tomorrow. Your first cantons should perhaps be Wale, Purple Fan, Anglesiy, Jardeen and Conduce; then you can take the balloon-way at Brassei Junction for the far east. I go first to Wild Rose, Maiy, Erevan, and Shade, then take balloon for Esterland. For funds we are to issue drafts against the Bank of Shant, and naturally stint ourselves nothing.”

  “Very well,” said Aun Sharah without enthusiasm. “We must do what is required.”

  Chapter IV

  The balloon Iridixn, requisitioned by Etzwane, swayed at the loading platform: a triple-segmented slab of withe, cord and glossy film. The winch-tender was Casallo, a young man of airs and graces, who performed the sensitive acts of his trade with bored disdain. Etzwane stepped into the gondola; Casallo, already in his compartment, asked: “What, sir, are your orders?”

  “I want to visit Jamilo, Vervei, Sacred Hill in Erevan, Lanteen in Shade. Then we will proceed directly across Shant to Esterland.”

  “As you wish, sir.” Casallo barely stifled a yawn. Over his ear he wore a sprig of purple arasma, souvenir of last night’s revelry. Etzwane watched with suspicion as Casallo checked the action of his winches, tested gas valves and ballast release, then dropped the semaphore. “Up we go.”

  The station gang walked the judas-dolly down the slot, allowing the balloon a medium scope. Casallo negligently adjusted cant and aspect, to lay the balloon on a broad reach across the wind. The guys were detached from the sheave on the judas-dolly, the running-dolly was released from its clamp; the balloon slid away; the dolly whirred cheerfully down the slot. Casallo adjusted the guys with the air of a man inventing a new process; the balloon perceptibly accelerated and sailed east through Jardeen Gap. The Ushkadel became a dark blur to the rear, and presently they entered Wild Rose, where among wooded hillocks, vales, ponds and placid meadows the Aesthetes of Garwiy maintained their country estates.

  Approaching the market town Jamilo, the balloon showed its orange semaphore and luffed; the station gang caught the running-dolly, diverted it onto a siding where they clamped it to the slot. They caught the guys in the sheaves of the judas-dolly and hauling the judas-dolly up the slot toward the depot, drew the balloon to the ground.

  Etzwane went to the canton Moot-hall, which he found quiet and unoccupied. The Anome’s proclamation had been posted, but no person of authority had come past to see it.

  In a fury Etzwane went to the clerk’s cubicle where he demanded an explanation. The clerk hobbled forth and blinked without comprehension as Etzwane criticized his conduct. “Why did you not summon the councilmen?” stormed Etzwane. “Are you so ignorant that you cannot understand the urgency of the message? You are discharged! Clear out of this office and be grateful if the Anome does not take your head!”

  “During all my tenure events have moved with deliberation,” quavered the clerk. “How was I to know that this particular business must go at the speed of lightning?”

  “Now you know! How do you summon the councilmen to an emergency session?”

  “I don’t know; we have never experienced an emergency.”

  “Does Jamilo boast a brigade for the control of fires?”

  “Yes indeed. The gong is yonder.”

  “Go sound the gong!”

  The folk of Maiy were commerciants: a tall dark-haired dark-skinned people, suave and quiet of demeanor. They lived in octagonal houses with tall eight-sided roofs tiled with blue-green slate, from the center of which projected chimneys each taller than the one before; and indeed the height of a man’s chimney measured his prestige. The canton’s administrative center Vervei was not so much a town as an agglomeration of small industries, producing toys, wooden bowls, trays, candelabra, doors, furniture. Etzwane found the industries working at full speed, and the First Negociant of Maiy admitted that he had taken no steps to implement the Anome’s proclamation. “It is very difficult for us to move quickly,” he stated with a disarming smile. “We have contracts which limit our freedom; you must realize that this is our busy season. Surely the Anome in his power and wisdom can control the Roguskhoi without turning our lives upside down!”

  Etzwane ostentatiously noted the code of the Negociant’s torc. “If a single one of your concerns opens for business before an able militia is formed and at drill, you will lose your head. The war against the Roguskhoi supersedes all else! Is so much clear?”

  The Negociant’s thin face became grave. “It is difficult to understand how —”

  Etzwane said:
“You have exactly ten seconds to start obeying the Anome’s orders. Can you understand this?”

  The Negociant touched his torc. “I understand completely.”

  In Erevan Etzwane found confusion. Looming above the horizon to the southeast stood the first peaks of the Hwan; an arm of Shellflower Bay extended almost as close from the north. “Should we send our women north? Or should we prepare to receive women from the mountains? The Fowls say one thing, the Fruits* another. The Fowls want to form a militia of young men, because old men are better with the flocks; the Fruits want to draft old men because young men are needed to harvest the fruit. Only the Anome can solve our problems!”

  * Fowls and Fruits: the rival factions of Erevan, representing the poultry industry and the fruit-growers.

  “Use young Fowls and old Fruits,” Etzwane told him, “but act with decision! If the Anome learned of your delay he’d take heads from Fowl and Fruit alike.”

  In Shade, under the very loom of the Hwan, the Roguskhoi were a known danger. On many occasions small bands had been glimpsed in the upper valleys, where now no man dared to go; three small settlements had been raided. Etzwane found no need to stress the need for action. A large number of women had been sent north; groups of the new militia were already in the process of organization.

  In the company of the First Duke of Shade Etzwane watched two squads drilling with staves and poles, to simulate swords and spears, at opposite ends of the Sansour Arena. The squads showed noticeable differences in costume, zeal and general competence. The first wore well-cut garments of indigo and mulberry, with green leather boots; they sprang back and forth; they lunged, feinted, swaggered; they called jocular comments back and forth as they exercised. The second group, in work-clothes and sandals, drilled without fervor and spoke only in surly mutters. Etzwane inquired as to the disparity.

  “Our policy has not yet been made firm,” said the First Duke. “Some of those summoned to duty sent indentured bondsmen, who show no great zest. I am not sure if the system will prove feasible; perhaps persons who find themselves unable to drill should send two bondsmen, rather than one. Perhaps the practice should be totally discouraged. There are arguments for all points of view.”

  Etzwane said, “The defense of Shant is a privilege accorded only to free men. By joining the militia the indentured man automatically dissolves his debts. Be so good as to announce this fact to the group yonder; then let us judge their zeal.”

  The balloon-way led into the Wildlands, the Iridixn now sailing at the full length of its guys, the better to catch the most direct draughts of wind. At Angwin an endless cable drew the Iridixn across Angwin Gorge to Angwin Junction, an island in the sky which Etzwane long ago had escaped with the unwitting assistance of Jerd Finnerack.

  The Iridixn continued southeast, across the most dramatic regions of the Wildlands. Casallo scrutinized the panorama through binoculars. He pointed down into a mountain valley. “You’re concerned with the Roguskhoi? Look there! A whole tribe before your eyes!”

  Taking the binoculars Etzwane observed a large number of quiet dark spots, perhaps as many as four hundred, beside a stockade of thorn bush. From under a dozen great cauldrons came wisps of smoke, to drift away down the valley. Etzwane examined the interior of the stockade. Certain ambiguous bunches of rags he saw to be huddles of women, to the number of possibly a hundred. At the back of the stockade, under the shelter of a rude shed, were perhaps others … Etzwane examined other areas of the camp. Each Roguskhoi squatted alone and self-sufficient; a few mended harness, rubbed grease on their bodies, fed wood into the fires under the cauldrons. None, so far as Etzwane could detect, so much as glanced up at the passing balloon or toward the dolly which rolled whirring through the slot not a quarter-mile distant … The Iridixn passed around a crag of rock; the valley could no longer be seen.

  Etzwane put the binoculars on the rack. “Where do they get their swords? Those cauldrons are metal — a fortune wouldn’t buy them.”

  Casallo laughed. “Metal cauldrons and they cook grass, leaves, black worms, dead ahulphs and live ones too, anything they can get down their throats. I’ve watched them through the binoculars.”

  “Do they ever show any interest in the balloon? They could cause trouble if they meddled with the slot.”

  “They’ve never bothered the slot,” said Casallo. “Many things they don’t seem to notice. When they’re not eating or breeding, they just sit. Do they think? I don’t know. I talked to a mountain man who walked past twenty sitting quietly in the shade. I asked: ‘Were they asleep?’ He said, no; apparently they felt no urge to kill him. It’s a fact: they never attack a man unless he’s trying to keep them from a woman, or unless they’re hungry — when he’ll go into the cauldron along with everything else.”

  “If we were carrying a bomb, we could have killed five hundred Roguskhoi,” said Etzwane.

  “Not a good idea,” said Casallo, who tended to contest or qualify each of Etzwane’s remarks. “If bombs came from balloons, they’d break the slot.”

  “Unless we used free balloons.”

  “So then? In a balloon you can only bomb what lies directly below; not often would you drift over a camp. If we had engines to move the balloons, there’s a different story, but you can’t build engines from withe and glass, even if someone remembered the ancient crafts.”

  Etzwane said, “A glider can fly where a balloon can only drift.”

  “On the other hand,” Casallo troubled himself to point out, “a glider must land, when a balloon will drift on to safety.”

  “Our business is killing Roguskhoi,” snapped Etzwane, “not drifting safely back and forth.”

  Casallo merely laughed and went off to his compartment to play his khitan, an accomplishment of which he was very proud.

  They had reached the heart of the Wildlands. To all sides ridges of gray rock humped into the sky; the slot veered first this way, then that, compromising between vertical and horizontal variations, the first of which made for an uneasy ride and the second for continuous exertion on the part of the winch-tender. As much as possible the slots led across the prevailing winds, to afford a reach to balloons in either direction. In the mountains the winds shifted and bounced, sometimes blowing directly along the slot. The winch-tender then might luff and cant, to warp his balloon off the side and low, thus minimizing the reverse vector. In worse conditions, he could pull the brake cord, wedging the wheels of the dolly against the side of the slot. In conditions worse yet, when the wind roared and howled, he might abandon the idea of progress and drift back down the slot to the nearest station or siding.

  Such a wind-storm struck the Iridixn over Conceil Cirque: a vast shallow cup lined with snow, the source of the river Mirk. The morning had shown a lavender-pink haze across the south and high in the east a hundred bands of cirrus through which the three suns dodged and whirled, to create shifting zones of pink, white, and blue. Casallo predicted wind, and before long the gusts were upon them. Casallo employed every artifice at his command: luffing, warping high and low; braking, swinging in a great arc, then releasing the brake at a precise instant to eke out a few grudging yards, whereby he hoped to reach a curve in the slot a mile ahead. Three hundred yards short of his goal the wind struck with such force as to set the frame of the Iridixn groaning and creaking. Casallo released the brake, put the Iridixn flat on the wind and drifted back down the slot.

  At Conceil Siding the station gang brought the balloon down and secured it with a net. Casallo and Etzwane rested the night in the station house, secure within a stockade of stone walls and corner towers. Etzwane learned that the Roguskhoi were very much in evidence. The size of the groups had increased remarkably during the last year, the superintendent reported. “Before we might see twenty or thirty in a group; now they come in bands of two or three hundred, and sometimes they surround the stockade. They attacked only once, when a party of Whearn nuns were forced down by the wind. There wasn’t a Roguskhoi in sight; then suddenly t
hree hundred appeared and tried to scale the walls. We were ready for them — the area is sown thick with land mines. We killed at least two hundred of them, twenty or thirty at a time. The next day we hustled the nuns into a balloon and sent them off and had no more trouble. Come; I’ll show you something.”

  At the corner of the stockade a pen had been built from iron-wood staves; two small red-bronze creatures peered through the gaps. “We took them last week; they’d been rummaging our garbage. We strung up a net and baited it. Three tore themselves free; we took two. Already they’re as strong as men.”

  Etzwane studied the two imps, who returned a blank stare. Were they human? derived from human stock? organisms new and strange? The questions had been raised many times, with no satisfactory answers. The Roguskhoi bone-structure seemed generally that of a man, if somewhat simplified at the foot, wrist, and rib cage. Etzwane asked the superintendent, “Are they gentle?”

  “To the contrary. If you put your finger into the cage, they’ll take it off.”

  “Do they speak, or make any sound?”

  “At night they whine and groan; otherwise they remain silent. They seem little more than animals. I suppose they had best be killed, before they contrive some sort of evil.”

  “No, keep them safe; the Anome will want them studied. Perhaps we can learn how to control them.”

  The superintendent dubiously surveyed the two imps. “I suppose anything is possible.”

  “As soon as I return to Garwiy I will send for them, and of course you will benefit from your efforts.”

  “That is kind of you. I hope I can hold them secure. They grow larger by the day.”

  “Treat them with kindness, and try to teach them a few words.”