The Anome

by Jack Vance

  The girl gave an offensive laugh. “You infant! What do you know of other folk? You haven’t set foot a hundred yards down the road in either direction.”

  Mur could not refute the jibe. “Well, I have learned from the men who come to my mother’s cottage. And never forget, my blood-father was a musician!”

  “Indeed? What was his name?”

  “Dystar.”

  “Dystar … Come over to the wagons. I’ll learn the truth about your father, what manner of musician he was.”

  Mur’s heart beat faster; he drew back. “I’m not sure I want to know.”

  “Why not? What are you afraid of?”

  “I’m afraid of nothing. I am a Chilite, and consequently —”

  “Yes, yes; come along then.”

  On leaden legs Mur followed, trying to strike upon some convincing reason why he should not go into the musicians’ camp. The girl looked back, showing a bold and saucy grin, and finally Mur became annoyed. She took him for a liar and a freak, did she? Nothing could dissuade him now … They entered the musicians’ camp. “Azouk, Azouk!” cried a woman. “Are there berries? Bring them here.”

  “No berries,” stated Azouk in disgust. “This little thief took them from me. I brought him here for a hiding.”

  “Come now,” said the woman. “Do you have berries or no?”

  The girl gave over the near-empty basket with a flourish. “It is as I said. This freaklet took them, and claims beside his father was a musician — a certain Dystar.”

  “Well, and why not? Are musicians unlike other men? Beget and forget, that’s how it goes.” And she added: “His mother must be a methodical woman.”

  Mur essayed a timid question. “Did you know my father Dystar?”

  The woman jerked her finger. “Ply the old man with the broken khitan. He knows every drunken musician of Shant. Come you, Azouk! Must you idle away your life, you hussy? Fetch twigs and foster the fire!” She went off to stir a cauldron; with a saucy toss of the head the girl disappeared behind a wagon. Mur stood alone. No one heeded him. All the folk of the troupe worked with intense concentration, as if their immediate task were the most important act they would ever undertake. In all the camp the old man seemed the most relaxed, and even he worked with zestful flourishes of his elbows and intermittent pauses to scowl down at his handiwork. Step by step Mur approached. The old man flicked him a cool glance and began to fit a string to the crook-necked khitan.

  Mur watched in respectful silence. As the old man worked he hissed a tune through his teeth. He dropped his awl; Mur picked it up and handed it to him, and received another side-glance. Mur moved a step closer.

  “Well then,” demanded the old man in a challenging voice, “do you consider the job well done?”

  After a moment’s hesitation Mur said, “I would think so. However, at Bashon we see few musical instruments. The Chilites prefer what they call a ‘clear cold silence’. My soul-father, Osso Higajou, is disturbed by the tinkle of a bell-bug.”

  The old man paused in his work. “That seems a peculiar circumstance. What of yourself? Are you a Chilite?”

  “No, not yet. I live with my mother Eathre, half along the Way. I’m not sure I want to be a Chilite.”

  “And why not? They live easy enough, in ‘clear cool silence’, with all their women to toil for them.”

  Mur nodded sagely. “Yes, I suppose that’s true … But first I’d have to be a Pure Boy, and I don’t really want to leave my mother. Also my blood-father was a musician. His name was Dystar.”

  “Dystar.” The old man tautened the new string and gave it a touch. “Yes; I know of Dystar. A druithine.”

  Mur moved closer. “What is a druithine?”

  “He is one who does not go with a troupe. He wanders by himself; he carries a khitan, such as this, or perhaps a gastaing; thus he is able to impart his wisdom and the circumstances of his life.”

  “He sings?”

  “Ah no, no indeed! No singing. That is for minstrels and balladeers. We do not reckon singing to be music; it is another matter entirely. Ha ha, what would Dystar have said to that!”

  “What kind of a man is Dystar?”

  The old man thrust his face forward; Mur jumped a step back. The old man demanded: “Why do you ask this, you who are to become a ‘Pure Boy’?”

  “I have often wondered about my father.”

  “Very well, I will tell you. He was a strong harsh-faced man. He played with passion, and there was never any doubt as to his feelings. And do you know how he died?”

  “I did not know he was dead.”

  “This is how the story goes. One night he became furiously drunk. He played* the gastaing, and all who heard were deeply moved. Afterwards, so it is told, he ran out into the street, raving that his torc choked him, and some saw him wrenching at it. Whether he broke it and took his own head, or whether the Faceless Man came by and disapproved, it is not known; but in the morning his body was found and the wonderful head, so full of tunes, was gone.” The old man gave a fretful tug at his own torc. Mur noted his colors: horizontals of purple and rose, indicating lack of cantonal affiliation; verticals of gray and brown, musicians’ colors; a personal code of blue, dark green, dark yellow, scarlet, blue and purple. Mur felt his own neck, as yet naked. How would it feel to be clamped with a torc? Some said that for months, or even years, a person felt stifled, in constant dread; Mur had heard of cases where the person clamped became frantic and broke the torc apart, taking his own head. Mur licked his lips. The torcs were necessary, but sometimes he wished he might remain a child, and live with his mother in a pleasant cottage far from Bashon, and never be troubled by torc or Chilite or Faceless Man or anyone.

  * A feeble rendering of the Shant verb zuweshekar: to use a musical instrument with such passion that the music takes on a life of its own.

  The old man stroked the khitan, producing a wistful set of chords. Mur watched the agile fingers with fascination. The tempo increased, the melody jumped this way and that … The old man stopped playing. “That was a jig of Carbado, which is a seaport to the south of Canton Esterland. How did you like it?”

  “Very much.”

  The old man grunted. “Take this khitan for your own. Tomorrow steal me a pelt of good leather, or pick me a bucket of berries, or send me only your good wishes — I do not care.”

  “I’ll do all three!” cried Mur. “And more, if you ask! But how can I learn the sleight?”

  “No great matter, if you strive. To alter key, bend the neck; you need learn but a single set of chords; the complete schedule is carved on the back. As to how to use the chords that is a different matter, and derives from skill and long experience, of music and life.” He raised his finger portentously high. “When you become a great druithine remember that your first khitan came from Feld Maijesto.”

  Mur held the instrument awkwardly. “I know no tunes; at Bashon there is no music.”

  “Contrive your own tunes!” snapped the old man. “Further, don’t let soul-father Osso hear you; don’t ask him to sing to your music or you’ll learn the meaning of trouble!”

  Mur departed the musicians’ camp, his head effervescent with joy and wonder and disbelief for the marvelous thing that had happened to him.

  Stepping into the Way he came to his senses and stopped short. To carry this khitan home in full view was to start gossip along a route leading to his soul-father. Osso would instantly order the instrument destroyed, as an article at odds with the spare Chilite doctrines.

  By a devious route behind the rhododendrons, Mur returned to the cottage of his mother. She showed no surprise at the sight of the khitan; nor did Mur expect any of her. He told her all that had happened to him and reported the death of Dystar. She looked off into the dusk, for the suns had set and the sky was purple. “Just such a way Dystar was fated to die; and after all it was not so bad.” She touched her own torc, and turning away prepared Mur’s supper, taking special pains to please him.

&nbs
p; Even so, Mur was distrait. “Must we always wear torcs? Couldn’t folk agree to behave well, so that there was no need?”

  Eathre shook her head sadly. “I have heard that only law-breakers resent the torc; as to this, I can’t say … On the day the torc clamped my neck I felt cramped and broken and awry … Perhaps there are better ways; I don’t know. Soon you will be gone from me; I would not hinder you, whatever the way of your life, but to bless Saccard I must damn Saccume.* I hardly know what to tell you.”

  * Saccard and Saccume: protagonists of a thousand Shant fables, always at odds, or working against each other, or the victims of antithetical circumstances.

  At Mur’s expression of bewilderment Eathre said, “Very well, listen then. I counsel you to resourcefulness: defeat adversities rather than accept them! Strive for excellence! You must try to do better than the best, even if it means a lifetime of dissatisfaction for your own inadequacy!”

  Mur tested the ideas. “I must learn rites and rotes better than anyone else? Better than Chalres? Better than Neech when he becomes a Pure Boy? So that I will become an Ecclesiarch?”

  Eathre was a long time answering. “If you are eager to become an Ecclesiarch, this is what you must do.”

  Mur, who knew every subtle intonation of his mother’s voice, nodded slowly.

  “But now you must go to bed,” said Eathre. “Mind when you play the khitan! Muffle the strings, take the fibers from the rattle-box. Otherwise Osso will have me at the tannery before my time.”

  In the darkness Mur stroked the strings, shivering at the soft sounds. He would never be a Pure Boy; he and his mother would run away, they would become musicians! But, ah no, Eathre could not run away! She was indentured. How could he go without her? Never! So then — what? He clutched the khitan to his breast.

  The morning brought news of a terrible circumstance. Face-down in the tannery sludge the body of Chalres Gargamet was discovered. How he had died was uncertain, though his arms and legs were peculiarly twisted, like those of an antic dancer.

  Somewhat later whispers seeped from cottage to cottage. On the previous day Chalres had picked berries for the Conclave. Among the berries, after he had eaten, Great Male Osso had found a long black woman-hair. And those who whispered to each other felt quivering chills of that curious emotion which is half-horror and half-appreciation of some grotesque absurdity. As for Mur, he became deathly pale and slumped into the darkest corner of the cottage where he lay limp, with only the twitch of his narrow shoulder-blades to indicate that he was alive.

  At dusk Eathre covered Mur with a quilt and allowed him to lie quiet, though all night both lay awake. In the morning she brought him gruel. He turned up his thin face, lips trembling, hair matted. Eathre blinked back her tears and hugged him. Mur began to keen: a low wailing sound deep in his throat that slowly rose in pitch. Eathre shook him gently. “Mur, Mur, Mur!”

  Later in the day Mur touched the khitan: an uninterested stroke of the fingers. He could not slip into the tannery warehouse for a pelt; he could not pick a basket of berries; he tried to transmit a complement of kind thoughts, but they seemed pallid and weak.

  At sunset Eathre brought him stewed fruit and tea; Mur at first shook his head, then listlessly ate. Eathre stood looking down at him — for so long a period that Mur raised his eyes. She said, “Before you assume to Soul, if you go from Bashon, they can’t denounce you to the Faceless Man. If you like I will find a kind man to take you for apprentice.”

  “They would set ahulphs after us.”

  “The matter could be arranged.”

  Mur shook his head. “I don’t care to leave you.”

  “When you become a Chilite you leave me, and worse.”

  “Even then I won’t leave you! They can kill me, but still I won’t.”

  Eathre stroked his head. “Chilite or dead, we would still be apart: is this not true?”

  “I will see you secretly. I can arrange that you need not work so hard.”

  “The work is not all that dreadful,” said Eathre softly. “Everywhere folk must work.”

  “The Faceless Man must be a monster!” cried Mur in a husky voice.

  “No!” exclaimed Eathre, with as much agitation as her temperament allowed. She reflected for a moment, composing her limpid thoughts. “How can I explain? You are so young! Human beings change with the minute! The man who praises Saccard may rage like a sick ahulph at Saccume. Do you understand? Men are perverse, and cannot be predicted. To live without dissension they bind themselves by rules. The sixty-two cantons each use different sets of rules. Which are the best, which the worst? No one knows, and perhaps it doesn’t matter, if only men abide by any one of these sets. If they don’t — the others call out his colors to the Faceless Man. Or perhaps a monitor files a derogation. Or sometimes the Faceless Man comes wandering, or he sends his Benevolences, as quiet as the Faceless Man himself. Do you now understand? The Faceless Man merely enforces the laws of the folk of Shant: those they have made for themselves.”

  “I suppose this is so,” said Mur. “Still, if I were the Faceless Man, I would abolish fear and hardship, and you would never work at the tannery.”

  Eathre stroked his head. “Yes, dear Mur, I know. You would force men to be kind and good and cause a great disaster. Go to sleep now; the world will be much the same tomorrow.”

  Chapter II

  On a cool morning in the fall of the year a Pure Boy came down to the boundary and called for Mur. “Your soul-father will see you at noon, at the portal to the under-room. Cleanse yourself well.”

  With leaden motions Mur bathed, dressed in a clean smock; Eathre watched from the far side of the room, not wishing to contribute woman-taint to Mur’s nervousness.

  At last she could not restrain herself and came to brush down his stubborn black hair. “Remember, he only wants to gauge your growth, and speak to you of Chilite doctrine. There is nothing whatever to fear.”

  “That may be so,” said Mur. “Still, I am afraid.”

  “Nonsense,” said Eathre decidedly. “You are not afraid; you are the brave Mur. Listen carefully; obey exactly; answer cautious words to his questions; do nothing eccentric.”

  At the cottage door she brought an ember from the fire and blew smoke through Mur’s clothes and hair, so at least not to prejudice Osso with woman-taint.

  Ten minutes before noon Mur set out for the temple, taut with foreboding. The road seemed a lonely place; white dust rose in his footsteps to eddy in the lavender sunlight. Above bulked the temple: a set of squat convex cylinders, gradually filling the sky. With the flow of cool air down the hill came the reek of stale galga.

  Mur circled the base of the temple, to a stall-like half-room, open to the sky: a place known as the under-room, now empty. Mur arranged himself primly by the wall and waited.

  Time passed. The suns climbed the sky, the blaze of white Sassetta passing across the plum-red haunch of Ezeletta, blue Zael on the roundabout: three dwarf stars dancing through space like fireflies.

  Mur mused across the countryside; he could see far, far, far, in all directions: west to Canton Seamus; north to Shimrod Forest and beyond to Canton Ferriy where the folk made iron-web on their red hillsides …

  A sound startled him. He jerked around to find Osso frowning down from a high pulpit. Mur had made a poor beginning; rather than waiting in a crouch of timorous reverence, here he stood gazing over the panorama.

  For a minute or longer Osso looked down at Mur, who stared back in fascination. Osso spoke in a voice of sepulchral gravity: “Have the girls made ignoble play with you?”

  The language was ambiguous; Mur understood the semantic content. He swallowed harder, recalling incidents which might be construed as ignoble play. He said, “No, never.”

  “Have you suggested or initiated vile concatenations with the female girls?”

  “No,” quavered Mur. “Never.”

  Osso gave a curt nod. “From your present age forward you must take care. You will sho
rtly become a Pure Boy, thereafter a Chilite. Do not complicate the already rigorous rituals.”

  Mur gave an acquiescent mumble.

  “You can expedite your passage into the temple,” spoke Osso. “Devour no greasy food, drink no syrups nor baklavy. The bond between child and mother is strong; now is the time to start the solvent process. Gently disengage yourself! When your mother offers sweetmeats or attempts fond caresses, you must say, ‘Madam, I am on the verge of purification; please do not add to the rigors I must endure.’ Is this clear?”

  “Yes, soul-father.”

  “You must start to forge the strongest of all bonds, the holy link to the temple. Galexis, the nervous essence, corresponds to female women as the candy of unmel to tannery sludge; you will learn more of this. Meanwhile, strengthen yourself!”

  “How am I to do this?” Mur ventured.

  Osso turned down a frightening glance; Mur shrank back. Osso spoke. “You know the nature of animal appetites. Philosophically — this is a doctrine you are not yet prepared to receive — they are First Order gratifications. Your belly is empty; you fill it with bread: the most crude reply to a crude sensation. The Second Order response is to prepare a varied meal; at the Third Order, the viands are prepared in a subtle and expert fashion, to an exacting set of standards. At the Fourth Order the demands of the stomach itself are ignored; the taste-nerves are stimulated by essences and extracts. At the Fifth Order the sensations occur cerebrally, completely bypassing the glottal and olfactory apparatus. At the Sixth Order the Chilite is in a state of unconscious exaltation, and sublime Galexis Achiliadnid deals directly with the soul. Is all clear? I use the simplest and most obvious example as a basis for discussion.”

  “I understand this all very well,” said Mur. “But I am puzzled: when Chilites put food into their mouths, what is the correct doctrine on this?”