The Anome

by Jack Vance

  After a moment Etzwane said, “You seem well-acquainted with the Chilites.”

  Ifness permitted himself a faint smile. “They are a fascinating cult; the Chilite rationale and its physical projection makes a most elegant pattern. You don’t follow me? Consider: a group which nightly intoxicates itself into a frenzy of erotic hallucinations, under the pretext of religious asceticism — isn’t this sublime insouciance? A social machinery is necessary to maintain this state of affairs: it is as you know. How to ensure persistence in a group not itself regenerative? By recruiting the children of other men, by the constant infusion of new blood. How to secure so precious a commodity, which other men normally protect with their lives? By the ingenious institution of Rhododendron Way, which also turns a good profit. What marvelous effrontery! It can almost be admired!”

  Etzwane was surprised to find Ifness so enthusiastic. He said coldly, “I was born on Rhododendron Way and became a Pure Boy; I find them disgusting.”

  Ifness seemed amused. He said, “They are a remarkable adaptation, if perhaps too highly specialized. What would happen, for instance, if they no longer could obtain galga? In a generation or less, the structure of the society would alter, in one of several conceivable directions.”

  Etzwane wondered that a mercantilist should be so apt at abstract analysis of human society. “What sort of goods do you sell?” he asked. “As a mercantilist I assume that you sell goods.”

  “Not quite the case,” said Ifness. “I am employed by a mercantile association to travel here and there and discover possible new applications for their products.”

  “It seems an interesting job,” said Etzwane.

  “I find it so.”

  Etzwane glanced at his torc. “From the purple-green, I assume your home to be Garwiy.”

  “That is the case.” Ifness took a journal from his valise, The Kingdoms of Old Caraz, and began to read.

  Etzwane looked out over the reaches of the landscape. An hour passed. The Asper halted at a siding to allow a pair of east-bound balloons to skim by, cables taut, dollies singing down the slots.

  At noon the wind-tender sold tea, slabs of fruit jelly, buns and meat-sticks to those who required food. Ifness put away his journal and ate; Etzwane preferred to husband his funds, which were barely sufficient. Finishing his meal, Ifness fastidiously brushed his hands and returned to the journal.

  An hour later the Asper arrived at Brassei Junction in Canton Maiy and was switched onto the Great Transverse Route. The wind freshened but, coming from the port quarter, blew the balloon only at its own speed; so passed the afternoon. At sunset the wind died completely and the Asper stood becalmed above an upland moor, in Canton Shade.

  The suns danced down behind the horizon; the sky flared violet behind four streaks of apple-green cloud: darkness came quickly. A breeze stirred the upper air, still coming from astern; the Asper eased forward along the slot, no faster than a man could walk.

  The wind-tender served a meal of cheese, wine and biscuits, then rigged hammocks. The passengers, with nothing better to do, slept.

  Late the next afternoon, the Asper arrived at Angwin, at the head of the Great Gorge. Here the slot terminated and the cable swung up in a pair of great pale swags to Angwin Junction, where years before — it seemed dream-time — Etzwane had been brought up from Carbade to work as an apprentice. He wondered if Finnerack still worked there. Ten years it had been … He wondered if Dagbolt were still superintendent at Angwin.

  The Asper was scheduled to continue along the Great Transverse Route, to the south slopes of the Hwan; at Angwin it descended to discharge those passengers who were to continue along the North Spur. There were four of these: Etzwane, a pair of commercial buyers bound for Dublay at the tip of Canton Cape, and Ifness.

  The North Spur connection, which should have been waiting, had been delayed by light winds; the four passengers must put up a night at Angwin Inn.

  The Asper climbed back into the sky, with the guys now shifted to the cable. In the wheelhouse under the inn the crew put their shoulders to the windlass; the balloon was drawn across the Great Gorge and up to Junction. Etzwane could not bring himself to go down to watch the windlass, as did the two buyers.

  Later Etzwane and the buyers sat in the lounge overlooking the Great Gorge; Ifness had gone for a stroll along the rim of the chasm.

  The suns toppled low, one behind the other; magenta light struck Mount Mish and the far peaks beyond. The gorge became dim with murk. Etzwane and the buyers drank spiced cider; as the steward brought a tray of preserved fruit one of the buyers asked, “Do you see many Roguskhoi down in the gorge?”

  “Not often,” the steward replied. “The lads up at Junction used to see a few, but from what I hear they’ve migrated east into the Wildlands.”

  “They raided down in Shalloran not so long ago,” said the second buyer. “That’s to the west.”

  “Yes, so it is. Well, it’s all beyond me. What we’d do if a band attacked Angwin I can’t imagine.”

  The other buyer spoke. “The gorge itself is some protection, so I should think.”

  The steward looked gloomily down into the blue murk. “Not enough to suit me, if what I hear of the devils is true. If we had women up here, I wouldn’t sleep nights. They hardly go out of their way to kill a man, except for entertainment, but if they smell a woman they climb through fire and flood. In my opinion something ought to be done.”

  Ifness, who had returned unobserved, spoke from the shadows. “What, in your opinion, is the ‘something’ that ought to be done?”

  “The Faceless Man should be notified and have it driven home to him, that’s what! I say, throw a cordon around the whole Hwan, if it takes every man in Shant, and then start closing in, driving the devils together, killing as we go. When men from the north, east, south and west look at each other over the top of Mount Skarack, then we’ll know we’re rid of the vermin.”

  One of the buyers demurred. “Too complicated; it would never work. They’d hide in caves or tunnels. Now, my idea is to put out poison —”

  The other buyer offered a lewd specification for efficacious bait.

  “Well, why not,” demanded his colleague, “if it’ll draw them? But poison’s the answer, mark my words.”

  The second buyer said, “Don’t be too sure! These are not animals, you know. They’re freak men, from across the Salt Bog. The Palasedrans have been quiet too long; it’s unnatural, and now they’re sending in the Roguskhoi.”

  The steward said, “I don’t care where they come from; let’s clear them out, back to Palasedra for preference. According to the afternoon news, just in over the radio, a band came down from Mount Haghead to raid a village in Morningshore Canton. Killed, raped, kidnaped. The village is a total ruin.”

  “So far to the east?” murmured Ifness.

  “That’s the report. First Shalloran to the west, then Morningshore to the east. The Hwan must be crawling with them.”

  “That doesn’t necessarily follow,” said Etzwane.

  “You may be sure,” said the first buyer in a pontifical voice, “that the Faceless Man is ready to act. He has no choice.”

  The steward sneered. “He’s far away in Garwiy; what’s our safety to him?”

  The buyers pursed their lips. “Well,” said one, “I wouldn’t go so far as that. The Faceless Man represents us all! By and large he does a good job.”

  “Still,” said the other, “the time has come. He should take action.”

  The steward inquired, “Do you gentlemen require more drink before supper? If so, call out now, before cook strikes the gong.”

  Etzwane asked, “Is Dagbolt still superintendent?”

  “No, old Dagbolt’s been dead five years of throat chancre,” replied the steward. “I knew him a mere three months, more than ample. Dickon Defonso is superintendent, and affairs go tolerably well.”

  “Does a certain Finnerack work at Angwin?”

  “Finnerack? Somewhere I’ve he
ard the name … But he’s not here.”

  “Might he be at Junction?”

  “Nor at Junction. Finnerack … Some sort of scandal. Was he the criminal who loosed a balloon?”

  “I couldn’t say.”

  In the middle of the morning the balloon Jano arrived at Angwin. The four passengers climbed aboard; the Jano rose to the extent of its guys and was pulled back across the gorge to Junction. Etzwane gazed down in fascination at the little island in the sky. There: the three great sheaves, almost in contact; there the stone shelter with the timber door and the outhouse cantilevered over the gorge. At the sheave he saw the motion of the man on duty; the balloon gave a jerk as the claw-jack drew down the guys and the grip was transferred to the North Spur cable, and another jerk as the jack was released. Etzwane smiled as he thought of another balloon, so long ago …

  The Jano was drawn down to the North Station; the guys were transferred to a dolly; then off down the slot into Canton Seamus ran the Jano, tacking into a brisk breeze off the starboard bow. With the balloon trimmed to best advantage, the wind-tender came into the gondola. “All here for Oswiy, I take it?”

  “Not I,” said Etzwane. “I’m for Bastern Station at Carbade.”

  “Bastern Station? I’ll put you down if the landing crew is on hand. They took themselves into Carbade during the raid.”

  “What raid is this?”

  “You wouldn’t have heard. The Roguskhoi, a band of fifty or sixty, pushed out of the Wildlands and plundered down the Mirk.”

  “How far down the Mirk?”

  “That I don’t know. If they turned toward Seamus, you won’t find a crew at Bastern Station. Why not go on down to Ascalon? You’d find it more secure.”

  “I must get off at Bastern Station, if I slide down the guys.”

  The crew at Bastern Station had returned to duty; the balloon was hauled down with a nervous jerkiness. Etzwane jumped to the ground; Ifness followed. “I take it that you are traveling east?” asked Ifness.

  “Yes, to Bashon.”

  “I propose then that we share a vehicle.”

  Etzwane calculated his probable expenses. Fifteen hundred florins for the indenture, a hundred for the return to Brassei with Eathre, another fifty for unforeseen contingencies. Sixteen hundred and fifty. He carried sixteen hundred and sixty-five. “I can’t afford anything expensive,” he said in a somewhat surly voice. Of all the folk of Shant, he least of all wished to be under obligation to Ifness. Save perhaps his soul-father Osso.

  At the hostelry, Ifness ordered a fast trap, drawn by a pair of prime pacers. “I’ll have to take two hundred florins from you,” the hostler told Ifness. “That is the deposit. Hire will be twenty florins a day.”

  Etzwane said flatly, “I can’t afford it.” Ifness made an indifferent gesture. “It is how I choose to travel. Pay what you can; I will be satisfied.”

  “It’s not much,” said Etzwane. “Fifteen florins, in fact. Were it not for the Roguskhoi, I’d walk.”

  “Pay fifteen florins, or nothing whatever,” said Ifness. “It’s all the same to me.”

  Nettled by the condescension, the more irritating for its absent-minded quality, Etzwane brought forth fifteen florins. “If this satisfies you, take it. Otherwise I will walk.”

  “Well enough, well enough; let us be off; I am anxious to inspect the Roguskhoi, if circumstances offer.”

  The pacers, tall rangy beasts, deep and narrow-chested, long and fine in the legs, sprang off down the road; the trap whirled after.

  Etzwane glowered at Ifness from the corner of his eye. A strange man, for a fact; Etzwane had never seen another like him. Why should he want to inspect the Roguskhoi? There seemed no sensible reason for such an interest. If a Roguskhoi were dead and lying beside the road, Etzwane would pause to examine the corpse, from natural curiosity; but to go about the business so purposefully — it seemed sheer lunacy!

  Etzwane pondered the possibility that Ifness, for a fact, might be insane. The preoccupied placidity, the indifference to others, the bizarre predilections, all were suggestive of dementia. Still Ifness was nothing if not self-controlled; his appearance, spare, austere, otherwise nondescript save for the cropped white hair, the old-young face, seemed the very definition of sanity … Etzwane lost interest in the subject; he had other, more pressing concerns.

  Ten miles they drove, up and down the rolling hills of Seamus. Along the road from the east came a man on a thrust-cycle, wearing the red cap of invisibility. He rode at the best speed he could muster, lying flat on the pallet, buttocks surging and jerking as he kicked at the ratchet.

  Ifness pulled the trap to a halt and watched the man’s approach. A discourteous act, thought Etzwane: the man wore red. The cyclist swerved to pass by. Ifness called him to a halt, to the man’s displeasure. “Why do you molest me? Have you no eyes in your head?”

  Ifness ignored his agitation. “What is the news?”

  “Dreadful news; don’t stay me; I’m off to Canton Sable or beyond.” He made as if to hump the cycle into motion once more; Ifness called out politely: “A moment, if you please. No danger is visible. From what are you fleeing?”

  “From the Roguskhoi; what else? They burnt Salubra Village; another band pillaged the Chilites. For all I know they’re close on my heels! Delay me no longer; if you’re wise you’ll turn about and flee west, at all speed!” The man thrust his cycle into motion and was gone along the road to Carbade.

  Ifness turned to look at Etzwane. “Well, what now?”

  “I must go to Bashon.”

  Ifness nodded, and without further remark, whipped up the pacers.

  Etzwane leaned forward, heart in his mouth. Visions crossed before his eyes. He thought of florins wasted on drink, gifts to occasional sweethearts, unnecessary garments, his costly silver-mounted wood-horn. Frolitz thought him niggardly; he considered himself a wastrel … Vain regrets. The money was spent; the time was lost. The pacers, prime beasts, ran without fatigue; miles passed under the wheels. They entered Bastern; ahead appeared the shadow of Rhododendron Way. From behind the hill rose a column of smoke. As they entered Rhododendron Way, Ifness slowed the trap to a more cautious pace, inspecting the shadows under the trees, the berry coverts, the hillsides, with an alertness Etzwane had not noticed in him before … All seemed normal, save for the utter silence. The lavender-white sunlight lay in irregular sprinkles along the white dust; in the garden of the first cottage purple and magenta geraniums bloomed among spikes of lime-green ki. The door of the cottage hung askew. Across the threshhold lay the body of a man, face obliterated by a terrible blow. The girl who had lived in the cottage was gone.

  A gap through the trees revealed the temple. Along the upper terraces a few Chilites moved slowly, tentatively, as if trying to convince themselves that they were alive. Ifness touched up the pacers; the trap whirled up the hill toward the temple. From the embers of the tannery and women’s dormitory rose the column of smoke they had seen from far off. The temple and its conjoined structures seemed to be whole. Etzwane, standing up in the trap, looked all around. He saw no women, young or old.

  Ifness halted the trap before the temple portico. From the terrace above a group of Chilites, haggard and uncertain, peered down.

  Ifness called up: “What has happened?”

  The Chilites stood like ghosts in their white robes. “Hello up there!” called Ifness with acerbity in his voice. “Can you hear me?”

  The Chilites moved slowly back out of sight: as if toppling over backward, thought Etzwane.

  Several minutes passed. The three suns performed their majestic gyrations across the sky. The stone walls baked in the glare. Ifness sat without motion. Again, with sharper puzzlement, Etzwane wondered why Ifness troubled himself to such an extent.

  The iron gates moved ajar, to reveal a group of Chilites. He who had opened the gate was a round-faced young man, somewhat portly, with overlarge features, scant sandy hair and a full sandy beard. Etzwane on the instant recognized
Geacles Vonoble. Behind stood half a dozen other Chilites, and one among them was Osso Higajou.

  Ifness spoke sharply, “What has occurred here?”

  Osso said in a voice that rasped as if bitter phlegm choked his throat, “We are victims of the Roguskhoi. We have been pillaged; they have done us vast harm.”

  “How many were there in the band?”

  “No less than fifty. They swarmed at us like savage beasts! They beat on our doors; they brandished weapons; they burnt our structures!”

  “In the process of defending your women and your property, you doubtless inflicted many casualties?” inquired Ifness dryly.

  The Chilites drew back in indignation; Geacles gave a contemptuous laugh. Osso said in a waspish voice, “We are nonviolent folk; we advocate peace.”

  “Did the women who were being carried off fight?” inquired Ifness.

  “Yes, many of them; it did no good, and they violated their consciences in the process.”

  “They must suffer doubly, in that case,” Ifness agreed. “Why did you not shelter them in the temple?”

  The Chilites surveyed him in calm silence, making no response.

  Ifness asked again: “In regard to the Roguskhoi, what weapons did they carry?”

  Geacles pulled at his beard, glanced off across the hillside. He spoke in a subdued voice: “They carried cudgels studded with spikes; these swung from their wrists. They wore scimitars at their belts, which they did not use.”

  “How long ago did they depart?”

  “No more than an hour; they herded the women into a file: young and old, infants excepted; these they threw into the tannery vats. We are now bereft.”

  Etzwane could restrain himself no longer. “Which way did they go?”

  Geacles stared at Etzwane, then turned and muttered to Osso, who came forward three quick steps.

  Ifness, coldly polite, put the question a second time: “Which way did they go?”

  “Up the Mirk Valley, the way they had come,” said Geacles.

  Osso pointed a finger at Etzwane. “You were the Pure Boy Faman Bougozonie, who committed foul acts and fled.”