Ecce and Old Earth tcc-2

by Jack Vance

  The Shadowmen of today must be viewed is the perspective of their history. It is a melancholy record: the textbook case of isolated Gaean settlers who, over the centuries, have developed a unique society with intricate conventions. These conventions become ever more elaborate and generate ever greater intricacy until eventually they control, dominate and finally strangle the society, which thereupon becomes moribund. The process always bewilders the casual observer who contrasts the Golden Age of the society with its contemporary squalor. Most often the process is associated with a powerful religion and an insensate priesthood; in the case of the Shadowmen, the compulsive force was the glory to be won by excellence at the great game.

  Two thousand years ago the society reached its zenith. The population was divided into four septs: North, East, South and West. Four or five thousand stones had been erected by champions to mark their graves. Which came first: the Games or the Stones is a matter of conjecture and is in any case irrelevant. The Games began as demonstrations of agility and speed, in which young men raced a dangerous course across the tops of the stones. Presently the races began to include contact — shoving, tripping, wrestling — as valid ploys in the winning of races. Next, came the Iron Races, which were not so much races across the tops of the stones as complicated strategies involving leaps, runs, swordplay. Skill in the use of weapons became as important as agility. The Games had always engendered passions: the four septs now found themselves involved in blood feuds and vendettas, which consumed much of their energies.

  But not all. The rules of combat were complicated. Upon arriving at the age of fourteen the young man allowed his hair to grow long and carved a hair-buckle for himself from a nodule of fine Jade. These buckles — 'tanglets', as they were known — became more than ornaments; they were repositories of the owner's mana, and represented his manhood; they were his dearest possession. As soon as he had carved his first tanglet and had submitted it for the approval of the elders, the young man was ready for the games.

  First, he must await a proper concatenation of the moons: this was all-important. The moons, their phases, cycles and positions controlled the lives of the Shadowmen. When the moons finally came to a favorable conjunction, the young man climbed upon the stones. If he were of a cautious disposition, he made his first trials against other first-tanglet youths. Usually, at worst, he would be thrown down or jump without mortal damage, though he was required to give up his tanglet to the victor, at an important ceremony and with a maximum of ceremonial pomp, at which the victor was exalted and the loser shamed. The loser, seething with bitter humiliation, must carve a new and menacing tanglet for himself.

  In due course, he might become quick and skillful, and start winning tanglets, all of which he wore on the rope of hair which dangled down the back of his head. If he were conquered, or cast down, or killed, he surrendered all his tanglets and his hair rope. If, however, he were a victor and a champion, at the age of twenty he was entitled to associate with ten fellows. Together they cut ten stones from the quartzite cliffs a hundred miles to the south. These stones would then be transported across the plain, inscribed and erected. The youth by this ritual became a man, and sooner or later would be buried at the foot of his stone, along with his tanglets.

  Such were the Games: first, foot races across the stones; in the end passionate challenges, killings and revenges which at last exhausted the virility of the Shadowmen and reduced their numbers to a paltry few hundred.

  The Shadowmen of today wear no tanglets; however, they carve imitations which they sell to tourists, and which they insist have been dug from a secret grave known only to themselves; be warned! These articles are fraudulent an authentic tanglet is extremely valuable which fact has tempted predatory entrepreneurs from elsewhere. Usually — one might say, always — these persons are found dead among the stones with their throats cut.

  At the western verge of the Standing Stones is the settlement Moonway, so-named by reason of the superstitions which still control the lives of the Shadowmen. Moonway is not so much a city as it is a combination of trading post, tourist center and village. The three hotels — the Moonway, the Jade Tanglet, the Banshee Moon — are about equivalent. The Moonways’ said to exercise greater caution against sand-fleas than the others; all may be negligent. Bring insecticide and spray your bed before retiring. Otherwise you may be roundly bitten.

  NOTE: The Shadowmen are apparently mild and patient. This is only partly true, as you will learn if you molest, touch, ridicule or sometimes so much as notice a bald woman. Your throat will be cut at once; the woman has dedicated her hair to a moon-sequence for a purpose important to her. Never smile at a Shadowman; he will return your smile, and with a quick motion of his arm you will find yourself smiling from two mouths, though not with double the amusement. Further, no one will protect you or punish the Shadowman, since you will have been amply warned against improprieties, as you just have been.

  A good thing to keep in mind, reflected Glawen. He relaxed in his chair and sat watching those who passed by along the avenue: off-worlders from the nearby hotels; slender chestnut-haired denizens of Tanjaree; Gangrils, sleepy-eyed, also slight of physique and with hair often of a coppery-russet, rather than chestnut, the men wearing loose long-length black breeches and colored shirts, the women in white breeches of exaggerated amplitude, black blouses and odd little green hats.

  Glawen suddenly realized he had not been served his tea. The waiter who had taken his order stood nearby, looking idly off across the lake. Glawen wondered whether it was worth the effort to make an angry representation, from which, so he realized, the waiter would turn with an air of ineffable scorn and fatigue. And Glawen would seem, in the end, a red-faced expostulating boor. He considered the options open to him, and the easiest was to decide that he had not wanted tea in the first place. He adopted this course of action with a sigh of resignation, only to find that at the very same moment his tea had been served by a kitchen boy. “Walt.” said Glawen. He lifted the lid of the pot and sniffed at the contents. Tea or pold? It smelled like tea, of one variety or another. “Very well,” Glawen told the boy. "This seems to be tea.”

  “So it does,” said the boy.

  Glawen looked at him sharply, but decided that the remark had been made innocently. “Very well,” said Glawen austerely. “You may go." In the end, so he told himself, it was impossible to defeat the kitchen; they served as they saw fit and the customer must consume whatever he found on his plate, regardless of his own suspicions or better judgment.

  His attention was taken by the corning of a ramshackle vehicle along the avenue: a great box, painted in garish designs, forty feet long and fourteen feet high. It rode on six tall wheels, all affixed independently to the chassis, so that they tilted, wobbled and canted as the vehicle lurched along the avenue. It was guided by a fat round-faced man with a bushy black mustache and a wide-brimmed black hat, who sat on a bench on top of the vehicle from where he manipulated the controls. Behind him a low fence enclosed the top surface; within this area a half dozen urchins of indeterminate sex, wearing ragged gowns which sometimes exposed their bottoms, sometimes not. Other folk leaned through the windows, waving and saluting the onlookers. The fat man with the black mustache heaved at his controls; the vehicle careened to a halt; a side panel dropped aside and folded open to become a stage twelve feet wide running the length of the vehicle. Out upon the stage came a small man with a droll face, nose splayed, eyes drooping and melancholy, mouth sagging into dewlaps: the face of an unhappy pug dog. He wore a blue garment bedizened by a hundred tags and tassels, with a low narrow-brimmed hat. He came forward to the front of the stage, seated himself into empty air, but just in time a hand reached from within and thrust a stool under the descending fundament. He grimaced and leered at the folk watching from the cafe, reached an arm into the air apparently without purpose, but another arm from within placed a stringed instrument into his grasp. The clown struck a set of chords, plucked a fragment of a tune in an u
pper register, then sang a plaintive ballad which told the tribulations of a vagabonds life. As he played a coda, a pair of fat women rushed out on the stage, to jig and jump and tumble while the clown played a quick-step. He was joined at the other side of the stage by a younger man with a concertina the women redoubled their exertions, their great breasts bouncing, arms flailing. They kicked so high that they seemed to fall over backwards but instead turned amazing back somersaults which showed flashes of fat haunch and rocked the stage when they alighted. Finally they seized the sad-faced clown and hurled him out over the onlookers who screamed and ducked, but he had been attached by a wire to a long pole which took him, never missing a beat on his instrument, orbiting out and around in a great swing and safely back to the stage.

  The fat ladles were replaced by three girls in full black skirts and golden-brown blouses who were joined by a burly youth masked and costumed as a demon of demented lust. He chased the girls about the stage in a frenzy of acrobatic exercises during which he attempted to disrobe the girls, and bear them to the ground. As the cavorting’s came to a climax, with two of the girls bare breasted and the demon tugging at their skirt of the third, Glawen felt the most minuscule stir. He looked quickly around and reached to seize the wrist of a girl eight or nine years old. Her hand was already in his pocket; her face was only a foot away from his own. He stared into her slate-gray eyes, and squeezed at her wrist. She released what she had fixed upon. Glawen saw that she was preparing to spit into his face. He released his grip and she walked away without haste, turning a single scornful glance over her shoulder.

  On the stage a juggler was busy with a dozen rings. He was followed by an aged woman who blew on a heavy bass horn and played a plectrum with her bare feet, chording with one set of toes, striking with the other. She was presently joined by a raunchy clown as old as herself who played two bagpipes and a nose-flute simultaneously to produce music of three parts. The finale consisted of ten adults forming an orchestra while six small children danced jigs and circlets and rounds and finally ran out among the audience holding trays for offerings. The girl who approached Glawen was the same who had tried to pick his pocket. Without comment he dropped some coins into the tray; without comment she moved on. A moment later the vehicle rumbled away to play before another café at the far side of the Cansaspara Hotel.

  Glawen looked up toward Pharisse, which had edged somewhat down the sky. He returned to the guidebook and read about the vagabond entertainers who roamed Nion in their lumbering vehicles. There were, so it was estimated, perhaps two hundred such vehicles, each with its own traditions and special repertory.

  “They are almost like wild creatures, so strong are their nomadic instincts!”' declared the guidebook. “Nothing could persuade them to limit their freedom. Their status is low; other folk consider them mad and treat them with tolerant contempt, quite ignoring the fact that some of the performances display efforts of great creativity, not to mention a high degree of technical virtuosity.”

  “For all the zest and vivacity of their performances, the vagabond life is far from a romantic idyll. After a long journey they arrive at a destination jubilant mood. Before long they become restless and fretful and once more strike out across the wilderness to a new destination. They are not a frivolous people but, rather, as if obeying the universal tradition, would seem to be ordinary melancholy. As children they learn to perform as soon as they can talk. Their adult lives are marred by petty jealousies and the pressure to excel; their old age is anything but tranquil. As soon as the old man or woman fails at his performance, or plays sour notes at his music, he loses the respect of his fellows and is graven only grudging and perfunctory recognition. Now, when he or she performs the audiences will still marvel at their amazing energy and abnormal agility as they drive themselves to amazing new levels of performance, until they totter and fall, or play an embarrassing luxuriance of sour notes. Then it is over and they become apathetic. During the next journey the vehicle stops briefly in the middle of the night, with the moons spilling across the dark sky. The oldster is thrust from the vehicle and given a bottle of wine. The vehicle departs, and the old buffoon is left alone. He will sit upon the ground; perhaps he will watch the moons slide past for a time, or perhaps he will sing the song he has prepared just for this occasion; then he drinks the bottle of wine and stretches out to sleep a sleep from which he will never awake, for the wine is drugged with a soft Gangril poison.”

  Glawen pushed the book aside; he had learned as much as, or more than, he cared to know. He leaned back in the chair, glanced up at Pharisse and wondered whether he should order an item of pastry from the cart now being wheeled among the tables. To the other side of the cafe a young man, tall and of good physique, rose from the table at which he had been sitting, his back half-turned toward Glawen who watched him depart with no more than idle attention. By the time Glawen s interest was aroused the young man was walking away. Glawen still managed to see that he wore dark green trousers cut to a close fit, a cobalt blue cape, and a small loose-crowned brimless hat.

  The figure disappeared up the avenue, his gait easy, confident, almost a swagger. Glawen tried to recall what he had glimpsed, and thought to recapture the image of a well-shaped head with a neat cap of thick dark hair a clear skin and classically regular features. Despite the lack of distortion or deviation, Glawen was half-convinced that he had seen the man before.

  Glawen settled back into his chair. He consulted his watch; there was time for a nap before his rendezvous with Keebles. He rose, departed the cafe, and returned to the Novial Hotel.

  A different clerk was on duty: an older man with sparse gingery hair and a prim beard. Glawen asked that he be called without fall at twenty-seven o'clock since he had an important engagement. The clerk gave a curt nod, made a note, then resumed his study of a fashion journal. Glawen went to his room, removed his outer garments, threw himself down upon the bed and soon fell asleep.

  Tine passed. Glawen’s slumber was disturbed by a tingle of pain at the side of his hip. He turned on the light, and found that he had been stung by a black insect.

  Outside the window the sky was dim with dusk. The time was twenty-eight o'clock. He jumped up, destroyed such insects as were conveniently to hand, splashed water into his face, dressed and left the room. As he strode through the lobby the clerk jumped to his feet and leaned forward over the counter. He caned out in aggrieved voice: ”Mr. Clattuc I was about to call you, but it seems that you have taken matters into your own hands.”

  “Not quite,” said Glawen. “I was awakened by an insect. The room is infested. I will be out for a few hours; please make sure that the room is fumigated in my absence.”

  The clerk resumed his seat. “The janitor evidently forgot to use insecticide when he cleaned your room. I will make sure that your complaint is received in the proper quarters.”

  “That is not enough. You must deal with these insects now.”

  The clerk said stiffly: “Unfortunately, the janitor has gone off duty. I can only assure you that the matter will be resolved to your complete satisfaction tomorrow.”

  Glawen spoke in a careful voice: “When I return from my business, I shall look about the room. If I find any insects, I shall capture them and bring them here, and you will not enjoy what use I make of hem.”

  “That is intemperate language, Mr. Clattuc.”

  “I was not awakened by a temperate insect. Heed my warning!"

  Glawen left the hotel. Pharisse had dropped from the sky and twilight had come to Tanjaree, working a wonderful transformation. Across the lake, Old Town, illuminated by the glow of soft white lights, seemed only half-real: a city of fairy-tale palaces. A dozen moons drifted across the sky, showing subtle variations of color: creamy-grey through white and silver-white, the palest of pinks and equally soft violet, each moon reflecting its image in the lake. Nion, according to the guidebook, was often known as ‘The World of the Nineteen Moons’. Each of the moons was named and every inhabi
tant of the planet knew these names as well as he knew his own.

  Glawen turned into Crippet Alley, and was surprised to find that, by virtue of its illumination, the street now seemed charming and gay. Apparently every householder had been required to hang out a light globe to his own taste, resulting in a welter of colored globes set as if in celebration of a festival. Glawen knew that aesthetic impulse had been far from anyone’s mind: the lights were as they were because it was easier than a more uniform arrangement.

  Many folk were still abroad, though not the previous crowds. Some were natives; others were tourists strolling at their leisure, pausing to look into the shop windows, or patronizing the little café. Glawen, an hour late for his appointment with Keebles, pressed along the street as rapidly as possible. He stopped short. A man wearing a blue cape had passed him by; Glawen glimpsed a pale preoccupied face, features set in a mask. Glawen turned and looked back, but the dark blue cloak was lost in the welter of lights and moving shapes. Glawen continued along Crippet Alley and presently arrived at the Argonaut Art Import and Export Company. There were lights on within the shop; as before, the door was unlocked, even though the posted closing hour was twenty-seven o'clock and the clerk was no longer on duty behind the counter.