Jack Vance - Gaean Reach 01 (15 page)

“I feel that you exaggerate the benign effects of Moffamides’ treachery,” said Jemasze. “He will not soon again deceive trusting strangers, I assure you of this.”

“The Palga is vast,” murmured the priest.

“The spot on which Moffamides stands is small,” said Jemasze. “We can discover this spot through Blue magic. As for now, we have seen sufficient of Poliamides.”

The priest turned wordlessly and led the way back through the forest to the hexagon. Mounting the white stone porch, he stood smiling impassively. Kurgech stared up at him. Slowly Kurgech raised his right hand. The priest’s eyes followed the movement. Kurgech raised his left hand, and the priest smiling a now strained smile seemed to watch both hands separately, an eye for each. From Kurgech’s left palm came a sudden shattering blast of white light. Kurgech called out in a deep calm voice: “Speak what is in your mind!”

Thrusting through the priest’s lips, as if of their own volition, came words: “You will never live to see Outker land, poor fools!”

“Who will kill us?”

The priest had recovered his poise. “You have seen Poliamides,” he said shortly. “Now go your way.”

Jemasze and Kurgech returned by the now nearly invisible track to the edge of Aluban the sacred forest.

Elvo, standing against the stern of the yawl, was a forlorn and worried figure; at the sight of Gerd Jemasze and Kurgech, he came forward in obvious relief. “You’ve been gone so long; I began to wonder what had happened to you.”

“We found Poliamides,” said Jemasze. “His right toe is part of the Great Bone. In short—he is a dead skeleton.”

Elvo stared toward the forest indignantly. “Why did Moffamides send us here?”

“This is as good a place as any to hang up our bones.”

Elvo stared at Jemasze as if doubting his seriousness, then turned and looked dubiously into the Aluban. “What does he gain?”

“I guess they don’t want Outkers investigating the erjin trade—especially members of the SEE.”

Elvo grinned wanly at the pleasantry. Jemasze held up his hand to a faint cool breeze seeping down from the north. “Hardly enough to move us.”

“This is not a good place,” said Kurgech. “We should depart.”

Jemasze and Elvo Glissam hoisted the sails. The yawl responded sluggishly and rolled south along the edge of the forest.

The breeze died; with limp sails the yawl coasted to a stop, only fifty feet distant from the loom of the trees. “It appears that we camp here,” said Jemasze.

Kurgech looked toward the forest but said nothing.

Jemasze lowered the sails and blocked the wheels; Kurgech rummaged among the stores in the forward cuddy; Elvo gingerly approached the edge of the forest and returned with an armful of fuel. Jemasze grunted with something like disapproval but made no protest as Elvo kindled a fire beside the yawl.

For supper they ate bread and dry meat, a few morsels of dried fruit and drank the last of the Depot beer. Elvo discovered himself to be neither hungry nor thirsty; he felt rather a strong lassitude and could think only of stretching himself out beside the fire and drowsing away…What a curious fire, thought Elvo. The flames seemed to be made not of hot leaping gases, but syrup or jelly; they moved sluggishly, like the petals of a monstrous red flower blowing in a warm wind. Elvo looked languidly toward Gerd Jemasze to see whether or not he had noted this odd phenomenon…Jemasze conversed with Kurgech; Elvo heard what they were saying:

“—strong and near.”

“Can you break it?”

“Yes. Bring wood from the forest—and six long poles.”

Jemasze spoke to Elvo. “Wake up. You’re being hypnotized. Help me bring wood.”

Numbly Elvo lurched to his feet and followed Jemasze to the forest. He now felt alert and awake, and burning with rage. Jemasze’s arrogance for a fact knew no bounds; an outrage the way he presumed to give orders! Well then, what of this heavy gnarled branch? An excellent club.

“Elvo!” rasped Jemasze. “Wake up!”

“I am awake,” muttered Elvo.

“Well then, carry wood to the fire.”

Elvo blinked, yawned, rubbed his eyes. He had been asleep. Sleepwalking, thinking terrible thoughts. He dragged dead branches to the fire. Kurgech cut six crooked poles and planted them into the ground to form a hexagon twelve feet in diameter, and connected the top ends with lengths of cord. Between the poles he built six small fires and on the cords he hung small trifles of equipment: clothes, binoculars, handguns: all articles imported to the Palga.

“Stay inside the ring of fires,” said Kurgech. “We have made this alien land; they must now put forth great force to reach us.”

Elvo said plaintively: “I don’t understand anything of what’s happening.”

“The priests are using mind-magic against us,” said Kurgech. “They use their holy objects and ancient instruments, and they can exert great power.”

“Don’t allow yourself to daydream or go drowsy,” Jemasze told him. “Keep the fires alight.”

Elvo said shortly, “I’ll do my best.”

Minutes passed: ten, fifteen, twenty. Peculiar, thought Elvo, how the fires tended to smoulder rather than burn. The flames guttered and recoiled in smoky red wallows of flame. Out in the darkness he sensed squat shapes watching him with eyes like puddles of ink.

Jemasze said: “Don’t panic; just ignore them.”

Elvo laughed hoarsely. “I’m sweating; I’m panting; my teeth are chattering. I’m not about to panic, but the fires are going out.”

“I guess it’s time I used some Outker magic,” said Jemasze. He spoke to Kurgech: “Ask how they’d like a forest fire.”

A queer stillness gripped the air. Jemasze picked up a flaming brand from the central fire and took a step toward the Aluban.

Tension broke like a snapping twig. The fires blazed normally; Elvo saw no more crouching shapes: only the starlit landscape. Gerd Jemasze dropped the brand back in the fire and stood watching the forest in that pose of negligent disdain which Elvo had so often found irritating. He felt for breeze; the night was dead calm; they lacked the option to move away, out upon the wholesome sarai.

Kurgech remarked: “Rage and fear hang in the air. They may attempt more ordinary work.”

Suddenly in a mood of urgency, Jemasze said: “To the forest then, where at least we are safe from ambush.”

The three men climbed into trees and became invisible in the deep gloom under the foliage. Twenty yards away, out on the sarai, the land-yawl stood alone in the firelight. For the hundredth time, Elvo reflected that if by some lucky chance he eventually were restored to the security of Olanje, he would have memories to color the remainder of his lifetime. He doubted if ever again he would undertake a journey across the Palga…He strained his ears. Silence. He could see neither Kurgech nor Jemasze who had ensconced themselves somewhere off to his left. Elvo gave a sad humorless chuckle. The whole affair seemed absurd and melodramatic—until he remembered how the landscape surrounding the yawl had constricted and pressed in upon him.

Time passed. Elvo began to feel uncomfortable. The time must be midnight. He wondered how long Jemasze proposed to stay in the tree. Surely not till dawn! In another five or ten minutes either Jemasze or Kurgech must certainly decide that the threat had diminished, that it was time to get some rest.

Ten minutes went by, and fifteen, then half an hour. Elvo took a breath in preparation for calling cautiously across the dark to find how much longer they meant to perch in the trees. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Jemasze might disapprove of such a call. He had not expressly commanded silence, but Elvo could see that silence might be considered an integral adjunct to the circumstances. He decided to hold his tongue. Kurgech and Jemasze no doubt were also uncomfortable; if they could endure the inconvenience, he could do so as well. To ease his cramped legs Elvo cautiously rose to a standing position. His head bumped on a branch which swung away and scraped his cheek. Elvo leaned back to see silhouetted against the sky, not a branch, but a skeleton, the bones wired together. Beside his face dangled the right foot. Heart pumping, Elvo quickly returned to his former position.

A sound, a thud, muffled noises, a thrashing among the dry leaves. Elvo jumped to the ground, to find Jemasze and Kurgech looking down at the hulk of a man prone on the ground. Elvo started to speak: Jemasze signaled him to silence…No sound. A minute passed. The man at their feet began to stir. Jemasze and Kurgech dragged him toward the yawl. Elvo picked up a long metal object and followed; he discovered the object to be a Wind-runner rifle. Jemasze and Kurgech dropped the man into the glow of the firelight. Elvo uttered an ejaculation of surprise. “Moffamides!”

Moffamides stared into the fire with eyes like cusps of polished flint. He made no move when Kurgech bound his ankles and wrists, then with Jemasze’s help tossed him up onto the deck of the yawl like a sack of beans.

Jemasze hoisted the sail, which bellied to a cold night breeze Elvo had not even noticed. The yawl rolled away to the southeast, leaving the sacred forest Aluban astern.

D
awn flooded the sarai with wan pink illumination. Clouds to south and west glowed crimson and rose; Methuen climbed into the sky.

At an oasis surrounded by feathery Uaian acacia the yawl made a breakfast halt. Moffamides had not yet spoken a word.

Beside the pond were neglected plots where fruit and berries grew wild. The fiaps were weathered and inoperative, and Elvo went off with a bucket to harvest whatever he found ripe.

When he returned he found Kurgech busy at the construction of a most peculiar device. From acacia withes he built a cubical frame two feet on the side, lashing the corners with twine. He cut up an old blanket and attached it to the frame to make a rude box. Across one side of the box he attached a board through which he bored a hole half an inch in diameter.

The work was being accomplished out of Moffamides’ range of vision. Elvo could no longer contain his curiosity; he asked Jemasze: “What is Kurgech making?”

“The Uldras call it a ‘crazy-box’.”

Jemasze spoke so shortly that Elvo, sensitive to real or imagined slights, forbore to ask any further questions. He watched in fascination as Kurgech cut a circle of fiberboard about six inches in diameter and painted it with a pair of black and white spirals. Elvo marveled to watch the deftness of his touch. Suddenly he saw Kurgech in a new light: not the semi-barbarian with peculiar customs and odd garments, but a proud man of many talents. With embarrassment Elvo recalled his previously half-condescending attitude toward Kurgech—and this in spite of the fact that he was a member of the Redemptionist League!

Kurgech’s work was now more intricate, and an hour passed before he was satisfied with his contraption. The disk now turned on the inside of the box and was connected by a shaft to a small wind-powered propeller.

Elvo decided that he did not entirely approve of the device and what he divined to be its purpose; he watched in a mixture of repugnance and fascination as Kurgech, intent and earnest, completed his ‘crazy-box’. In a somewhat sardonic voice Elvo asked: “Will it work?”

Kurgech turned him a cool clear glance and asked softly: “Would you care to test it?”

“No.”

Meanwhile Moffamides had sat propped on the deck of the yawl, in the full glare of Methuen, with neither food nor drink. Kurgech went to the forward cuddy and from his case of effects brought forth a vial of dark liquid. He poured water into a mug, mixed in a small quantity of the liquid and brought it to Moffamides.

“Drink.”

Without words Moffamides drank. Kurgech applied a blindfold to the priest’s eyes, then went to sit on the foredeck. Jemasze meanwhile bathed in the pond.

Half an hour passed. Kurgech rose to his feet. He cut a pair of slits at right angles to each other in the cloth covering the bottom of the box, and a circular hole at the top. He now took up the box and placed it over Moffamides’ head and arranged a pair of sticks across the priest’s shoulders to support the device. After assuring himself that the propeller turned freely in the wind, Kurgech reached inside the box and removed the blindfold.

Elvo started to speak; Gerd Jemasze, returning from his bath, sternly signaled him to silence.

Ten minutes passed. Kurgech went to crouch beside Moffamides. He began to chant in a soft voice: “Peace; you rest at ease; sleep is sweet, when troubles dissolve and fear is gone. Sleep is sweet; tranquility is near. It is good to ease yourself; to rest and forget.”

The propeller slowed as the wind eased; Kurgech flicked it with his finger to keep it turning and inside the box the spiral-painted disk turned in front of Moffamides’ eyes.

“The spiral turns,” crooned Kurgech. “It brings out to in. It also brings you yourself from out to in, and you rest at ease. From out to in, from out to in, and I say to you: how pleasant to relax where nothing can hurt you. Can anyone or anything hurt you?”

From within the box came Moffamides’ voice: “Nothing.”

“Nothing can hurt you unless I command, and now there is nothing but peace and rest and the ease of helping your friends. Whom do you wish to help?”

“My friends.”

“Your friends are here. The people here are your friends, and only these people here. Notice, they cut your bonds and make you comfortable.” Kurgech released the cords binding Moffamides’ arms and legs. “How pleasant to be happy and comfortable with your friends. Are you happy?”

“Yes, I am happy.”

“The spiral has wound your attention into your brain and the only outside channel is my voice. You must now be deaf to other thoughts and the complaints of others. Only your friends, who give you peace and ease deserve your loyalty. Whom do you trust, whom do you wish to help?”

“My friends.”

“And where are they?”

“They are here.”

“Yes, of course. I will now take the box from your head and you will see your friends. Once, long ago, there were some trivial differences, but no one cares anymore about these matters. Your friends are here; nothing else is important.”

Kurgech lifted the box from Moffamides’ head. “Breathe the fresh air and look at your friends.”