Emphyrio Read online

  EMPHYRIO

  Jack Vance

  Science Fiction Masterworks Volume 19

  eGod

  Enter the SF Gateway

  In the last years of the twentieth century (as Wells might have put it), Gollancz, Britain’s oldest and most distinguished science fiction imprint, created the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series. Dedicated to re-publishing the English language’s finest works of SF and Fantasy, most of which were languishing out of print at the time, they were – and remain – landmark lists, consummately fulfilling the original mission statement:

  ‘SF MASTERWORKS is a library of the greatest SF ever written, chosen with the help of today’s leading SF writers and editors. These books show that genuinely innovative SF is as exciting today as when it was first written.’

  Now, as we move inexorably into the twenty-first century, we are delighted to be widening our remit even more. The realities of commercial publishing are such that vast troves of classic SF & Fantasy are almost certainly destined never again to see print. Until very recently, this meant that anyone interested in reading any of these books would have been confined to scouring second-hand bookshops. The advent of digital publishing has changed that paradigm for ever.

  The technology now exists to enable us to make available, for the first time, the entire backlists of an incredibly wide range of classic and modern SF and fantasy authors. Our plan is, at its simplest, to use this technology to build on the success of the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series and to go even further.

  Welcome to the new home of Science Fiction & Fantasy. Welcome to the most comprehensive electronic library of classic SFF titles ever assembled.

  Welcome to the SF Gateway.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Gateway Introduction

  Contents

  Map

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Chapter XXIII

  Chapter XXIV

  Also by Jack Vance

  About the Author

  Chapter I

  In the chamber at the top of the tower were six individuals: three who chose to call themselves ‘Lords’ or sometimes ‘Remedials’; a wretched underling who was their prisoner; and two Garrion. The chamber was dramatic and queer: of irregular dimension, hung with panels of heavy maroon velvet. At one end an embrasure admitted a bar of light: this of a smoky amber quality, as if the pane were clogged with dust—which it was not; in fact, the glass was a subtle sort, producing remarkable effects. At the opposite end of the room was a low trapezoidal door of black skeel.

  The unconscious prisoner was clamped into an intricately articulated frame. The top of his skull had been removed; upon the naked brain rested a striated yellow gel. Above hung a black capsule, a curiously ugly object, if only a contrivance of glass and metal. Its surface was marked by a dozen wart-like protuberances: each projected a quivering thread of radiation into the gel.

  The prisoner was a fair-skinned young man, with features of no great distinction. Such hair as could be seen was tawny. The forehead and cheekbones were broad, the nose blunt, the mouth easy and generous, the jaws slanting down to a small firm chin; a face of innocent impracticality. The lords, or ‘Remedials’—the latter term was somewhat obsolete and seldom heard—were of another sort. Two were tall and thin, with arsenical skins, thin long noses, saturnine mouths, black hair varnished close to their heads. The third was older, heavier, with vulpine features, a glaring heated gaze, a skin darkly florid, with an unwholesome magenta undertone. Lord Fray and Lord Fanton were fastidious, supercilious; Grand Lord Dugald the Boimarc seemed oppressed by worry and chronic anger. All three, members of a race notorious for its elegant revels, appeared humorless and dour, with no capability for ease or merriment.

  The two Garrion at the back of the room were andromorphs: blackish purple-brown, solid and massive. Their eyes, black lusterless bulbs, showed internal star-refractions; from the sides of their faces extended tufts of black hair.

  The lords wore black garments of refined cut, caps of jeweled metal mesh. The Garrion wore black leathern harness, russet aprons.

  Fray, standing by a console, explained the function of the mechanism. “First: a period of joinings, as each strand seeks a synapse. When the flashes cease, as now they are doing, and the indicators coincide—” Fray indicated a pair of opposed black arrows “—he becomes nothing: a crude animal, a polyp with a few muscular reflexes.

  “In the computer, the neural circuits are classified by range and by complexity of cross-connection into seven stages.” Lord Fray examined the yellow gel, where the scanning beams aroused no further motes of light. “The brain is now organized into seven realms. We bring him to a desired condition by relaxing control of specific realms, and, if necessary, damping, or squelching, others. Since Lord Dugald does not intend rehabilitation—”

  Fanton spoke in a husky voice: “He is a pirate. He must be expelled.”

  “—we will relax the stages one at a time until he is able to provide the accurate statement Lord Dugald requires. Though, I confess, his motives are beyond my comprehension.” And Lord Fray brushed Grand Lord Dugald with a flickering glance.

  “My motives are sufficient,” said Dugald, “and concern you more directly than you know. Proceed.”

  Fray, with a subtle gesture, touched the first of seven keys. On a yellow screen an amorphous black shape twisted and writhed. Fray made adjustments; the shape steadied, diminished to a coin-sized disk quivering to the prisoner’s pulse. The young man wheezed, moaned, strained feebly against the bonds. Working with great facility, Fray superimposed a pattern of concentric circles over the dot and made a final adjustment.

  The young man’s eyes lost their glaze. He saw Lord Fanton and Lord Dugald: the black disk on the screen jerked. He saw the Garrion: the black disk distorted. He turned his head, looked out through the embrasure. The sun hung low in the west. By a curious optical property of the glass it appeared a pale gray disk surrounded by a pink and green aureole. The black spot on the screen hesitated, slowly contracted.

  “Phase One,” said Fray. “His genetic responses are restored. Notice how the Garrion disturb him?”

  “No mystery,” snorted old Lord Dugald. “They are alien to his genetic background.”

  “Why then,” demanded Fanton coolly, “did the spot react similarly to the sight of us?”

  “Bah,” muttered Lord Dugald. “We are not his folk.”

  “True,” said Fray, “even after so many generations. The sun however works as a reference point, the origin of mental coordinates. It is a powerful symbol.”

  He turned the second key. The black disk exploded into fragments. The young man whimpered, jerked, became rigid. Fray worked at the adjustments and reduced the shape once more to a small disk. He tapped the stimulator button. The young man lay quietly. His eyes roved the room, from Lord Fray to Lord Dugald, to the Garrion, to his own body. The black disk held its shape and position.

  “Phase Two,” said Fray. “He recognizes, but he cannot relate. He is aware but not yet conscious; he cannot distinguish between himself and the surroundings. All is the same: things and their emotional content are identical. Valueless for our purposes. To Phase Three.”

&
nbsp; He turned the third key; the tight black circle expanded. Fray again made adjustments, constricted the blot to a small dense disk. The young man heaved himself up, stared down at the metal boots and wristlets, looked at Fanton and Dugald. Fray spoke to him in a cold clear voice, “Who are you?”

  The young man frowned; he moistened his lips. He spoke and the sound seemed to come from far away: “Emphyrio.”

  Fray gave a short curt nod; Dugald looked at him in surprise. “What is all this?”

  “A rogue linkage, a deep-lying identification: no more. One must expect surprises.”

  “But is he not enforced to accuracy?”

  “Accuracy from his experience and from his point of view.” Fray’s voice became dry. “We cannot expect cosmic universals—if such exist.” He turned back to the young man. “What, then, is your birth-name?”

  “Ghyl Tarvoke.”

  Fray gave a brusque nod. “Who am I?”

  “You are a lord.”

  “Do you know where you are?”

  “In an eyrie, above Ambroy.”

  Fray spoke to Dugald: “He now can compare his perceptions to his memory; he can make qualitative identifications. He is not yet conscious. If he were to be rehabilitated, now would be the starting point, with each of his associations readily accessible. To Phase Four.”

  Fray turned the fourth key, made his adjustments. Ghyl Tarvoke winced and strained at his boots and wristlets. “He is now capable of quantitative appraisals. He can perceive relationships, make comparisons. He is, in a sense, lucid. But he is not yet conscious. If he were to be rehabilitated, there would be further adjustment at this level. To Phase Five.”

  Phase Five was concluded. In consternation Ghyl Tarvoke stared from Fray to Dugald, to Fanton, to the Garrion. “His time-scale has been restored,” said Fray. “He has, in effect, his memory. With considerable effort we could extract a statement, objective and devoid of emotional color: skeletal truth, so to speak. In certain situations this is desirable, but now we would learn nothing. He can make no decisions, and this is a barrier to lucid language, which is a continuous decision-making process: a choice between synonyms, degrees of emphasis, systems of syntax. To Phase Six.”

  He turned the sixth key. The black disk spattered violently apart, into a set of droplets. Fray stood back in surprise. Ghyl Tarvoke made savage animal sounds, gnashed his teeth, strained at his bonds. Fray hurriedly made adjustments, constrained the squirming elements, compressed them to a jerking disk. Ghyl Tarvoke sat panting, gazing at the lords with detestation.

  “Well then, Ghyl Tarvoke,” spoke Fray, “and what do you think of yourself now?”

  The young man, glaring from lord to lord, made no reply.

  Dugald took a fastidious half-step to the side. “Will he speak?”

  “He will speak,” said Fray. “Notice: he is conscious; he is in full control of himself.”

  “I wonder what he knows,” mused Dugald. He looked sharply from Fanton to Fray. “Remember, I ask all questions!”

  Fanton gave him an acrid glance. “One might almost think that you and he share a secret.”

  “Think as you like,” snapped Dugald. “Remember only who holds authority!”

  “How can there be forgetting?” asked Fanton, and turned away.

  Dugald spoke to his back. “If you wish my position, take it! But take responsibility as well!”

  Fanton swung back. “I want nothing of yours. Remember only who was injured by this sullen creature.”

  “You, me, Fray, any of us: it is all the same. Did you not hear him use the name ‘Emphyrio’?”

  Fanton shrugged. Fray said lightly, “Well then, back to Ghyl Tarvoke! He is not yet a total person. He lacks the use of his free connections, the flexible web. He is incapable of spontaneity. He cannot dissemble, because he cannot create. He cannot hope, he cannot plan, therefore he has no will. So then: we will hear the truth.” He settled himself on a cushioned bench, started a recording machine. Dugald came forward, planted himself flat-footed in front of the prisoner. “Ghyl Tarvoke: we wish to learn the background to your crimes.”

  Fray interceded with gentle malice: “I suggest that you ask questions of a more categorical nature.”

  “No, no!” retorted Dugald. “You fail to understand my requirements.”

  “You have not set them forth,” said Fray, still waspishly polite.

  Ghyl Tarvoke had been straining uneasily at his harness. He said fretfully, “Take loose these clasps; I will be more at ease.”

  “Your comfort is of small consequence,” barked Dugald. “You are to be expelled into Bauredel. So speak!”

  Ghyl Tarvoke pulled at his bonds again, then relaxed and stared at the wall beyond the lords. “I don’t know what you want to hear.”

  “Exactly,” murmured Fray. “Precisely.”

  “The circumstances contributing to your abominable crimes!”

  “I remember a lifetime of events. I will tell you everything.”

  Dugald said, “I prefer that you speak somewhat more to the point.”

  Ghyl’s forehead creased. “Complete the processing, so that I can think.”

  Dugald looked indignantly at Fray, while Fanton laughed. “Is this not a manifestation of will?”

  Fray pulled at his long chin. “I suspect that the remark derives from ratiocination rather than emotion.” He spoke to Ghyl. “Is this not true?”

  “True.”

  Fray smiled faintly. “After Phase Seven you will be capable of inaccuracy.”

  “I have no wish to dissemble: quite otherwise. You shall hear the truth.”

  Fray went to the control board, turned the seventh key. The black disk disintegrated into a fog of droplets. Ghyl Tarvoke gave a moan of agony. Fray worked the controls; the drops coalesced; the disk at last was as before.

  Ghyl sat quietly. He said at last, “So now you will kill me.”

  “Certainly. Do you deserve better?”

  “Yes.”

  Fanton burst out, “But why have you performed such evil, on folk who have done you no harm? Why? Why? Why?”

  “‘Why?’” Ghyl cried out. “To achieve! To make capital of my life, to stamp my imprint upon the cosmos! Is it right that I should be born, live and die with no more effect than a blade of grass on Dunkum’s Heights?”

  Fanton gave a bitter laugh. “Are you better than I? I live and die with equal inconsequence. Who will remember either of us?”

  “You are you and I am I,” said Ghyl Tarvoke. “I am dissatisfied.”

  “With good reason,” said Lord Dugald with a dour grin. “In three hours you are to be expelled. So speak now, or never be heard again!”

  Chapter II

  Ghyl Tarvoke’s first insight into the nature of destiny came upon his seventh birthday, during a visit to a traveling pageant. His father, usually vague and remote, somehow had remembered the occasion; together they set off on foot across the city. Ghyl would have preferred to ride Overtrend, but Amiante, for reasons obscure to Ghyl, demurred, and they ambled north across the old Vashmont Development, past the skeletons of a dozen ruined towers, each supporting the eyrie of a lord. In due course they arrived at the North Common in East Town where the gay tents of Framtree’s Peripatezic Entercationers had been erected. A rotunda advertised: Wonders of the Universe: a magnificent tour without danger, inconvenience or expense, depicting the spectacles of sixteen enthralling worlds, arranged in tasteful and edifying sequence. There was a puppet show with a troupe of live Damar puppets; a diorama illustrating notable events in the history of Halma; exhibits of off-world creatures, living, dead, or in simulacrum; a comic ballet entitled Niaiserie; a mind-reading parlor featuring Pagoul the mysterious Earthman; gaming stalls, refreshment counters, hucksters of gewgaws and trifles. Ghyl could hardly walk for looking this way and that, while Amiante with patient indifference pushed through the crowds. Most were recipients of Ambroy, but many had come in from the back regions of Fortinone; and there were a certain number o
f foreigners as well, from Bauredel, Sauge, Closte, distinguished by the cockades which allowed them complimentary welfare vouchers. Rarely they saw Garrion, odd animals tricked out in human clothes and always a sign that lords walked among the underfolk.

  Amiante and Ghyl visited first the rotunda, to travel vicariously among the star-worlds. They saw the Battle of the Birds at Sloe on Madura; the ammoniacal storms of Fajane; tantalizing glimpses of the Five Worlds. Ghyl watched the strange scenes without understanding; they were too foreign, too gigantic, at times too savage, for his assimilation. Amiante looked with a subtle bittersweet half-smile. Never would Amiante travel, never would he accumulate the vouchers for so much as a three-day excursion to Damar, and knowing as much, he seemed to have put all such ambitions to the side.

  Leaving the rotunda they visited a hall displaying in diorama famous lovers of myth: Lord Guthmore and the Mountain Wilding; Medié and Estase; Jeruun and Jeran; Hurs Gorgonja and Ladati the Metamorph; a dozen other couples in picturesque costumes of antiquity. Ghyl asked many questions which Amiante for the most part evaded or answered glancingly: “The history of Halma is over-long, over-confused; it is enough to say that all these handsome folk are creatures of fable.”

  Upon leaving the hall they passed into the puppet*«The regulations of Fortinone and indeed of all the North Continent prohibited both the synthesis and the importation of sentient creatures, as tending to augment the recipient rolls. The Damarans, native to the moon Damar, fabricated small creatures of a docile eager intelligence, with furry black heads, black beaks and laterally-placed eyes; so long as the creatures performed only as puppets, or served as pets to lord-children, the welfare agents tended to ignore their presence.»theater, and watched as the small masked creatures jigged, scampered, chattered, sang their way through Virtuous Fidelity to an Ideal is the Certain Highroad to Financial Independence. In fascination Ghyl observed Marelvie, the daughter of a common wire-drawer, at a Foelgher Precinct street dance, where she attracted the attention of Lord Bodbozzle the Chaluz, a lecherous old power tycoon of twenty-six fiefs. Lord Bodbozzle wooed her with agile capering, a comic discharge of fireworks and declamation, but Marelvie refused to join his entourage except as legal spouse, with full acknowledgment and the settlement of four choice fiefs. Lord Bodbozzle agreed, but Marelvie first must visit his castle to learn ladyship and financial independence. So the trusting Marelvie was conveyed by air-weft to his castle, high on a tower above Ambroy, where Lord Bodbozzle immediately attempted seduction. Marelvie underwent various vicissitudes, but at the critical instant her sweetheart Rudel leapt in through a window, having scaled the naked girders of the ancient tower. He thrashed a dozen Garrion guards, pinned whimpering Lord Bodbozzle to the wall, while Marelvie performed a skipping dance of glee. To buy his life, Lord Bodbozzle forfeited six fiefs in the heart of Ambroy and a space-yacht. The happy couple, financially independent and off the rolls, bounded happily away on their travels, while Lord Bodbozzle massaged his bruises…