The Faceless Man aka The Anome Read online

  Table of Contents

  Front Cover

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Back Cover

  Front Cover

  THE FACELESS MAN

  No one has ever seen him, but everyone knows him. The people of Shant swear by his name, and live in terror of him.

  To break canton law is to defy the Faceless Man. To leave the canton itself is to defy the Faceless Man. To refuse to wear the torc that binds you to him is to defy the Faceless Man.

  Gastel Etzwane has done all three.

  And to defy the Faceless Man is death.

  THE DURDANE TRILOGY

  by JACK VANCE:

  THE FACELESS MAN

  THE BRAVE FREE MEN

  THE ASUTRA

  The Faceless Man originally published as: THE ANOME

  ace books

  A Division of Charter Communications Inc. A GROSSET & DUNLAP COMPANY

  360 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010

  Copyright © 1971 by Jack Vance

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  An ACE Book

  Cover art by Dave Meltzer

  First Ace printing: June 1978

  Printed in U.S.A.

  Scanned and Proofed by eBookMan version 0.1

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Back Cover

  Chapter 1

  At the age of nine Mur heard a man in his mother's rest cottage call out a jocular curse in the name of the Faceless Man. Later, after the man had gone his way, Mur put a question to his mother. "Is the Faceless Man real?"

  "He is real, indeed," replied Eathre.

  Mur considered the matter for a period, then asked, "How does he eat or smell or talk?"

  Eathre, in her calm voice, replied, "I suppose one way or another he manages."

  "It would be interesting to watch," said Mur.

  "No doubt."

  "Have you ever seen him?"

  Eathre shook her head. The Faceless Man never troubles the Chilites, so you need not concern yourself for the Faceless Man." She added as a musing afterthought: "For better or worse, such is the case."

  Mur, a child thin and somber, knit the black brows that had come as a legacy from his unknown blood-father. "Why should such a case be better? Or worse?"

  "What a vexatious child you are!" declared Eathre without heat. Her lips twitched: perhaps a twinge of chsein.[*]But she said, "If a person breaks Chilite law, the Ecclesiarches punish him.

  If he runs away, the Faceless Man takes his head." Eathre's hand went to her torc, a mannerism common to all the folk of Shant. "If you obey Chilite law, you need never fear the loss of your head. This is the 'better.' In such a case, however, you are a Chilite, and this is the 'worse.'"

  Mur said no more. The remarks were unsettling. Were his soul-father to hear, Eathre would incur at least a reprimand. She might be transferred to the tannery, and Mur's world would be shattered. The time left him "on mother's milk" (to use the Chilite idiom) was short enough in any event: three or four years. ... A wayfarer entered the cottage. Earthre put a garland of flowers around her brow and poured a goblet of wine.

  Mur went to sit in the shade of the great rhododendrons across the Way. To some such encounter he owed his existence, so he was aware; an Original Guilt that he must expiate when he became a Chilite Pure Boy. The whole process taxed his mind. Eathre had borne four children. Delamber, a girl of sixteen, already maintained a cottage at the west end of the Way. The second child, Blink, three years older than Mur, had already put on the white robe of a Pure Boy and had assumed the name Chalres Gargamet, combining the virtues of Chalres, the Chilite ascetic who had lived and died in the branches of the Holy Oak, four miles up Mirk Valley, and Bastin Gargamet, the master tanner who (while fuming ahulph[†] hides) had discovered the sacramental qualities of galga.[‡] The fourth child, born two years after Mur, had been adjudged defective and drowned in the tannery sump, with prejudice toward Eathre, sexual eccentricity being held the cause of fetal defects.

  Mur sat under the rhododendrons scratching patterns in the white dust and appraising those who passed: a mercantilist driving a pacer-trap rented at the balloon-way station in Canton Seamus, then three young vagabonds; agricultural workers by the green-brown verticals of their torc-badges.

  Mur stirred himself. His plot of fiber-trees wanted tending; if the bobbins were allowed to run slack, the thread became lumpy and coarse. ... A steam-powered dray came past, loaded with fine long black-wood timbers. Mur, forgetting fiber-trees, gave chase and hung dangling from the end timber all the way to Mirk Bridge where he dropped onto the road and watched the dray rumble along the far wild road to the east. For a period he dropped pebbles into the Mirk; just above the bridge turned a waterwheel to grind galls, alum, dye-stone, all manner of herbs, roots, and chemicals for the tannery.

  Mur idled back along Rhododendron Way, and found the traveler departed. Eathre set out bread and soup for his lunch. As Mur ate, he asked the question that all morning had been tugging at a coiner of his mind. "Chalres resembles his soul- Father, but I do not; isn't this strange?"

  Eathre paused for knowledge to well up into her mind: a wonderful elemental process, like the flowering of trees or juice oozing from bruised fruit. "Neither you nor Chalres have blood-connection with Grand Male Osso or any other Chilite. They have no knowledge of real women. Chalres's father I do not know. Your blood-father was a wanderer, a music-maker, one of those who travel alone. I was sorry when he went his way."

  "He never came back?"

  "Never."

  "Where did he go?"

  Eathre shook her head. "Such as Dystar wander all the cantons of Shant."

  "And you could not go with him?"

  "Not while Osso holds my indenture."

  Mur ate his soup in thoughtful silence.

  Into the cottage came Delamber, a cloak over her striped gown of green and blue. Like Mur, she was slender and serious; like her mother, she was tall and as softly even as a flowing river. She sank into a chair. "Already I am tired; I have had three musicians from the camp. The last was most difficult and full of talk as well. He decided to tell me of certain barbarians, the Roguskhoi: great drunkards and great lechers. Have you heard of them?"

  "Yes," said Eathre. The man who just now departed regards them with great respect. He described their lust as beyond the usual, from which no woman is safe, nor do they pay."

  "Why doesn't the Faceless Man drive them away?" demanded Mur.

  "Wild folk wear no torcs; the Faceless Man can't deal with them. In any event they have been beaten back and are no longer considered a threat."

  Eathre served tea; Mur took two nut-cakes and went out into
the garden behind the cottage where he heard the voice of Chalres, his soul-brother.

  Mur looked around without enthusiasm. Down the hillside sauntered Chalres, halting at the edge of the garden where he dared not venture for fear of defilement. Chalres, who bore no resemblance to Mur, was thin and tall, with small sharp features in constant agitation. His eyes blinked, bulged, screwed up, rolled right and left; his nose twitched; he grinned, grimaced, sneered, showed his teeth, licked his lips, guffawed when a chuckle might have sufficed; he scratched his nose, rubbed his ears, made wide, ungainly gestures. Mur had long wondered why he and Chalres differed in so many attributes. Did they not share the same mother, the same soul-father? To some extent Chalres resembled their mutual soul-father Great Male Osso, who was himself tall, sallow, and thin as a bell-ringer.

  "Come along," said Chalres, "you are to pick berries."

  "I to pick berries? Who said I must?"

  "I say so, and to ensure purity from woman-taint, I have brought sacramental gloves for you. Take care to breathe off to the side and all will be well. What is that you are eating?"

  "Nut-cakes."

  "Hmmf ... I have had nothing this morning but biscuit and water. . . . No. I dare not. Osso would learn. He has a nose like an ahulph. Here, take this." He tossed Mur a basket containing white gloves: Chalres's own, Mur suspected, which even as a Pure Boy he was required to wear while handling food. Chalres, it seemed, valued his ease more than he feared defiling the food, which was for the Chilites' table, in any event.

  Mur, while not overly fond of Chalres, felt a certain sympathy for his privations; in so short a time they would be inflicted on Mur himself. He took the basket without protest: if the fraud were discovered it was Chalres who would pay. He asked grudgingly, "Do you want a nut-cake? Or not?"

  Chalres searched the hillside, the white bulk of Bashon Temple, the row of dark bays under the walls where the Pure Boys made their dens. "Come over to the apar tree."

  Behind the apar tree Chalres ceremoniously donned the white gloves. Taking the nut-cake, he devoured it in a gulp. Then, licking the crumbs from his cheeks, he performed a set of uneasy grimaces, coughing, twitching his nose, peering up the hillside. At last, reassured, he made a grand gesture to wipe the whole affair from memory.

  The two set off toward the berry patch at the western end of Rhododendron Way, Chalres pointedly maintaining a distance between himself and his unpurified soul-brother.

  'Tonight the Ecclesiarches meet in Doctrinal Conclave," Chalres told Mur with the air of one imparting important news. "They make a dessert of berries, and a great basket is required. Would you believe it? I have been sent forth alone to pluck this massive quantity. For all the delicacy of their ideals and the rigor of their determination, they consume every bite put before them."

  "Hah," said Mur in saturnine deprecation. "How long until your own assumption?"

  "A year. Already I grow body hair."

  "Do you realize that once they clap a torc around your neck, you may never again roam or wander?"

  Chalres sniffed. "That is like saying: Once a tree is grown, it may not become a seed again."

  Then you don't care to wander?"

  Chalres gave a grumbling elliptical answer. "Wanderers wear torcs as well. Show me a wanderer without a torc and I will show you an outlander."

  Mur had no ready response. Presently he asked: 'The Roguskhoi: are they outlanders?"

  The what? I've never heard of them."

  Mur, with little more knowledge than Chalres, judiciously said no more. Passing the tree-silk plantation, where Mur tended a plot of two hundred bobbins, they descended to the berry patch. Chalres halted and glanced back up toward the temple. "Look now; you go yonder, around and below to the low patch; I'll harvest above, where those of the temple can observe and approve, should they feel the inclination. Mind you, wear the gloves! This is the minimum precaution I can countenance."

  "What of Osso's minimum?"

  "As to that we can only speculate. I need at least two basketfuls, so work at speed. Don't forget the gloves! The Chilites detect woman-taint farther than an ordinary man smells smoke."

  Mur descended to the lower verge of the berry patch where he made a further detour to inspect the camp of the musicians. This was an unusually large troupe, comprising seven wagons, each painted in patterns of meaningful colors: light blue for gaiety, pink for innocence, dark yellow for sunuschein,[§]gray-brown to affirm technical competence.

  The troupe was busy with camp routine: tending the draft animals, cutting vegetables into cauldrons, flapping out shawls and blankets. As a group they were considerably more effusive and volatile than the Chilites; their gestures were abrupt and often flamboyant; when they laughed, they threw back their heads; even the chronically surly evinced their ill nature in unmistakable poses. An old man sat on the steps of a wagon fitting new pegs to a small crooknecked khitan. Nearby a boy about Mur's own age practiced the gastaing, striking runs and arpeggios while the old man called gruff advice.

  Mur sighed and, turning away, climbed the slope into the berry patch. Ahead of him a blotch of pale brown shifted and flickered; there was a sound of rustling leaves. Mur stopped short, then slowly advanced. Peering through the foliage, he discovered a girl a year or two older than himself picking berries with great deftness, filling the basket slung over her arm.

  Indignant at the girl's trespass, Mur strode forward, tripped on a dead branch, and crashed down into a hag-bush. The girl turned half a startled glance over her shoulder, dropped her basket, and ran pell-mell through the berry patch, skirt hiked up to her thighs. Mur hoisted himself foolishly to his feet. He looked after the girl. He had not meant to frighten her, but since the deed was done, so be it! Scratched legs or not, she had no business among the Chilite berries. He picked up the basket she had dropped and with careful malice poured the berries into his own basket. Here were berries for the Conclave I

  Thrusting the gloves into his pocket, he picked for a period, working up the slope. Presently Chalres hailed him. "Boy! Where are the berries? Have you toiled or loitered?"

  "See for yourself," said Mur.

  Chalres peered into the basket, pointedly ignoring the fact that Mur wore no gloves. "Hmm. You've done quite well. Surprising. Well, then, pour them in here. I'll say that's all there were to be had. . . . Excellent. Ah yes, the gloves. You are exceedingly neat." Chalres crushed a berry between the fingers of the glove. 'That looks somewhat better. Now, then, no tales." He shoved his thin face fiercely into Mur's. "Remember, when you're a Pure Boy, I'll be a Chilite—and much sterner than I am now, for I can see that this is how the tide runs!" He returned up the hill to the temple.

  With nothing better to do, Mur picked a few more berries for his mother, eating as many as he dropped into the basket. Presently, as he had half-expected, the pale brown smock of the wanderer girl appeared somewhat down the slope. He approached slowly, making sure that she heard him, and this time she showed no disposition to flee. Instead, she came running forward, face glowing with rage. "You little weirdling, you frightened me; you took my berries! Where are they now? Give them here before I pull those ridiculous ears of yours!"

  Mur, somewhat taken aback, strove to maintain an imperturbable Chilite dignity. "You need not call names."

  "I need to do so very much! How else should I address a thief?"

  "You are the thief; these are Chilite berry grounds!"

  The girl threw up her hands and gave a petulant exclamation. "Who the thief and who not the thief? It's all one, so long as I have my berries." She snatched away Mur's basket, looked askance at the handful she found there. "Was that all I had picked?"

  'There were more," declared Mur with stately candor. "I gave them to my soul-brother. Don't be annoyed; they go to the Chilite Conclave. Isn't it a great joke? A woman has denied the food!"

  The girl once again became angry. "I defiled no food! What do you take me for?"

  "Perhaps you don't understand that—"
r />   "Indeed not, and I never will! Not the Chilites! I know your dirty ways! You drug yourselves with smoke and dream lewd dreams; there never was so odd a sect!"

  "The Chilites are not a sect," stated Mur, reciting the doctrine he had heard from Chalres. "I can tell you little because as of yet I am not even a Ture Boy' and won't have full control of my soul for another three or four years. The Chilites are the single emancipated and high-cultured folk of Durdane. All other folk live by emotion; the Chilites maintain an abstract and intellectual existence."

  The girl gave an offensive laugh. "You infant I 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 musician's 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."