The Brave Free Men Read online

  “The decision to fight comes tardily.”

  “I know this. The former Anome refused to attack the Roguskhoi, nor will he now explain his reasons.”

  Finnerack evinced a degree of interest. “He is not dead then?”

  “No, he was deposed, and replaced.”

  “Who performed this remarkable feat?”

  Etzwane saw no reason to withhold the information. “Do you know of Earth?”

  “I have heard it mentioned: the human home world.”

  “On Earth is an organization known as the Historical Institute, where Durdane is remembered. By chance I met a man named Ifness, a Fellow of the Historical Institute, who had come to study Durdane. Together we learned the identity of the Faceless Man and urged him to take steps against the Roguskhoi. He refused, so we deposed him and set new processes into motion.”

  Finnerack inspected Etzwane with glittering eyes. “An Earthman is Anome of Shant?”

  “I wish he were,” said Etzwane. “Unfortunately he refuses the job … The Anome is someone else. I assist him; I myself need an assistant: perhaps yourself, if you have the will to serve Shant?”

  “Shant has done me nothing but harm,” said Finnerack. “I must live for myself alone.”

  Etzwane grew impatient. “Your bitterness is understandable, but should you not focus it more carefully? Working with me, you could help other victims. If you won’t do this you become no better than Hillen, and far worse than the ordinary people whom you despise so much. Who here in Maschein, for instance, knew of Camp Three? No one.”

  Finnerack shrugged and stared woodenly out over the Jardeen, on which violet evening light was falling.

  Etzwane presently spoke in a voice he tried to keep neutral and even: “Tonight we dine at the Silver Samarsanda, where we will hear a great druithine.”

  “And what is that?”

  Etzwane looked around in astonishment. Nothing could have better dramatized the scope of Finnerack’s deprivation. Etzwane spoke more warmly: “A druithine is a musician who wanders alone. He may play the gastaing, or the khitan, or even the darabence, and his music is usually of high quality.”

  “I don’t know one note of music from another,” said Finnerack in a flat voice.

  Etzwane controlled a new sense of impatience. “You will at least enjoy your meal; the Maseache are famous for their fine restaurants.”

  The Silver Samarsanda stood above the Jardeen, behind a line of tall pencil cypress: an irregular bulk of masonry, plastered and whitewashed, with a wide many-slanted roof of mossy tiles. Beside the entrance five colored lanterns hung in a vertical line: deep green, a dark smoky scarlet, a gay light green, violet, and once more dark scarlet; and at the bottom, slightly to the side, a small steady yellow lamp, the purport of all being: Never neglect the wonder of conscious existence, which too soon comes to an end!

  By a pair of tall timber doors Etzwane and Finnerack passed into the foyer, where a small boy served each a phial of grass wine and a morsel of crystallized fish, tokens of hospitality. A smiling maiden came forward wearing the plum-colored flounces of an ancient Maseach maenad; from each young man she clipped a trifle of hair and touched their chins with yorbane wax: a quaint survival of the olden times when the Maseache were notorious for their immoderate pleasures.

  Etzwane and Finnerack entered the vaulted hall, still almost empty, and took a table close beside the musician’s bench. A dish of sharp, bitter, pungent and salt pastilles was set before them. Partly from a malicious desire to confound Finnerack, Etzwane commanded the traditional feast of Forty-Five Dishes, and also instructed the steward to lay out the best for Dystar when and if he appeared.

  The meal was served, one dish after another, with Finnerack at first grumbling at the smallness of the portions, which he considered over-dainty, until Etzwane reminded him that so far he had consumed only twelve of forty-five dishes.

  Dish after dish was brought, conforming to the theoretical absolute of a gastronome dead four thousand years. Texture against texture, aroma contrasting with flavor, the color and placement of each morsel to the ancient stipulation upon the ritually correct bowl, plate or board. With each dish came a specified wine, tincture, essence or brew. Finnerack’s complaints dwindled; he became fascinated, or perhaps subdued … At the twenty-eighth dish Dystar appeared in the entrance: a tall spare man with well-shaped features, wearing gray trousers and a loose gray-black tunic. He stood a moment looking across the hall, then turned and made a fretful remark to the man standing behind him, Shobin the proprietor. For a moment Etzwane wondered if Dystar might not simply depart the premises, but Shobin went off to correct whatever deficiency Dystar had pointed out … The lights in the arched alcoves near the musician’s bench were too bright; Dystar disliked illumination too strong or emphatic. Shobin made the adjustments; Dystar came forward, still not in the best of moods. He carried a khitan and a darabence with a green jade fingerplate; these he placed on the bench and settled himself at a table only six feet from Etzwane and Finnerack. Etzwane had seen him on a single previous occasion, and had then been fascinated by Dystar’s ease, strength, certainty.

  The steward announced that his meal had been spoken for, to which Dystar gave an indifferent nod. Etzwane studied him sidelong, trying to read the flow of Dystar’s thoughts. Here was his father, half of himself. Perhaps it was his duty to announce himself … Dystar might have a dozen sons, here and there across Shant, reflected Etzwane. The revelation might only irritate him.

  The steward brought Dystar a salad of leeks in oil, the crust of a loaf, a dark sausage of meats and herbs, a jug of wine: a modest meal. Dystar had been sated with fine food, thought Etzwane; richness was no novelty to him, nor the attention of beautiful women …

  Dish after dish after dish. Finnerack, who perhaps never in his life had tasted good wine, had become more relaxed, and examined the surroundings with a lessening of reserve.

  Dystar finished half his food, pushed the rest away, and sat back, fingers around the stem of his goblet. His eyes passed across Etzwane’s face; with a faint frown, he looked back, as if troubled by a fleeting recollection … He took up his khitan, and for a moment he examined it as if surprised to find such an ungainly and complicated instrument in his hands. He touched it lightly here and there, bringing all the unlikely parts into consonance, then put it aside for the darabence. He played a soft scale, adjusted whines and drones, then played a merry little jig, first with simple harmony, then with two voices, then three: a bit of virtuosity which he managed without effort or even any great interest. He put the darabence down and mused over his wine … The tables nearby were now crowded, with the most discriminating and perceptive folk of Maschein on hand to gain enlightenment.

  Etzwane and Finnerack examined their thirty-ninth dish: pith of marrow-tree, slivered, crisped, salted, in a pale green syrup, with a ball of purple jelly flavored with maroes and ernice, barely sweet. The accompanying wine, a subtle quick liquid, tasted of sunlight and air. Finnerack looked doubtfully at Etzwane. “Never in my life have I eaten so much. Yet — my appetite remains.”

  “We must finish the forty-five dishes,” said Etzwane. “Otherwise they are not allowed to accept our money, the pleasant fiction being that the cooks have incorrectly prepared the dishes, or served in a crude manner. Eat we must.”

  “If such be the case I am the man for it.”

  Dystar began to play his khitan: a soft lilt, with no obvious pattern, but as he proceeded, the ear began to anticipate and hear the pleasant corroboration. So far he had played nothing which Etzwane could not easily duplicate … Dystar struck a set of soft strange chords, and began to play the melody with the chords tolling below like mournful sea-bells … Etzwane wondered as to the nature of Dystar’s talent. Part, he thought, derived from ease and simplicity, part from profundity, part from a detachment which made him indifferent to his audience, part from a sleight which allowed him to play as the whim took him. Etzwane felt a pang of envy; for his part he of
ten avoided passages the resolution of which he could not foresee, knowing well the fragile distinction between felicity and fiasco … The music came to an end, without notable accent or emphasis, the sea-gongs fading into mist. Dystar put the instrument aside. Taking up his goblet he gazed across the hall; then, as if in sudden recollection, he again lifted the khitan and tested a set of phrases. He played them again with an alteration of harmony and they became a twitching eccentric melody. He modulated into another mode and the melody altered; effortlessly Dystar played the first and second together in wry counterpoint. For a moment he seemed to become interested in the music and bent his head over the neck of the khitan … He slowed the tempo, the doubled tunes became one, like a pair of colored images joining to create the illusion of perspective …

  The last of the forty-five courses was served to Etzwane and Finnerack: a sour-sweet frost in shells of purple lacquer, with thimble-size goblets of Thousand Year Nectar.

  Finnerack consumed the frost and tasted the nectar. His brown face seemed less gaunt; the mad blue glitter was gone from his eyes. Suddenly he asked Etzwane: “How much must be paid for this meal?”

  “I don’t know … Two hundred florins, I suppose.”

  “At Camp Three a man might not reduce his indenture two hundred florins in a year.” Finnerack seemed rueful rather than angry.

  “The system is archaic,” said Etzwane. “The Anome will make changes. There will be no more Camp Threes, or Angwin Junctions, for that matter.”

  Finnerack turned him a glance of dour appraisal. “You seem very sure of the Anome’s intentions.”

  For want of an appropriate reply, Etzwane let the remark go by. He raised a finger to the steward, who brought a tall earthenware flask, velvet with dust, from which he poured a cool pale wine, soft as water.

  Etzwane drank; Finnerack cautiously followed suit.

  Etzwane made an oblique reference to Finnerack’s remark. “The new Anome in my opinion is not a man hidebound by tradition. After the Roguskhoi are destroyed, important changes will be made.”

  “Bah!” said Finnerack. “The Roguskhoi are no great problem; the Anome need only hurl the might of Shant against them.”

  Etzwane chuckled sadly. “What might? Shant is feeble as a baby. The last Anome turned his face away from danger. It is all very mysterious; he is neither a wicked nor a stupid man.”

  “No mystery,” said Finnerack. “He enjoyed ease above exertion.”

  “I might agree,” said Etzwane, “were there not other mysteries as well: the Roguskhoi themselves, in the first instance.”

  “Again no mystery: they derive from Palasedran malice.”

  “Hmm … Who informed Hillen of my coming? Who gave orders that I be killed?”

  “Is there any doubt? The balloon-way magnates!”

  “Possible again. But there are other mysteries less easily explained.” Etzwane recalled the Benevolence Garstang’s suicidal attack and the peculiar mutilation worked upon his corpse, as if a rat had gnawed a hole in his chest.

  Someone sat at their table. It was Dystar. “I have been studying your face,” he told Etzwane. “It is a face I know, from the far past.”

  Etzwane collected his thoughts. “I have heard you play at Brassei; there perhaps you chanced to notice me.”

  Dystar glanced at Etzwane’s torc to read the locality code. “Bastern, a strange canton.”

  “The Chilites no longer worship Galexis,” said Etzwane. “Bastern is not so strange as before.” Dystar, he noted, wore the rose and dull blue of Shkoriy. He asked, “Will you share our wine?”

  Dystar gave a polite acquiescence. Etzwane signaled the steward, who brought another diorite goblet: egg-shell thin, polished to the color and sheen of pewter. Etzwane poured. Dystar raised a finger. “Enough … I no longer enjoy food or wine. An innate fault, I suppose.”

  Finnerack gave his sudden harsh laugh; Dystar glanced at him with curiosity. Etzwane said, “For long years my friend has labored under indenture at a camp for recalcitrants, and has known bitter times. Like yourself, he has no taste for fine food or wine, but for exactly opposite reasons.”

  Dystar smiled; his face a winter landscape suddenly illuminated by a shaft of sunlight. “Surfeit is not my enemy. I am troubled rather by what I would term an aversion to purchased pleasure.”

  “I am glad it is for sale,” grumbled Finnerack. “I would find little elsewhere.”

  Etzwane looked ruefully at the expensive flask of wine. “How then do you spend your money?”

  “Foolishly,” said Dystar. “Last year I bought land in Shkoriy: a high valley with an orchard, a pond and a cottage, where I thought to pass my senility … Such is the folly of foresight.”

  Finnerack tasted the wine, put the goblet down and looked off across the hall.

  Etzwane began to feel uncomfortable. A hundred times he had envisioned the meeting between Dystar and himself, always in dramatic terms. Now they sat at the same table and the occasion was suffocated in dullness. What could he say? “Dystar! You are my father; in my face you see your own!” Bathos. In desperation Etzwane said, “At Brassei your mood was better than tonight; I recall that you played with zest.”

  Dystar gave him a quick glance. “Is the situation so evident? Tonight I am stale; I have been distracted by events.”

  “The trouble in Shkoriy?”

  Dystar was silent for a moment, then nodded. “The savages have taken my valley, where I often went, where nothing ever changed.” He smiled. “A mood of melancholy induces music; on occasions of real tragedy I become merely insipid … By repute I am a man who plays only by caprice. Still, here are two hundred people come to listen, and I would not wish to disappoint them.”

  Finnerack, now drunk, his mouth sagging in a crooked smile, said, “My friend Etzwane professes musicianship; you should press him into service.”

  “‘Etzwane’? The master musician of old Azume,” said Dystar. “Do you know this?”

  Etzwane nodded. “My mother lived on Rhododendron Way. I was born nameless and took the name ‘Gastel Etzwane’ for my own.”

  Dystar reflected a moment, perhaps occupied with his own recollections of Rhododendron Way. Too long ago, thought Etzwane; he would remember nothing.

  “I must perform.” Dystar moved back to his bench. He took up the darabence to play a somewhat trivial set of melodies, as might be heard in the Morningshore dancehalls. Just as Etzwane began to lose interest, Dystar altered the set of his blare valve, to construct a sudden new environment: the same melodies, the same rhythm, but now they told a disturbed tale of callous departures and mocking laughter, of roof-demons and storm-birds. Dystar muted the whines, throttled the valves, and slowed his tempo. The music asserted the fragility of everything pleasant and bright, the triumph of darkness, and ended in a dismal twanging chord … A pause, then a sudden coda remarking that, on the other hand, matters might easily be quite the reverse.

  Dystar rested a moment. He struck a few chords, then played a complicated antiphony: glissandos swooping above a placid melody. His expression was abstracted, his hands moved without effort. Etzwane thought that the music came from calculation rather than emotion. Finnerack’s eyelids were drooping; he had taken too much food and wine. Etzwane called the steward and paid the score; then he and Finnerack departed the Silver Samarsanda and returned to the River Island Inn.

  Etzwane went out into the garden and stood in the quiet, looking up at the Schiafarilla, behind which, according to legend, lay old Earth … When he returned to the drawing room, Finnerack had gone to his couch. Etzwane took a stylus and on a card wrote a careful message, upon which he impressed the sigil of the Anome.

  He summoned a boy. “Take this message to the Silver Samarsanda, deliver it into the hands of Dystar the druithine, none other. Do not respond to any questions: give over the message and depart. Do you understand?”

  “I do.” The boy took the message and went off, and presently Etzwane went to his own couch … As for the Repa
st of Forty-Five Dishes, he doubted if ever again he would dine so lavishly.

  Chapter VI

  Prompted by doubt and uneasiness, Etzwane decided to pass by the cantons of the far west and return at once to Garwiy. He had been gone longer than he intended; in Garwiy events moved faster than elsewhere in Shant.

  There was no balloon-way link between Maschein and Brassei, by reason of adverse winds and poor terrain, but the Jardeen River served almost as well. Rather than wait for the scheduled riverboat, Etzwane chartered a swift pinnace, with two lateen sails and a crew of ten to man sweeps or haul on the tow-rope in case of necessity.

  East on a great loop through the sylvan foothills of Lor-Ault they sailed, then north down Methel Vale, with mountains rising on both sides. At Griave in Fairlea they met the Great Ridge Route of the balloon-way, only to learn that all northbound balloons had been delayed by gales driving in from the Sualle. Continuing to Brassei Junction, they boarded the balloon Aramaad. The Sualle gales had waned; the Shellflower winds provided a splendid reach; the Aramaad spun north along the slot at a steady sixty miles an hour. Late in the afternoon they slid down the Vale of Silence, through the Jardeen Gap, and five minutes later descended to Garwiy Station. Etzwane and Finnerack stepped forth into Kavalesko Passway.

  At sunset Garwiy was at its most entrancing, with the low light from three suns drenching the glass of the tall spires, generating color in prodigal quantities. From all directions, high and low, on and through the pure glass slabs, the domes, bulbs, bosses and carved ornaments, among and around the balustrades of high balconies, the ranked arches and buttresses, the crystal scrolls and prismatic columns, flowed the tides of saturated color: pure purples to charm the mind; limpid greens, dark and rich, water-green, leaf-green, emerald; dark and light blues, with ultramarine, smalt, the range of middle blues; reflections and after-images of scarlet, inner shadows of light which could not be named; on near surfaces the luster of time: acrid metallic films. As Etzwane and Finnerack moved slowly east, the suns departed; the colors became clouded with pearl and quickly died. Etzwane thought: of all this ancient grandeur, I am master. I can gratify each whim; I can take, I can give; I can build or lay waste … He smiled, unable to accept the ideas; they were artificial and unreal.