The Brave Free Men Page 9

  Finnerack could never before have seen Garwiy; Etzwane wondered as to his reactions. Finnerack was at least overtly unimpressed. He had given the city a single all-encompassing glance, and thereafter appeared more interested in the urbane folk who walked Kavalesko Avenue.

  At a kiosk Etzwane bought a journal. The colors black, ocher, brown immediately struck his eyes. He read:

  From Marestiy arresting news! The militia and a band of Roguskhoi have been engaged in a battle. The savage intruders, having worked awful damage in Canton Shkoriy, which must now be reckoned totally under Roguskhoi control, sent a foraging party north. At the border a Marest troop staunchly denied the intruders passage, and a battle ensued. Though greatly outnumbered, the insensate red brutes advanced. The Marest men discharged arrows, killing or at least incommoding certain of the enemy; the others pressed forward without qualm. The Marest militia, adopting flexible tactics, fell back into the forest, where their arrows and fire-wad flings denied the Roguskhoi entry. The treacherous savages returned the fire-wads to set the forest ablaze, and the militia was forced back into the open. Here they were set upon by another band of savages, assembled for just such a blood-thirsty purpose. The militia suffered many casualties, but the survivors have resolved to extract a great revenge when the Anome provides them potency. All feel certain that the detestable creatures will be defeated and driven away.

  Etzwane showed the report to Finnerack, who read with half-contemptuous disinterest. Etzwane’s attention meanwhile had been drawn to a box outlined in the pale blue and purple of sagacious statement:

  HERE ARE PRESENTED THE REMARKS

  OF MIALAMBRE:OCTAGON, THE

  RESPECTED HIGH ARBITER OF WALE:

  The years during and immediately after the Fourth Palasedran War were decisive; during these times was forged the soul of the hero Viana Paizifume. He has rightly been called the progenitor of modern Shant. The Hundred Years War undeniably derived from his policies; still, for all its horror, this century now seems but a shadow on the water. Paizifume created the awful authority of the Anome and, as a logical corollary, the employment of the coded torc. It is a system beautiful in its simplicity: unequivocal rigor balanced against responsibility, economy, effectiveness … which in the main has been kind to Shant. The Anomes have been largely competent; they have honored all their commitments — to the cantons, allowing each its traditional style; to the patricians, imposing no arbitrary restraints; to the generality, making no exorbitant demands. The previous cantonal wars and depredations have receded to the edge of memory, and are currently unthinkable.

  Critical minds will discover flaws in the system. Justice, a human invention, is as protean as the race itself, and varies from canton to canton; the traveler must be wary lest he contravene some unfamiliar local ordinance. I cite those unfortunate wayfarers through Canton Haviosq who, when passing a Yasu Krish shrine, have neglected the sign of sky, stomach and soil, to their dismay; likewise the virgins careless enough to enter Canton Shalloran without certificates. The indenture system has shortcomings; the notorious vices of Canton Glirris are inherently wrong. Still, when all is weighed, we have enjoyed many placid centuries.

  If the study of human interactions could become a science, I suspect that an inviolate axiom might be discovered to this effect: Every social disposition creates a disparity of advantages. Further: Every innovation designed to correct the disparities, no matter how altruistic in concept, works only to create a new and different set of disparities.

  I make this remark because the great effort which must now wrench Shant will beyond all question change our lives, in modes still unimaginable.

  Etzwane looked once more to see who had formulated the piece. Mialambre:Octagon of Wale … Finnerack demanded somewhat peevishly: “How long do you propose to stand reading in the street?”

  Etzwane signaled a passing diligence. “To Sershan Palace.”

  Finnerack presently spoke: “We are being followed.”

  Etzwane looked at him in surprise. “Are you sure?”

  “When you stopped to buy the journal a man in a blue cape stepped off to the side. While you read he stood with his back turned. When we walked forward he did likewise. Now a diligence follows behind.”

  “Interesting,” said Etzwane.

  The diligence turned left from Kavalesko Avenue out upon the Parade of the Chama Reyans. A diligence coming at no great distance behind turned also.

  “Interesting,” said Etzwane once again.

  For a space they rolled along the Parade, then swung up the Metempe, a marble avenue connecting central Garwiy with the three Ushkadel terraces. Similax trees stood against the sky to cast plum-colored gloom over the pale stone. Behind, inconspicuously, came the second diligence.

  A road glanced off to the side, under tape trees and similax. Etzwane called up to the driver: “Turn here!”

  The driver tapped the neck of the long-legged pacer; smartly the diligence swung to the left, under tape trees so full and supple that the foliage stroked the top of the diligence. “Stop,” said Etzwane. He jumped out. “Drive forward slowly.”

  The diligence continued, the pacers walking. Etzwane ran back to the intersection.

  Silence, except for the rustle of the tapes, then the jingle of an approaching diligence. The sound grew louder; the diligence reached the intersection, halted. A keen-featured face peered up the side road … Etzwane stepped forward; the man turned him a startled look, then spoke a quick word to his driver. The diligence spun away up the Metempe.

  Etzwane rejoined Finnerack, who turned him a crooked side-glance, expressing a variety of emotions: dislike, vindication, saturnine amusement, and together, in an unlikely combination: curiosity with indifference. Etzwane, at first inclined to keeping his own counsel, decided that if his plans were to have application Finnerack had best be informed as fully as possible. “The Chief Discriminator of Garwiy is disposed to intrigue. This is my supposition, at least. If I am killed he is the first to suspect.”

  Finnerack gave a non-committal grunt. Etzwane looked back down the Metempe; no one seemed to be following.

  The diligence turned into the Middle Way as green-spark street lamps came to life. Far around the arc of the Ushkadel they drove, past the ranked palaces of the Aesthetes, and at last came to the portal of the Sershans. A bulb of massive glass flickered pale blue and violet.* Etzwane and Finnerack alighted; the diligence jingled off into the gloom.

  * In Shant no colour could be used arbitrarily. A green gate-bulb implied festivity, and in conjunction with purple or dark scarlet lusters gave hospitable welcome to all comers. Grayed golds told of mourning; violet indicated formality and receptiveness only to intimate intrusion; blue, or blue with violet signified withdrawal and privacy. The word kial’etse, the mingling of violet and blue, might be used as an epithet, e.g. ls Xhiallinen kial’etse: the snobbish and hyper-aesthetic Xhiallinens. White glow attended ritual occasions.

  Etzwane crossed the wide loggia, followed, at a casual stroll, by Finnerack. Etzwane stopped to listen; from within came that almost imperceptible stir which told of routine and unexcited occupation. Was that not the rasp of new fibers in a wood-horn? Etzwane grimaced; he had no real bent for intrigue, coercion, large designs. What an improbable condition that he, Gastel Etzwane, should be master of Shant! Still, better he than Finnerack — or so came a message from the under part of his mind.

  Etzwane put his misgivings aside. He took Finnerack to the entrance, where in response to his signal a footman drew aside the door.

  Etzwane and Finnerack stepped into the reception hall, into a magic environment of opposing vitran panels, where nymphs disported in Arcadian landscapes. Aganthe came slowly forward. He looked drawn, even a trifle unkempt, as if events had eroded his morale; he saw Etzwane with a gleam of hope. Etzwane asked, “Have affairs gone well?”

  “Not well!” declared Aganthe, with a ring in his voice. “The ancient Sershan Palace has never before been so misused. The musicians
play jigs and ballintrys in the Pearlweb Salon; the children swim in the garden fountain; the men have ranged their caravans along the Ancestral Parade. They tie clotheslines between the Named Trees; they strew refuse without remorse. Lord Sajarano —” Aganthe controlled his flow of words.

  “Well?” Etzwane prompted. “What of Lord Sajarano?”

  “Again I use candor, since this is what you require. I have often speculated that Lord Sajarano might suffer a nervous disease, and I have wondered at his odd activities. I have not recently seen Lord Sajarano and I fear a tragedy.”

  “Take me to the musician Frolitz,” said Etzwane.

  “He will be found in the Grand Parlor.”

  Etzwane found Frolitz drinking Wild Rose wine from a ceremonial silver mug and gloomily watching three children of the troupe who disputed possession of a hand-illuminated geography of West Caraz. At the sight of Etzwane and Finnerack he wiped his mouth and rose to his feet. “Where have you stayed so long?”

  “I have traveled a wide circuit of the south,” replied Etzwane, with the diffidence of long habit. “Naturally in all haste. I hope that you have profited by your rest?”

  “Such profits are brummagem,” snapped Frolitz. “The troupe rusticates.”

  “What of Sajarano?” Etzwane asked. “Has he given you difficulty?”

  “No difficulty whatever; in fact he has vanished. We have been distracted with bewilderment.”

  Etzwane sank into a chair. “How and when did he disappear?”

  “Five days ago, from his tower. The stairs were closed off; he acted no more distrait than usual. When he was served his evening meal, the window was open; he was gone like an eirmelrath*.”

  * A malicious ghost of Canton Green Stone.

  The three went up to Sajarano’s private rooms. Etzwane looked from the window. Far below spread patterns of moss. “Never a mark!” declared Frolitz. “Not a bird has disturbed the lay of the growth!”

  A single narrow stairs connected the tower to the lower floors. “And here sat Mielke, on these selfsame stairs, discussing affairs with an under-maid. Agreed; they were not alert to the possibility of Sajarano stepping upon them on his way to freedom; still the occasion seems remote.”

  “Was there a rope in the room? Could he have torn up the draperies or bed linen?”

  “Even with a rope he must have disturbed the moss. The linens were intact.” Frolitz jumped to his feet. Holding his arms wide, fingers clenched and quivering, he asked: “How then did he leave? I have known many strange mysteries, but none so strange as this.”

  Etzwane wordlessly brought forth his pulse-emitter. He encoded the colors of Sajarano’s torc and touched the red ‘Seek’ button; the instrument immediately returned the thin whine of contact. He swung the mechanism in an arc; the whine waxed, then waned. “However Sajarano escaped, he fled no great distance,” said Etzwane. “He seems to be up on the Ushkadel.”

  With Finnerack and Frolitz, Etzwane set forth into the night. They crossed the formal garden and climbed a flight of alabaster steps, the Schiafarilla casting a pale white light to show them the way. They crossed a pavilion of smooth white glass, where the secret Sershan pageants were performed, then pushed through a dense grove of similax, giant cypress, contorted ivory-woods, which ended only when they stepped out upon High Way. The pulse-emitter took them neither right nor left, but up into the dark forest above High Way.

  Frolitz began to grumble. “By training and by inclination I am a musician, not a prowler of forests, nor a searcher for creatures who chose to flit off alone, or in company.”

  “I am no musician,” said Finnerack, staring up into the forest. “Still I think it sensible to proceed only with lanterns and weapons.”

  Frolitz reacted sharply to implications latent in Finnerack’s remark. “A musician knows no fear! Sometimes he takes heed of reality; is this fear? You speak like a man with his head above the clouds.”

  “Finnerack is no musician,” said Etzwane. “This is stipulated. Still, let us go for lights and weapons.”

  Half an hour later they returned to High Way, with glass lanterns and antique swords of forged iron-web. Etzwane additionally carried the energy pistol given him by Ifness.

  Sajarano of Sershan had not moved from his previous position. Three hundred yards up the Ushkadel they found his corpse, laid out on a growth of white and gray lovelace.

  The three swung their lanterns; the rays jerked nervously through the shades and nooks. One at a time they turned back to the shape at their feet. Sajarano, never large nor imposing, seemed a gnomish child, with his thin legs straight, his back arched as if in pain, his fine poet’s forehead thrust back into the lovelace. The jacket of violet velvet was disarranged; the bony chest was bare, displaying a ghastly gaping wound.

  Etzwane had seen such a wound before, in the body of the Benevolence Garstang, on the day following his death.

  “This is not a good sight,” said Frolitz.

  Finnerack grunted as if to say that he had seen worse, far worse.

  “The ahulphs perhaps have been here,” muttered Etzwane. “They might return.” He played his lantern once more through the shadows. “Best that we bury him.”

  With sword-blades and hands they scratched a shallow grave into the mold; presently Sajarano of Sershan, erstwhile Anome of Shant, was covered away from sight.

  The three trudged back down to High Way, where by common impulse they turned a final glance up the hill. Then they proceeded down to Sershan Palace.

  Frolitz would not pass through the great glass doors. “Gastel Etzwane,” he stated, “I want no more of Sershan Palace. We have enjoyed the best of foods and liquors; we own the finest instruments in Shant. Still, let us not deceive ourselves: we are musicians, not Aesthetes, and it is time that we depart.”

  “Your work is done,” Etzwane agreed. “Best that you return to the old ways.”

  “What of you?” demanded Frolitz. “Do you desert the troupe? Where will I find a replacement? Must I play your parts and my own as well?”

  “I am involved against the Roguskhoi,” said Etzwane, “a situation even more urgent than good balance in the troupe.”

  “Can’t other folk kill Roguskhoi?” growled Frolitz. “Why must the musicians of Shant leap to the forefront?”

  “When the Roguskhoi are gone I will rejoin the troupe, and we will play to draw the ahulphs down from the hills. Until then —”

  “I will not hear this,” said Frolitz. “Kill Roguskhoi during the day, if this is to your taste, but at night your place is with the troupe!”

  Etzwane laughed weakly, half-convinced that Frolitz’s suggestion was sound. “You’re off to Fontenay’s?”

  “At this very instant. What keeps you here?”

  Etzwane looked up at the palace where Sajarano’s personality pervaded every room. “Go your way to Fontenay’s,” said Etzwane. “Finnerack and I will be along as well.”

  “Spoken like a rational man!” declared Frolitz with approval. “It’s not too late for a few tunes yet!” In spite of his previous declaration, he marched into the palace to rally the troupe.

  Finnerack spoke in a wry voice: “A man flits from a high tower to be found with a hole in his chest, as if an ahulph had tested him with an auger. Is this how life goes in Garwiy?”

  “The events are beyond my comprehension,” said Etzwane, “although I have seen something similar before.”

  “This may be … So now you are Anome, without challenge or qualification.”

  Etzwane stared coldly at Finnerack. “Why do you say that? I am not Anome.”

  Finnerack gave a coarse laugh. “Then why did not the Anome discover Sajarano’s death five days ago? It is a grave matter. Why have you not communicated with the Anome? If he existed, you would think of nothing else; instead you argue with Frolitz and make plans to play your tunes. That Gastel Etzwane should be Anome is strange enough; that he should not be is too much to believe.”

  “I am not Anome,” said E
tzwane. “I am a desperate makeshift, a man struggling against his own deficiencies. The Anome is dead; a void exists. I must create the illusion that all is well. For a period I can do this; the cantons control themselves. But the Anome’s work accumulates: petitions go unanswered, heads are not taken, crimes go unpunished; sooner or later some clever man like Aun Sharah will learn the truth. Meanwhile I am impelled to mobilize Shant against the Roguskhoi as best I can.”

  Finnerack gave a cynical grunt. “And who then will be Anome? The Earthman Ifness?”

  “He has returned to Earth. I have two men in mind: Dystar the druithine, and Mialambre:Octagon. Either might qualify.”

  “Hmmf … And how do I fit into your schemes?”

  “You must guard my back. I don’t want to die like Sajarano.”

  “Who killed him?”

  Etzwane looked off into the darkness. “I don’t know. Many strange events happen in Shant.”

  Finnerack showed his teeth in a tight grin. “I don’t want to die either. You are asking me to share your risks, which obviously are large.”

  “True. But are we not both motivated? We equally want peace and justice for Shant.”

  Finnerack again gave his dour grunt; Etzwane had no more to say. They went into the palace. Aganthe came to their summons. “Master Frolitz and his troupe are leaving the palace,” said Etzwane. “They will not be returning and you can put matters to rights.”

  Aganthe’s mournful face lit up. “Good news indeed! But what of Lord Sajarano? He is nowhere in the palace. I find here a cause for concern.”

  “Lord Sajarano had gone forth on his travels,” said Etzwane. “Lock the palace securely; make sure that no one intrudes. In a day or so I will make further arrangements.”