Wyst: Alastor 1716 (21 page)

Jantiff urged his weary legs to a final effort and moved at
his best speed.

A slow full river swung in from the—east; the road veered
close to the Sych. Jantiff, chancing to look off into the forest, stopped
short, on legs suddenly numb. Twenty yards away, camouflaged by the light and
shadow, three men in black vests and pale green pantaloons stood motionless and
silent, like fabulous animals.

Jantiff stared, his pulse pounding from the startlement; the
three gazed gravely back, or perhaps beyond.

Jantiff released his pent breath; then, thinking to recognize
the men of the night before, he raised his hand in an uncertain salute. The
three men, giving back no acknowledgment, continued to gaze at, or past, Jantiff,
as before.

Jantiff trudged wearily onward, away from the forest, across
the river by an ancient iron bridge, and finally arrived at the outskirts of
Baled.

The road broadened to become an avenue fifty yards wide,
running the length of the town. Here Jantiff halted, to look glumly this way
and that. Balad was smaller and more primitive than he had anticipated: essentially
nothing more than a wind-swept village on the dunes beside the Moaning Ocean.
Small shops lined the south side or the main street. Opposite were a
marketplace, a dilapidated hall, a clinic and dispensary, a great barn of a
garage for the repair of farmers’ vehicles, and a pair of taverns: the Old
Groar and the Cimmery.

Lanes angled down to the river, where half a dozen fishing
boats were moored. Cottages flanked the lanes and overlooked the river which,
a half-mile after leaving Baled, became a shallow estuary and so entered the
ocean. A few pale dark-haired children played in the lanes; half a dozen
wheeled vehicles and a pair of ground-hoppers were parked beside the Old Groar
and as many near the Cimmery.

The Old Groar was the closest: a two-story structure, sinter
blocks below and timber painted black, red, and green above to, produce an
effect of rather ponderous frivolity.

Jantiff pushed through the door and entered a common room
furnished with long tables and benches and illuminated by panes of dusty
magenta glass set high in the side wall. At this slack hour of the day the room
was vacant of all but seven or eight patrons, drinking ale from earthenware
vessels and playing sanque.
[35]

Jantiff looked into the kitchen, where a portly man,
notable for a shining bald pate and a luxuriant black mustache stood with a
knife and brush, preparatory to cleaning a large fish. His attitude suggested
peevishness, provoked by conditions not immediately evident. Upon looking up and
seeing Jantiff he lowered knife and brush and spoke in a brusque voice: “Well,
sir? How may I oblige you?”

Jantiff spoke in an embarrassed half-stammer: “Sir, I am a
traveler from, off-world. I need food and lodging, and since ] have no money, I
would be pleased to work for my keep.”

The innkeeper threw down the knife and brush. His manner
underwent a change, to become what was evidently a normal condition of pompous
affability. “You are in luck! The maid is hard at it, giving birth, the pot-boy
is likewise ill, perhaps in sympathy. I lack a hundred commodities but work is
not one of them. There is much to be done and you may start at once. As your
first task
,
be so good as to clean this fish.”

Fariske the innkeeper had not deceived Jantiff: there was
indeed work to be accomplished. Fariske, himself inclined to ease and
tolerance, nevertheless, through sheer force of circumstances, kept Jantiff
constantly on the move: scouring, sweeping, cutting, paring, serving food and
drink; washing and cleaning pots, plates and utensils; husking, shelling and
cleaning percebs.
[36]

Jantiff was allowed the use of a small chamber at the back
of the second floor, whatever he chose to eat and drink and a daily wage of two
owls. “This is generous pay!” declared Fariske grandly. “Still, after you
perform the toil that I require, you may think differently.”

“At the moment,” said Jantiff feelingly, “I am more than
satisfied with the arrangement.”

“So be it!”

On the morning after his arrival in Baled, Jantiff took himself
to the local post and communications office and there telephoned Alastor Centrality
at Uncibal—a call for which, by Cluster law, no charge could be levied. On the
screen appeared the face of Aleida Gluster. “Ah ha ha!” she exclaimed in
excitement. “Jantiff Ravensroke! Where are you?”

“As you suggested, I came to Balad; in fact I arrived yesterday
afternoon.”

“Excellent! And you will now take passage from the
space-port?”

“I haven’t applied yet,” said Jantiff. “It may well be useless.
Only cargo ships put down here; and they take no passengers, or so I’m told.”

Aleida Gluster’s jaw dropped. “I had not considered this
aspect of affairs.”

“In any event,” said Jantiff, “I must speak to the cursar.
Has he returned to Uncibal?”

“No! Nor has he called into the office! It is most
strange.”

Jantiff clicked his tongue in disappointment “When he arrives,
will you telephone me? I am at the Old Groar Tavern. My business is really important”

“I will give him your message, certainly.”

“Thank you very much.”

Jantiff left the post office and hurried back to the Old
Groar, where Fariske had already become petulant because of his absence.

The custom of the Old Groar comprised a cross-section of
local society: farmers and townspeople, servants from the manor of Grand Knight
Shubart (as he was locally known), warehousemen and mechanics from the
space-port and the port agent himself: a certain Eubanq. Jantiff found most of
these folk somewhat coarse and not altogether congenial, especially the
farmers, each of whom seemed more positive, stubborn and curt than the next.
They drank Fariske’s compound ale and smoky spirits with zeal and ate
decisively. They derived neither expansion nor ease from their drinking, and
when drunk became torpid. As a rule Jantiff paid little heed to their
conversation; however, overhearing mention of the witches, he asked a question:
“Why do they never speak? Can anyone tell me this?”

The farmers exchanged smiles at Jantiff’s ignorance. “Certainly
they can speak,” declared the oldest and most amiable of the group, a person
named Skorbo. “My brother trapped two of them in his barn. The first got away;
the other he tied to the farrel-post and took the truth out of her I won’t say
how. The witch agreed that she could talk as well as the next person, but that
words carried too much magic for ordinary occasions; therefore they were never
used unless magic was to be worked, as at that very moment, so said the witch.
Then she sang out a rhyme, or whatever it might be, and Chabby—that’s my
brother—felt the blood rush to his ears in a burst and he ran from the bar. When
he came back with his vyre
[37]
the creature was walking away. He took aim, and would you think it? The vyre
exploded and tore open his hands!”

A farmer named Bodile jerked his head in scorn for the folly
of Chab the brother. “No one should use a vyre, nor any complex thing, against
a witch. A cudgel cut from a nine-year-old hawber and soaked nine nights in
water which has washed no living hand: that’s the best fend against witches.”

“I keep a besom of prickle-withe and it’s never failed me
yet,” said one named Sansoro. “I’ve laid it out ready for use and Fm smarting
up my wurgles; there’s a new coven into Inkwood.”

“I saw some yesterday,” said Duade, a lanky young man with a
great beak of a nose and crow-wing eyebrows. “They seemed on the move toward Wemish
Water. I shouted my curse, but they showed no haste.”

Skorbo drained, his mug and set it down with a rap. “The Connatic
should deal with them. We pay our yearly stiver
[38]
and what do we get in return? Felicitations and high prices. I’d as soon spend
my tax on ale. Boy! Bring another pint!”

“Yes, sir.”

Nearby sat a man in a suit of fawn-colored twill, to match
his sparse sandy hair. His shoulders were heavy, but narrow and sloping above a
pear-shaped tom This was Eubanq, the port agent, an outworlder appointed
by Grand Knight Shubert. Eubanq, a regular of the Old Groar, came every afternoon
to sip ale, munch percebs and play sanque at a dinket
[39]
a game, with whomever chose to challenge him. His manner was equable, humorous,
soft and sedate; his, lips constantly pursed and twitched as if at a series of
private amusements. Eubanq now called from a nearby table. “Never scurrilize
the Connatic, friends! He might be standing among us at this very minute. That’s
his dearest habit, as we all know quite well!”

Duade uttered a jeering laugh. “Not likely. Unless he’s this
new serving boy. But somehow I don’t see Janx in the part.”

“Janx” was a garbled mishearing of “Jantiff,” which
had gained currency, around the tavern.

“Janx is not our Connatic,” Eubanq agreed, with humorous emphasis.
“I’ve seen his picture and I can detect the difference. Still, never begrudge
the Connatic’s stiver. Have you ever looked’ up into the sky? You’ll see the
stars of Alastor cluster, all protected by the Whelm.”

Bodile grunted. “The stiver is wasted. Why should starmenters
come to Blale? There’s nothing for them to take; certainly not at my house.”

“Grand Knight Shubart is the bait,” said Skorbo. “He surrounds
himself with richness, as is his right; but by the same token he now must fear
the starmenters.”

Duade grumbled: “We both pay the same stiver! Who does the
Whelm protect? Shubart? Or me? Justice is remote.”

Eubanq laughed. “Take comfort! The Whelm is not
all-powerful! Perhaps they will fail to guard the Grand Knight, then your
stivers are equally misspent, so there you have your justice after all. And who
is for a quick go at the sanque board?”

“Not I,” said Duade sourly. “The Connatic takes his stiver;
you take our dinkets, Bahevah only knows by what set of artifices. I’ll play
no more with you.”

“Nor I,” said Bodile. “I know a better use for my dinkets.
Boy! Are the percebs on order?”

“In just a few minutes, sir.”

Eubanq, unable to promote a game, turned away from the farmers.
A few minutes later, finding a lull in his work, Jantiff approached him. “I
wonder, sir, if you’d be good enough to advise me.”

“Certainly, within the limits of discretion,” said Eubanq. “I
should warn you, however, that free advice is usually not worth its cost.”

Jantiff ignored the pleasantry. “I wish to take passage to Frayness on Zeck; this is Alastor 503, as no doubt you know. Is it possible
to arrange this passage from the Balad spaceport?”

Eubanq shook his head. “Ships clearing Balad invariably make
for Hilp and then Lambeter, to complete a circuit of the Gorgon’s Tusk.”

“Might I make connections from either Hilp or Lambeter to Zeck?”

“Certainly, except for the fact that the ships putting down
here won’t carry you; they’re not licensed to do so. Go to Uncibal and take a
Black Arrow packet direct.”

“I am bored with Uncibal,” Jantiff muttered. “I don’t want
to set foot there again.”

“Then I fear that you must reconcile yourself to residence
in Blale.”

Jantiff considered a moment. “I hold a passage voucher to
Zeck. Could you issue me a ticket from Baled directly through to Frayness, so
that I could board the packet without going through Uncibal Terminal?”

Eubanq’s glance became shrewd and inquisitive. “This is possible.
But how would you travel from Baled to Uncibal?”

“Is there no connecting service?”

“No scheduled commercial flights.”

‘Well, suppose you were making the trip: how would you go?”

“I would hire someone with a flibbit to fly me. Naturally it
wouldn’t come cheap, as it’s a far distance.”

‘Well then—how much?”

Eubanq pulled thoughtfully at his chin. “I could arrange it for
a hundred owls; that’s my guess. It might come more. It won’t come less.”

“A hundred ozols!” cried Jantiff in shock. “That’s a vast sum!”

Eubanq shrugged. “Not when you consider what’s involved. A
man with a sound flibbit won’t care to work on the cheap. No more do I, for
that matter.”

A call came from the farmers: “Boy! Service!”

Jantiff turned away. A hundred ozols! Surely the figure was
excessive! At two ozols a day and not a dinket wasted, a hundred ozols meant
fifty days; the Arrabin Centenary would have come and gone!

No doubt the hundred owls included a substantial fee for
Eubanq, thought Jantiff glumly. Well, either Eubanq must reduce his fee or
Jantiff must earn more money. The first proposition was far-fetched: Eubanq’s
parsimony was something of a joke around the Old Groar. According to Fariske,
Eubanq had arrived at Baled wearing his fawn twill costume and never had worn
anything else. So then: how to earn more money? No easy accomplishment in view
of the demands Fariske made upon his time.

So Jantiff reflected as he cleared a vacated table.—He
glanced resentfully toward Eubanq, who was deep in colloquy with a person
newly arrived at the Old Groar. Jantiff froze in his tracks. The new arrival, a
person large and heavy, with coarse black hair, narrow eyes, a complexion
charged with heavy reeking blood, commanded local importance, to judge from
Eubanq’s obsequious manner. His garments by Baled standards were rather grand:
a pale blue suit (somewhat soiled) cut in military style, black boots; a black
harness and a cap of black bast set off with a fine panache of silver bristles.
He now looked around the room, saw Jantiff, signaled. “Boy! Bring ale!”

“Yes, sir.” With a beating heart Jantiff served the table.
Booch glanced at him again without any trace of recognition. “Is this Fariske’s
old Dark Wort? Or the Nebranger?”

“It’s the best Dark Won, sir.”

Booch dismissed Jantiff with a brusque nod. If he had so
much as noticed Jantiff at the bonterfest, the recollection apparently had
dissolved. More reason than ever to leave Balad, Jantiff told himself through
gritted teeth. A hundred ozols might turn out to be a dramatic bargain!

Eubanq presently rose to his feet and took leave of Booth.
Jantiff accosted him near the door. “I don’t have a hundred ozols now, but I’ll
make up the amount as soon as possible.”

“Good enough,” said Eubanq. “I’ll check the Black Arrow
schedule, and we can set up definite arrangements.”

Jantiff made a half-hearted proposal: “If you could get me
away sooner, I’d pay you as soon as I arrived on Zeck.”

Eubanq gave an indulgent chuckle. “Zeck is far from Baled;
memories sometimes don’t extend such distances.”

“You could trust me! I’ve never cheated anyone in my life!”

Eubanq raised his hand in a laughing disclaimer. “Nevertheless
and not withstanding! I invariably do business in proper fashion, and that
means ozols on the barrel head!”

Jantiff gave a morose shrug. “I’ll see what I can do. Er—who
is your friend yonder?”

Eubanq glanced back across the room. “That’s the Respectable
Buwechluter, usually known as Booch. He’s factotum to Grand Knight
Shubert, who happens to be offplanet at the moment, so Booch takes his ease at
the manor and regales us all with his blood-curdling anecdotes. Step smartly
when he calls his order and you’ll find no difficulties.”

“Boy. called out Booch at this moment. “Bring a double order
of percebs!”

“Sorry, sir! No percebs left; we’ve had a run on them today.”

Booch uttered a curse of disgust. “Why doesn’t Fariske plan more
providentially? Well then, bring me a slice of good fat grump and a half-pound
of haggot.”

Jantiff hastened to do Booch’s bidding, and so the evening
progressed.

The patrons departed at last and went their ways through the
misty Blale night. Jantiff cleared the tables, set the room to rights,
extinguished lights and gratefully retired to his room.

Taking all with all, Jantiff had no fault to find with the
Old Groar. But for his anxiety and Fariske’s importunities, he might have taken
pleasure in Baled and its dim, strange surroundings. He was aroused early by
Palinka, Fariske’s robust daughter, who then served him a breakfast of groats,
sausage and blackmold tea. Immediately thereafter he swabbed out the common
room, brought up supplies from the cellar and smartened up the bar in
preparation for the day’s business. After his third day a new task was required
of Jantiff. In rain or shine, mist or storm, he was sent out with a pair of
buckets to gather the day’s supply of percebs from the offshore rocks. Jantiff
came to enjoy this particular task above all others, in spite of the uncertain
weather and the chill water of the Moaning Ocean. Once beyond the immediate
precincts of Balad, solitude was absolute, and Jantiff had the shore to
himself.

Jantiff’s usual route was eastward along Dessimo Beach,
where half-sunken platforms of rock alternated with pleasant little coves.
Dunes along the shore-side supported a multitude of growths: purple gart,
puzzle-bush, ginger-tufts, creeping: jilberry, which squeaked when trod upon. Interspersed
were patches of silicanthus: miniature five-pronged radiants of a stuff Re
frosted glass, stained apparently at random in any of a hundred colors. Here
and there granat trees twisted and humped to the wind, with limbs wildly askew
like harridans in flight. When Jantiff looked south across the ocean, the near
horizon never failed to startle him with the illusion that he stood high in the
air. The wet days were undeniably dreary; and when the wind blew strong, the
ocean swells toppled ponderously over the rocks; and sometimes Jantiff slouched
empty-bucketed back to the Old Groar.