Wyst: Alastor 1716 (27 page)

Sabrose brushed away the mug. “Take away your headban
gers!
Let him know what he’s done to us!”

Jantiff’s hands were fixed into metal gloves, with loose
joints over the fingernails. Sabrose wielded a mallet to crush Jantiff’s fingertips.
Jantiff croaked and groaned.

“Now then!” said Sabrose. “When the nails drop off, apply
black niter of argent; maybe you’ll be cured.”

“He’s getting off too easy!” screamed a woman. “Here: my frack
sludge! Turn his face about; he’ll never see his mischief.”

Sabrose said: “Enough is enough; he’s beyond knowing
anything.”

“Not yet! Let him pay to the full. There! Now! Right in the face!”

A thick acrid fluid was flung into Jantiff’s face, scalding
his skin and searing his vision. He gave a strangled cry and tore at his eyes
with mutilated fingers.

The apothecary threw water into Jantiff’s face and wiped his
eyes with a rag. Then he turned in fury on the crowd. “You’ve punished him
beyond all justice! He’s only a poor sad lout.”

“Not so!” cried a voice which Jantiff recognized as that
of Eubanq. “He housed himself with a witch-woman; I saw her at his hut, and he
poisoned us knowingly with witch food!”

Jantiff mumbled: “Eubanq is a thief; Eubanq is a liar.” But
none heard him. Jantiff opened his eyes a crack, but a granular fog obscured
his vision. He moaned in shock and grief. “You’ve blinded me! I will never see
the colors!”

One of the women cried out: “Where now the horrid witch? Do
her like, the others!”

“No fear,” said Eubanq. “Booth has taken her in hand.”

Jantiff gave a call of mindless woe. He struggled to his
feet, flailed his arms to right and left, an act which the crowd considered
ludicrous. They began to bait Jantiff, shoving him, prodding his ribs, hissing
into his face. Jantiff at last threw up his hands and staggered off down the
street.

“Catch him!” screamed the most vindictive. “Bring him back
and deal with him properly!”

“Let him go,” growled an old fisherman. “I’ve seen enough.”

“What? After he has given us all the yellows?”

“And all must take the treatment?”

“He fed us witch food; never forget it!”

“Today let him go; tomorrow we will put him on a raft.”

“Quite right! Jantiff! Can you hear? Tomorrow you float
south across the ocean!”

Jantiff lurched heedlessly down the street. For a space
children followed him, jeering and throwing stones; then they were called back
and Jantiff went his way alone.

Out to the beach he stumbled, and along the familiar track.
With his eyes wide and staring he could see only a vague luminosity; he walked
a good distance but could not find, his hut. Finally he dropped down upon the
sand and turned his face to the sea. He sat a long time, confused and listless,
his hands throbbing with a pain to which he gave no heed. The fog across his vision
grew thick as Dwan set and night came to Dessimo Beach and the Moaning Ocean.
Still Jantiff sat, while water sucked across the offshore ledges.

A breeze drifted in from the ocean: at first a chilly breath
which tingled Jantiff’s skin, then gusts which penetrated his threadbare
garments.

Jantiff saw himself as if in a clairvoyant vision: a gaunt
creature crouched on the sand, all connections to the world of reality broken.
He began to grow warm and comfortable; he realized that he was about to die. Images
formed in his mind: Uncibal and Old Pink; the human tides along Uncibal River;
the four Whispers on the Pedestal. He saw Skorlet and Tanzel, Kedidah and the Ephthalotes;
Esteban and Booch and Contractor Shubert. Glisten appeared, facing him from a
distance of no more than an arm’s length, and gazed steadfastly into his eyes.
Miracle of miracles. He heard her speak, in a soft quick voice: “Jantiff, don’t
sit in the dark! Jantiff, please lift yourself! Don’t die!”

Jantiff shuddered and blinked, and tears ran from his eyes.
He thought of his cheerful home, at Frayness; he saw the faces of his father
and mother and sisters. “I don’t want to die,” said Jantiff. “I want to go
home.”

With a prodigious effort he hauled himself to his feet and
stumbled off along the beach. By chance he encountered an object he recognized:
the branches of a misshapen old codmollow tree. His hut stood only fifty yards
beyond; the ground was now familiar.

Jantiff groped his way to the hut, entered, carefully closed
the door. He stood stock still. Someone had only recently departed; his odor,
rank and heavy, hung on the air. Jantiff listened, but heard no sound. He was
alone. Tottering to his bed, he lay himself down and instantly fell asleep.

Jantiff awoke, jarred to consciousness by an awful imminence.

He lay quiet. His blinded eyes registered a watery gray
blur: daylight had arrived. A rank harsh odor reached his nostrils. He knew that
he was not alone.

Someone spoke. “So, Jantiff, here you are after all. I
looked for you last night, but you were out.” Jantiff recognized the voice of
Booch. He made no response.

“I looked for your money,” said Booch. “According to Eubanq,
you control quite a tidy sum.”

“Eubanq took my money yesterday.”

Booch made an unpleasant nasal sound. “Are you serious?”

“I don’t care about money now. Eubanq took it.”

“That cursed Eubanq!” groaned Booch. “He’ll make an accounting
to me!”

“Where is Glisten?”

“The kit? Ha, don’t worry about her, not a trifle. In five
minutes you’ll be past caring for anything. I’ve had my orders. I’m to put a
wire around your neck, without fail. Then I’ll settle with Eubanq. Then I’m off
to Uncibal, where I can take any woman I see for a dish of tripes… Raise
your head, Jantiff. This won’t take long.”

“I don’t want to die.”

“No use to whine. My orders are strict. Jantiff must definitely
be dead. So then—now none of your kicking or flailing about! Hold now.”

Jantiff scuttled sideways like a crab and through some mad
accident, pushed Booch off balance and rolled out the door. From far up the
beach came a jeering cry: “Mad Jantiff: there! You see him now!”

Jantiff heard Booch’s heavy tread. Two steps, then an uncertain
halt and a mutter of annoyance. “Now, in the name of Gasmus, who can that be? A
stranger, an off-worlder. Does he plan to interfere? I’ll stop him short.”

Steps approached. A boy’s voice cried out in glee: “That’s
Mad Jantiff on the ground, and there’s Constable Booch, who’ll give it to him
properly; you’ll see!”

“Good morning to you both,” said a pleasant voice. “Jantiff,
you seem to be in poor condition.”

“Yes, I’ve been blinded, and my fingers are all broken.”

The boy cried out in eager fury: “Never fear, there’s more
to come! Sir, he gave us all the yellows, and he consorted with a witch! May I
strike him with this stick?”

“By no means!” said the newcomer. “You are far too ardent;
calm yourself! Jantiff, I am here in response to your numerous messages. I am
the Respectable Ryl Shermatz, a representative of the Connatic.”

Jantiff sat dazed on, the ground. “You are the cursar?”

“No. My authority considerably exceeds his.”

“Then ask Booch what he did with Glisten. He may have killed
her.”

“Utter nonsense,” said Booch in jovial, if uneasy, tones. “Jantiff,
you have peculiar notions about me.”

“You brought your wurgle and hunted her down! Where is she
now?”

Ryl Shermatz said: “Constable Booch, I suggest that you
respond to Jantiff’s question, in all candor.”

“Lacking facts, how can I answer? And why all the anxiety?’
She was just a witch-kit.”

“You speak in the past tense,” noted Ryl Shermatz. “Is this
significant?”

“Of course not! I chanced to stroll past with my wurgle,
admittedly, and she ran off, but what’s that to me? Or to you, for that matter?”

“I am the Connatic’s agent. I am required to adjust situations
such as this.”

“But there is no situation to adjust! Look yonder; even now
she’s coming out of the Sych!”

Jantiff struggled to his knees. “Where? Tell me where. But I
can’t see.”

The boy gave a screech of panic; there came an odd sequence
of sounds: a. stamping of feet, a whisper as if of spurting gas, a thud, a
gasp, a scuffling sound; then, for a moment, silence.

The boy babbled: “He’s dead! He tried to kill you! How did
you know?”

Ryl Shermatz spoke without perturbation: “I am sensitive to
danger, and well trained to deal with it.”

“Who came from the forest?” cried Jantiff. “Was it Glisten?”

“No one came from the forest; Booch attempted a ruse.”

“Then where can she be?”

“We shall do our best to find her. But now: tell me why you
sent so many urgent messages.”

“I will tell you,” mumbled Jantiff. “I want only to talk; I
must do hours and hours of talking—”

“Steady, Jantiff. Come, sit here on the bench. Boy, run to town;
bring back new bread and a pot of good soup. Here: an ozol for your pains…
Now, Jantiff, talk, if you are able.”

Dwan, halfway up the sky, shone from behind films of
shifting mist. Jantiff sat on the bench, leaning back against his ramshackle
stone and seaweed hut. Ryl Shermatz, a person of medium stature, with
well-formed features and short brown hair, stood beside him, one leg propped
upon the bench. He had dragged the dead hulk around to the side; only Booch’s
black boots, extending past the edge of the hut, bore witness to his presence.

Jantiff spoke at length, in a voice which presently dwindled
to a husky croak.

Ryl Shermatz said little, inserting only an occasional question.
From time to time he nodded as if Jantiff’s remarks reinforced opinions of his
own.

Jantiff’s account came to an end: “My only uncertainty is
Glisten. Last night I dreamt of her, and in my dream she spoke; it was strange
to hear her, and even in my sleep I felt as if I would weep.”

Ryl Shermatz gazed south over the gray ocean. “Well, Jantiff,”
he said at last, “it is clear that you have endured hard times. Let me
summarize your statement. You believe that Esteban, looking over your drawings
of the four Whispers, noticed the resemblance between three of the Whispers and
himself, Skorlet and Sarp. You theorize that Esteban, with his devious and
supple mind, inevitably recognized the potentiality of the situation, and
began, idly at first, to consider methods for making the possible real. A
fourth member of the cabal was needed: who better than a man of wealth, power
and motivation; in short, a contractor? Esteban searched the reference book,
and there, made for the part, he discovered Contractor Shubart.

“Esteban, Skorlet and Sarp were motivated by their lust for
food and luxury. Shubart had long enjoyed the good things of life, but now was
threatened by the Whispers who intended to free Arrabus from the contractors
and already had informed the Connatic of their plans. Shubart needed funds to
implement his grand plans for the Weirdlands; he readily joined Esteban,
Skorlet and Sarp.

“They contrived a bold and very simple scheme. Here you
assert that Skorlet, Esteban, Sarp and Shubart journeyed to Waunisse and there
boarded the airship on which the Whispers would return to Uncibal. During the
flight the Whispers were killed with all their entourage and dropped into the
sea. When the
Sea Disk
landed, Esteban, Skorlet, Sarp and Shubart had
become the Whispers. They showed themselves briefly on the Pedestal. No one inspected
them closely; no one could have suspected their deed: except you, who were
disturbed and perplexed.

“The new Whispers traveled to Numenes, where they consulted
the Connatic at Lusz. He found them an unsympathetic group: insincere, evasive
and tawdry. Their statements rang false, and failed to accord with their
purported mission, as proposed by the original Whispers. The Connatic decided
to look more closely into the matter, especially since he had received urgent
messages concerning a certain Jantiff Ravensroke.

“I was assigned to the task and arrived at Uncibal two days
ago. Immediately I tried to find Cursar Bonamico. I learned that he had flown
to Waunisse, on business connected with the Whispers, that he had boarded the
same aircraft on which the Whispers returned to Uncibal.

“He never alighted from this aircraft, and the inference is
clear. He was murdered and thrust into the Salaman Sea. I naturally took note
of the messages you had dispatched from Balad. Last night a final message arrived.
The voice was that of a woman—a girl, according to the clerk Aleida Gluster.
The woman, or girl, spoke in great agitation: “Come quickly, come quickly to
Balad; they’re doing terrible things to Jantiff!’ And that was all.”

“A girl spoke?” muttered Jantiff. “Who could that have been?
Glisten can’t speak, except in dreams… Might the clerk have been asleep and
dreaming?”

“An interesting conjecture,” said Ryl Shermatz. “Aleida
Gluster said nothing in this regard, one way or the other… Here we are at
Balad. We shall go to the Old Groar Tavern and refresh ourselves. Then we shall
try to subdue these obstreperous folk.”

“Eubanq is more than obstreperous,” Jantiff muttered. “He
stole my money and told Booch about Glisten.”

“I have not forgotten Eubanq,” said Ryl Shermatz.

The two men entered the Old Groar. At the tables sat a
considerable number of customers: double the usual for this hour of the day.
Fariske came hurriedly forward, his round white forehead glistening with droplets
of sweat. “This way, gentlemen,” he cried in brave joviality. “Be seated! Will
you drink ale? I recommend my Old Dankwort!”

Clearly the boy who had guided Ryl Shermatz to Jantiff’s hut
had returned to Balad bearing large tales. “You may bring us ale and something
to eat,” said Shermatz. “But first: is the person known as Eubanq present in
the room?”

Fariske darted a series of nervous glances along the tables.
“He is not here. You will probably find him at the depot, where he serves as general agent.”

“Be good enough to select three reliable men from among your
customers and bring them here.”

“‘Reliable’? Well, let me consider. That is a hard question.
I’ll summon the best of the lot. Garfred! Sabrose! Osculot! Step over here, at
once!”

The three men approached with varying degrees of truculence.

Ryl Shermatz appraised them with an impassive gaze. “I am
Ryl Shermatz, the Connatic’s agent. I appoint you my deputies for the period of
one day. You are now, like myself, invested with the inviolable authority of
the Connatic, under my orders. Is this clear?”

The three men shuffled their feet and signified their understanding:
Garfred with a surly grunt; Sabrose making an amiable gesture; Osculot showing
a grimace of misgiving.

Ryl Shermatz spoke on. “Proceed at once to the depot. Place
Eubanq under the Connatic’s arrest. Bring him here at once. Under no circumstances
allow him freedom from your custody: not so much as a minute. Be on the guard
for any weapons he may carry. Go in haste!”

The three men departed the tavern. Ryl Shermatz turned to
Fariske, who stood anxiously to the side. ‘‘Send other men to summon all
the folk of Balad to an immediate assembly in front of the Old Groar. Then you
may serve us our refreshment.”

Jantiff sat in the dark, listening to the mutter of voices,
the clink of mugs, the scrape of feet. Warmth and relaxation eased his limbs;
lassitude came upon him. Ryl Shermatz spoke quietly to someone who made no response:,
perhaps by means of a transceiver, thought Jantiff. A moment later Shermatz
sent Voris to fetch the apothecary, who arrived within the minute.

Shermatz took the apothecary aside; the two conferred and
the apothecary departed. Shermatz spoke to Jantiff: “I have specified a
treatment to restore a certain fraction of your vision. Later, of course, we
will arrange a thorough therapy.”

“I will be grateful for any improvement.”

The apothecary returned. Jantiff beard muted voices as his
case was discussed; then the apothecary addressed him directly. “Now, Jantiff,
here is the situation. The surfaces of your eyes have been frosted by the
caustic, and are no longer transparent to light. I am about to attempt a rather
novel treatment: I coat the surface of your eyes with an emulsion, which
quickly dries to a transparent film. Perhaps you will feel discomfort, perhaps
you will notice nothing whatever. With the irregularities smoothed out, light
should once again reach your retina. I will mention that the film is microscopically
porous to allow passage of oxygen. Please lean back, open your right eye wide
and do not move… Very good. Now the left. Do not blink, if you please.”

Jantiff felt a cool sensation across the front of his eyes,
then an odd, not unpleasant constriction across the eyeballs. Simultaneously
the blur before his vision began to dissipate as if a wind blew through the
optic fog. Objects loomed, assumed density; for a time they wavered in a
watery medium and presently stilled. Jantiff once more could see, with almost
the old clarity.

He looked around the room. He saw the grave faces of Ryl Shermatz
and the apothecary. Fariske stood by the counter, abdomen bulging out ahead.
Palinka peered from the kitchen, annoyed by the disruption to her daily routine.
Hunched over the tables, for the most part glowering and surly, sat the regular
Old Groar customers. Jantiff looked this way and that, entranced by the wonder
of this miraculous faculty which he thought that he had previously exploited to
the fullest. He studied the umber-black shadows at the back of the room, the
sheen of pewter mugs, the sallow milkwood tables, the shafts of pale lavender
light streaming down through the high windows. Jantiff thought:
In later
years, when I look across my life, I will mark well this moment in the Old
Groar Tavern at Balad on the planet Wyst…
A shuffle of activity distracted
Jantiff from his musing. Ryl Shermatz sauntered to the door. Jantiff, hauling
himself erect, threw back his shoulders and in unconscious imitation of Shermatz’
confident stride, went to the door.

A crowd had gathered before the Old Groar: the entire
population of Balad, except for Madame Tchaga who stood peering from the
Cimmery. Along the street came Sabrose and Garfred, with Eubanq between them
and Osculot bringing up the rear. Eubanq wore his fawn-colored suit, and today
a hat with a jaunty pointed bill. His expression, however, was not at all
jaunty. His cheeks sagged, his mouth hung in a lugubrious droop. Before
Jantiff’s inner vision came a remembered illustration from a story-book, depicting
a worried brown rat being brought before a tribunal of stately cats by a pair
of bulldog sergeants.

After a single glance, Shermatz turned away from Eubanq and
spoke to the crowd. “I am Ryl Shermatz, the Connatic’s agent, and I am here at
Balad in an official capacity.

“The Connatic’s policy is to allow all possible independence
of thought and action. He welcomes diversity and rules with restraint.

“Nonetheless, he, cannot tolerate a disregard for basic law.
Such occurs here at Balad. I refer to the persecution of certain forest
wanderers, whom you miscall witches. It now must terminate by the Connatic’s
edict. The ailment known as ‘the yellows’ results from a fungus-like growth; it
can be cured by a pill taken with water. The so-called witches are deaf-mute
not because of ‘the yellows’ but through a hysterical obsession. Organically
they are quite normal, and sometimes, under stress of emergency, they can force
themselves to speak. As for hearing, my advisers tell me that sound enters
their brain at a subliminal level; they do not know they are hearing, but
nevertheless are invested with information, much as telepathy affects the mind
of an ordinary person.

“Conditions at Balad are unsatisfactory. The Grand Knight
seems to act as an informal magistrate and dispenses such justice as he
sees fit through his constable. On other occasions, as when unforgivable
violence was done to the person of Jantiff Ravensroke, the community is guided
by irresponsible fury.

“A cursar will presently arrive to arrange a more orderly system.
He will right certain wrongs, and certain persons will regret his coming;
especially those who have taken part in the recent witch chasing. They
may expect severe penalties. At the moment I intend to deal only with
the assault performed upon Jantiff. Constable Sabrose, bring forward the woman
who blinded Jantiff.”

“It was Nellick, yonder.”

“Your Lordship, I acted not from malice; indeed, I thought I
held simple and wholesome water in my bucket. I am a laughing woman; I acted in
fun and only to ease the situation for the general benefit.”

“Jantiff, does this match your recollection?”

“No. She said, ‘Here, turn his face about; he will never see
the results of his mischief, even though I waste my frack.’”

“Well then: which version is correct? Constable?”

Sabrose grunted. “I don’t like to say. I was holding Jantiff
when she flung the stuff. It burnt my arms as well.”

Jantiff grimaced. “Don’t bother with any of them; there were
twenty or thirty people, all doing me harm. Except Grandel the apothecary, who
wiped my eyes.”

“Very well. Grandel, I instruct you to make a careful list
of those people who participated in the episode, and to fine them in proportion
to their guilt. The sum collected must be paid over to Jantiff. I suggest a
fine of five hundred ozols for the woman Nellick.”

Grandel looked uncomfortably around the crowd. “I will do my
best, though my popularity will not be enhanced.”

Fariske called out: “Not so! I took no part in the assault,
even though Jantiff sold percebs in competition with me. I believe that stern
fines are necessary to redeem the honor of Balad! I will help Grandel discover
each name and I will counsel him against leniency. If Grandel suffers unpopularity,
I will join him!”

“Then I will entrust the matter to the two of you. Now,
another matter. Your name is Eubanq?”

Eubanq nodded and smiled. “Sir, that is my name.”

“It is your entire name?”

Eubanq hesitated only the fraction of an instant. “Eubanq is
the name by which I am known.”

“Where is your place of birth?”

“Sir, as to that I cannot be sure. I was orphaned as a child.”

“That is, a tragic circumstance. Where were you reared?”

“I have visited many worlds, sir. I call no place home.”

“The Connatic’s cursar, when he arrives, will examine your
background with great care. At this moment I will only concern myself with events
of the recent past. First, I believe that you cashed in Jantiff’s
passage voucher and pocketed the money.”

Eubanq considered a moment, then, no doubt reflecting that
the matter was susceptible to quick verification, one way or the other, he gave
a slow polite nod. “I feel sure that Jantiff would never use the ticket, and I
saw no need to waste the money.”