The Dragon Masters

Chapter 6

Cut into the cliff south of the crag which housed Joaz’s apartments was a large chamber known as Kergan’s Hall. The proportions of the room, the simplicity and lack of ornament, the massive antique furniture contributed to the sense of lingering personality, as well as an odor unique to the room. This odor exhaled from naked stone walls, the petrified moss parquetry, old wood—a rough ripe redolence which Joaz had always disliked, together with every other aspect of the room. The dimensions seemed arrogant in their extent, the lack of ornament impressed him as rude, if not brutal. One day it occurred to Joaz that he disliked not the room but Kergan Banbeck himself, together with the entire system of overblown legends which surrounded him.

The room nevertheless in many respects was pleasant. Three tall groined windows overlooked the vale. The casements were set with small square panes of green-blue glass in muntins of black ironwood. The ceiling likewise was paneled in wood, and here a certain amount of the typical Banbeck intricacy had been permitted. There were mock pilaster capitals with gargoyle heads, a frieze carved with conventionalized fern-fronds. The furniture consisted of three pieces-two tall carved chairs and a massive table, all polished dark wood, all of enormous antiquity.

Joaz had found a use for the room. The table supported a carefully detailed relief map of the district, on a scale of three inches to the mile. At the center was Banbeck Vale, on the right hand Happy Valley, separated by a turmoil of crags and chasms, cliffs, spikes, walls and five titanic peaks: Mount Gethron to the south, Mount Despoire in the center, Barch Spike, the Fang and Mount Halcyon to the north.

At the front of Mount Gethron lay the High Jambles, then Starbreak Fell extended to Mount Despoire and Barch Spike. Beyond Mount Despoire, between the Skanse Ramparts and Barchback, the Skanse reached all the way to the tormented basalt ravines and bluffs at the foot of Mount Halcyon.

As Joaz stood studying the map, into the room came Phade, mischievously quiet. But Joaz sensed her nearness by the scent of incense, in the smoke of which she had steeped herself before seeking out Joaz. She wore a traditional holiday costume of Banbeck maidens—a tight-fitting sheath of dragon intestine, with muffs of brown fur at neck, elbows and knees. A tall cylindrical hat, notched around the upper edge, perched on her rich brown curls, and from the top of this hat soared a red plume.

Joaz feigned unconsciousness of her presence; she came up behind him to tickle his neck with the fur of her neckpiece. Joaz pretended stolid indifference; Phade, not at all deceived, put on a face of woeful concern. “Must we all be slain? How goes the war?”

“For Banbeck Vale the war goes well. For poor Ervis Carcolo and Happy Valley the war goes ill indeed.”

“You plan his destruction,” Phade intoned in a voice of hushed accusation. “You will kill him! Poor Ervis Carcolo!”

“He deserves no better.”

“But what will befall Happy Valley?”

Joaz Banbeck shrugged. “Changes for the better.”

“Will you seek to rule?”

“Not I.”

“Think!” whispered Phade. “Joaz Banbeck, Tyrant of Banbeck Vale, Happy Valley, Phosphur Gulch, Glore, the Tarn, Clewhaven and the Great Northern Rift.”

“Not I,” said Joaz. “Perhaps you would rule in my stead?”

“Oh! Indeed! What changes there would be! I’d dress the sacerdotes in red and yellow ribbons. I’d order them to sing and dance and drink May wine; the dragons I’d send south to Arcady, except for a few gentle Termagants to nursemaid the children. And no more of these furious battles. I’d burn the armor and break the swords, I’d—”

“My dear little flutterbug,” said Joaz with a laugh. “What a swift reign you’d have indeed!”

“Why swift? Why not forever? If men had no means to fight-”

“And when the Basics came down, you’d throw garlands around their necks?”

Pah. They shall never be seen again. What do they gain by molesting a few remote valleys?”

“Who knows what they gain? We are free men—perhaps the last free men in the universe. Who knows? And will they be back? Coralyne is bright in the sky!”

Phade became suddenly interested in the relief map. “And your current war—dreadful! Will you attack, will you defend?”

“This depends on Ervis Carcolo,” said Joaz. “I need only wait till he exposes himself.” Looking down at the map he added thoughtfully, “He is clever enough to do me damage, unless I move with care.”

“And what if the Basics come while you bicker with Carcolo?”

Joaz smiled. “Perhaps we shall all flee to the Jambles. Perhaps we shall all fight.”

“I will fight beside you,” declared Phade, striking a brave attitude. “We will attack the great Basic spaceship, braving the heat rays, fending off the power bolts. We will storm to the very portal, we will pull the nose of the first marauder who shows himself!”

“At one point your otherwise sage strategy falls short,” said Joaz. “How does one find the nose of a Basic?”

“In that case,” said Phade, “we shall seize their—” She turned her head at a sound in the hall. Joaz strode across the room, flung back the door. Old Rife the porter sidled forward. “You told me to call when either the bottle overturned or broke. Well, it’s done both, and irreparably, not five minutes ago.”

Joaz pushed past Rife, ran down the corridor. “What means this?” demanded Phade. “Rife, what have you said to disturb him?”

Rife shook his head fretfully. “I am as perplexed as you. A bottle is pointed out to me. ‘Watch this bottle day and night’. So I am commanded. And also, ‘When the bottle breaks or tips, call me at once.’ I tell myself that here in all truth is a sinecure. And I wonder, does Joaz consider me so senile that I will rest content with a make-work task such as watching a bottle? I am old, my jaws tremble, but I am not witless. To my surprise the bottle breaks! The explanation admittedly is workaday: a fall to the floor. Nevertheless, without knowledge of what it all means. I obey orders and so have notified Joaz Banbeck.”

Phade had been squirming impatiently. “Where then is this bottle?”

“In the studio of Joaz Banbeck.”

Phade ran off as swiftly as the tight sheath about her thighs permitted. She passed through a transverse tunnel, across Kergan’s Way by a covered bridge, then up at a slant toward Joaz’s apartments.

Down the long hall ran Phade, through the anteroom where a bottle lay shattered on the floor, into the studio, where she halted in astonishment. No one was to be seen. She noticed a section of shelving which stood at an angle. Quietly, timorously, she stole across the room, peered down into the workshop.

The scene was an odd one. Joaz stood negligently, smiling a cool smile, as across the room a naked sacerdote gravely sought to shift a barrier which had sprung down across an area of the wall. But the gate was cunningly locked in place, and the sacerdote’s efforts were to no avail. He turned, glanced briefly at Joaz, then started for the exit into the studio.

Phade sucked in her breath, backed away.

The sacerdote came out into the studio, started for the door.

“Just a moment,” said Joaz. “I wish to speak to you.”

The sacerdote paused, turned his head in mild inquiry. He was a young man, his face bland, blank, almost beautiful. Fine transparent skin stretched over his pale bones; his eyes, wide, blue, innocent, seemed to stare without focus. He was delicate of frame, sparsely fleshed; his hands were thin, with fingers trembling in some kind of nervous imbalance. Down his back, almost to his waist, hung the mane of long light-brown hair.

Joaz seated himself with ostentatious deliberation, never taking his eyes from the sacerdote. Presently he spoke in a voice pitched at an ominous level. “I find your conduct far from ingratiating.” This was a declaration requiring no response, and the sacerdote made none.

“Please sit,” said Joaz. He indicated a bench. “You have a great deal of explaining to do.”

Was it Phade’s imagination? Or did a spark of something like wild amusement flicker and die almost instantaneously in the sacerdote’s eyes? But again he made no response. Joaz, adapting to the peculiar rules by which communication with the sacerdotes must be conducted, asked, “Do you care to sit?”

“It is immaterial,” said the sacerdote. “Since I am standing now, I will stand.”

Joaz rose to his feet and performed an act without precedent. He pushed the bench behind the sacerdote, rapped the back of the knobby knees, thrust the sacerdote firmly down upon the bench. “Since you are sitting now,” said Joaz, “you might as well sit.”

With gentle dignity the sacerdote regained his feet. “I shall stand.”

Joaz shrugged. “As you wish. I intend to ask you some questions. I hope that you will co-operate and answer with precision.”

The sacerdote blinked owlishly.

“Will you do so?”

“Certainly. I prefer, however, to return the way I came.”

Joaz ignored the remark. “First,” he asked, “why do you come to my study?”

The sacerdote spoke carefully, in the voice of one talking to a child. “Your language is vague; I am confused and must not respond, since I am vowed to give only truth to anyone who requires it.”

Joaz settled himself in his chair. “There is no hurry. I am ready for a long discussion. Let me ask you then—did you have impulses which you can explain to me, which persuaded or impelled you to come to my studio?”

“Yes.”

“How many of these impulses did you recognize?”

“I don’t know.”

“More than one?”

“Perhaps.”

“Less than ten?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hmm . . . Why are you uncertain?”

“I am not uncertain.”

“Then why can’t you specify the number as I requested?”

“There is no such number.”

“I see. You mean, possibly, that there are several elements of a single motive which directed your brain to signal your muscles in order that they might carry you here?”

“Possibly.”

Joaz’s thin lips twisted in a faint smile of triumph. “Can you describe an element of the eventual motive?”

“Yes.”

“Do so, then.”

There was an imperative, against which the sacerdote was proof. Any form of coercion know to Joaz—fire, sword, thirst, mutilation—these to a sacerdote were no more than inconveniences; he ignored them as if they did not exist. His personal inner world was the single world of reality; either acting upon or reacting against the affairs of the Utter Men demeaned him, absolute passivity, absolute candor were his necessary courses of action. Understanding something of this, Joaz rephrased his command. “Can you think of an element of the motive which impelled you to come here?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“A desire to wander about.”

“Can you think of another?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“A desire to exercise myself by walking.”

“I see. Incidentally, are you trying to evade answering my questions?”

“I answer such questions as you put to me. So long as I do so, so long as I open my mind to all who seek knowledge—for this is our creed—there can be no question of evasion.”

“So you say. However, you have not provided me an answer that I find satisfactory.”

The sacerdote’s reply to the comment was an almost imperceptible widening of the pupils.

“Very well then,” said Joaz Banbeck. “Can you think of another element to this complex motive we have been discussing?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“I am interested in antiques. I came to your study to admire your relicts of the old worlds.”

“Indeed?” Joaz raised his eyebrows. “I am lucky to possess such fascinating treasures. Which of my antiques interests you particularly?”

“Your books, your maps, your great globe of the Arch-world.”

“The Arch-world? Eden?”

“This is one of its names.”

Joaz pursed his lips. “So you come here to study my antiques. Well then, what other elements to this motive exist?”

The sacerdote hesitated an instant. “It was suggested to me that I come here.”

“By whom?”

“By the Demie.”

“Why did he so suggest?”

“I am uncertain.”

“Can you conjecture?”

“Yes.”

“What are these conjectures?”

The sacerdote made a small bland gesture with the fingers of one hand. “The Demie might wish to become an Utter Man, and so seeks to learn the principles of your existence. Or the Demie might wish to change the trade articles. The Demie might be fascinated by my descriptions of your antiques. Or the Demie might be curious regarding the focus of your vision panels. Or—”

“Enough. Which of these conjectures, and of other conjectures you have not yet divulged, do you consider most probable?”

“None.”

Joaz raised his eyebrows once more. “How do you justify this?”

“Since any desired number of conjectures can be formed, the denominator of any probability-ratio is variable and the entire concept becomes meaningless.”

Joaz grinned wearily. “Of the conjectures which to this moment have occurred to you, which do you regard as the most likely?”

“I suspect that the Demie might think it desirable that I come here to stand.”

“What do you achieve by standing?”

“Nothing.”

“Then the Demie does not send you here to stand.”

To Joaz’s assertion, the sacerdote made no comment.

Joaz framed a question with great care. “What do you believe that the Demie hopes you will achieve by coming here to stand?”

“I believe that he wishes me to learn how Utter Men think.”

“And you learn how I think by coming here?”

“I am learning a great deal.”

“How does it help you?”

“I don’t know.”

“How many times have you visited my study?”

“Seven times.”

“Why were you chosen specially to come?”

“The synod has approved my tand. I may well be the next Demie.”

Joaz spoke over his shoulder to Phade. “Brew tea.” He turned back to the sacerdote. “What is a tand?”

The sacerdote took a deep breath. “My tand is the representation of my soul.”

“Hmm. What does it look like?”

The sacerdote’s expression was unfathomable. “It cannot be described.”

“Do I have one?”

“No.”

Joaz shrugged. “Then you can read my thoughts.”

Silence.

“Can you read my thoughts?”

“Not well.”

“Why should you wish to read my thoughts?”

“We are alive in the universe together. Since we are not permitted to act, we are obliged to know.”

Joaz smiled skeptically. “How does knowledge help you, if you will not act upon what you know?”

“Events follow the Rationale, as water drains into a hollow and forms a pool.”

“Bah!” said Joaz, in sudden irritation. “Your doctrine commits you to non-interference in our affairs, nevertheless you allow your ‘Rationale’ to create conditions by which events are influenced. Is this correct?”

“I am not sure. We are a passive people.”

“Still, your Demie must have had a plan in mind when he sent you here. Is this not correct?”

“I cannot say.”

Joaz veered to a new line of questioning. “Where does the tunnel behind my workshop lead?”

“Into a cavern.”

Phade set a silver pot before Joaz. He poured, sipped reflectively. Of contests there were numberless varieties; he and the sacerdote were engaged in a hide-and-seek game of words and ideas. The sacerdote was schooled in patience and supple evasions, to counter which Joaz could bring pride and determination. The sacerdote was handicapped by an innate necessity to speak truth; Joaz, on the other hand, must grope like a man blindfolded, unacquainted with the goal he sought, ignorant of the prize to be won. Very well, thought Joaz, let us continue. We shall see whose nerves fray first. He offered tea to the sacerdote, who refused with a shake of the head so quick and of such small compass as to seem a shudder.

Joaz made a gesture signifying it was all the same to him. “Should you desire sustenance or drink,” he said, “please let it be known. I enjoy our conversation so inordinately that I fear I may prolong it to the limits of your patience. Surely you would prefer to sit?”

“No.”

“As you wish. Well then, back to our discussion. This cavern you mentioned—is it inhabited by sacerdotes?”

“I fail to understand your question.”

“Do sacerdotes use the cavern?”

“Yes.”

Eventually, fragment by fragment, Joaz extracted the information that the cavern connected with a series of chambers, in which the sacerdotes smelted metal, boiled glass, ate, slept, performed their rituals. At one time there had been an opening into Banbeck Vale, but long ago this had been blocked. Why? There were wars throughout the cluster; bands of defeated men were taking refuge upon Aerlith, settling in rifts and valleys. The sacerdotes preferred a detached existence and had shut their caverns away from sight. Where was this opening? The sacerdote seemed vague, indefinite. Somewhere to the north end of the valley. Behind Banbeck Jambles? Possibly. But trading between men and sacerdotes was conducted at a cave entrance below Mount Gethron. Why? A matter of usage, declared the sacerdote. In addition this location was more readily accessible to Happy Valley and Phosphor Gulch. How many sacerdotes lived in these caves? Uncertainty. Some might have died, others might have been born. Approximately how many this morning? Perhaps five hundred.

At this juncture the sacerdote was swaying and Joaz was hoarse. “Back to your motive—or the elements of your motives—for coming to my studio. Are they connected in any manner with the star Coralyne, and a possible new coming of the Basics, or the grephs, as they were formerly called?”

Again the sacerdote seemed to hesitate. Then, “Yes.”

“Will the sacerdotes help us against the Basics, should they come?”

“No.” This answer was terse and definite.

“But I assume that the sacerdotes wish the Basics drivenoff?”

No answer.

Joaz rephrased his words. “Do the sacerdotes wish the Basics repelled from Aerlith?”

“The Rationale bids us stand aloof from affairs of men and non-men alike.”

Joaz curled his lip. “Suppose the Basics invaded your caves, dragged you off to the Coralyne planet, then what?”

The sacerdote almost seemed to laugh. “The question cannot be answered.”

“Would you resist the Basics if they made the attempt?”

“I cannot answer your question.”

Joaz laughed. “But the answer is not no?”

The sacerdote assented.

“Do you have weapons, then?”

The sacerdote’s mild blue eyes seemed to droop. Secrecy? Fatigue? Joaz repeated the question.

“Yes,” said the sacerdote. His knees sagged, but he snapped them tight.

“What kind of weapons?”

“Numberless varieties. Projectiles, such as rocks. Piercing weapons, such as broken sticks. Cutting and slashing weapons such as cooking utensils.” His voice began to fade as if he were moving away. “Poisons—arsenic, sulfur, triventidum, acid, black-spore. Burning weapons, such as torches and lenses to focus the sunlight. Weapons to suffocate—ropes, nooses, slings and cords. Cisterns, to drown the enemy. . . .”

“Sit down, rest,” Joaz urged him. “Your inventory interests me, but its total effect seems inadequate. Have you other weapons which might decisively repel the Basics should they attack you?”

The question, by design, or chance, was never answered. The sacerdote sank to his knees, slowly, as if praying. He fell forward on his face, then sprawled to the side. Joaz sprang forward, yanked up the drooping head by its hair. The eyes, half-open, revealed a hideous white expanse. “Speak!” croaked Joaz. “Answer my last question! Do you have weapons—or a weapon—to repel a basic attack?”

The pallid lips moved. “I don’t know.”

Joaz frowned, peered into the waxen face, drew back in bewilderment. “The man is dead.”

Phade looked up from drowsing on a couch, face pink, hair tossed. “You have killed him!” she cried in a voice of hushed horror.

“No. He has died—or caused himself to die.”

Phade staggered blinking across the room, sidled close to Joaz, who pushed her absently away. Phade scowled, shrugged, and then as Joaz paid her no heed, marched from the room.

Joaz sat back, staring at the limp body. “He did not tire,” muttered Joaz, “until I verged upon secrets.”

Presently he jumped to his feet, went to the entry hall, sent Rife to fetch a barber. An hour later the corpse, stripped of hair, lay on a wooden pallet covered by a sheet, and Joaz held in his hands a rude wig fashioned from the long hair.

The barber departed; servants carried away the corpse. Joaz stood alone in his studio, tense and light-headed. He removed his garments, to stand naked as the sacerdote. Gingerly he drew the wig across his scalp and examined himself in the mirror. To a casual eye, where the difference? Something was lacking. The torc. Joaz fitted it about his neck, once more examined his reflection, with dubious satisfaction.

He entered the workshop, hesitated, disengaged the trap, cautiously pulled away the stone slab. On hands and knees he peered into the tunnel, and since it was dark, held forward a glass vial of luminescent algae. In the faint light the tunnel seemed empty. Irrevocably putting down his fears, Joaz clambered through the opening. The tunnel was narrow and low; Joaz moved forward tentatively, nerves thrilling with wariness. He stopped often to listen, but heard nothing but the whisper of his own pulse.

After perhaps a hundred yards the tunnel broke out into a natural cavern. Joaz stopped, stood indecisively, straining his ears through the gloom. Luminescent vials fixed to the walls at irregular intervals provided a measure of light, enough to delineate the direction of the cavern, which seemed to be north, parallel to the length of the valley. Joaz set forth once again, halting to listen every few yards. To the best of his knowledge the sacerdotes were a mild unaggressive folk, but they were also intensely secretive. How would they respond to the presence of an interloper? Joaz could not be sure, and proceeded with great caution.

The cavern rose, fell, widened, narrowed. Joaz presently came upon evidences of use—small cubicles, hollowed into the walls, lit by candelabra holding tall vials of luminous stuff. In two of the cubicles Joaz came upon sacerdotes, the first asleep on a reed rug, the second sitting cross-legged, gazing fixedly at a contrivance of twisted metal rods. They gave Joaz no attention; he continued with a more confident step.

The cave sloped downward, widened like a cornucopia, suddenly broke into a cavern so enormous that Joaz thought for a startled instant that he had stepped out into the night. The ceiling reached beyond the flicker of the myriad of lamps, fires and glowing vials. Ahead and to the left smelters and forges seemed to be in operation; then a twist in the cavern wall obscured something of the view. Joaz glimpsed a tiered tubular construction which seemed to be some sort of workshop, for a large number of sacerdotes were occupied at complicated tasks. To the right was a stack of bales; a row of bins contained goods of unknown nature. Joaz for the first time saw sacerdote women. They were neither the nymphs nor the half-human witches of popular legend. Like the men they seemed pallid and frail, with sharply defined features; like the men they moved with care and deliberation; and like the men they wore only their waist-long hair. There was little conversation and no laughter: rather an atmosphere of not unhappy placidity and concentration. The cavern exuded a sense of time, of use and custom. The stone floor was polished by endless padding of bare feet; the exhalations of many generations had stained the walls.

No one heeded Joaz. He moved slowly forward, keeping to the shadows, and paused under the stack of bales. To the right the cavern dwindled by irregular proportions into a vast horizontal funnel, receding, twisting, telescoping, losing all reality in the dim light.

Joaz searched the entire sweep of vast cavern. Where would be the armory, with the weapons whose existence the sacerdote, by the very act of dying, had assured him? Joaz turned his attention once more to the left, straining to see detail in the odd tiered workshop which rose fifty feet from the stone floor. A strange edifice, thought Joaz, craning his neck; one whose nature he could not entirely comprehend. But every aspect of the great cavern—so close beside Banbeck Vale and so remote—was strange and marvelous. Weapons? They might be anywhere; certainly he dared seek no further for them. There was nothing more he could learn without risk of discovery. He turned back the way he had come—up the dim passage, past the occasional side cubicles, where the two sacerdotes remained as he had found them before—the one asleep, the other intent on the contrivance of twisted metal. He plodded on and on. Had he come so far? Where was the fissure which led to his own apartment? Had he passed it by, must he search? Panic rose in his throat, but he continued, watching carefully. There, he had not gone wrong! There it opened to his right, a fissure almost dear and familiar. He plunged into it, walked with long loping strides, like a man under water, holding his luminous tube ahead. An apparition rose before him, a tall white shape. Joaz stood rigid. The gaunt figure bore down upon him. Joaz pressed against the wall. The figure stalked forward, and suddenly shrank to human scale. It was the young sacerdote whom Joaz had shorn and left for dead. He confronted Joaz, mild blue eyes bright with reproach and contempt. “Give me my torc.”

With numb fingers Joaz removed the golden collar. The sacerdote took it, but made no move to clasp it upon himself. He looked at the hair which weighted heavy upon Joaz’s scalp. With a foolish grimace Joaz doffed the disheveled wig, proffered it. The sacerdote sprang back as if Joaz had become a cave goblin. Sidling past, as far from Joaz as the wall of the passage allowed, he paced swiftly off down the tunnel. Joaz dropped the wig to the floor, stared down at the unkempt pile of hair. He turned, looked after the sacerdote, a pallid figure which soon became one with the murk. Slowly Joaz continued up the tunnel. There—an oblong blank of light, the opening to his workshop. He crawled through, back to the real world. Savagely, with all his strength, he thrust the slab back in the hole, slammed down the gate which originally had trapped the sacerdote.

Joaz’s garments lay where he had tossed them. Wrapping himself in a cloak he went to the outer door, looked forth into the anteroom, where Rife sat dozing. Joaz snapped his fingers. “Fetch masons, with mortar, steel and stone.”

Joaz bathed with diligence, rubbing himself time after time with emulsion, rinsing and re-rinsing himself. Emerging from the bath he took the waiting masons into his workshop, ordered the sealing of the hole.

Then he took himself to his couch. Sipping a cup of wine, he let his mind rove and wander. Recollection became reverie, reverie became dream. Joaz once again traversed the tunnel, on feet light as thistle-down, down the long cavern, and the sacerdotes in their cubicles now raised their heads to look after him. At last he stood in the entrance to the great underground void, and once more looked right and left in awe. Now he drifted across the floor, past sacerdotes laboring earnestly over fires and anvils. Sparks rose from retorts, blue gas flickered above melting metal.

Joaz moved beyond to a small chamber cut into the stone. Here sat an old man, thin as a pole, his waist-long mane of hair snow-white. The man examined Joaz with fathomless blue eyes, and spoke, but his voice was muffled, inaudible. He spoke again; the words rang loud in Joaz’s mind.

“I bring you here to caution you, lest you do us harm, and with no profit to yourself. The weapon you seek is both non-existent and beyond your imagination. Put it outside your ambition.”

By great effort Joaz managed to stammer, “The young sacerdote made no denial; this weapon must exist!”

“Only within the narrow limits of special interpretation. The lad can speak no more than the literal truth, nor can he act with other than grace. How can you wonder why we hold ourselves apart? You Utter folk find purity incomprehensible; you thought to advantage yourself, but achieved nothing but an exercise in rat-like stealth. Lest you try again with greater boldness I must abase myself to set matters correct. I assure you, this so-called weapon is absolutely beyond your control.”

First shame, then indignation came over Joaz; he cried out, “You do not understand my urgencies! Why should I act differently? Coralyne is close; the Basics are at hand. Are you not men? Why will you not help us defend the planet?”

The Demie shook his head, and the white hair rippled with hypnotic slowness. “I quote you the Rationale: passivity, complete and absolute. This implies solitude, sanctity, quiescence, peace. Can you imagine the anguish I risk in speaking to you? I intervene, I interfere, at vast pain of the spirit. Let there be an end to it. We have made free with your studio, doing you no harm, offering you no indignity. You have paid a visit to our hall, demeaning a noble young man in the process. Let us be quits, let there be no further spying on either side. Do you agree?”

Joaz heard his voice respond, quite without his conscious prompting; it sounded more nasal and shrill than he liked. “You offer this agreement now when you have learned your fill of my secrets, but I know none of yours.”

The Demie’s face seemed to recede and quiver. Joaz read contempt, and in his sleep he tossed and twitched. He made an effort to speak in a voice of calm reason. “Come, we are men together; why should we be at odds? Let us share our secrets, let each help the other. Examine my archives, my cases, my relics at your leisure, and then allow me to study this existent but nonexistent weapon. I swear it shall be usedonly against the basics, for the protection of both of us.”

The Demie’s eyes sparkled. “No.”

“Why not?” argued Joaz. “Surely you wish us no harm?”

“We are detached and passionless. We await your extinction. You are the Utter Men, and the last of humanity. And when you are gone, your dark thoughts and grim plots will be gone; murder and pain and malice will be gone.”

“I cannot believe this,” said Joaz. “There may be no men in the cluster, but what of the universe? The Old Rule reached far; sooner or later men will return to Aerlith.”

The Demie’s voice became plangent. “Do you think we speak only from faith? Do you doubt our knowledge?”

“The universe is large. The Old Rule reached far.”

“The last men dwell on Aerlith,” said the Demie. “The Utter men and the sacerdotes. You shall pass; we will carry forth the Rationale like a banner of glory, through all the worlds of the sky.”

“And how will you transport yourselves on this mission?” Joaz asked cunningly. “Can you fly to the stars as naked as you walk the fells?”

“There will be a means. Time is long.”

“For your purposes, time needs to be long. Even on the Coralyne planets there are men. Enslaved, reshaped in body and mind, but men. What of them? It seems that you are wrong, that you are guided by faith indeed.”

The Demie fell silent. His face seemed to stiffen.

“Are these not facts?” asked Joaz. “How do you reconcile them with your faith?”

The Demie said mildly, “Facts can never be reconciled with faith. By our faith, these men, if they exist, will also pass. Time is long; Oh, the worlds of brightness: they await us!”

“It is clear,” said Joaz, “that you ally yourselves with the Basics, that you hope for our destruction, and this can only change our attitudes toward you. I fear that Ervis Carcolo was right and I wrong.”

“We remain passive,” said the Demie. His face wavered, seemed to swim with mottled colors. “Without emotion, we will stand witness to the passing of the Utter men, neither helping nor hindering.”

Joaz spoke in fury. “Your faith, your Rationale—whatever you call it—misleads you. I make this threat—if you fail to help us, you will suffer as we suffer.”

“We are passive, we are indifferent.”

“What of your children? The Basics make no difference between us. They will herd you to their pens as readily as they do us. Why should we fight to protect you?”

The Demie’s face faded, became splotched with fog, transparent mist; his eyes glowed like rotten meat. “We need no protection,” he howled. “We are secure.”

“You will suffer our fate,” cried Joaz, “I promise you this!”

The demie collapsed suddenly into a small dry husk, like a dead mosquito; with incredible speed, Joaz fled back through the caves, the tunnels, up through his workroom, his studio, into his bedchamber where now he jerked upright, eyes starting, throat distended, mouth dry.

The door opened; Rife’s head appeared. “Did you call, sir?”

Joaz raised himself on his elbows, looked around the room. “No. I did not call.”

Rife withdrew. Joaz settled back on the couch, lay staring at the ceiling. He had dreamed a most peculiar dream. Dream? A synthesis of his own imaginings? Or, in all verity, a confrontation and exchange between two minds? Impossible to decide, and perhaps irrelevant; the event carried its own conviction. Joaz swung his legs over the side of the couch, blinked at the floor. Dream or colloquy, it was all the same. He rose to his feet, donned sandals and a robe of yellow fur, limped morosely up to the Council Room and stepped out on a sunny balcony.

The day was two-thirds over. Shadows hung dense along the western cliffs. Right and left stretched Banbeck Vale. Never had it seemed more prosperous or more fruitful, and never before unreal, as if he were a stranger to the planet. He looked north along the great bulwark of stone which rose sheer to Banbeck Verge. This too was unreal, a facade behind which lived the sacerdotes. He gauged the rock face, superimposing a mental projection of the great cavern. The cliff toward the north end of the vale must be scarcely more than a shell!

Joaz turned his attention to the exercise field, where Juggers were thudding briskly through defensive evolutions. How strange was the quality of life, which had produced Basic and Jugger, sacerdote and himself. He thought of Ervis Carcolo, and wrestled with sudden exasperation. Carcolo was a distraction most unwelcome at the present time; there would be no tolerance when Carcolo was finally brought to account. A light step behind him, the pressure of fur, the touch of gay hands, the scent of incense. Joaz’s tensions melted. If there were no such creatures as minstrel-maidens, it would be necessary to invent them.

Deep under Banbeck Scarp, in a cubicle lit by a twelve-vial candelabra, a naked white-haired man sat quietly. On a pedestal at the level of his eyes rested his tand, an intricate construction of gold rods and silver wire, woven and bent seemingly at random. The fortuitousness of the design, however, was only apparent. Each curve symbolized an aspect of Final Sentience; the shadow cast upon the wall represented the Rationale, ever-shifting, always the same.

The object was sacred to the sacerdotes, and served as a source of revelation. There was never an end to the study of the tand: new intuitions were continually derived from some heretofore overlooked relationship of angle and curve. The nomenclature was elaborate: each part, juncture, sweep and twist had its name; each aspect of the relationships between the various parts was likewise categorized. Such was the cult of the tand: abstruse, exacting, without compromise. At his puberty rites the young sacerdote might study the original tand for as long as he chose; each must construct a duplicate tand, relying upon memory alone. Then occurred the most significant event of his lifetime: the viewing of his tand by a synod of elders. In awesome stillness, for hours at a time they would ponder his creation, weigh the infinitesimal variations of proportion, radius, sweep and angle. So they would infer the initiate’s quality, judge his personal attributes, determine his understanding of Final Sentience, the Rationale and the Basis.

Occasionally the testimony of the tand revealed a character so tainted as to be reckoned intolerable; the vile tand would be cast into a furnace, the molten metal consigned to a latrine, the unlucky initiate expelled to the face of the planet, to live on his own terms.

The naked white-haired Demie, contemplating his own beautiful tand, sighed, moved restlessly. He had been visited by an influence so ardent, so passionate, so simultaneously cruel and tender, that his mind was oppressed. Unbidden, into his mind, came a dark seep of doubt. Can it be, he asked himself, that we have insensibly wandered from the true Rationale? Do we study our tands with blinded eyes? How to know, oh how to know! All is relative ease and facility in orthodoxy, yet how can it be denied that good is in itself undeniable? Absolutes are the most uncertain of all formulations, while the uncertainties are the most real.

Twenty miles over the mountains, in the long pale light of the Aerlith afternoon, Ervis Carcolo planned his own plans. “By daring, by striking hard, by cutting deep I can defeat him! In resolve, in courage, in endurance, I am more than his equal. Not again will he trick me, to slaughter my dragons and kill my men! Oh, Joaz Banbeck, how I will pay you for your deceit!” He raised his arms in wrath. “Oh Joaz Banbeck, you whey-faced sheep!” Carcolo smote the air with his fist. “I will crush you like a clod of dry moss!” He frowned, rubbed his round red chin. “But how? Where? He has every advantage!”

Carcolo pondered his possible stratagems. “He will expect me to strike, so much is certain. Doubtless he will again wait in ambush. So I will patrol every inch, but this too he will expect and so be wary lest I thunder upon him from above. Will he hide behind Despoire, or along Northguard, to catch me as I cross the Skanse? If so, I must approach by another route—through Maudlin Pass and under Mount Gethron? Then, if he is tardy in his march, I will meet him on Banbeck Verge. And if he is early, I stalk him through the peaks and chasms.