Jack Vance - The Dying Earth

T'sais was disturbed. The woman was dead. Was not killing wicked? So Pandelume had said. If the woman were good, as the bearded man had said, then Liane was evil. Things of blood and filth all, of course. Still, it was vile, hurting a live thing till it died.

Knowing nothing of fear, she stepped out from her hiding place and advanced into the fire-light. Liane looked up and sprang back. But the intruder was a slender girl of passionate beauty. He caroled, he danced.

"Welcome, welcome!" He glared in distaste at the bodies on the ground. "Unpleasant; we must ignore them." He flung his cloak back, ogled her with his luminous hazel eyes, strutted toward her like a plumed cock.

"You are lovely, my dear, and I—I am the perfect man; so you shall see."

T'sais laid her hand on her rapier, and it sprang out by itself. Liane leapt back, alarmed by the blade and likewise by the blaze which glowed deep from the warped brain.

"What means this? Come, come," he fretted. "Put away your steel. It is sharp and hard. You must lay it away. I am a kind man, but I brook no annoyance."

T'sais stood over the prone bodies. The man looked up at her feverishly. The woman stared at the dark sky.

Liane sprang forward, planning to clasp her while her attention was distracted. The rapier sprang up by itself, darted forward, pierced the agile body.

Liane the Wayfarer sank to his knees coughing blood. T'sais pulled away the rapier, wiped the blood on the gay green cloak, and sheathed it with difficulty. It wished to stab, to pierce, to kill.

Liane lay unconscious. T'sais turned away, sick. A thin voice reached her. "Release me—"

T'sais considered, then she cut the bonds. The man stumbled to his wife, stroked her, flung off the bonds, called to her uplifted face. There was no answer. He sprang erect in madness and howled into the night. Raising the limp form in his arms he stumbled off into the darkness, lurching, falling, cursing ...

T'sais shivered. She glanced from the prone Liane to the black forest where the flickering circle of the firelight failed to reach. Slowly, with many backward glances, she left the tumbled ruins, the meadow. The bleeding figure of Liane remained by the dying fire.

The glimmer of flame waned, was lost in the darkness. T'sais groped her way between the looming trunks; and the murk was magnified by the twist in her brain. There never had been night in Embelyon, only an opalescent dimming. So T'sais continued down the sighing forest courses, stifled, weighed, yet oblivious to the things she might have met—the Deodands, the pelgrane, the prowling erbs (creatures mixed of beasts, man and demon) the gids, who leaps twenty feet across the turf and clasped themselves to their victims.

T'sais went unmolested, and presently reached the edge of the forest. The ground rose, the trees thinned, and T'sais come out on an illimitable dark expanse. This was Modavna Moor, a place of history, a tract which had borne the tread of many feet and absorbed much blood. At one famous slaughtering, Golickan Kodek the Conqueror had herded here the populations of two great cities, G'Vasan and Bautiku, constricted them in a circle three miles across, gradually pushed them tighter, tighter, tighter, panicked them toward the center within his flapping-armed sub-human cavalry, until at last he had achieved a gigantic squirming mound, half a thousand feet high, a pyramid of screaming flesh. It is said that Golickan Kodek mused ten minutes at his monument, then turned and rode his bounding mount back to the land of Laidenur from whence he had come.

The ghosts of the ancient populations had paled and dissolved and Modavna Moor was less stifling than the forest. Bushes grew like blots from the ground. A line of rocky crags at the horizon jutted sharp against a faint violet afterglow. T'sais picked her way across the turf, relieved that the sky was open above. A few minutes later she came to an ancient road of stone slab, cracked and broken, bordered by a ditch where luminous star-shaped flowers grew. A wind came sighing off the moor to dampen her face with mist. She went wearily down the road. No shelter was visible, and the wind whipped coldly at her cloak.

A rush of feet, a tumble of shapes, and T'sais was struggling against hard grasping hands. She fought for her rapier, but her arms were pinioned.

One struck a light, fired a torch, to examine his prize. T'sais saw three bearded, scarred rogues of the moor; they wore gray pandy-suits, stained and fouled by mud and filth.

"Why, it's a handsome maid!" said one, leering.

"I'll seek about her for silver," said another and slid his hands with evil intimacy over T'sais' body. He found the sack of jewels, and turned them into his palm, a trickle of hundred-colored fire. "Mark these! The wealth of princes!"

"Or sorcerers!" said another. And in sudden doubt they relaxed their holds. But still she could not reach her rapier.

"Who are you, woman of the night?" asked one with some respect. "A witch, to have such jewels, and walk Modavna Moor alone?"

T'sais had neither wit nor experience to improvise falsehood.

"I am no witch! Release me, you stinking animals!"

"No witch? Then what manner of woman are you? Whence do you come?"

"I am T'sais, of Embelyon," she cried angrily. "Pandelume created me, and I seek love and beauty on Earth. Now drop your hands, for I would go my way!"

The first rogue chortled. "Ho, ho! Seeking love and beauty! You have achieved something of your quest, girl—for while we lads are no beauties, to be sure, Tagman being covered with scab and Lasard lacking his teeth and ears—still we have much love, hey, lads? We will show you as much love as you desire! Hey, lads?"

And in spite of T'sais horrified outcries, they dragged her across the moor to a stone cabin.

They entered, and one kindled a roaring fire, while two stripped T'sais of her rapier and flung it in a corner. They locked the door with a great iron key, and released her. She sprang for her sword, but a buffet sent her to the foul floor.

"May that quiet you, fiend-cat!" panted Tagman. "You should be happy," and they renewed their banter. "Admitted we are not beauties, yet we will show you all the love you may wish."

T'sais crouched in a corner. "I know not what love is," she panted. "In any event I want none of yours!"

"Is it possible?" they crowed. "You are yet innocent?" And T'sais listened with eyes glazing as they proceeded to describe in evil detail their concept of love.

T'sais sprang from her corner in a frenzy, kicking, beating her fists at the moor-men. And when she had been flung into her corner, bruised and half-dead, the men brought out a great cask of mead, to fortify themselves for their pleasure.

Now they cast lots as to who should be the first to enjoy the girl. The issue was declared, and here an altercation arose, two claiming that he who won had cheated. Angry words evolved, and as T'sais watched, dazed in horror beyond the concept of a normal mind, they fought like bulls in a rut, with great curses, mighty blows. T'sais crept to her rapier, and as it felt her touch, it lofted into the air like a bird. It lunged itself into the fight, dragging T'sais behind. The three shouted hoarsely, the steel flickered—in, out, faster than the eye. Cries, groans—and three sprawled on the earthen floor, gaping-mouthed corpses. T'sais found the key, unlocked the door, fled madly through the night.

She ran over the dark and windy moor, across the road, stumbled into the ditch, dragged herself up the cold muddy bank and sank on her knees ... This was Earth! She remembered Embelyon, where the most evil things were flowers and butterflies. She remembered how these had aroused her hate.

Embelyon was lost, renounced. And T'sais wept.

A rustling in the heather aroused her. Aghast she lifted her head, listened. What new outrage to her mind? The sinister sounds again, as of cautious footfalls. She searched the darkness in terror.