Jack Vance - The Dragon Masters

Carcolo lay back, his eyes closed, his mouth working feebly.

“The terrain alone saved us,” said Givven. “Joaz Banbeck refused to commit his troops to the ravine. If there were any tactical error on either side, it was his. He brought an insufficiency of Termagants and Blue Horrors.”

“Small comfort,” growled Carcolo. “Where is the balance of the army?”

“We have good position on Dangle Ridge. We have seen none of Banbeck’s scouts, either man or Termagant, and he may conceivably believe we have returned to the valley. In any event his main forces were still collected on the Skanse.”

Carcolo, by an enormous effort raised himself to his feet. He tottered across the walkway, looked down into the dispensary. Five Fiends crouched in vats of balsam, muttering, sighing. A Blue Horror hung in a sling, whining as surgeons cut broken fragments of armor from its gray flesh. As Carcolo watched, one of the Fiends raised itself high on its anterior legs, foam gushing from its gills. It cried out in a peculiar poignant tone, fell back dead into the balsam.

Carcolo turned back to Givven. “This is what you must do. Joaz Banbeck surely has sent forth patrols. Retire along Dangle Ridge, then taking all concealment from the patrols, swing up into one of the Despoire Cols—Tourmaline Col will serve. This is my reasoning. Banbeck will assume that you are retiring to Happy Valley, he will hurry south behind the Fang, to attack as you come down off Dangle Ridge. As he passes below Tourmaline Col, you have the advantage, and may well destroy Joaz Banbeck with all his troops.”

Bast Givven shook his head decisively. “What if his patrols locate us in spite of our precautions? He need only follow our tracks to bottle us into Tourmaline Col, with no escape except over Mount Despoire or out on Starbreak Fell. And if we venture out on Starbreak Fell his Juggers will destroy us in minutes.”

Ervis Carcolo sagged back down upon the couch. “Bring the troops back to Happy Valley. We will await another occasion.”

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.”