Jack Vance - The Dragon Masters

Carcolo glared, thinking to hear a new note in Givven’s voice. Nevertheless he bent over the foundered dragon, slipped loose the broad bronze buckle. Givven dismounted, stretched his arms, massaged his thin legs. He pointed. “The Basic ship descends into Banbeck Vale.”

Carcolo nodded grimly. “I would be an audience to the landing.” He kicked the Spider. “Come, get up, have you not rested enough? Do you wish me to walk?”

The Spider whimpered its fatigue, but nevertheless struggled to its feet. Carcolo started to mount, but Bast Givven laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. Carcolo looked back in outrage; here was impertinence! Givven said calmly, “Tighten the surcingle, otherwise you will fall on the rocks, and once more break your bones.”

Uttering a spiteful phrase under his breath, Carcolo clasped the buckle back into position, the Spider crying out in despair. Paying no heed, Carcolo mounted, and the Spider moved off with trembling steps.

Barch Spike rose ahead like the prow of a white ship, dividing Northguard Ridge from Barchback. Carcolo paused to consider the landscape, tugging his mustaches.

Givven was tactfully silent. Carcolo looked back down the Skanse to the listless straggle of his army, set off to the left.

Passing close under Mount Gethron, skirting the High Jambles, they descended an ancient watercourse to Banbeck Verge. Though perforce they had come without great speed, the Basic ship had moved no faster and had only started to settle into the vale, the disks at bow and stern swirling with furious colors.

Carlol grunted bitterly. “Trust Joaz Banbeck to scratch his own itch. Not a soul in sight; he’s taken to his tunnels, dragons and all.” Pursing his mouth he rendered a mincing parody of Joaz’s voice. “ ‘Ervis Carcolo, my dear friend, there is but one answer to attack. Dig tunnels!’ And I replied to him, ‘Am I a sacerdote to live underground? Burrow and delve, Joaz Banbeck, do as you will, I am but an ‘old-time man; I go under the cliffs only when I must.’ ”

Givven gave the faintest of shrugs.

Carcolo went on, “Tunnels or not, they’ll winkle him out. If need be they’ll blast open the entire valley. They’ve no lack of tricks.”

Givven grinned sardonically. “Joaz Banbeck knows a trick or two—as we know to our sorrow.”

“Let him capture two dozen Basics today,” snapped Carcolo. “Then I’ll concede him a clever man.” He walked away to the very brink of the cliff, standing in full view of the Basic ship. Givven watched without expression.

Carcolo pointed. “Aha! Look there!”

“Not I,” said Givven. “I respect the Basic weapons too greatly.”

“Pah!” spat Carcolo. Nevertheless he moved a trifle back from the brink. “There are dragons in Kergan’s Way. For all Joaz Banbeck’s talk of tunnels.” He gazed north along the valley a moment or two, then threw up his hands in frustration. “Joaz Banbeck will not come up here to me; there is nothing I can do. Unless I walk down into the village, seek him out and strike him down, he will escape me.”

“Unless the Basics captured the two of you and confined you in the same pen,” said Givven.

“Bah!” muttered Carcolo, and moved off to one side.

The vision-plates which allowed Joaz Banbeck to observe the length and breadth of Banbeck Vale for the first time were being put to practical use. He had evolved the scheme while playing with a set of old lenses, and dismissed it as quickly. Then one day, while trading with the sacerdotes in the cavern under Mount Gethron, he had proposed that they design and supply the optics for such a system.

The blind old sacerdote who conducted the trading gave an ambiguous reply: the possibility of such a project, under certain circumstances, might well deserve consideration. Three months passed; the scheme receded to the back of Joaz Banbeck’s mind. Then the sacerdote in the trading cave inquired if Joaz still planned to install the viewing system; if so he might take immediate delivery of the optics. Joaz agreed to the barter price, returned to Banbeck Vale with four heavy crates. He ordered the necessary tunnels driven, installed the lenses, and found that with the study darkened he could command all quarters of Banbeck Vale.

Now, with the Basic ship darkening the sky, Joaz Banbeck stood in his study, watching the descent of the great black hulk.

At the back of the chamber maroon portieres parted. Clutching the cloth with taut fingers stood the minstrel-maiden Phade. Her face was pale, her eyes bright as opals. In a husky voice she called, “The ship of death; it has come to gather souls!”

Joaz turned her a stony glance, turned back to the honed glass screen. “The ship is clearly visible.”

Phade ran forward, clasped Joaz’s arm, swung around to look into his face. “Let us try to escape! Into the mountains, the High Jambles; don’t let them take us so soon!”

“No one deters you,” said Joaz indifferently. “Escape in any direction you choose.”

Phade stared at him blankly, then turned her head and watched the screen. The great black ship sank with sinister deliberation, the disks at bow and stern now shimmering mother-of-pearl. Phade looked back to Joaz, licked her lips. “Are you not afraid?”

Joaz smiled thinly. “What good to run? Their Trackers are swifter than Murderers, more vicious than Termagants. They can smell you a mile away, take you from the very center of the Jambles.”

Phade shivered with superstitious horror. She whispered, “Let them take me dead, then; I can’t go with them alive.”

Joaz suddenly cursed. “Look where they land! In our best field of bellegarde!”

“What is the difference?”

“’Difference’? Must we stop eating because they pay their visit?”

Phade looked at him in a daze, beyond comprehension. She sank slowly to her knees and began to perform the ritual gestures of the Theurgic cult: hands palm down to either side, slowly up till the back of the hand touched the ears, and the simultaneous protrusion of the tongue. Over and over again, eyes staring with hypnotic intensity into emptiness.

Joaz ignored the gesticulations, until Phade, her face screwed up into a fantastic mask, began to sigh and whimper; then he swung the flaps of his jacket into her face. “Give over your folly!”

Phade collapsed moaning to the floor; Joaz’s lips twitched in annoyance. Impatiently he hoisted her erect. “Look you, these Basics are neither ghouls nor angels of death; they are no more than pallid Termagants, the basic stock of our dragons. So now, give over your idiocy, or I’ll have Rife take you away.”

“Why do you not make ready? You watch and do nothing.”

“There is nothing more that I can do.”

Phade drew a deep shuddering sigh, stared dully at the screen. “Will you fight them?”

“Naturally.”

“How can you hope to counter such miraculous power?”

“We will do what we can. They have not yet met our dragons.”

The ship came to rest in a purple and green vine-field across the valley, near the mouth of Clybourne Crevasse.

The port slid back, a ramp rolled forth. “Look,” said Joaz, “there you see them.”

Phade stared at the queer pale shapes who had come tentatively out on the ramp. “They seem strange and twisted, like silver puzzles for children.”

“They are the Basics. From their eggs came our dragons. They have done as well with men. Look, here are their Heavy Troops.”

Down the ramp, four abreast, in exact cadence, marched the Heavy Troops, to halt fifty yards in front of the ship. There were three squads of twenty—short men with massive shoulders, thick necks, stern down-drawn faces. They wore armor fashioned from overlapping scales of black and blue metal, a wide belt slung with pistol and sword. Black epaulets extending past their shoulders supported a short ceremonial flap of black cloth ranging down their backs; their helmets bore a crest of sharp spikes, their knee-high boots were armed with kick-knives.