Tschai - Complete Part 22

Reith bade the captain goodbye and with Traz and Anacho went ash.o.r.e.

As they stood on the dock Dordolio approached. He spoke in an offhand voice. "I now take my leave of you, since I depart immediately for Settra."

Wary and wondering as to Dordolio's motives, Reith asked: "The Blue Jade Palace is at Settra?"

"Yes, of course." Dordolio pulled at his mustache. "You need not concern yourself in this regard; I will convey all necessary news to the Blue Jade Lord."

"Still, there is much that you do not know," said Reith. "In fact, nearly everything."

"Your information will be of no great consolation," said Dordolio stiffly.

"Perhaps not. But surely he will be interested."

Dordolio shook his head in sad exasperation. "Quixotic! You know nothing of the ceremonies! Do you expect simply to walk up to the Lord and blurt out your tale? Cra.s.sness. And your clothes: unsuitable! Not to mention the marmoreal Dirdirman and the nomad lad."

"We must trust to the courtesy and tolerance of the Blue Jade Lord," said Reith.

"Bah," muttered Dordolio. "You have no shame." But still he delayed, frowning off up the street. He said, "You definitely plan to visit Settra then?"

"Yes, of course."

"Accept my advice. Tonight stop at one of the local inns-the Dulvan yonder is adequate-then tomorrow or the next day visit a reputable haberdasher and put yourself into his hands. Then, suitably clothed, come to Settra. The Travelers' Inn on the Oval will furnish you suitable accommodation. Under these circ.u.mstances, perhaps you will do me aservice. I seem to have misplaced my funds, and I would be obliged to you for the loan of a hundred sequins to take me to Settra."

"Certainly," said Reith. "But let us all go to Settra together."

Dordolio made a petulant gesture. "I am in haste. Your preparations will consume time."

"Not at all," said Reith. "We are ready at this moment. Lead the way."

Dordolio scanned Reith from head to toe, in vast distaste. "The least I can do, for our mutual comfort, is to see you into respectable clothes. Come along then." He set off along the esplanade toward the center of town.

Reith, Traz and Anacho followed, Traz seething with indignation. "Why do we suffer his arrogance?"

"The Yao are mercurial folk," said Anacho. "Pointless to become disturbed."

Away from the docks the city took on its own character. Wide, somewhat stark, streets ran between flat-faced buildings of glazed brick under steep roofs of brown tile. Everywhere a state of genteel dilapidation was evident.

The activity of Coad was absent; the few folk abroad carried themselves with self-effacing reserve. Some wore complicated suits, white linen shirts, cravats tied in complex knots and bows. Others, apparently of lesser status, wore loose breeches of green or tan, jackets and blouses of various subdued colors.

Dordolio led the way to a large open-fronted shop, in which several dozen men and women sat sewing garments. Signaling to the three following him, Dordolio entered the shop. Reith, Anacho, and Traz entered and waited while Dordolio spoke energetically to the bald old proprietor.

Dordolio came to confer with Reith. "I have described your needs; the clothier will fit you from his stock, at no large expense."

Three pale young men appeared, wheeling racks of finished garments.

The proprietor made swift selection, laid them before Reith, Traz, and Anacho. "These I believe will suit the gentlemen. If they would care to change immediately, the dressing rooms are at hand "

Reith inspected the garments critically. The cloth seemed a trifle coa.r.s.e; the colors were somewhat raw. Reith glanced at Anacho, whose reflective smile reinforced his own a.s.sumptions. Reith said to Dordolio: "Your own clothes are the worse for wear. Why not try on this suit?"

Dordolio stood back with eyebrows raised high. "I am satisfied with what I wear."

Reith put down the garments. "These are not suitable," he told the clothier. "Show me your catalog, or whatever you work from."

"As you wish, sir."

Reith, with Anacho watching gravely, looked through a hundred or so color sketches. He pointed to a conservatively cut suit of dark blue. "What of this?"Dordolio made an impatient sound. "The garments a wealthy vegetable grower might wear to an intimate funeral."

Reith indicated another costume. "What of this?"

"Even less appropriate: the lounge clothes of an elderly philosopher at his country estate."

"Hm. Well then," Reith told the clothier, "show me the clothes a somewhat younger philosopher of impeccable good taste would wear on a casual visit to the city."

Dordolio gave a snort. He started to speak but thought better of it and turned away. The clothier gave order to his a.s.sistants. Reith looked at Anacho with an appraising frown. "For this gentleman, the traveling costume of a high-caste dignitary." And for Traz: "A young gentleman's casual dress."

New garments appeared, conspicuously different from those ordered out by Dordolio. The three changed; the clothier made small adjustments while Dordolio stood to the side, pulling at his mustache. At last he could no longer restrain a comment. "Handsome garments, of course. But are they appropriate? You will puzzle folk when your conduct belies your appearance."

Anacho spoke scornfully. "Would you have us visit Settra dressed like b.u.mpkins? The clothes you selected hardly carried a flattering a.s.sociation."

"What does it matter?" cried Dordolio in a bra.s.sy voice. "A fugitive Dirdirman, a nomad boy, a mysterious nonesuch: is it not absurd to trick such folk out in n.o.blemen's costume?"

Reith laughed; Anacho fluttered his fingers; Traz turned Dordolio a glance of infinite disgust. Reith paid the account.

"Now then," muttered Dordolio, "to the airport. Since you demand the best, we shall charter an air-car."

"Not so fast," said Reith. "As usual you miscalculate. There must be another, less ostentatious, means to reach Settra."

"Naturally," said Dordolio with a sneer. "But folk who dress like lords should act like lords."

"We are modest lords," said Reith. He spoke to the clothier. "How do you usually travel to Settra?"

"I am a man with no great regard or 'place' ;* I ride the public wheelway."

Reith turned back to Dordolio. "If you plan to travel by private air-car, this is where we part."

"Gladly; if you will advance me five hundred sequins."

Reith shook his head. "I think not."

"Then I also must travel by wheelway."

As they strode up the street Dordolio became somewhat more cordial.

"You will find that the Yao set great store by consistency, and a harmony ofattributes. You are dressed as persons of quality, no doubt you will conduct yourselves in consonance. Affairs will adjust themselves."

At the wheelway depot Dordolio bespoke first cla.s.s accommodation from the clerk; a short while later a long car trundled up to the platform, riding a wedge-shaped concrete slot on two great wheels. The four entered a compartment, seated themselves on red plush chairs. With a lurch and a grind, the car left the station and trundled off into the Cath countryside.

Reith found the car intriguing and somewhat of a puzzle. The motors were small, powerful, of sophisticated design; why was the car itself so awkwardly built? The wheels-when the car reached top speed, perhaps seventy miles an hour-rode on cushions of trapped air, at times with silken smoothness, until the wheels came to breaks in the slot, whereupon the car jerked and vibrated abominably. The Yao, reflected Reith, seemed to be good theoreticians but poor engineers.

The car rumbled across an ancient cultivated countryside, more civilized than any Reith had yet seen on Tschai. A haze hung in the air, tinting the sunlight antique yellow; shadows were blacker than black. In and out of forests rolled the car, beside orchards of gnarled black-leaved trees, past parks and manors, ruined stone walls, villages in which only half the houses seemed tenanted. After climbing to an upland moor, the car struck east over marshes and bogs, to outcrops of rotting limestone. No human being was in sight, though several times Reith thought to discern ruined castles in the distance.

"Ghost country," said Dordolio. "This is Audan Moor; have you heard of it?"

"Never," said Reith.

"A desolate region, as you can see. The haunt of outlaws, even an occasional Phung. After dark the night-hounds bell..."

Down from Audan Moor rolled the wheelway car, into a countryside of great charm. Everywhere were ponds and watercourses, overlooked by towering black, brown and rust-colored trees. On small islands stood tall houses with high-pitched gables and elaborate balconies. Dordolio pointed off to the east. "See yonder, the great manse in front of the forest? Gold and Carnelian: the palace of my connections. Behind but you cannot see-is Halmeur, an outer district of Settra."

The car swung through a forest and came out into a region of scattered farmsteads with the domes and spires of Settra on the sky ahead. A few minutes later the car entered a depot and rolled to a halt. The pa.s.sengers alighted, and walked to a terrace. Here Dordolio said: "Now I must leave you. Across the Oval you will find the Travelers' Inn, to which I recommend you and where I will send a messenger with the sum of my debt." He paused and cleared his throat. "If a freak of destiny brings us together in another setting-for instance, you have evinced a somewhat unrealisticambition to make yourself acquainted with the Blue Jade Lord-it might serve our mutual purposes were we not to recognize each other."

"I can think of no reason for wanting to do so," said Reith politely.

Dordolio glanced at him sharply, then made a formal salute. "I wish you good fortune." He walked off across the square, his strides lengthening as he went.

Reith turned to Traz and Anacho. "You two go to the Travelers' Inn, arrange for accommodations. I'm off to the Blue jade Palace. With any luck I'll arrive before Dordolio, who seems in a peculiar state of haste."

He walked to a line of motorized tricycles, climbed aboard the first in line. "The Blue Jade Palace, with all speed," he told the driver.

The mechanism spun off to the south, past buildings of glazed brick and dim gla.s.s panes, then into a district of small timber cottages, then past a great outdoor market, a scene as brisk and variegated as any Reith had observed in Cath. Turning aside, the motor-buggy nosed across an ancient stone bridge, through a portal in a stone wall into a large circular plaza.

Around the periphery were booths, for the most part unoccupied and barren of goods; at the center a short ramp led up to a circular platform, at the back of which rose a bank of seats. A rectangular frame occupied the front of the platform, of dimensions which Reith found morbidly suggestive.

"What is this place?" he asked the driver, who gave him a glance of mild wonder.

"The Circle, site of Pathetic Communion, as you can see. You are a stranger in Settra?"

"Yes."

The driver consulted a yellow cardboard schedule. "The next event is Ivensday, when a nineteen-score comes to clarify his horrible desperation.

Nineteen! The most since the twenty-two of Agate Crystal's Lord Wis."

"You mean he killed nineteen?"

"Of course; what else? Four were children, but still a feat these days when folk are wary of awaile. All Settra will come to the expiation. If you're still in town you could hardly do more for your own soul's profit."

"Probably so. How far to Blue Jade Palace?"

"Through Dalmere and we're almost there."

"I'm in a hurry," said Reith. "As fast as possible."

"Indeed sir, but if I wreck or injure, I'll feel extraordinary shame, to my soul's sickness, and I would not care to risk despondency."

"Understandable."

The motor-buggy spun along a wide boulevard, dodging and veering to avoid potholes. Enormous trees, black-trunked with brown and purple- green foliage, overhung the way; to either side, shrouded in dark gardens, were mansions of the most extraordinary architecture. The driver pointed."Yonder on the hill: Blue Jade Palace. Which entrance do you favor, sir?"

He inspected Reith quizzically.

"Drive to the front," said Reith. "Where else?"

"As you say, your lordship. Although most of the fronters don't arrive in three-wheel motor-buggies."

Up the driveway rolled the vehicle, and under a porte cochere the buggy halted. Paying the fare, Reith alighted upon a silken cloth laid under his feet by a pair of bowing footmen. Reith walked briskly through an open arch into a room paneled with mirrors. A myriad prisms of crystal hung tinkling on silver chains. A majordomo wearing russet velvet livery bowed deeply. "Your lordship is at home. Will you rest or take a cordial, though my Lord Cizante impatiently awaits the privilege of greeting you."

"I will see him at once; I am Adam Reith."

"Lord of which realm?"

"Tell Lord Cizante that I bring important information."

The majordomo looked at Reith uncertainly, his face twisting through a dozen subtle emotions. Reith understood that already he had committed gaucheries. No matter, he thought, the Blue Jade Lord will have to make allowance.

The majordomo signaled, a trifle less obsequiously than before. "Be good enough to come this way."

Reith was taken into a small court murmuring to a waterfall of luminous green liquid.

Two minutes pa.s.sed. A young man in green knickers and an elegant waistcoat appeared. His face was wax pale, as if he never saw sunlight; his eyes were somber and brooding; under a loose four-corner cap of soft green velvet his hair was jet black: a man richly handsome, by some extraordinary means contriving to seem both effete and competent. He examined Reith with critical interest, and spoke in a dry voice. "Sir, you claim to have information for the Blue Jade Lord?"

"Yes. Are you he?"

"I am his aide. You may impart your information to me with a.s.surance."

"I have news relating to the fate of his daughter," said Reith. "I prefer to speak to the Blue Jade Lord directly."

The aide made a curious mincing motion and disappeared. Presently he returned. "Your name, sir?"

"Adam Reith."

"Follow me, if you will."

He took Reith into a wainscoted room enameled a brownish ivory, lit by a dozen luminous prisms. At the far end stood a frail frowning man in an extravagant eight-piece suit of black and purple silk. His face was round, dark hair grew down his forehead in an elflock; his eyes were dark, far apart, and his tendency was to glance sidelong. The face, thought Reith, ofa secretive suspicious man. He examined Reith with a compression of the lips.

"Lord Cizante," said the aide, "I bring you the gentleman Adam Reith, heretofore unknown, who, chancing past, was pleased to learn that you were in the vicinity."

There was an expectant silence. Reith understood that the circ.u.mstances demanded a ritual response. He said, "I am pleased, naturally, to find Lord Cizante in residence. I have only this hour arrived from Kotan."

Cizante's mouth tightened, and Reith knew that once again he had made a graceless remark.

Cizante spoke in a crisp voice. "Indeed. You have news regarding the Lady Shar Zarin?"

This was the Flower's court name. Reith responded in a voice as cool as Cizante's own. "Yes. I can give you a detailed account of her experiences, and her unfortunate death."

The Blue Jade Lord looked toward the ceiling and spoke without lowering his eyes. "You evidently claim the boon?"

The majordomo entered the room, whispered to the aide, who discreetly murmured to Lord Cizante.