Demon princes 01 05 the.., p.54
Demon Princes 01-05 The Star Ki, page 54
The mask consisted of a black velvet casque fitting down to the ears, with a black visor, a nose-cup and a chin-guard; only Gersen’s cheeks, mouth and eves were bare. “My Lord is now mysterious as well,” said the maiden in the softest of voices. “I will lead you, for the way is by the old corridors.”
She took him down a draughty staircase, along a dank, echoing corridor, with only the feeblest of lamps to light the way. The walls, once splendid in patterns of magenta, silver and gold, were faded and blotched, the tiles of the floor were loose ... The maiden halted by a heavy red portiere. She looked sidelong at Gersen and put her finger to her lips, with the dim light glowing on her blue velvet garment, and glinting in her hair, she seemed dreamstuff—a creature too exquisite to be real. “Lord,” she said, “within is our banquet. I must urge you to mystery, for this is the game all must play and you may not speak your name.” She pulled aside the portiere, Gersen stepped through into a vast hall. From a ceiling so high as to be unseen hung a single chandelier, casting an island of light around a great table laid with linen, silver and crystal.
Here sat a dozen people in the most elaborate of costumes, wearing masks. Gersen examined them, but recognized none. Were they his fellows along the journey?” He could not be sure. Others entered the room. Now they came by twos and threes, all masked and all moving with an air of wonder.
Gersen recognized Navarth, whose swaggering gait was unmistakable. The girl, was she Drusilla? He could not be certain.
Forty people had entered the room, converging slowly upon the table. Footmen in silver and blue livery assisted all to seats; poured wine in the goblets, serving from silver trays.
Gersen ate and drank, aware of a peculiar confusion, almost bewilderment. Where and what was reality? The rigors of the journey seemed as remote as childhood. Gersen drank somewhat more wine than he might have under different circumstances. The chandelier exploded in a dazzling burst of green light, then went out. Gersen’s eyes projected orange afterimages into the dark, from around the table came whispers and hisses of surprise.
The chandelier slowly returned to normal. A tall man stood on a chair. He wore black garments and a black mask; he held a goblet of wine in his hand. “Guests.” he said, “I make you welcome. I am Viole Falushe. You have attained the Palace of Love.”
12
Avis rara, black mascara
Will you stay to dine with me?
Amanita botulina
Underneath my upas tree.
This dainty tray of cloisonne
Contains my finest patchouli.
Aha, my dear!
What have we here?
A dead mouse in the potpourri.
With mayonnaise the canapés,
Ravished from a sturgeon’s womb;
With silver prong we guide along
The squeaking oyster to his doom.
A samovar of hangdog tea:
A cup, or are you able?
Antimony, macaroni
On my hemlock table.
—Navarth
“There are many varieties of love,” said Viole Falushe in a pleasant husky voice. “The range is wide, and all have contributed to the creation of the palace. Not all of my guests discover this, and not every phase is yielded to them. For some the palace will seem little more than a holiday resort. Others will be haunted by what has been described as unnatural beauty. This is everywhere: in every detail, every view. Others will revel in ardor, and here I must offer information.”
Gersen studied Viole Falushe with a rapt intensity. The tall masked figure stood spare, straight, arms at sides; Gersen turned his head this way and that, trying to identify the figure, but the chandelier hanging directly above the man distorted his contours.
“The people at the Palace of Love are amiable, gay and beautiful, they fall into two categories,” said Viole Falushe. “The first are servants. They are pleased to obey every wish of my guests, every whim or caprice. The second class, the happy people who inhabit the palace, are as independent in their friendships as I myself. They are to be identified by their garments, which are white. Hence, your choice is wide.”
Gersen sought around the table, trying to find Tanzel, or Mario or Ethuen and thus eliminate them from suspicion. In this effort he was unsuccessful. Among the forty were a dozen persons who might be any of the three. He turned back to listen to Viole Falushe.
“Are there restrictions? A person who went mad and began to kill would naturally be restrained. Then again, all of us here cherish our privacy, one of our most delightful prerogatives. Only the most thoughtless person would intrude where he was not wanted. My personal apartments are sufficiently secluded; you need not apprehend an accidental intrusion; this is almost impossible.” Viole Falushe turned his head slowly, looked around the room. No one spoke; the room was heavy with expectancy.
Viole Falushe continued speaking. “So now—the Palace of Love! At times in the past I have arranged small dramas of which the participants were never aware. I have contrived moods in artful sequence. I have employed tragic contrasts to heighten the delectation. On this occasion there will be no such program. You will be free to do as you like, to create your own drama. I advise restraint. The rare jewels are the most precious. The degree of austerity I myself practice would astound you. My great pleasure is creation—of this I never tire. Some of my guests have complained of a gentle melancholy which hangs in the air; I agree that the mood exists. The explanation, I believe, arises from the fugacity of beauty, the tragic pavane to which all of us step. Ignore this mood; why brood, when there is so much love and beauty here? Take what is offered; have no regrets. A thousand years from now it will be all the same. Satiety is a problem, but it is your own. I cannot protect you. The servants are to serve; command them. The residents who wear white are to woo—to beguile. I pray that you do not become infatuated either with the palace or its people; such a situation presents difficulties. You will not see me, though spiritually I am always in your midst There are no spy devices, no sound transmitters, no vision cells. Upbraid me if you choose, revile me, praise me—I cannot hear. My only reward is the act of creation and the effect it produces. Do you wish to look forth on the Palace of Love? Turn then in your seats.”
The far wall slid away; daylight poured into the hall. Before the guests spread a landscape of mind-wrenching beauty: wide lawns, feathery green-bower trees, tall black cypress, twinkling birch; ponds, pools, marble urns, pavilions, terraces, rotundas; constructed to an airy delicate architecture that seemed almost to float.
Gersen, like the others, had been startled by the sudden opening of the wall. Recovering he jumped to his feet, but the man in black had disappeared.
Gersen sought out Navarth. “Who was it? Mano? Tanzel? Ethuen?”
Navarth shook his head. “I did not notice. I have been looking for the girl. Where is she?”
With a sudden sinking feeling Gersen swung around. None of the people in the room was Drusilla. “When did you see her last?”
“When we arrived, when we came into the courtyard.”
Already the journey seemed remote. Gersen muttered. “I hoped to protect her. I told her so. She trusted me.”
Navarth made an impatient motion. “You could have done nothing.”
Gersen went to the window, looked across the panorama. To the left was the sea, a group of distant islands. To the right mountains reared ever higher and harsher, with cliffs falling to the valley floor. Below was the Palace, a loose grouping of terraces, halls and pleasances. A door slid aside to reveal a descending staircase. One by one the guests descended to the valley.
The precincts of the Palace occupied a roughly hexagonal area perhaps a mile on a side. The base was the north cliff, with the Palace at its midpoint. The second side, clockwise, was demarcated by a line of rocky crags, the gaps between which were choked by rank thorny thickets. The third side was white beach and warm blue sea. The fourth and fifth sides were less distinct, and merged into the natural landscape. The sixth side, angling back to the cliff, was demarcated by a line of carefully cultivated flower beds and fruit trees arranged against a rude stone wall. Within the area were three villages, innumerable glades, gardens, waterways. The guests wandered where they chose, spent the long days in whatever fashion seemed most pleasurable. Bright mornings, golden afternoons, evenings and nights: one by one they drifted away.
The servants, as Viole Falushe had implied, were acquiescent and possessed of great physical charm. The folk in white, even more beautiful than the underservants, were innocent and willful as children. Some were cordial, some were perverse and impudent, all were unpredictable. It seemed as if their sole ambition was to evoke love, to tantalize, to fill the mind with longing, and they became depressed only when guests found the underservants preferable to themselves. They showed no awareness of the worlds of the universe, and only small curiosity, though their minds were active and their moods mercurial. They thought only of love, and the various aspects of fulfillment. As Viole Falushe had hinted, infatuation too intense might lead to tragedy; of this danger the people in white were gravely aware, but made small effort to avoid the danger.
The mystery of the Druids’ presence resolved itself. On the first day after arrival Dakaw, Pruitt, Laidig and Wust, with Hule and Billika in careful convoy, explored the precincts, and fixed upon a delightful little glade for their center of operations. To the back rose a line of black cypress, to right and left were lower trees and flowering shrubs, at the center was a great spraddle-rooted oak. In front of the glade a pair of shelters was erected: low domes of pale brown fiber. Here the group took up residence, and thereafter, each morning and afternoon held evangelical meetings, expounding the nature of their religion to all who came past. With great fervor they urged rigor, harshness, restraint and ritual upon the folk of the garden, who listened politely enough, but after the meetings enticed the Druids to relaxation and pleasure. Gersen decided that the whole affair was one of Viole Falushe’s wry jokes: a game he had chosen to play with the Druids. The other guests arrived at the same conclusion, and attended the meetings to judge whose doctrines would triumph.
The Druids worked with great intensity, and built a fane of stones and twigs. Standing at the front one or the other would cry out: “Must you all then die to become dead? The mode to the Eternal is through minglement with a Vitality more enduring than your own. The source of all is the Triad Mag-Rag-Dag—Air, Earth and Water. This is the Holy Immanence, which combines to produce the Tree of Life! The Tree is the wise, the vital, the enduring! Look at lesser things: insects, flowers, fish, man. See how they grow, bloom, lapse, while the Tree in its placid wisdom lives on. Yea, you titillate your flesh, you gorge your stomach, you flood your brain with vapor—What then? How soon you die, while the noble Tree, with roots in Earth, holds innumerable leaves to the glory of the sky. Forever! And when your flesh sags and withers, when your nerves no longer leap, when your belly is sour, when your nose drips from the liquor you have misused—then is no time to worship the Tree! No, no, no! For the Tree will have none of your corruption. All must be fresh and good. So worship. Give over the sterile cavortings, the animal gratifications! Worship the Tree!”
The palace folk listened with respect and awe. It was impossible to judge how deeply the Druid doctrine touched them. Meanwhile Dakaw and Pruitt began to dig a great hole under the oak, burrowing down between the sprawled roots. Hule and Billika were not allowed to dig and showed no disposition to do so; indeed they watched the process with horrified fascination.
The palace folk, in their turn, insisted that the Druids participate in their festivities, arguing: “You wish us to learn your ways, but in all fairness you must know the way we live too, so that you may judge our lives and see if after all we are corrupt!” Grudgingly the Druids acquiesced, sitting in a huddled group and maintaining the closest possible strictures upon Hule and Billika.
The other guests watched with varied reactions. Skebou Diffiani attended the meetings with regularity and presently, to the astonishment of all, announced his intent to become a Druid. Thereafter he donned black robe and cowl and joined the others at their rituals. Torrace da Nossa spoke of the Druids with pitying contempt. Lerand Wible, who along the way had displayed an interest in Billika, threw up his arms in disgust and stayed away. Mario, Ethuen and Tanzel went their own ways and were seen but seldom. Navarth had become obsessed. He roved the garden, morose, dissatisfied, looking this way and that. He took no joy in the beauty of the garden and went so far as to sneer at Viole Falushe’s arrangements. “There is no novelty here; the pleasures are banal. There are no exhilarations, no staggering insights, no sublime sweep of mind. All is either gross or maudlin—the gratification of gut and gland.”
“This may be true,” Gersen admitted. “The pleasures of the place are simple and undramatic. But what is wrong with this?”
“Nothing. But it is not poetry.”
“It is all very beautiful. To do Viole Falushe credit, he has avoided the macabre, the sadistic spectacles, which occur elsewhere, and he allows his servants a certain degree of integrity.”
Navarth made a sour grumbling sound. “You are an innocent. The more exotic pleasures he reserves for himself. Who knows what goes on beyond the walls? He is a man who halts at nothing. And integrity in these people? Bathos! They are dolls, toys, confections. No doubt many are the little children extorted from Kouhila—those he did not sell to the Mahrab. And when they lose their youth, what then? Where do they go?”
Gersen only shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“And where is Jheral Tinzy?” Navarth went on. “Where is the girl? What does he do with her? He has had her at his mercy.”
Gersen gave a grim nod. “I know.”
“You know,” jeered Navarth, “but only after I reminded you. You are not only innocent, you are futile and foolish—no less than myself. She trusted you to protect her, and what have you done? Swilled and trolloped with the others, and this is the extent of your effort.”
Gersen thought the outburst exaggerated but made a mild reply. “If I could contrive some feasible course of action, I would do so.
“And in the meantime?”
“In the meantime, I am learning.”
“Learning what?”
“I find that none of the people here know Viole Falushe by sight. His offices seem to be somewhere back in the mountains; I can find them nowhere in the valley. I dare not try to cross the stone wall to the west, nor the thorn barrier to the east; I would certainly be apprehended and, journalist or not, dealt with harshly. Since I have no weapons I can demand nothing. I must be patient. If I do not speak to him here at the Palace of Love, I will no doubt find opportunity elsewhere.”
“All for your magazine, eh?”
“Why else?” asked Gersen.
They had come to the glade of the Druids. Dakaw and Pruitt were delving as usual below the great oak, where they had excavated a chamber tall enough for a man to stand erect.
Navarth approached, peered down into the sweating dust streaked faces. “What do you do down there, you burrowing Druids? Are you not pleased with the vista above ground that you seek a new viewpoint below?”
“You are facetious,” said Pruitt coldly. “Be on your way; this is holy soil.”
“How can you be so sure? It looks like ordinary dirt.”
Neither Pruitt nor Dakaw made response.
Navarth barked down, “What sort of mischief are you up to? This is no ordinary pastime. Speak now.”
“Go away, old poet,” said Pruitt. “Your breath is a pollution and saddens the Tree.”
Navarth moved back and watched the digging from a little distance. “I do not like holes in the ground,” he told Gersen. “They are unpleasant. Look at Wible yonder. He stands as if he were overseer to the project!” Navarth pointed toward the entrance to the glade, where Wible stood, legs apart, hands clasped behind his back, whistling between his teeth. Navarth joined him. “The work of the Druids enthralls you?”
“Not at all,” said Lerand Wible. “They dig a grave.”
“As I suspected. For whom?”
“That I can’t be sure. Perhaps you—perhaps me.”
“I doubt if they will inter me,” said Navarth. “You may be more pliable.”
“I doubt if they will inter anyone,” said Wible, whistling once more through his teeth.
“Indeed? How can you be so sure?”
“Come to the consecration and see for yourself.”
“When does this rite occur?”
“Tomorrow night, so I have been informed.”
Little music was to be heard on the grounds of the palace; the quiet of the garden was as crystalline and clear as a dewdrop. But on the following morning the folk in white brought forth stringed instruments and for an hour played a wistful music rich with plangent overtones. A sudden shower sent all hurrying to the shelter of a nearby rotunda, where they stood chattering like birds and peering up at the sky. Gersen, contemplating their faces, thought how frail and tenuous was the connection between them and the guests. Did they know anything except frivolity and love? And there was the question raised by Navarth: What happened when they aged? Few in the garden were past the first bloom of their maturity.
The sun came forth; the garden glinted with freshness. Gersen, drawn by curiosity went to the Druids’ glade. Within one of the shelters he glimpsed Billika’s pale face. Then Wust came to stare at him from the doorway.
The long afternoon passed. Today a portent hung in the air, and uneasiness seemed to infect everyone. Evening arrived; the sun sank in a great tumult of clouds; gold, orange and red flamed overhead and far into the east. With the coming of dusk, folk of the garden went to the Druids’ glade. To each side of the oak tree were fires, tended by Druidess Laidig and Druidess Wust.
Druid Pruitt emerged from his shelter. He went to the fane and began his address. His voice was heavy and resonant; he paused frequently, as if to hear the echoes of his words.
