Mazirian the Magician by Jack Vance Read Free Book Online

speed.
    â€œPresently we return to Earth,” he told her, “to my home beside a great river in the green land of Ascolais.”
    â€œIs the sky of Earth filled with colors?” she inquired.
    â€œNo,” he replied. “The sky of Earth is a fathomless dark blue, and an ancient red sun rides across the sky. When night falls the stars appear in patterns that I will teach you. Embelyon is beautiful, but Earth is wide, and the horizons extend far off into mystery. As soon as Pandelume wills, we return to Earth.”
    T’sain loved to swim in the river, and sometimes Turjan came down to splash her and toss rocks in the water while he dreamed. Against T’sais he had warned her, and she had promised to be wary.
    But one day, as Turjan made preparations for departure, she wandered far afield through the meadows, mindful only of the colors at play in the sky, the majesty of the tall blurred trees, the changing flowers at her feet; she looked on the world with a wonder that is only for those new from the vats. Across several low hills she wandered, and through a dark forest where she found a cold brook. She drank and sauntered along the bank, and presently came upon a small dwelling.
    The door being open, T’sain looked to see who might live here. But the house was vacant, and the only furnishings were a neat pallet of grass, a table with a basket of nuts, a shelf with a few articles of wood and pewter.
    T’sain turned to go on her way, but at this moment she heard the ominous thud of hooves, sweeping close like fate. The black horse slid to a stop before her. T’sain shrank back in the doorway, all Turjan’s warnings returning to her mind. But T’sais had dismounted and came forward with her sword ready. As she raised to strike, their eyes met, and T’sais halted in wonder.
    It was a sight to excite the brain: the beautiful twins, wearing the same white waist-high breeches, with the same intense eyes and careless hair, the same slim pale bodies, the one wearing on her face hate for every atom of the universe, the other a gay exuberance.
    T’sais found her voice.
    â€œHow is this, witch? You bear my semblance, yet you are not me. Or has the boon of madness come at last to dim my sight of the world?”
    T’sain shook her head. “I am T’sain. You are my twin, T’sais, my sister. For this I must love you and you must love me.”
    â€œLove? I love nothing! I will kill you and so make the world better by one less evil.” She raised her sword again.
    â€œNo!” cried T’sain in anguish. “Why do you wish to harm me? I have done no wrong!”
    â€œYou do wrong by existing, and you offend me by coming to mock my own hideous mold.”
    T’sain laughed. “Hideous? No. I am beautiful, for Turjan says so. Therefore you are beautiful, too.”
    T’sais’ face was like marble.
    â€œYou make sport of me.”
    â€œNever. You are indeed very beautiful.”
    T’sais dropped the point of her sword to the ground. Her face relaxed into thought.
    â€œBeauty! What is beauty? Can it be that I am blind, that a fiend distorts my vision? Tell me, how does one see beauty?”
    â€œI don’t know,” said T’sain. “It seems very plain to me. Is not the play of colors across the sky beautiful?”
    T’sais looked up in astonishment. “The harsh glarings? They are either angry or dreary, in either case detestable.”
    â€œSee how delicate are the flowers, fragile and charming.”
    â€œThey are parasites, they smell vilely.”
    T’sain was puzzled. “I do not know how to explain beauty. You seem to find joy in nothing. Does nothing give you satisfaction?”
    â€œOnly killing and destruction. So then these must be beautiful.”
    T’sain frowned. “I would term these evil concepts.”
    â€œDo you believe so?”
    â€œI am sure of it.”
    T’sais