Maske: Thaery by Jack Vance Read Free Book Online Page A

pest-house. He crossed the square, jaw set, eyes glaring, and plunged into a district of twisting lanes, shadowed under overhanging roofs and balconies. Half-Skay, at the zenith, loomed through the crevice of sky. Jubal walked with long lunging strides, blind, deaf, heedless of direction. Other folk moved aside and looked back over their shoulders as he passed. A jog in the street took him abruptly into a small tree-bordered square. He stopped short, then went to a bench and seated himself… Nai the Hever was a man devious, obscure, repellent as a Marcative imp. If Jubal’s disclosures had caused him discomfiture, so much the better! Unfortunately, there might have been no great discomfiture. Nai the Hever’s manner had been ambiguous. The two girls? Jubal produced a sharp whistling suspiration through his teeth. Pale gold silk and brown curls! Both beautiful beyond reason!
    Mieltrude distant and chilly, Sune: soft, slight, subtle, warm. Odd that both, with apparently equal fervor, favored the advancement of Ramus Ymph. He could hardly be lover to both of them, or so it would seem.
    Perhaps they practiced one of those faddish erotic novelties which, so rumor had it, were endemic to Wysrod. Jubal considered Ramus Ymph. The score was not yet settled. Far from it! Jubal’s grin became wolfish. A decent mid-caste matron on the bench opposite rose quickly to her feet and walked away.
    Jubal scowled after her. Were Glints considered inhuman here in Wysrod?… Wysrod, bah! Jubal growled in disgust.
    Wysrod: where he had come with such naïve hopes to shape his future! He brought out Vaidro’s letter.
    Nai the Hever had not even read it. Jubal threw the letter to the ground. Then hastily, so that he should not be apprehended for littering, he retrieved it and thrust it in his pocket. So much for his fine dreams. What now? The Bureau of Public Employment? Back to Glentlin and Ballas Cove? Jubal stirred restlessly on the bench. Life suddenly seemed stale and flat. He looked around the square, feeling strange as a wild beast among these sedate shops, each jealously guarding a small monopoly. He morosely studied the narrow store-fronts. A three-story structure offered jellies, candied fruit, dried pickle, conserves of a hundred flavors. Another sold Djan lace; the next sound-enhancers; the next drafting implements; the next cutlery; the next mythical bestiaries, globes of Old Earth, manuals of dream interpretation. Small enterprises, few less than three or four hundred years old, some so old as to be public institutions.
    Wysrod! a small town in the center of the Great Hole—but for the Thariots the focus of sentient life… Jubal rose slowly to his feet. Orienting himself by the angle between Mora and Skay, he set off toward Duskerl Bay.
    Wysrod, a secret and complicated city, frustrated Jubal still another time. He walked back and forth, along angled ways and dog-leg lanes, in and out of sequestered squares, down a grand avenue flanked by tall townhouses which abruptly ended at the Palace of Memorials. At last Jubal signaled a hack and required that he be conveyed to the Marine Parade. “It lies a hundred paces yonder,” said the driver, after looking Jubal up and down. “Why not walk?”
    “I trust nothing of this weird maze. Take me to the Marine Parade and a decent inn, where one can get a breath of air from off the sea.”
    “For someone like yourself the Sea-Wrack should serve.”
    “Very well,” said Jubal sadly. “Take me to the Sea-Wrack.”
    The hack drove along the Marine Parade to a comfortably shabby building, shaded under three daldank trees, with a long verandah overlooking the water and a tavern to provide ale, wine, clam toddy, and fried fish to those desirous: the Sea-Wrack Inn.
    Jubal was assigned a chamber halfway along the verandah. In the tavern he consumed a plate of fishcakes and a jug of beer, then morosely went out upon the verandah.
    Near his room waited a tall young man who twirled a bit of chain