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

culbrass around his finger. He was spare, languid and superbly elegant; his demeanor suggested recondite knowledge and world-weariness.
    Jubal halted to assess the situation. An assassin? Unlikely. There had been no time for the necessary formalities.
    The man watched Jubal indifferently. Jubal went to his door, and the man spoke: “You are Jubal Droad?”
    “What of it?”
    “His Excellency Nai the Hever wishes you to appear at his Parloury offices tomorrow morning at the fourth hour.”
    A bubble of cold fury exploded in Jubal’s mind. “What does he want?”
    “As to that I can’t inform you.”
    “If he wishes conversation, he may meet me here. I have nothing to say to him.”
    The young man inspected Jubal with dispassionate interest. But he only said: “You have heard the message.” Then he turned to depart.
    “You do not appear to understand me,” said Jubal. “The situation is at equilibrium. I am not obliged to him, nor he to me. If he wants something he comes here. If I want something I go there. Please clarify this procedure to Nai the Hever.”
    The man merely smiled a dry smile. “The time is the fourth hour; the place is the Parloury.” He departed.

Chapter 5
    Describe the circumstances in exact detail,” said Nai the Hever. Leaning back, he fixed his transparent gaze upon Jubal Droad, who returned the inspection with as much dignity as he could command.
    Expostulation, irony, any sort of vehemence: all were equally pointless. Jubal responded to the instruction in a passionless voice. “There is little to add to what I have already told you.”
    “Nevertheless, I wish to hear the detailed account.”
    Jubal reflected a moment. “I lay in the Ivo infirmary for three weeks. During this time I studied maps of the region. Why had the man, whom I now know to be Ramus Ymph, traveled this remote region in such a peculiar style? I examined the maps. The trail after leaving Ivo proceeds toward Glentlin through a wilderness. Six miles from Ivo is the Skyshaw Inn. I telephoned from the infirmary: they had not seen Ramus Ymph, his ercycle or his perrupters. Ramus Ymph, therefore, had entered the trail between Mount Cardoon and the Skyshaw. On the Isedel side the ground drops away in steep gullies. There are no roads.
    From Djanad there is easy access by several of the plateaus. I decided that my deed-debtor 18 had joined the High Trail out of Djanad. What would a man of this sort hope to accomplish in this region? I could come to no conclusion.
    “When I left the infirmary I went west along the trail. At Mount Cardoon the broken wall was repaired and the trail was open. Thereafter I carefully studied the ground, hoping to discover where Ramus Ymph had joined the trail. I found the place after only two miles, on the other side of Mount Cardoon. The marks were not apparent; Ramus Ymph had tried to conceal them but nevertheless I found them. They bore to the left into Djanad, only a half-mile off the trail. Strange affairs were afoot.
    “I followed the tracks, south across a moor and down-slope into a valley. The land was quite deserted: a wilderness. I could not know how far the tracks led, and I was afraid to travel alone into Djanad, since I carried only my Glint blade. I decided to proceed two hours, so that I could return to Skyshaw Inn before sunset. The wheel-marks were plain enough. They led down-slope around a forest, then disappeared on a meadow of gaddle-stem. I skirted the meadow but found no more tracks. A puzzle! How could tracks leave a meadow without entering? I crossed the meadow, and at the center I discovered several areas where the gaddle-stem had been crushed by great pressure. Between these marks the growth was discolored and wilted. I wondered if a space-ship had not come down upon this meadow. I remembered the sounds I had heard during the morning, and I was quite certain: Ramus Ymph had alighted from a space-ship. He had gone off-world and returned.”
    “He might have come to