Mazirian the Magician by Jack Vance Read Free Book Online Page B

manse.
    She dismounted, walked slowly to the door of black smoky wood, which bore the image of a sardonic face. She pulled at the tongue and inside a bell tolled.
    There was no reply.
    â€œPandelume!” she called.
    Presently there was a muffled answer: “Enter.”
    She pushed open the door and came into a high-ceilinged room, bare except for a padded settee, a dim tapestry.
    â€œWhat is your wish?” The voice, mellow and of an illimitable melancholy, came from beyond the wall.
    â€œPandelume, today I have learned that killing is evil, and further that my eyes trick me, and that beauty is where I see only harsh light and evil forms.”
    For a period Pandelume maintained a silence; then the muffled voice came, replying to the implicit plea for knowledge.
    â€œThat is, for the most part, true. Living creatures, if nothing else, have the right to life. It is their only truly precious possession, and the stealing of life is a wicked theft … As for the other, the fault is not with you. Beauty lies everywhere free to be seen by all — by all except you. For this I feel sorrow, for I created you. I built your primal cell; I stamped the strings of life with the pattern of your body and brain. And in spite of my craft I erred, so that when you climbed from the vat, I found that I had molded a flaw into your brain; that you saw ugliness in beauty, evil in good. True ugliness, true evil you have never seen, for in Embelyon there is nothing wicked or foul … Should you be so unfortunate to encounter these, I fear for your brain.”
    â€œCannot you change me?” cried T’sais. “You are a magician. Must I live my life out blind to joy?”
    The shadow of a sigh penetrated the wall.
    â€œI am a magician indeed, with knowledge of every spell yet devised, the sleight of runes, incantations, designs, exorcisms, talismans. I am Master Mathematician, the first since Phandaal, yet I can do nothing to your brain without destroying your intelligence, your personality, your soul — for I am no god. A god may will things to existence; I must rely on magic, the spells which vibrate and twist space.”
    Hope faded from T’sais’ eyes. “I wish to go to Earth,” she said presently. “The sky of Earth is a steady blue, and a red sun moves over the horizons. I tire of Embelyon where there is no voice but yours.”
    â€œEarth,” mused Pandelume. “A dim place, ancient beyond knowledge. Once it was a tall world of cloudy mountains and bright rivers, and the sun was a white blazing ball. Ages of rain and wind have beaten and rounded the granite, and the sun is feeble and red. The continents have sunk and risen. A million cities have lifted towers, have fallen to dust. In place of the old peoples a few thousand strange souls live. There is evil on Earth, evil distilled by time … Earth is dying and in its twilight …” he paused.
    T’sais said doubtfully: “Yet I have heard Earth is a place of beauty, and I would know beauty, even though I die.”
    â€œHow will you know beauty when you see it?”
    â€œAll human beings know beauty … Am I not human?”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œThen I will find beauty, and perhaps even —” T’sais faltered over the word, so alien was it to her mind, yet so full of disturbing implication.
    Pandelume was silent. At last:
    â€œYou shall go if you wish. I will aid you as I may. I will give you runes to ward you from magic; I will strike life into your sword; and I will give you advice, which is this: Beware of men, for men loot beauty to sate their lust. Permit intimacy to none … I will give you a bag of jewels, which are riches on Earth. With these you may attain much. Yet, again, show them nowhere, for certain men will slay for a copper bit.”
    A heavy silence came, a weight was gone from the air.
    â€œPandelume,” called T’sais softly. There was no