Maske: Thaery (20 page)
a time of freedom and carelessness, marking the transition between youth and maturity. When their time arrives, the young men and women of Thaery and Glentlin become wayfarers and wander the thirteen counties. They travel by footpath and take shelter at wayside inns, or camp in the meadows. As they go they maintain the landscape: planting trees, repairing trails, clearing thickets of dead bramble, quelling spider-grass, the odious hariah and thorn. If anyone shirks, he becomes notorious, and the epithet
chraus
(‘languid’, ‘small-souled’, ‘dishonorable’) is apt to persist for the rest of his life.
Never is love more poignant or friends more dear. Memories last forever: laughing faces; red wine by lantern light; the music of mandolin and flute; nights on green hilltops, when voices are low and Zangwill Reef hangs like a glowing curtain across the south, or awesome Skay trundles down the sky. All too soon Yallow ends and youth is gone.
The Saidanese of Skay and the Djan of Maske comprise the species
homo mora
, which cannot fruitfully interbreed with
homo gaea
—though the Waels of Wellas and certain Dohobay tribes are reputedly hybrid races. Saidanese and Djan manifest a typically human physiognomy, with gracile proportions, small features, black hair, pallid olive complexions, often overlaid with a faint metallic sheen.
Djan eyes range from dark green to black, with elliptical pupils. On Skay a unique set of social imperatives—the so-called First Principle—has stabilized the type. On Maske, the coming of the Thariots created a convulsion, and the type has become somewhat more differentiated.
Both Djan and Saidanese are dedicated to the maintenance of an exact social order. Every possible activity is performed in concert with others, according to a standard method. The minimum Djan social unit is a group of four persons, most often two males and two females, who set up what is in effect a housekeeping cooperative. Each is ‘married’ to a person from a different household, though a kind of indiscriminate affection or habit of mutual fondling and grooming, which may include sexual contact, permeates Djan and Saidanese society. In effect each household is linked to four others; by widening circles every household connects with every other household of Djanad.
Djan behavior varies as to the size of the immediate group. Four is the smallest group in which a Djan can feel relaxed. Three Djan presently become uneasy, their voices rise; they become restless and over-active.
Two Djan, if alone together for any extended period, stimulate each other either to affection or antagonism. The solitary Djan, lacking social restraints, becomes disoriented, unstable, and often dangerous.
Thariots employ Djan workers in large numbers, guided by the following schedule:
One Djan performs aimlessly unless supervised.
Two Djan become intense; they either quarrel or fondle each other. Work suffers.
Three Djan create a disequilibrium; they work with agitation and resentful energy.
Four Djan form a stable system. They respond equably to orders but exert themselves only moderately and indulge themselves in comfort.
Five Djan form an unstable and dangerous combination. Four will presently form a group; the fifth, ejected, becomes resentful and bitter. He may go ‘solitary’.
Six Djan yield one stable set and a pair of defiant lovers.
Seven Djan create an unpredictable flux of shifting conditions and a turmoil of emotions.
Eight Djan, after considerable shifting, conniving, testing, plotting, back-biting, yield two stable groups.
The moods of the Djan are a mystery to the most earnest students of the race. The Institute of Djan Studies at Wysrod has prepared the following summation, applying specifically to Thariots traveling in Djanad:
A lone Djan (a rare situation in itself) coming upon a lone Thariot, will seldom (4%) commit an overtly hostile act, but not infrequently (40%) will commit a covert act ranging from mischief to murder. Two Djan coming upon a lone Thariot will more often than not (65%) first harass and eventually attack him, after a peculiar and embarrassing set of psychological accommodations between the three participants. Two Djan will never (0%) attack two Thariots; the four become at least temporarily an uneasy replica of the Djan social atom. Three Djan will rarely (15%) attack a lone Thariot, almost never (2%) a pair of Thariots, and never (0%) three Thariots. Four Djan will almost never (1%) attack a lone Thariot, but are slightly more liable (2%) to attack two Thariots. They will never (0%) attack parties of three or four Thariots.
The above conditions apply most rigorously when Skay is gone from the sky. With Skay visible, the Djan become mercurial, and react to influences beyond Thariot comprehension.
In passing, it may be noted that, while in Djanad thievery is unknown, the Djan in Thaery is a constant, confirmed and unregenerate pilferer. Similarly, the Djan in Djanad is modest and sexually restrained, whereas in Thaery, Thariot men casually copulate with Djan girls, although Djan men never copulate with Thariot women, both through mutual repulsion and physical disconformities.
The feluccas of the Long Ocean are manned by the Sea Nationals, who assert sovereignty across the entire extent of the Long Ocean, and control all trade and transit routes. Aerial overflights are absolutely proscribed, and each felucca is armed with a punchern-gun, an automatic finder, and tangs.
The Nationals, numbering scarcely twenty thousand, could hardly enforce their claims without the tacit support of the Thariots, from whom most of the Nationals derive; in fact the Sea Nationals are often regarded as a special Thariot caste.
The feluccas are boats of great intrinsic beauty, crafted by the Waels of Wellas at Erdstone Pool. They range in length from thirty to seventy feet and are powered principally by wind. The trade winds blow always westerly; the Sea National typically sails his felucca downwind, from sea to sea, and port to port, forever and ever around the world.
The Parloury at Wysrod consists of three agencies, with their various bureaus: the Landmoote, representing the middle and lower castes; the Convention of Ilks; and the Five Servants. The grand structure on Travan Square is also known as ‘The Parloury’.
The penal system of Thaery proceeds by an archaic and highly complicated system. The injured, or first party, states his case before a magistrate, sometimes but not necessarily against the defence of the offending, or second, party. If the magistrate considers the case reasonable, a warrant is issued, and the first party may inflict the retribution in person; or he may hire one of several agencies to the same end.
The first party specifies the exact act he is penalizing and stipulates such punishment as he chooses. If the second party considers the punishment too severe, he takes the case before an arbitrator. If the arbitrator finds for the first party, the punishment may be increased or punitive costs levied. If he finds for the second party, an official agent visits the exact penalty upon the first party. Reasonable retributions are, therefore, encouraged. The second party may try to evade the penal officials, but he is forbidden to resist with violence, unless the penalty is death. For this reason penal officials never inflict death—although sometimes the effect is much the same.
6. For the information of tourists: Eisel Musicology.
That our tourists may maximally enjoy their visit to Eiselbar, we are pleased briefly to analyze the subject of music.
Let us begin with an attack upon the basic mystery: how can a succession of noises, no matter how pure the vibrations or how exact the harmonies, evoke emotional reactions within the soul of men? Noise, after all, has no intrinsic meaning.
We consider, then, two aspects of music: corporeal and natural analogues, and symbology. We notice immediately that musical tempi correspond to the range of bodily rhythms, most especially the heart-pulse. Musics progressing at tempi much faster or much slower than bodily rhythms are immediately felt to be unnatural and strained. Only on extraordinary occasions will very slow or very fast tempi accord with a human tempo. The dirge is a sublimation of slow moans of grief; the jig keeps pace with vigorous kicking and stamping of the feet.
Similarly, those musical timbres which have been proved to be most appealing and evocative are those reminiscent of organic processes: the human voice, bird songs, the lowing of cattle. By the same token, musical augmentations of tension and their release, as well as the resolution of chord progressions, find analogues in corporeal stresses and their relief, i.e. the weight of a toilsome load and its easing; constipation and discharge; dread of punishment and reprieve; thirst and the slaking of thirst; hunger and satiation; erotic yearning and fulfillment; flatulence and the relief of flatulence; hot discomfort and a plunge into cool water. Eisel musicologists have made exhaustive analyses in these directions, and are absolutely competent at producing the most effective timbres, crescendos and diminuendos upon their synthesizers. Eisel music is universal! And one need not be a witch doctor or a mad poet in order to derive the meanings. All persons, rich and poor, slow or quick, enjoy the same corporeal sensations.
Musical symbology is a more complex matter, involving cerebral and mnemonic processes.
The perception of musical symbols begins when an infant hears the tones of its mother’s lullaby.
Each culture is typified by its peculiar set of musical symbols; when you hear some person claim to understand or appreciate the music of a very alien culture, you may politely regard that person as either a dunce or a diddler.
However, when a general culture, such as that of the Gaean Reach, suffuses a local culture, there will be a mingling of symbologies, so that an ear of World A may to a limited degree interpret certain musics of World B. Eisel musicologists adeptly employ the Gaean symbology with a judicious enrichment of specifically local symbols. They have available a great battery of scales, chords, note sequences, and harmonic patterns, carefully filed, annotated and cross-indexed. With the principles cited above as theoretical foundation, they are able to elicit from their computative synthesizers the remarkable and useful range of Eisel music.
In ancient times (and even today in musically backward regions) folk blew into, or beat upon devices of wood, metal and fiber to elicit sounds of irregular and non-uniform quality. The music thus produced was (and is) necessarily impure and inexact, and never the same twice in succession, and therefore unsusceptible to rationalization, no matter how scholarly and experienced the analyst. Such practitioners were (and are) no more than posturing narcissists! They think of themselves as musical autocrats! Such ambitions have no place in an egalitarian society. Eisel musicologists are sternly schooled in theoretical principles. With their mighty computers, their versatile and responsive synthesizers, they formulate for the use of all people the range and scope of Eisel music.
1.
The conventions of galactic direction are like those of a rotating planet. The direction of rotation is east, the opposite west. When the fingers of the right hand extend in the direction of rotation, the thumb points to the north and opposite is south. ‘Inward’ and ‘outward’ refer to motion toward or away from the center of the galaxy.
2.
The Djans weave rugs of unexampled splendor and intricacy. Ten thousand knots per square inch is not unusual. The rugs are occasionally characterized as ‘one-life’, ‘two-life’, and so forth, to indicate the aggregate number of lifetimes invested in the creation of the rug.
3.
See
Glossary #1
.
4.
The Beneficial Service advises the Quadrates of the various Djan Territories and discreetly monitors Djan activities for signs of Pan-Djan agitation.
5.
The seafarers of the Long Ocean assert sovereignty over offshore waters; they describe themselves as Nationals of the Sea Nation.
6.
The Alien Influences Act forbids off-world traffic to and from Maske, and proscribes the return of emigrants.
7.
Long Ocean tides, controlled by the mass of Skay, average forty feet between high and low. Graband Claw, reaching across the Long Ocean, creates a mirror which deflects the tidal wave through the Happy Isles, where the cycle is dephased and confused. Around the world at the Throtto, the Morks perform a similar function. Except for these circumstances the tidal wave, sweeping around the world, might reach heights of two hundred feet.
8.
The inns of Thaery are, by force of law, situated no more than seven miles apart, for the convenience of those who walk the countryside. Their facilities are uniformly pleasant, clean and comfortable, partly through the diligence of the Bureau of Trade inspectors.
9.
The mild and placid Djan, if kept in solitude, is apt to erupt in berserk fury upon trivial provocation. If thereafter he escapes to the wilderness he becomes a cunning and sadistic beast—a ‘slane’—committing atrocity after atrocity until he is destroyed.
10.
See
Glossary #2
.
11.
Culbrass: personal emblems, ornaments, tablets and other insignia of ilk or caste.
12.
Honorifics are impossible to translate succinctly. The text provides what are at best more or less awkward approximations.
13.
See
Glossary #4
.
14.
This rite and its implications originally differentiated the Twelve Regular ships from the Irregular Thirteenth. The Unspeakable Fourteenth—the so-called Irredemptibles—differed even more fundamentally. The descendants of the Fourteenth, mingled through some freakish process with
homo mora
, comprise the Waels of Wellas.
15.
Dath: a tall hat, in the shape of a truncated cone, from six inches to as much as twenty-four inches in height. The article, when worn by women, is often enlivened by flowers nested in the crown, or a spray of dyed eph-plumes, or a flurry of ribbons. The male dath is ordinarily unadorned, except, occasionally, for a trifle of silver culbrass.
16.
The Marine Equalizer is that functionary who monitors National activity and in case of transgression commands the punitive measures.
17.
Strochane: a mythical being with supernormal powers, whose commands no mortal men can disobey.
18.
Loose translation of
smaidair
—i.e.: a person who has gained
mana
at the expense of another person, thus establishing a psychic disequilibrium. The imbalance is often mutually recognized and a voluntary reparation made. In other cases the balance is forcibly restored, and is barely distinguishable from ‘revenge’, though the distinction is very real.
19.
See
Glossary #3
.
20.
When Skay eclipses Mora, the Djans become disturbed and sometimes perform unconventional or even irrational acts. The Binadaries—i.e., those Djans of Maske and Saidanese of Skay who intend the expulsion of the Thariots—often perform aggressive acts during the dark of Skay.
21.
Quat: a flat four-cornered hat, sometimes no more than a square of heavy fabric, occasionally weighted at the corners with small globes of pyrite, chalcedony, cinnabar or silver.
22.
See
Glossary #5
.
23.
The masculine Eisel headgear: a rimless hat of pleated cloth, ordinarily worn at a jaunty angle.
24.
The light of Bhutra being intense, the Eisels live under shades and screens, often glass panels of monochromatic quality. Over the centuries they have developed a sensitivity to combinations—chords, so to speak—of monochromatic light. The discriminating Eisel can perceive visual combinations much as a trained musical ear is sensitive to the components of chords.
25.
A limping and inadequate translation of the term chotz: that music with which an Eisel surrounds himself, to project his mood, or to present an ideal version of his personality. It is interesting to note that the Eisels are uninterested in the composition or rendition of music; they rarely sing or whistle, although occasionally they jerk their fingers or tap their feet in reflex reaction to the rhythm. The ability to play a musical instrument is so rare as to be considered a freakish eccentricity. The ‘personal music’ is produced by an ingenious mechanism programmed, not by musicians, but by musicologists.
26.
Husler: honorific appellative, applied to all persons. Eisel society lacks formal caste distinctions, status being essentially a function of wealth.
27.
See
Glossary #6
.
28.
Shdavi: a tower supporting a residential globe high in the air, the construction resembling (and perhaps patterned upon) the stem and spore-pod of the indigenous myrophode.
29.
The word among its cluster of meanings includes
power
,
grandeur
,
disinclination to receive rebuffs gracefully
.
30.
An idiom signifying urgency and enjoining the person addressed to accurate disclosure.
31.
The responsive idiom, signalizing the service about to be rendered, and including it into the balance of obligations existing between the two.
32.
Close-fitting casque or bonnet, of leather or felt, with a pointed crown and earflaps, an article worn by Glint mountaineers
33.
The usually mild Djan, when isolated from his fellows, is apt to become a rogue. When solitary Djan are recruited as perrupters, they are required to wear masks, to prevent them from establishing normal social relationships with their fellows, to the detriment of their fighting qualities.
34.
A loose rendering of the word
ankhe
: futility, depression, discouragement.