Night Lamp (20 page)

“I thought that it was rather a doleful story, and bent to look once again through the window. I saw only sand; nothing else.

“Dusk was falling and a cold wind was blowing in from the sea. Tombas turned away; in silence we returned to the house.

“Thereafter, Tombas lost interest in the beach. The wind and the spray worked on the castle; it crumbled and became a heap of sand. Whenever I passed I wondered what had happened to Earne. Who had claimed her: Shing or Shang? But I never raised the question with Tombas.

“The summer passed, third term began. Things were much as before. Late one evening we were sitting together in the dark. We were drinking a soft Blue-flower wine, and we were both in an unusual mood. Quite casually Tombas said that she thought she would die quite soon, and that she loved me and wanted me to accept all her possessions and use them as my own.

“I told her that the idea was preposterous, and that she would do nothing of the sort; further, that she should not allow herself to think such dismal thoughts.

“Tombas only tilted her head to the side in her own particular way, smiling. She told me she had been shown expansion beyond limits, in a revelation. Now she knew so much, and her head was so crammed with facts, that she could only process a small segment of her knowledge during any given interval.

“I said that it sounded interesting, but why must it include her death?

“ ‘It was inevitable,’ said Tombas. She went on to explain that the five senses had constructed a cardboard façade to deceive the mind. With enlightenment had come a tragic vision of reality. She had glimpsed the terrible truth behind the façade. There was no recourse; submission was the optimum response, in that it put an end to struggle. Submission offered surcease from agonies of hope and love and wonder.

“So—there was the answer: total abnegation, and a quick yielding to death, if only to put an end to hope.

“I said that it was sheer hysteria which caused her to say such things. How, for instance, could she know that death was at hand? She told me that she could see her body as a three-dimensional armature, washed with films of color: pink, yellow, blue, cerise—these colors flowed over the armature and—according to her preception—signified various phases of normality. But now a rust-colored shape had appeared and indicated the onset of mortefaction.

“I had heard enough. I jumped to my feet and turned on all the lights. I told her that such talk was obscene and disgusting.

“Tombas only laughed her gentle laugh, and said that truth could not be altered by invective. Why recoil from sweet beautiful death in such a passion of righteousness?

“I asked after the source of these ideas, and who had been talking to her? I asked if she were having a love affair, perhaps with the same person who was guiding her thoughts? Tombas became vague, and said that such questions led into blind alleys; that only truth was important, not personalities.

“There the matter rested.” Skirl paused, then: “Once again, there is too much to tell. These are the high points. I reported to Myrl Sunder. He became furious. I told him all I knew and all I suspected. He altered before my eyes, to a man focused upon a single objective. He intended to find and deal with the person or persons who had suborned his daughter’s mind and possibly her body. Suddenly, I saw that he was a very dangerous man. I learned that by profession Myrl Sunder was an effectuator who masked himself as a legal consultant. Together, he told me, we would learn what was going on. As a start, he arranged medical examinations for both myself and Tombas. We were pronounced sound, though Tombas showed symptoms of some odd and ambiguous mental disorder for which they could recommend no treatment.

“Tombas resented the attention. She felt that I had betrayed her trust, even though I had been subjected to the same examination. She saw through the game, and became rather cool.

“I conferred again with Myrl Sunder. He pointed out that I was optimally situated to discover who had such influence over Tombas, and he commissioned me to do so. Very discreetly, I started to collect information. The trail was not hard to follow. It led to a certain Ben Lan Dantin and two others. They were instructors in the School of Religious Philosophy. Tombas had taken a course in Religious Derivations from Dantin and they had engaged in long after-class discussions, and evening meetings as well.

“Myrl Sunder called on Dantin after I told him what I had learned. Both the romance and the instruction came to an instant halt. Dantin made some lame excuse to Tombas. She seemed puzzled but not greatly disturbed. I thought it was very odd, and my opinion of Dantin was not enhanced. He was a curious sort: slim, graceful, quite young but intellectually precocious, with a grave pale face in an aureole of dark curls. His eyes were large, luminous, dark hazel; his mouth was so tender and his smile so sweet that many of the girls wanted to kiss him where he stood. This group did not include me. To look at him turned my stomach. I thought him over-ripe, decadent and depraved, if in an interesting way.

“Tombas knew nothing about my involvement and it wasn’t long before we resumed our old relationship. One day she told me, quite casually, that she had decided to die at the end of the following day.

“I was shocked. I argued for an hour, but she said only that it was for the best. I pointed out that she would be leaving behind her father and myself to grieve. Tombas said that there was an easy solution: all of us could die together. I told her that we wanted to live, but she only laughed and said that we were being foolishly stubborn. I left her to herself and informed Myrl Sunder of her plan.

“The day passed and the night. On the next day Myrl Sunder took us to lunch at Cloud Country, a restaurant floating high in the sky just under the drift of cumulus clouds. It is a beautiful place, unique in the Gaean Reach, and an inducement for the saddest and most defeated person to stay alive. We sat at a table beside a low balustrade, overlooking the city Glist and the surrounding territory. Tombas showed no great appetite and seemed very pensive, but Myrl Sunder managed to introduce a powerful sedative into her food. By the time we had returned to the surface she was drowsy and by middle afternoon she was sound asleep in her own bed at home.

“The afternoon waned and the sun fell toward the horizon. At sunset Tombas stopped breathing and was dead.”

Skirl hesitated, then said, “I don’t want to go through all the details but, touching just the high points, this is what happened next. I have already mentioned that Myrl Sunder was an effectuator, and a person of very strong character. I went to live in his house, where I disposed of Tombas’ belongings: a very melancholy task. I sorted through her letters and her diary and discovered names. I continued my classes at the academy and after several frightening adventures I learned what there was to be known. It was heartbreaking information. Tombas had been induced to die for several reasons. The most mysterious was a sort of refined necrophilia, elaborately codified so as to produce an erotic mental sensation. Dantin was the leader. He had invented the precepts of the cult as an exercise in a peculiar sort of psychic sexual perversion. The two disciples were Flewen and Raud, all equally twisted. Tombas was their fourth victim, and had brought them all a weird joy impossible to describe in ordinary language.

“Sunder was pleased when I told him of my discovery. He made his plans with care, since the three were wary. He captured them with my help and conveyed them to the summer home overlooking the shore where Tombas had built her magic palace.

“Obeying Sunder’s instructions, I took myself into the kitchen and set about preparing our dinner. Sunder led the three down to the beach and I went on with my work.

“In an hour Sunder returned, smiling. As we sat over soup, I asked what had happened. He explained without diffidence. The tide was now at low ebb. He had buried them in the sand up to their necks, facing out to sea, and left them to watch the incoming tide. But they would derive small pleasure from their own deaths and might not even drown, as the sand crabs would find them at once.

“As we ate, we spoke of the future. He told me candidly that he had become accustomed to me, and that I had come to represent the daughter he had seen vanish into the murk of her own imagining. He wanted me to live in his house; meanwhile, I could continue at Aeolian Academy. Or, should I be so inclined, I could become his assistant, and he would train me in the techniques of an effectuator, and this is what happened. I took extra courses at Aeolian Academy, and they gave me an early certificate. I helped Sunder in his work, and—far more importantly—I took the place of poor dead Tombas, who had killed herself by some means that was still beyond our understanding.

“Sunder taught me as much about effectuating as I could assimilate. He emphasized that in the main, the work consisted of gathering information and fitting it together, though at times it could be dangerous. He put regular sums into my bank account until it reached five thousand sols, which he said should cover most contingencies, if he were not around to deal with them himself.

“Four months ago Sunder was sent on a mission to the world Morbihan, in the back region of Aquila, where he was killed by bandits.

“His younger brother Nessel inherited the house and told me that I must leave, the sooner the better. He confiscated my bank account claiming that five thousand sols was far too much. He allowed me a thousand sols, which he said must suffice.

“I departed the Sunder house with very little more than my clothes. I discovered that I was homesick, and so here I am: once more a Clam Muffin but otherwise destitute, since my father as usual is surviving by miracles of juggling invisible bank accounts. In a week he’ll be off to Dimplewater on Ushant, to a conclave of xenologists, or something of the sort. How he proposes to finance the junket I can’t begin to guess.”

“So, you’ll have Sassoon Ayry to yourself while he’s gone?”

Skirl laughed. “It’s the same as before. He wants to close the house, to save maintenance costs.”

“So what will you do?”

“I intend to become an effectuator.” Skirl spoke defiantly, as if she expected either amusement or a challenge.

Jaro formed his reply with care. “Do you mean, right away, or sometime in the future?”

“Right away. Don’t look so blank. I worked with Myrl Sunder. I learned a great deal.”

“The work is dangerous.”

“I know. Still, Sunder was killed not because he was an effectuator, but because he was mistaken for a rich tourist.”

Jaro frowned up into the green and blue parasol. “Before you can even get started, you’ll need to know Gaean law, police procedure, forensic science, criminal psychology, the arts of disguise, the use of weapons and technical equipment. Most of all, you’ll need capital for working expenses.”

“I understand all this.” Skirl rose to her feet. “I am going to the library. I want to find how to qualify for an effectuator’s license. I have probationary papers issued at Glist, and they may be valid here.”

The two left the café, and paused in the street. Jaro said tentatively: “When the Faths leave for Ushant, I’ll be alone at Merriehew. If you like, you can move in with me. There is plenty of room, and you can have as much privacy as you wish.”

Skirl seemed to ponder. Jaro went on. “When the rain comes down during the evening and the wind blows through the trees, it’s very pleasant to sit before the fireplace, dining late and listening to the storm.”

Skirl pursed her lips and looked aside. She said at last, “I can’t think of any reason to do so.”

“Nor I, really.”

“Then why did you ask?”

“It was an act of daring folly.”

Skirl shrugged. “If I get bored—or cold, or wet, or hungry I might look in.”

The Faths would travel to Ushant aboard the great passenger packet
Francil Ambar
. Having made many such excursions, they both were packed and organized the day before their departure, and so were able to spend a quiet evening with Jaro.

Hilyer spoke of the Great Conclave at Dimplewater. “To be honest, up to a month ago, I knew very little regarding Ushant—only that it was a soft, kind world, hospitable to tourists, with a highly civilized population. The tourist brochures use the words ‘delectable’ and ‘paradise-in-being.’ Last week I went to the library and discovered a great deal more.” Hilyer settled back in his chair and told Jaro what he had learned.

“Ushant has been located and explored since five thousand years ago, and from the first has been considered a world congenial to human settlement, with magnificent flora and an almost total absence of noxious fauna. Where the River Leis joined the River Ling, the combined waters had flooded a vast plain of hummocks, dips and hillocks, to create a region of innumerable small islands. The original settlers built their airy palaces upon these islands, in gardens of bargeoaks, nenuphars, sparkle-tufts, cedars, deodars and flowering dendrons. In time the area became fabulous Dimplewater, City of the Thousand Bridges.

“From the beginning, the folk who came to live on Ushant were a special sort: ‘well-educated, strongly individualistic, with an aversion for the swarms and clots of humanity which had once pressed in on them—pulsing, breathing, smelling of humid flesh, raucous with noise, vile as their own swarms of pet animals,’ as Ian Warblen, one of the early settlers, put it.

“Today the folk are intensely sophisticated and sensitive to all the aesthetic nuances. They collect beautiful objects and make them part of their living experience. Still, their most distinctive trait is an extreme autonomy, which prompts them to live alone.

“This privacy is modified, from time to time. They belong to yacht clubs and enjoy regattas on the central lagoon; they constantly attend seminars upon arcane subjects; they take their children out into the backlands on camping trips. Occasionally they will participate, either as hosts or guests, at intimate dinner parties, where no more than five persons are present. These will usually be folk who share a mutual interest, the more esoteric the better. At such events the cuisine is superb and the etiquette ritually exact. Off-worlders are seldom invited; when this is the case, their solecisms give rise to wry comments.