Night Lamp (5 page)
Gaing Neitzbeck laughed. “Maihac was at one time an IPCC officer. He is now inactive, but that means nothing. When he arrives at a spaceport, he merely shows his card and walks through the gate. I could do the same, but I forgot to carry my card.”
Althea leaned back in her chair and drank from her goblet of wine.
Hilyer put on a rather sour expression. “It was of no great moment. No need for stirring up a tempest in a teapot. The fellow is as he is; that’s enough for me.”
“Then you’ll be nice to him? He’s always quite well-behaved.”
Hilyer agreed somewhat glumly that Maihac’s conduct could not be faulted. Maihac was quiet and correct; his clothes were more conservative than Hilyer’s own. He spoke little of his past, except to remark that he had taken up residence at Thanet in order to top off his previously deferred education. Althea had met him at the Institute, where Maihac was a student in one of her advanced graduate courses. He and the Faths had discovered a mutual fascination with peculiar musical instruments. Maihac during his wanderings had acquired a number of these unique artifices, including a froghorn, a pair of tangletones, a wishdreams, a wonderful tudelpipe—four feet long, inlaid with a hundred silver dancing demons; a full set of Blori needlegongs. They caught Althea’s attention and before long Tawn Maihac had become a regular visitor at Merriehew.
On this particular occasion Hilyer had not known that Maihac would be a dinner guest until his own return from the Institute. He was further irritated when he took note of what seemed to be special preparations. “I see you are using your Basingstoke candlesticks. Tonight is evidently a signal occasion.”
“Of course not!” declared Althea. “I have these beautiful articles and they should be put to use. Call it ‘creative impulse,’ if you like. But these are not the Basingstokes.”
“Certainly they are! I remember the transaction distinctly! They cost us a small fortune!”
“Not these—and I can prove it.” Althea lifted one of the candelabra and studied the label on the underside of the base. “The label reads: ‘Rijjalooma Farm.’ These come from that farm on Rijjalooma Ridge; don’t you remember? It’s where you were attacked by that peculiar hedgehog-like thing.”
“Yes,” growled Hilyer. “I remember very well. It was absolutely unwarranted and I should have sued that farm woman for irresponsibility.”
“Well, no matter. She let me have the candelabra at quite a decent price, so your suffering was not in vain. And here we are, enjoying the recollection at our dinner!”
Hilyer muttered something about his hope that Althea’s “creative impulse” did not extend to the cuisine. Here Hilyer alluded to the anomalous dishes which had resulted from Althea’s previous attempts at experimental or avant-garde cooking.
Althea turned away, smiling to herself. Hilyer, so it seemed, was a bit jealous of their rather fascinating guest. “By the way!” she said. “Mr. Maihac is bringing his silly froghorn. He may even try to play it, which should be great fun!”
“Ha hm,” Hilyer growled. “So Maihac, among his other talents, is also a skilled musician!”
Althea laughed. “That remains to be seen. He won’t prove it on the froghorn.”
Jaro had come to realize that during Maihac’s visits the topic in which he was most interested: namely, the lore of spacemanship, was not considered appropriate and would be discouraged. Since the Faths intended an academic career for Jaro in the School of Aesthetic Philosophy, they gingerly encouraged Jaro’s interest in Maihac’s odd instruments, while pretending to ignore the picturesque methods by which they had been obtained.
Tonight, as Hilyer had noted, Althea had set a beautiful table. From her collection she had chosen a pair of massive candelabra forged from rude bars of blue-black cobalt alloy, to complement a service of old faience, glazed a dim moonlight blue, in whose depths submarine flowers seemed to float.
Maihac was suitably impressed, and complimented Althea upon her arrangements. The dinner proceeded, and in the end Althea felt that it had been tolerably successful, even though Hilyer, in connection with the devilled landfish in pastry shells, had found the pastry too tough and the sauce too sharp, while the soufflé, so he pointed out, had gone limp.
Althea dealt politely with Hilyer’s comments, and she was pleased with Maihac’s behavior. He had attended Hilyer’s sometimes rather pompous opinions, and he had said nothing of space or spaceships, to Jaro’s disappointment.
After the group had moved to the sitting room, Maihac brought out his froghorn, perhaps the most bizarre item of his collection, since it comprised three dissimilar instruments in one. The horn started with a rectangular brass mouthpiece, fitted to a plench-box sprouting four valves. The valves controlled four tubes which first wound around, then entered, the central brass globe: the so-called “mixing pot.” From the side opposite the mouthpiece came a tube which flared out into a flat rectangular sound bell. The four valves were controlled by the fingers of the left hand, to produce the notes of an exact if irrational scale, each tone an unctuous disreputable gurgle. Above the mouthpiece, a second tube clipped to the nostrils became a screedle flute, fingered by the right hand to play intervals with no obvious relationship to the tones of the horn. The right foot pumped air into a bladder which was controlled by movements of the left knee to produce a heavy diapason of something over an octave. Clearly, to play the froghorn with mastery would require endless hours of practice: even years or decades.
Maihac told the Faths: “I can play the froghorn, but am I playing it well? You will never know, since good sounds much like bad, so far as I can tell.”
“I’m sure that you play splendidly,” said Althea. “But don’t keep us dangling! Play something frivolous and delightful!”
“Very well,” said Maihac. “I will play ‘The Bad Ladies of Antarbus,’ which is the only tune I know.”
Maihac took up the instrument, adjusted its straps and buckles, and blew a few introductory glissandos. The noseflute produced a shrill warble. Tones from the big-bellied horn seemed to gurgle up through syrup, to produce a sound so raucously indecent as to make both Hilyer and Althea wince. The air-bladder droned and moaned along a delicate if rather dreary set of intervals.
Maihac explained the salient features of the instrument. “The great virtuosos of the froghorn presumably played with total control over the halftones, the hoots, gurgles, thumps and squealing. Well, here I go: ‘The Bad Ladies of Antarbus.’ ” Jaro, listening carefully, heard: “Teedle-deedle-eedle teedle a-boigle oigle a-boigle moan moan da-boigle-oigle moan teedle-eedle moan teedle-eedle-eedle a-boigle a-boigle-oigle moan moan teedle-eedle teedle da-boigle.”
“That’s the best I can do,” said Maihac. “What did you think?”
“Very pretty,” said Hilyer. “With a bit more practice, you’d have us all compulsively dancing.”
“One must be careful with froghorns,” said Maihac. “They are said to be built by devils.” He pointed to symbols carved on the flare of the brass horn. “Notice these marks? They read: ‘Suanez has done this thing.’ ‘Suanez’ is a devil. According to the shopkeeper, each horn is impregnated with a secret song. If the human musician chances to play part of this song, he is trapped and must continue playing until he drops dead.”
“The same song?” Jaro asked.
“Yes; no variations allowed.”
Hilyer put a sardonic question: “It was the shopkeeper who authenticated the provenance of the horn?”
“He did indeed, and when I asked for documentation, he gave me a picture of the devil Suanez, then added a surcharge of twenty sols to the price of the horn. He knew I wanted the horn; I could either haggle another two hours or pay the twenty sols—which I did. These shopkeepers are all irredemptible rascals.”
Hilyer chuckled. “We have learned this backward and forward, up and down, on our own account.”
Althea said, “When I found my copper candelabra I had an experience much like your own. It happened during our first off-world field trip, which was truly a saga in itself!”
“Now then,” said Hilyer smiling. “We must not wax overdramatic! Mr. Maihac after all is surely accustomed to exotic places.”
“Tell me about it,” said Maihac. “I haven’t been everywhere: that’s for certain.”
Hilyer and Althea together told the tale, with many interpositions and interpolations. Shortly after their marriage they had gone off on a field trip to the world Plaise, in a small local swarm not far from the edge of the galaxy. Like many other worlds, Plaise had been located and settled during that first great explosion of humanity across what would ultimately become the Gaean Reach. The Faths had gone to Plaise on what they now knew to be a foolhardy mission: to record the so-called “Equinoctial Signs” of the Kindred Mountain folk. This feat had never before been attempted, much less accomplished, for a good reason: it was considered suicidal. The Faths, blithe as songbirds, arrived at Plaise spaceport and took lodgings at the resthouse at Sern, in the foothills of the Kindred Mountains. Here they learned of the difficulties which made their program impossible—namely, that they would be killed on sight.
Brash and foolish rather than courageous, the Faths ignored the warnings and contrived ruses to defeat each of the difficulties in turn. They rented a flitter and two nights before the equinox, flew down into the Kouhou Chasm and affixed thirty-two recording devices to stations along the vertical walls. By great good luck they evaded detection, whereupon the flitter would have been netted and dragged to the floor of the chasm, where the Faths would have been subjected to deeds too horrible to bear mentioning. “It makes my blood run cold whenever I think of it!” Althea shuddered. “We were young fools,” said Hilyer. “We thought that if we were caught we could simply say that we were Thanet Institute faculty, and they would make no further complaint.”
The night of the equinox the mountain folk performed their ceremony. All night long pulses of sound reverberated up and down the chasm. On the next day the folk performed their penitential rite, and the cries so elicited rose like sad-sweet warbling.
The Faths meanwhile laid low in Stern, passing themselves off as agronomists. While they waited, Althea had gone to rummage through a ramshackle old shop, where oddments of this and that were offered for sale. In a casual pile she noted a pair of massive copper candelabra, from which she hastily averted her eyes and went to examine what seemed to be a dented old pot. “A valuable piece,” the shopkeeper told her. “That is genuine aluminum.”
“I’m not really interested,” said Althea. “I already have a pot.”
“Just so. Perhaps you like those old candle-holders? Very valuable: pure copper!”
“I don’t think so,” said Althea. “I already have a pair of candelabra, as well.”
“Very handy if one of them broke,” argued the shopkeeper. “It is not good to be without light.”
“True,” said Althea. “What do you want for the dirty old things?”
“Not much. About five hundred sols.”
Althea merely turned him a scornful look, and went to study a stone plaque, highly polished and intricately carved with glyphs. “What is this thing?”
“It is very old. I can’t read it. They say it tells the ten human secrets: very important, I should think.”
“Not unless you can read this odd script.”
“Better than nothing.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred sols.”
“Surely you’re joking!” cried Althea indignantly. “Do you take me for a fool?”
“Well, seventy sols then. A great bargain: seven sols per secret!”
“Bah. Those secrets are old and useless, even if I could read them. My price is five sols.”
“Aiee! Must I give valuables to every crazy woman that walks into the shop?” Althea haggled long and devoutly, but the shopkeeper held to a price of forty sols.
“The price is reprehensible!” stormed Althea. “I’ll pay it only if you include some extra pieces of lesser value: let us say, this rug and, well, why not? those candelabra.”
Again the shopkeeper showed distress. He patted the rug which was woven in stripes of black, russet and russet-gold. “This is a fecundity rug. It is woven from the pubic hairs of virgins! The candlesticks are six thousand years old, from the cave of the first Hermit King Jon Solander. I value the three items at a thousand sols!”
“I will pay forty sols for all.”
The shopkeeper handed Althea a scimitar and bared his throat. “Kill me first before you dishonor me with such robbery!”
In the end, somewhat dazed, Althea walked from the shop, carrying candelabra, plaque and rug, after having paid a price which Hilyer later reckoned to be about double what she should have paid. Nevertheless, Althea was happy with her acquisitions.
On the next day they took the flitter aloft and flew high above Kouhou. The area was deserted; the mountain folk had trooped to Pol Pond for their ablution rite. The Faths hastily retrieved their recording devices, returned to Plaise spaceport and departed by the first appropriate packet. The results of their reckless mission were highly satisfactory; they had recorded an amazing sequence of sounds: surges of—what? Melody? Dynamic projection? Soulforce made audible? No one could find a proper place in the taxonomy of music where the Kouhou Chants—as they came to be known—could be filed.
“We’d never go off on such a hare-brained venture again,” Althea told Maihac. “Still, if nothing else, it started me collecting candelabra. But now—enough of me and my ridiculous hobby. Play us another tune on the froghorn.”
“Not tonight,” said Maihac. “I am snuffling around the noseflute. It is a matter of embouchure at the nose-piece. It takes years to develop a really good nasal embouchure. If I ever achieved it well and truly, I would have the look of a vampire bat.” Maihac packed the instrument away in its case.
“Next time you must bring your four-twanger,” said Althea. “That is a far gentler instrument.”
“True! I risk neither Suanez the devil, nor a sore nose.”
“Still, you should work up a repertory on the froghorn. If you played weekly concerts at the Centrum, you’d attract no end of attention and command quite a decent fee, or so I should think.”