Free Marune: Alastor 933 by Jack Vance Page B

I explain myself to my people? If the past is empty, the future seems full, of concern and doubt and confusion. And I suspect that I will find little sympathy at home.”
    Lorcas gave a soft ejaculation, and sat back, his eyes glistening, “Do you know, I envy you. How lucky you are, with the mystery of your own past to solve!”
    “I lack all such enthusiasm,” said Efraim. “The past looms over me; I feel stifled. My enemies know me; I can only grope for them. I go out to Scharrode blind and helpless.”
    “The situation is not without compensations,” murmured Lorcas. “Most people would gladly rule a Mountain Realm, or any realm whatever. Not a few would be pleased to inhabit the same castle with the Lissolet Sthelany.”
    “These compensations are all very well, but they do not expose my enemy.”
    “Assuming that the enemy exists.”
    “He exists. He put me aboard the Berenicia and paid my fare to Bruse-Tansel.”
    “Bruse-Tansel is not close. Your enemy would seem not to lack funds.”
    Efraim grunted. “Who knows how much money of my own I carried? Perhaps I paid my own fare out to the limit of my pocketbook.”
    “This would be a fine sardonic touch,” Lorcas agreed. “If true, your enemy has style.”
    “Another possibility exists,” mused Efraim. “I may be looking at the matter backwards.”
    “An interesting thought. In what exact regard?”
    “Perhaps I committed some horrid deed which I could not bear to contemplate, thus inducing amnesia, and some person - my friend rather than my enemy - sent me away from Marune so that I might escape the penalty for my acts.”
    Lorcas uttered an incredulous laugh. “Your conduct in my presence was quite genteel.”
    “So how then, immediately after parting from you, did I lose my memory?”
    Lorcas considered a moment. “This might not be so mysterious after all.”
    “The savants on Numenes were baffled. But you have gained an insight, into my problems?”
    Lorcas grinned. “I know someone who isn’t a savant.” He jumped. to his feet.
    “Come along, let’s visit this man.”
    Efraim dubiously arose. “Is it safe? You might be the guilty person. I don’t want to end up on Bruse-Tansel a second time.”
    Lorcas chuckled. “You are a Rhune no longer. The Rhunes lack all humor; their lives are so strange that the absurd seems merely another phase of normality. I am not your secret enemy, I assure you. In the first place I lack the two or three hundred ozols to send you to Bruse-Tansel.”
    Efraim followed Lorcas out upon the avenue. Lorcas said: “We are bound for a rather peculiar establishment. The proprietor is an eccentric. Unkind folk consider him disreputable. At the moment he is out of vogue, owing to the efforts of the Benkenists, who are currently all the rage around the college.
    They affect a stoic imperturbability to everything except their inner norms, and Skogel’s numbered mixtures seriously interfere with normality. As for me, I reject all fads except those of my own devising. Can you imagine what now preoccupies me?”
    “No.”
    “The Mountain Realms. The genealogies; the waxing and waning of fortunes, the poetry and declamations, the ceremonial fumes, the gallantries and romantic postures, the eruditions, and scholarship. Do you realize that Rhune monographs circulate throughout the Cluster and the Gaean Reach as well? Do you realize that sport is unknown among the Realms? There are neither games nor frivolous recreations, not even among the children?”
    “The thought never occurred to me. Where are we going?”
    “Yonder, up the Street of the Clever Flea … Naturally you would not know how the street got its name.” As they walked, Lorcas recounted the ribald legend.
    Efraim listened with only half an ear. They turned the corner into a street of marginal enterprises: a booth selling fried clams, a gambling arcade, a cabaret decorated with red and green lights, a bordello, a novelty shop, a travel agency, a store