Part 6 (1/2)
The young Pei'an returned through the door and said, ”He bids you enter.”
”Thank you.”
I went in.
Marling was seated with his back to me, facing out the window toward the sea, as I knew he would be. The three large walls of his fan-shaped chamber were a pale green, resembling jade, and his bed was long, low and narrow. One wall was an enormous console, somewhat dusty. And the small; bedside table, which might not have been moved in centuries, still held the orange figurine resembling a horned dolphin leaping.
”_Dra_, good afternoon,” I said.
”Come over here where I can see you.”
I rounded his chair and stood before him. He was thinner and his skin was darker.
”You came quickly,” he said, his eyes moving across my face.
I nodded.
”You said 'immediately.'”
He made a hissed, rattling sound, which is a Pei'an chuckle, then, ”How have you been treating life?”
”With respect, deference and fear.”
”What of your work?”
”I'm between jobs just now.”
”Sit down.”
He indicated a bench alongside the window, and I crossed to it.
”Tell me what has happened.”
”Pictures,” I said. ”I've been receiving pictures of people I used to know--people who have been dead for some time now. All of them died on Earth, and I recently learned that their Recall Tapes were stolen. So it's possible that they _are_ alive, somewhere. Then I received this.”
I handed him the letter signed ”Green Green.” He held it close and read it slowly.
”Do you know where the Isle of the Dead is?” he asked.
”Yes; it's on a world I made.”
”You are going?”
”Yes. I must.”
”Green Green is, I believe, Gringrin-tharl of the city Dilpei. He hates you.”
”Why? I don't even know him.”
”That is unimportant. Your existence offends him, so naturally he wishes to be avenged for this affront. It is sad.”
”I'd say so. Especially if he succeeds. But how has my existence served to offend him?”
”You are the only alien to be a Name-bearer. At one time it was thought that none but a Pei'an could master the art you have learned--and not too many Pei'ans are capable, of course. Gringrin undertook the study and he completed it. He was to have been the twenty-seventh. He failed the final test, however.”
”The _final_ test? I'd thought that one pretty much a matter of form.”
”No. It may have seemed so to you, but it is not. So, after half a century of study with Deigren of Dilpei, he was not confirmed in the trade. He was somewhat exercised. He spoke often of the fact that the last man to be admitted was not even Pei'an. Then he departed Megapei. With his training, of course, he soon grew wealthy.”
”How long ago was that?”
”Several hundred years. Perhaps six.”
”And you feel hess been hating me all this time, and planning revenge?”
”Yes. There was no great hurry, and a good piece of revenge requires elaborate preparation.”
It is always strange to hear a Pei'an speak so. Eminently civilized, they nevertheless have made revenge a way of life. It is doubtless another of the reasons why there are so few Pei'ans. Some of them actually keep vengeance books--long, elaborate lists of those who require a comeuppance--in order to keep track of everyone they intend to punish, complete with progress reports on the status of each vengeance scheme. A piece of vengeance isn't worth much to a Pei'an unless it's complicated, carefully planned and put into motion, and occurs with fiendish precision many years after the affront which stimulated it. It was explained to me that the fun of it is really in the planning and the antic.i.p.ation. The actual death, madness, disfigurement or humiliation which results is quite secondary to this. Marling once confided in me that he had had three going which had lasted over a thousand years apiece, and that's no record. It's a way of life, really. It comforts one, providing a cheering object of contemplation when all other things are going poorly; it renders a certain satisfaction as the factors line themselves up, one by one--little triumphs, as it were--leading up to the time of fulfillment; and there is an esthetic pleasure to be had--some even say a mystical experience--when the Situation occurs and the carefully wrought boom is lowered. Children are taught the system at an early age, for full familiarity with it is necessary for attaining advanced old age. I had had to learn it in a hurry, and was still weak on some of the finer points.
”Have you any suggestions?” I asked.
”Since it is useless to flee the vengeance of a Pei'an,” he told me, ”I would recommend your locating him immediately and challenging him to a walk through the night of the soul. I will provide you with some fresh _glitten_ roots before you leave.”
”Thank you. I'm not real up on that, you know.”
”It is easy, and one of you will die, thus solving your problems. So if he accepts, you will have nothing to worry about. Should you die, you will be avenged by my estate.”
”Thank you, _Dra_.”
”It is nothing.”
”What of Belion, with respect to Gringrin?”
”He is there.”
”How so?”
”They have made their own terms, those two.”
”And . . . ?”
”That is all I know.”
”Will he see fit to walk with me, do you think?”
”I do not know.”
Then, ”Let us regard the waters in their rising,” he said, and I turned and did so until he spoke again, perhaps half an hour later.