The Light That Never Was (14 page)

Two tourists, a man and a woman, had climbed quietly to the top of the cliff for a view of the sea, and as they turned away they looked at W’iil’s painting. “Now ain’t that something!” the man said.

The woman turned and spoke to W’iil reproachfully. “It isn’t finished.”

“Finished?” W’iil echoed. It had never occurred to him that anyone might care if he left part of a fabric blank. He stepped to the easel and eyed the painting critically, wondering if the application of a background might bring out the elusive quality of texture that he had failed to achieve. Quickly he adjusted a sprayer, found the hues he wanted, and filled in the pale sky and deep blue sea and blended them at a shimmering, watery horizon.

But that, too, was a failure. He shook his head resignedly and began to gather his equipment.

The man and woman stepped forward for another look “Darned if it doesn’t look like an animal’s paw,” the man said. “A furry paw sticking up out of the rock with long claws. Think of imagining a thing like that!”

“But if you look at the cliff just right, that’s sort of what it looks like—a paw with claws.”

“Darned if it doesn’t.”

“I like it,” the woman said. “It’s unusual.”

“At least it isn’t like those gaudy things in the shops, or the messy things the other artists were painting. It’s restful.”

“Let’s buy it.”

The man nodded and turned to W’iil. “How much? Will you take twenty dons for it?”

W’iil gazed at him blankly.

The woman nudged her husband. “Like you said, it ain’t one of them shop paintings. It’s more like the things we saw in the museum. Or in that big picture gallery in Donov Metro. And he’s a real artist, you can tell by looking at him. He don’t sell no pictures for twenty dons.”

“Those things at Donov Metro were expensive,” the man protested.

“We were going to buy one, only we didn’t find any we liked. Maybe he’d let us have this for a little less, being as he won’t have to pay the gallery to sell it for him.”

The man shrugged. “All right. But the cheapest paintings in the gallery were a thousand dons.” He sighed. “Would you take five hundred for it, fellow?”

Comprehension came slowly to W’iil. “You want to buy—”

“Oh, all right. Six hundred.”

W’iil hadn’t believed the first figure. It was an unheard of sum, no Zrilund painting had brought anything like it since the days of the masters, and this painting was a failure. He was going to say no, to explain that he never sold his paintings, never even finished them, had finished this one only by accident—but the man was counting money into his hand.

The woman said, “We’ll have to handle it carefully. It may not be dry yet.”

“It doesn’t have his name on it,” the man said. “Shouldn’t a painting have the artist’s name on it?”

The woman giggled. “We bought it before he finished it.”

W’iil took a needle spray and wrote, “W’iil,” at the bottom of the fabric. The couple hurried away, the man carrying his prize with exaggerated care.

W’iil stared after them, hypnotically watching his painting until it disappeared from sight. The money he clutched in his perspiring hand felt warm to his touch; inwardly it was searing his soul. He turned toward the sea, meaning to fling it—to fling himself—from the cliff.

He was hungry. He could not remember the last time he had eaten a substantial meal. The girl Ritha kept inviting him to cat with her, but he had learned long before that poverty was tolerable only when one was unaccustomed to anything else.

He had no pocket, so he tucked the money into his sprayer box and again gathered his equipment. As he started down the path he turned to look back at the multiple-spurred rock. He had a feeling of loss, of shame, of betrayal, of having sold something of himself, which he had to admit was silly. If he hadn’t sold the painting he would have burned it. He had betrayed nothing but the fire, and yet—

He was hungry.

The ferry had left; the artists were thronging the more popular hangouts, and W’iil wanted a quiet place in which to think. He went to the Zrilund Town Hostel, and when he got himself settled in the most remote corner and asked the scowling Rearm Hylat for food, Hylat asked to see his money.

W’iil fumbled in his sprayer box and handed over a coin. Hylat blinked at it. “Where’d you get this?”

“Sold a painting.”

Hylat stared at him. “When did you eat last?” he asked finally.

W’iil couldn’t remember.

Hylat brought him a handful of change. “You’ve paid for a meal,” he said, “but you’d better have it in installments, or you’ll kill yourself. I’ll start you off with some soup. Stop in again whenever you feel hungry, and I’ll give you another course.”

The thick soup, with a biscuit, tasted as good as W’iil remembered, but his shrunken stomach’s capacity was reached with a few mouthfuls. He gazed regretfully at the half-filled bowl—the waste horrified him—but he could eat no more.

He hurried to Ritha’s house. She was in her studio, and he panted up the stairs and dropped his bundle. Before he could speak she poured him a mug of adde, nodded at her easel, and asked, “What’d I do wrong?”

W’iil glanced at the painting, took up a sprayer, and neatly incised two lines of perspective to show that they did not meet properly. “The money you loaned to me,” he said. “I’ll pay you back.”

“It wasn’t a loan,” Eritha said. “I paid you for lessons. Remember?”

He did remember, vaguely, but he had made so many excuses for the small handouts that kept him in art supplies that it never occurred to him that anyone might take one of them seriously. “Oh, lessons.” He shrugged. “I’ll give you lessons. But the money—I’ll pay that back.”

“You’ve already given me lessons. You’re giving me a lesson now. You don’t owe any money. I won’t take it back.”

“Oh,” he said. He opened his hand and stared dumbly at the heavy fistful of change that Hylat had given to him.

“Where’d you get all that money?” Eritha exclaimed.

“I—I sold a painting.”

“Really? You actually finished a painting? And sold it? Todd! That’s wonderful!”

He nodded glumly. “For six hundred dons.”

Eritha backed over to a chair and collapsed into it. “Who—I mean, what—” W’iil held the open sprayer box under her nose. “Todd!” she whispered breathlessly. “You’re rich!”

“You see? I’ll pay you back.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Todd.”

“Then what am I going to do with it?” he asked bewilderedly.

“The money you got from me wasn’t a loan, but I know some of the artists have loaned you money, and every artist in Zrilund has given you art supplies when you needed them. You ought to pay back something.”

Todd nodded excitedly. “I’ll do that.”

“Why don’t you buy some new clothes and go to a hostel for a few days? You should give yourself a good rest.”

“I’ll do that!”

It was a different Todd W’iil who climbed the cliffs the next morning. Well rested, bathed, immaculately clothed in the best-styled artist’s garb, he set up his easel in the same place as the day before and painted the same rock formation. He worked just as carefully at capturing the essential texture of the rock as it would look if it looked the way it really was, and just as unsuccessfully, but this time he completed the picture. He seated himself on a nearby rock and waited. A crowd of tourists came by, glanced at the painting, halted, and stared. One of them said, “Darned if it doesn’t look like a furry animal’s paw coming up out of the rock.” Another said, “You know, that rock really looks like that, sort of.”

The first turned to W’iil. “How much?”

“Six hundred dons,” W’iil said.

“Ridiculous! Why, the shops are full of paintings that don’t cost more than twenty!”

W’iil said complacently, “What would you rather do—spend twenty dons for a painting that’s worthless, or spend six hundred for a painting that’s worth a thousand?”

“Six hundred dons is a lot of money,” the tourist said. The crowd moved on; W’iil was unperturbed. He knew what his work was worth. When the ferry left he strolled back to town, leaving his easel in place, and he joined the other artists in the Swamp Hut and shyly bought everyone a mug of adde. Then he went to the com center and sent a message. Suddenly he wanted to know if his mother was still living.

The next ferry arrived, and he sold his painting almost at once, for six hundred dons. He started another. When Eritha came up the cliff lugging her bundle and asked him something about mixing colors, he snapped, “Can’t talk now. Got to get this done before the next tourists get here.”

“Rumors can start about anything,” Neal Wargen told the World Manager, “but this one started about nothing. There is no such thing as a swamp slug.”

Korak turned quickly. “Indeed? I thought you said Harnasharn told you—”

“He did. Immediately after that I spent several days looking for a photograph or even a description of a Zrilund swamp slug—the notion of a slug painting pictures of any kind, not to mention good pictures, intrigued me. I wanted to know how it would go about it. I examined every reference book I could find, I queried several professors at the university, and finally I put a referencer at the Quorum Library to work on the problem. I just received the results. If Zrilund has swamp slugs no authority on slugs has ever heard of them. So I went back to Harnasharn and accused him of perpetrating a joke at his government’s expense, and he indignantly informed me that there was so a Zrilund swamp slug, and he not only had seen one, but he’d seen that particular one, and he’d seen it painting.”

“Interesting,” Korak murmured.

“He says it only appears at night, at which time it looks like an enormous dark blob of slime with a million legs or filaments. Which makes me half suspect that someone has perpetrated a joke on Harnasharn.”

“No,” Korak said firmly. “Harnasharn may not know much about slugs, but this world has no greater expert on art. Anyone perpetrating a joke involving a swamp slug artist wouldn’t allow Harnasharn in the same precinct with it. Anyway, the paintings are real enough, and paintings that are possible masterpieces normally don’t get used in jokes.”

“All right. Just put it that a Zrilund swamp slug is a very rare creature. To the tourist, Zrilund is synonymous with art. A picture-painting Zrilund swamp slug is evidently believable while any other kind of picture-painting slug would receive the derision it deserves. Do you want me to track down the rumor?”

“It would be interesting to know where that tourist came from. Mestil resents Jaward Jorno’s refugees. Sornor is resentful about Franff. Other worlds that have had riots resent the fact that Donov hasn’t. Rumors are usually slanted to someone’s disadvantage, and the reverse of the slant will point unerringly at the author. A rumor that’s true, though, is a rumor with a devilishly awkward kink in it. It points everywhere and nowhere. Even if some world is plotting against Donov, the question remains of where it picked up that remarkable item of true information. Has Demron given you the latest report on the thefts?”

Wargen nodded. “He’s perplexed, and so am I. They occur on a vast scale, and yet they’re so trivial—a few pieces of a housewife’s laundry, a small amount of fruit from an orchard, a tool that a worker has laid aside for a moment. Nothing of value is taken, hut a tremendous number of people have been inconvenienced, and those people are angry. Fortunately we know how he’s doing it, or we think we do. We’re working up a plan to catch him.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

“I’ve sent for Eritha.”

“To ask about the swamp slug?”

“Yes,” Wargen said. “I’d also like to know if Zrilund is hatching any more true rumors.”

He was chagrined that he had wasted so much time by not taking the thefts seriously, and more concerned about them than he cared to admit; and the immediate cause of his worry was a report he had just received from M’Don about the world of Tworth, one of seven riot worlds concerning which he’d had no detailed information. Tworth showed a long history of bad feeling between humans and animaloids, and in this instance the animaloids seemed to have occasioned most of it—they were a thoroughly untrustworthy lot.

What interested Wargen was that the Tworth riots had been touched off by a rash of thefts committed, or apparently committed, by animaloids.

If thefts allegedly by animaloids could cause rioting on Tworth, could thefts allegedly by artists cause rioting on Donov? People were becoming angry, and already there had been incidents where artists were ordered out of towns and villages. The people knew that genuine artists weren’t responsible for the thefts, but when they encountered a man in artist’s clothing they had no way of knowing whether he was genuine or a fake artist ready to steal and run at the first opportunity.

In the absence of a human-animaloid relationship to exploit, was it possible that someone was attempting to turn the people of Donov against the artists?

Something had to be done, and quickly.

Eritha arrived in Wargen’s office like a spritely breeze from the Zrilund chalk cliffs, jaunty in turban and cloak, making the artist costume look—almost—respectable, and she instantly spoiled the effect by saying accusingly, “What a place to send a person to learn to paint!”

“What better place is there?” Wargen asked innocently as he escorted her to the elevator. “The works of all those masters to emulate, great traditions to inspire you—”

“There’s more mold than greatness in Zrilund’s traditions. It’s an awful place. The townspeople are embittered beyond redemption. The tourists aren’t believable even after you’ve seen them. Most of the painters could do really good work if they wanted to, but they’d rather paint souvenirs. The only person on Zrilund who had the makings of a real artist went commercial overnight. Now he does the same painting over and over, and sells it for an appalling price, and it’s such a startlingly strange thing that any tourist who can afford it seems to think he’s getting a great bargain. It’s all my fault. I had to go and suggest that things don’t look like they are.”

Wargen was regarding her strangely. “What do they look like?”

But they had reached the lair, and Eritha was advancing on her grandfather. “Shame on you for blighting Donov with tourists! They’ve made Zrilund a dreadful place.”