Songs of the Dying Earth

By my mid-thirties, I had pretty much stopped reading sf in favor of crime fiction. But I still bought and read anything new by Vance; once, when I was supposed to be on vacation, I lay on a hotel bed and did nothing all day but read Suldrun’s Garden, the first Lyonesse book. Now, forty-five years after I first encountered him, Jack Vance is the only author I reread, and I never cease to fall under the spell.

In a well run world, prominent geographical features and wide, impressive plazas and boulevards would bear his name.

— Matthew Hughes

Terry Dowling THE COPSY DOOR

One of the best-known and most celebrated of Australian writers in any genre, winner of eleven Ditmar awards, four Aurealis Awards and the International Horror Guild Award, Terry Dowling made his first sale in 1982, and has since made an international reputation for himself as a writer of science fiction, dark fantasy and horror. Primarily a short story writer, he is the author of the linked collections Rynosseros, Blue Tyson, Twilight Beach and Wormwood, as well as other collections such as Antique Futures: The Best of Terry Dowling, The Man Who Lost Red, An Intimate Knowledge of the Night, Blackwater Days and Basic Black: Tales of Appropriate Fear. He has also written three computer adventures: Schizm: Mysterious Journey, Schizm II: Chameleon and Sentinel: Descendants in Time, and, as editor, produced The Essential Ellison, Mortal Fire: Best Australian SF (with Van Ikin) and The Jack Vance Treasury and The Jack Vance Reader (both with Jonathan Strahan). His most recent book is the fourth and final Tom Rynosseros collection, Rynemonn. Born in Sydney, he lives in Hunters Hill, New South Wales, Australia (www.terrydowling.com).

In the mordant tale that follows, one that takes us through an enigmatic doorway to a place outside of space and time, he shows us that the race isn’t always to the swift or the victory to the strong…

When Amberlin the Lesser stepped into his workroom that spring morning, he found his manservant Diffin staring out of the Clever Window again. The workroom was in the uppermost chamber of the east tower of the manse Furness and looked out over a silvery broadwater of the Scaum, then across the Robber Woods to far Ascolais. It was where Diffin was always to be found when his chores were more or less done, watching the old red sun made young and golden again by the special properties of the glass.

Not for the first time that morning, Amberlin wondered if the strange lanky creature had found a new way to slip his holding spell.

“Diffin, I was clear in every particular. You were to consult the Anto brothers about the state of the Copsy Door and bring word at once.”

The loose-limbed creature trembled with what the ageing wizard hoped was appropriate contrition, but which he suspected was more likely suppressed mirth, then swung his long face reluctantly from the window.

“No, master. You were most specific. I wrote it down on my little slate, see? You said to fetch word and bring it to you here at once. Since here is here, I did precisely as you instructed and hurried right back.”

“But I was out in the garden. Someone had neglected to water the lillobays and quentians again. Did you not hear them weeping?”

“Not at all. My mind was firmly on my task. And since you were not here any longer—”

Amberlin raised his hand. “As you say. Well, now I am here and I am dreaming of penalties. What word from the brothers?”

“The Copsy Door has formed, true and sure, as you predicted, master, and will no doubt last the day before slipping off again. The brothers have been hiding it behind the baffle screen as you instructed and will continue to honor their agreement in every respect. Once you find a way inside, then it’s a full quarter for them of whatever is within.”

“To which their response was?”

“Nothing but the happiest of smiles, master, and an idle remark that perhaps a third share would mark you as a benefactor to watch. They are actually stalwart, goodnatured fellows, clearly maligned in the tales of those who do not know them as well as you or I.”

“Indeed. You told them I am wary of any of the tricks for which they are also known?”

“Just so, master. They are not too sure of what ‘wary’ means in the sense you use it, but they said that it was always good to have the full measure of one’s skills appreciated.”

“You said nothing else?”

Diffin shook his loose-jowled head. “Only that my name was Diffin, in the event they had forgotten and there was a gratuity on offer.”

“They said nothing else?”

“Nothing. I would have written it on my slate. Ah, wait. Now I remember. That they would hope to expect you at mid-morning.”

“What! It is that now! Diffin, you are far too lax!”

The creature pulled at his long chin as if deep in thought. “Perhaps I wrote it down and the slate is faulty. That would explain much.”

“Perhaps you will benefit from fetching my Holding Book so we can refresh our memories on the more instructive aspects of Genial Compliance.”

“But, master, there is no time! While tidying up, I took the opportunity of placing that least kind of books safely in the west tower library to give it a change of outlook. Also, as you well know, the book is so heavy and now resides at the top of a very tall bookcase. Would it not be better if I saved you the trouble and made recompense by staying here and keeping a sharp and dutiful watch for strangers and vagabonds approaching?”

Amberlin turned, regarded the wonder of a golden sun in the clear blue sky of aeons past. “Through the Clever Window, of course?”

“Oh yes, master. There are erbs reported out by Callow Tree. If they dare come this way, then they will look so much friendlier under a yellow sun.”

Close by the confluence of the Scaum and the River Tywy, the archmage Eunepheos the Darke had once built the splendid shadow-manse of Venta-Valu, an edifice of cunning pentavaults and intricate schattencrofts, the whole set under six fine dormers crowned with ghost-chasers and spin-alofts in one of the classic styles of Grand Motholam.

The centuries had been kind to the structure, all things considered, but following Eunepheos untimely vanishment into the Estervoid, supposedly at the hands of his great rival Shastermon, steadily, inevitably, the cohesion spells had spoiled and Venta-Valu had fallen into ruin. The intricate shadowforms were soon plundered by visiting adepts and shadow-factors, and much of what remained was leached away by shadow-wights and other creatures drawn to compressed darkness, so that, by the 21^st Aeon, the residence was little more than a handful of glooms and hollows scattered along the riverbank, too insubstantial to bother with.

Except for whatever lay behind the Copsy Door. Eunepheos had been as wily as any of his fellows, and had installed what appeared to be a particular cellar or basement that remained both sufficiently corporeal and yet resistant to all attempts at entry. Sealed by a here-again, gone-again Copsy Door calibrated to the protracted time-values of its maker’s favourite requiem, it was set into the embankment well above the Scaum, as if left as a deliberate taunt to the greedy and the curious.