The Palace of Love
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| Author | Jack Vance |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Demon Princes |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | |
| Released | 1967 |
| Preceded by | The Killing Machine |
| Followed by | The Face |
The arch-criminals Malagate the Woe and Kokor Hekkus are no more. In The Palace of Love (1967), the third of Jack Vance’s Demon Princes novels, Kirth Gersen turns his attention to Viole Falushe.
[edit] Plot summary
Kirth Gersen is on Alphanor with Alusz Iphegenia Eperje-Tokay. It is plain that their short-lived relationship is nearing an end, as Alusz Iphegenia cannot understand why Gersen, made extremely wealthy by his epic defrauding of Interchange, still feels the need to exterminate the remaining Demon Princes himself, instead of hiring others to do the job.
Gersen notices a newspaper article announcing the forthcoming execution of a prominent Sarkoy venefice, Kakarsis Asm, for the crime of selling poisons to Viole Falushe (not in itself a crime, but in this case incurring the death penalty for violating the Guild-mandated pricing policy). He accordingly hastens to Sarkovy to pursue this lead.
There he learns from Kakarsis Asm (in exchange for bribing his way to a swift and painless execution) that Viole Falushe visited Sarkovy many years before with a shipload of slaves, two of whom he sold to Asm and whom he subsequently resold. While they are on Sarkovy, Gersen’s relationship with Alusz Iphegenia finally ends, though he ensures that she will want for nothing in future.
After visiting his new financial advisor, Jehan Addels, to check that the programme to invest the proceeds of his swindle is going satisfactorily, Gersen locates the sole surviving slave, whom he buys and frees in exchange for further information concerning Viole Falushe. He learns that Falushe was born Vogel Filschner, an Earth boy of disgusting appearance and habits, who as a result of an obsession with a female classmate, Jheral Tinzy, had kidnapped the girls’ choral society at his school. Fortunately for Jheral, she did not attend choir practice that day.
Gersen follows the trail to “Rolingshaven” in the Netherlands, to the people who knew Filschner as a youth. The most direct link is the mad poet Navarth, who was Filschner’s mentor and who later enjoyed a brief relationship with Jheral; after the kidnapping, she had attracted a share of the blame for having teased Filschner and turned to Navarth for comfort. However, she was later abducted by Viole Falushe. In the present, Navarth has custody of a young girl, variously known as Drusilla Wayles or “Zan Zu from Eridu”, who resembles the young Jheral to a disturbing extent, and who was given to him as a child by Falushe to nurture and protect.
With the questionable, erratic assistance of Navarth, Gersen tries to engineer a meeting with Viole Falushe. To this end, he buys the failing but respected Cosmopolis magazine and authors an article that paints the young Falushe in extremely unflattering terms. He is able, through Navarth, to contact Falushe by telephone and secures an invitation to Falushe's legendary Palace of Love in his guise as a reporter in return for writing a much more acceptable article and dropping the original. He is transported to Falushe’s planet.
There he learns that Falushe has built an entire civilization acknowledging him as its supreme ruler, to whom all inhabitants pay tribute, including their first-born children (the most beautiful going to staff the Palace). In the company of a party of invitees including Navarth, Gersen visits the Palace. Eventually he discovers Falushe’s lifelong ambition: to create a copy of Jheral Tinzy who will be brainwashed into loving him. Navarth's Drusilla Wayles was bred parthenogenically from the original Jheral, and there are at least two others on the planet. Jheral herself succeeded in killing herself some years into the forced breeding programme.
Gersen, guessing correctly that Viole Falushe is among the guests and intent on gaining Drusilla’s affections, narrows the possibilities to three men and finally identifies his prey with the aid of a critical error by Falushe: he has an implanted telephone, which can be heard ringing when Navarth calls him. By this time, Gersen has rescued the two Jheral copies and, along with Drusilla Wayles, they leave no doubt that they find Falushe repellent, and the Demon Prince realizes that his life's work has been an abject failure. As Gersen is about to throw him out of an airboat hovering ten thousand feet above the sea, Falushe breaks his bonds, but loses his balance and falls to his doom.
Gersen frees the servants at the Palace, informs the planet’s inhabitants that they need pay taxes no more, and entrusts the various Drusillas to Navarth’s eccentric care. Some months later on Alphanor he meets yet another, more mature Drusilla, plainly the oldest, and is about to read her some of Navarth’s poetry as the story closes.
