T’sais-Jack Vance chapter from the novel Mazirian the Magician

 T’sais-Jack Vance chapter from the novel Mazirian the Magician

AKA: Mazirian the Magician, chapter 3

The Dying Earth, chapter 3

Tales of the Dying Earth, Book I, chapter 3

This is a 23 page chapter (#3) of the Jack Vance 1950 novel Mazirian the Magician. This novel is also known as The Dying Earth and Tales of the Dying Earth, Book I.  It appears to have never been published as a stand-alone story or excerpt in any anthology. T’sais continues with the storyline in the first story Turjan of Miir, but T'sais becomes the main character.  T'sais is told by Pandelume that when he made her "I erred, so that when you climbed from the vat, I found that I had molded a flaw into your brain; that you saw ugliness in beauty, evil in good."  T'sais asks him to transport her to Earth where she hopes to find beauty and love.  Pandelume animates her sword to protect her, gives her an amulet to guard her from magic, provides her with a sack of gems and then sends her to Earth by magic.  There she meets a murderous cad named Liane the Wayfarer who claims, "I am the perfect man."  He tries to seduce her and when this fails attempts to attack her but her sword protects her.  T'sais has a number of other unpleasant encounters and soon learns that Earth is not the paradise she thought it was and that beauty and love are difficult to find.  In her quest she eventually meets a kindly masked man named Etarr who was given a demon's face by his lover.  T'sais also observes a Black Sabbath celebration and encounters the Green Legion of Valdaran the Just, Ethodea the goddess and an old "god of vision" with six arms.  It is an interesting, imaginative quest of discovery that I enjoyed reading.  I’ve read this three times so far and rated it a 4 “Really liked it.”