Cugel used his most cultivated voice: “Sir, jump to no conclusions! I am neither a vagabond nor a mendicant, but rather a seafarer who arrived on shore by way of the mud-flats.”
“That is not the ordinary route,” said the old man. “Practised men of the sea most often use the docks at Port Perdusz.”
“Quite so. The village yonder is Tustvold?”
“Properly speaking, Tustvold is that mound of ruins yonder which I quarry for white-stone. The local folk use the name for the village as well, and no great harm is done. What do you seek from Tustvold?”
“Food and shelter for the night. However, I cannot pay a groat, since my belongings remain aboard the ship.”
The old man gave his head a disparaging shake. “In Tustvold you will get only what you pay for. They are a parsimonious lot, and spend only for advancement. If you will be satisfied with a pallet and a bowl of soup for your supper, I can gratify your needs, and you may dismiss all thought of payment.”
“That is a generous offer,” said Cugel. “I accept with pleasure. May I introduce myself? I am Cugel.”
The old man bowed. “I am Nisbet, the son of Nisvangel, who quarried here before me and the grandson of Rounce, who was also a quarry-man. But come! Why stand here shivering when a warm fire awaits inside?”
The two walked toward Nisbet’s abode: a huddle of ramshackle sheds leaning one on the other, built of planks and stone: the accretion of many years, perhaps centuries. Conditions within, while comfortable, were no less undisciplined. Each chamber was cluttered with curios and antiques collected by Nisbet and his predecessors while quarrying the ruins of Old Tustvold and elsewhere.
Nisbet poured a bath for Cugel and provided a musty old gown which Cugel might wear until his own clothes were clean. “That is a task better left to the women of the village,” said Nisbet.
“If you recall, I lack all funds,” said Cugel. “I accept your hospitality with pleasure but I refuse to impose a financial burden upon you.”
“No burden whatever,” said Nisbet. “The women are anxious to do me favors, so that I will give them priorities in the work.”
“In that case, I accept the favor with thanks.”
Cugel gratefully bathed and wrapped himself in the old gown, then sat down to a hearty meal of candle-fish soup, bread and pickled ramp, which Nisbet recommended as a specialty of the region. They ate from antique dishes of many sorts and used utensils no two alike, even to the material from which they were fabricated: silver, glossold, black iron, gold, a green alloy of copper, arsenic and other substances. Nisbet identified these objects in an off-hand manner. “Each of the mounds you see rising from the plain represents an ancient city, now in ruins and covered over with the sift of time. When I am allowed an hour or two of leisure, I often go out to mine another of the mounds, and often I find objects of interest. That salver, for instance, was taken from the eleventh phase of the city Chelopsik, and is fashioned from corfume inlaid with petrified fire-flies. The characters are beyond my skill to read, but would seem to recite a children’s song. This knife is even older; I found it in the crypts below the city I call Arad, though its real name is no longer known.”
“Interesting!” said Cugel. “Do you ever find treasure or valuable gems?”
Nisbet shrugged. “Each of these articles is priceless: a unique memorial. But now, with the sun about to go dark, who would pay good terces to buy them? More useful is a bottle of good wine. In this connection, I suggest that, like grandees of high degree, we repair to the parlor where I will broach a bottle of well-aged wine, and we will warm our shins before the fire.”
“A sound notion!” declared Cugel. He followed Nisbet into a chamber furnished with an over-sufficiency of chairs, settees, tables, and cushions of many kinds, together with a hundred curios.
Nisbet poured wine from a stoneware bottle of great age, to judge from the iridescent oxides which encrusted the surface. Cugel tasted the wine with caution, to find a liquor heavy and strong, and redolent of strange fragrances.
“A noble vintage,” pronounced Cugel.
“Your taste is sound,” said Nisbet. “I took it from the store-room of a wine-merchant on the fourth level of Xei Cambael. Drink heartily; a thousand bottles still moulder in the dark.”
“My best regards!” Cugel tilted his goblet. “Your work lacks nothing for perquisites; this is clear. You have no sons to carry on the traditions?”
“None. My spouse died long years ago by the sting of a blue fanticule, and I lacked all taste for someone new.” With a grunt Nisbet heaved himself to his feet and fed wood to the fire. He lurched back into his chair and gazed into the flames. “Yet often I sit here of nights, thinking of how it will be when I am gone.”
“Perhaps you should take an apprentice.”
Nisbet uttered a short hollow laugh. “It is not all so easy. Boys of the town think of tall columns even before they learn to spit properly. I would prefer the company of a man who knows something of the world. What, by the way, is your own trade?”
Cugel made a deprecatory gesture. “I am not yet settled upon a career. I have worked as worminger and recently I commanded a sea-going vessel.”
“That is a post of high prestige!”
“True enough, but the malice of subordinates forced me to vacate the position.”
“By way of the mud-flats?”
“Precisely so.”
“Such are the ways of the world,” said Nisbet. “Still, you have much of your life ahead, with many great deeds to do, while I look back on life with my deeds already done, and none of them greatly significant.”
Cugel said: “When the sun goes out, all deeds, significant or not, will be forgotten together.”
Nisbet rose to his feet and broached another jug of wine. He refilled the goblets, then returned to his chair. “Two hours of loose philosophizing will never tilt the scale against the worth of one sound belch. For the nonce I am Nisbet the quarryman, with far too many columns to raise and far too much work on order. Sometimes I wish that I too might climb a column and bask away the hours.”
The two sat in silence, looking into the flames. Nisbet finally said: “I see that you are tired. No doubt you have had a tedious day.” He pulled himself to his feet and pointed. “You may sleep on yonder couch.”
In the morning Nisbet and Cugel breakfasted upon griddle-cakes with a conserve of fruits prepared by women of the village; then Nisbet took Cugel out to the quarry. He pointed to his excavation which had opened a great cleft in the side of the mound.
“Old Tustvold was a city of thirteen phases, as you can see with your own eyes. The people of the fourth level built a temple to Miamatta, their Ultimate God of Gods. These ruins supply white-stone to my needs … The sun is aloft. Soon the men from the village will be coming out to use their columns; indeed, here they come now.”
The men arrived, by the twos and threes. Cugel watched as they climbed their columns and composed themselves in the sunlight.
In puzzlement Cugel turned to Nisbet. “Why do they sit so diligently on their columns?”
“They absorb a healthful flux from the sunlight,” said Nisbet. “The higher the column the more pure and rich is the flux, as well as the prestige of place. The women, especially, are consumed with ambition for the altitude of their husbands. When they bring in the terces for a new segment, they want it at once, and hector me unmercifully until I achieve the work, and if I must put off one of their rivals, so much the better.”
“Odd that you have no competitors, in what must be a profitable business.”
“It is not so odd when you consider the work involved. The stone must be brought down from the temple, sized, polished, cleaned of old inscriptions, given a new number and lifted to the top of a column. This entails considerable work, which would be impossible without this.” Nisbet touched the five-faceted amulet that he wore around his neck. “A touch of this object negates the suction of gravity, and the heaviest object rises into the air.”
“Amazing!” said Cugel. “The amulet is a valuable adjunct to your trade.”
“‘Indispensable’ is the word … Ha! Here comes Dame Croulsx to chide me for my lack of diligence.”
A portly middle-aged woman with the flat round face and russet hair typical of the village folk approached. Nisbet greeted her with all courtesy, which she dismissed with a curt gesture. “Nisbet, again I must protest! Since I paid my terces, you have raised first a segment to Tobersc and another to Cillincx. Now my husband sits in their shadow, and their wives gloat together at my discomfiture. What is wrong with my money? Have you forgotten the gifts of bread and cheese I sent out by my daughter Turgola? What is your answer?”
“Dame Croulsx, give me only a moment to speak! Your ‘Twenty’ is ready for the raising and I was so about to inform your husband.”
“Ah! That is good news! You will understand my concern.”
“Certainly, but to avoid future misunderstanding, I must inform you that both Dame Tobersc and Dame Cillincx have placed orders for their ‘Twenty-ones’.”
Dame Croulsx’s jaw dropped. “So soon, the andelwipes? In that case I too will have my ‘Twenty-one’, and you must start on it first.”
Nisbet gave a piteous groan and clawed at his white beard. “Dame Croulsx, be reasonable! I can work only to the limit of these old hands, and my legs no longer propel me at nimble speed. I will do all possible; I can promise no more.”
Dame Croulsx argued another five minutes, then started to march away in a huff, but Nisbet called her back. “Dame Croulsx, a small service you can do for me. My friend Cugel needs his garments expertly washed, cleaned, mended and returned to prime condition. Can I impose this task upon you?”
