“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?”
“Of course! You need only ask! Where are the garments?”
Cugel brought out the soiled clothes and Dame Croulsx returned to the village. “That is the way it goes,” said Nisbet with a sad smile. “Strong new hands are needed to carry on the trade. What is your opinion in the matter?”
“The trade has much in its favor,” said Cugel. “Let me ask this: Dame Croulsx mentioned her daughter Turgola; is she appreciably more comely than Dame Croulsx? And also: are daughters as anxious to oblige the quarryman as their mothers?”
Nisbet replied in a ponderous voice: “As to your first question: the folk of the village are Keramian stock, fugitives from the Rhab Faag and none are notable for a splendid appearance. Turgola, for instance, is squat, underslung, and shows protruding teeth. As for your second question, perhaps I have misread the signs. Dame Petish has often offered to massage my back, though I have never complained of pain. Dame Gezx is at times strangely over-familiar … Ha hm. Well, no matter. If, as I hope, you become ‘associate quarryman’, you must make your own interpretation of these little cordialities, though I trust that you will not bring scandal to an enterprise which, to now, has been based upon probity.”
Cugel laughingly dismissed the possibility of scandal. “I am favorably inclined to your offer; for a fact I lack the means to travel onward. I will therefore undertake at least a temporary commitment, at whatever wage you consider proper.”
“Excellent!” said Nisbet. “We will arrange such details later. Now to work! We must raise the Croulsx ‘Twenty’.”
Nisbet led the way to the work-shop on the quarry floor, where the ‘Twenty’ stood ready on a pallet: a dolomite cylinder five feet tall and ten feet in diameter.
Nisbet tied several long ropes to the segment. After looking here and there, Cugel put a perplexed question: “I see neither rollers nor hoists nor cranes; how do you, one man alone, move such great masses of stone?”
“Have you forgotten my amulet? Observe! I touch the stone with the amulet and the stone becomes charged with revulsion for its native stuff. If I kick it lightly — so! no more than a tap! — the magic is fugitive and will last only long enough to bring the segment to its place. If I were to kick with force, the stone might stay repulsive to the land for a month, or even longer.”
Cugel examined the amulet with respect. “How did you gain such sleight?”
