“I have no time for pranks,” said Cugel. “Boy, you may hand me up my leather sack.” The boy obeyed and Cugel secured the sack to his saddle. He started to ride away but the men interfered. “You must come with us.”
“Impossible,” said Cugel. “I am on my way to Torqual.” He kicked one in the nose and the other in the belly and rode at speed down the Avenue of the Dynasties and so departed Kaspara Vitatus.
After a period he halted, to learn what pursuit, if any, had been offered.
An unpleasant odor reached his nostrils, emanating from the leather sack. To his perplexity, it proved to be the same sack he had taken from Nissifer’s cabin.
Cugel anxiously looked within, to find, not terces, but small objects of corroded metal.
Cugel uttered a groan of dismay and, turning his steed, started to return to Kaspara Vitatus, but now he noticed a dozen men crouched low in their saddles coming after him in hot pursuit.
Cugel uttered another wild cry of fury and frustration. He cast the leather sack into the ditch and turning his steed once more rode south at full speed.
Chapter V
From Kaspara Vitatus to Cuirnif
1
The Seventeen Virgins
The chase went far and long, and led into that dismal tract of bone-colored hills known as the Pale Rugates. Cugel finally used a clever trick to baffle pursuit, sliding from his steed and hiding among the rocks while his enemies pounded past in chase of the riderless mount.
Cugel lay in hiding until the angry band returned toward Kaspara Vitatus, bickering among themselves. He emerged into the open; then, after shaking his fist and shouting curses after the now distant figures, he turned and continued south through the Pale Rugates.
The region was as stark and grim as the surface of a dead sun, and thus avoided by such creatures as sindics, shambs, erbs and visps, for Cugel a single and melancholy source of satisfaction.
Step after step marched Cugel, one leg in front of the other: up slope to overlook an endless succession of barren swells, down again into the hollow where at rare intervals a seep of water nourished a sickly vegetation. Here Cugel found ramp, burdock, squallix and an occasional newt, which sufficed against starvation.
Day followed day. The sun rising cool and dim swam up into the dark-blue sky, from time to time seeming to flicker with a film of blue-black luster, finally to settle like an enormous purple pearl into the west. When dark made further progress impractical, Cugel wrapped himself in his cloak and slept as best he could.
On the afternoon of the seventh day Cugel limped down a slope into an ancient orchard. Cugel found and devoured a few withered hag-apples, then set off along the trace of an old road.
The track proceeded a mile, to lead out upon a bluff overlooking a broad plain. Directly below, a river skirted a small town, curved away to the southwest and finally disappeared into the haze.
Cugel surveyed the landscape with keen attention. Out upon the plain he saw carefully tended garden plots, each precisely square and of identical size; along the river drifted a fisherman’s punt. A placid scene, thought Cugel. On the other hand, the town was built to a strange and archaic architecture, and the scrupulous precision with which the houses surrounded the square suggested a like inflexibility in the inhabitants. The houses themselves were no less uniform, each a construction of two, or three, or even four squat bulbs of diminishing size, one on the other, the lowest always painted blue, the second dark red, the third and fourth respectively a dull mustard ocher and black; and each house terminated in a spire of fancifully twisted iron rods, of greater or lesser height. An inn on the riverbank showed a style somewhat looser and easier, with a pleasant garden surrounding. Along the river road to the east Cugel now noticed the approach of a caravan of six high-wheeled wagons, and his uncertainty dissolved; the town was evidently tolerant of strangers, and Cugel confidently set off down the hill.
At the outskirts to town he halted and drew forth his old purse, which he yet retained though it hung loose and limp. Cugel examined the contents: five terces, a sum hardly adequate to his needs. Cugel reflected a moment, then collected a handful of pebbles which he dropped into the purse, to create a reassuring rotundity. He dusted his breeches, adjusted his green hunter’s cap, and proceeded.
He entered the town without challenge or even attention. Crossing the square, he halted to inspect a contrivance even more peculiar than the quaint architecture: a stone fire-pit in which several logs blazed high, rimmed by five lamps on iron stands, each with five wicks, and above an intricate linkage of mirrors and lenses, the purpose of which surpassed Cugel’s comprehension. Two young men tended the device with diligence, trimming the twenty-five wicks, prodding the fire, adjusting screws and levers which in turn controlled the mirrors and lenses. They wore what appeared to be the local costume: voluminous blue knee-length breeches, red shirts, brass-buttoned black vests and broad-brimmed hats; after disinterested glances they paid Cugel no heed, and he continued to the inn.
In the adjacent garden two dozen folk of the town sat at tables, eating and drinking with great gusto. Cugel watched them a moment or two; their punctilio and elegant gestures suggested the manners of an age far past. Like their houses, they were a sort unique to Cugel’s experience, pale and thin, with egg-shaped heads, long noses, dark expressive eyes and ears cropped in various styles. The men were uniformly bald and their pates glistened in the red sunlight. The women parted their black hair in the middle, then cut it abruptly short a half-inch above the ears: a style which Cugel considered unbecoming. Watching the folk eat and drink, Cugel was unfavorably reminded of the fare which had sustained him across the Pale Rugates, and he gave no further thought to his terces. He strode into the garden and seated himself at a table. A portly man in a blue apron approached, frowning somewhat at Cugel’s disheveled appearance. Cugel immediately brought forth two terces which he handed to the man. “This is for yourself, my good fellow, to insure expeditious service. I have just completed an arduous journey; I am famished with hunger. You may bring me a platter identical to that which the gentleman yonder is enjoying, together with a selection of side-dishes and a bottle of wine. Then be so good as to ask the innkeeper to prepare me a comfortable chamber.” Cugel carelessly brought forth his purse and dropped it upon the table where its weight produced an impressive implication. “I will also require a bath, fresh linen and a barber.”
“I myself am Maier the innkeeper,” said the portly man in a gracious voice. “I will see to your wishes immediately.”
“Excellent,” said Cugel. “I am favorably impressed with your establishment, and perhaps will remain several days.”
The innkeeper bowed in gratification and hurried off to supervise the preparation of Cugel’s dinner.
Cugel made an excellent meal, though the second course, a dish of crayfish stuffed with mince and slivers of scarlet mangoneel, he found a trifle too rich. The roast fowl however could not be faulted and the wine pleased Cugel to such an extent that he ordered a second flask. Maier the innkeeper served the bottle himself and accepted Cugel’s compliments with a trace of complacency. “There is no better wine in Gundar! It is admittedly expensive, but you are a person who appreciates the best.”
“Precisely true,” said Cugel. “Sit down and take a glass with me. I confess to curiosity in regard to this remarkable town.”
The innkeeper willingly followed Cugel’s suggestion. “I am puzzled that you find Gundar remarkable. I have lived here all my life and it seems ordinary enough to me.”
“I will cite three circumstances which I consider worthy of note,” said Cugel, now somewhat expansive by reason of the wine. “First: the bulbous construction of your buildings. Secondly: the contrivance of lenses above the fire, which at the very least must stimulate a stranger’s interest. Thirdly: the fact that the men of Gundar are all stark bald.”
The innkeeper nodded thoughtfully. “The architecture at least is quickly explained. The ancient Gunds lived in enormous gourds. When a section of the wall became weak it was replaced with a board, until in due course the folk found themselves living in houses fashioned completely of wood, and the style has persisted. As for the fire and the projectors, do you not know the world-wide Order of Solar Emosynaries? We stimulate the vitality of the sun; so long as our beam of sympathetic vibration regulates solar combustion, it will never expire. Similar stations exist at other locations: at Blue Azor; on the Isle of Brazel; at the walled city Munt; and in the observatory of the Grand Starkeeper at Vir Vassilis.”
Cugel shook his head sadly. “I hear that conditions have changed. Brazel has long since sunk beneath the waves. Munt was destroyed a thousand years ago by the Dystropes. I have never heard of either Blue Azor or Vir Vassilis, though I am widely traveled. Possibly, here at Gundar, you are the solitary Solar Emosynaries yet in existence.”
“This is dismal news,” declared Maier. “The noticeable enfeeblement of the sun is hereby explained. Perhaps we had best double the fire under our regulator.”
Cugel poured more wine. “A question leaps to mind. If, as I suspect, this is the single Solar Emosynary station yet in operation, who or what regulates the sun when it has passed below the horizon?”
The innkeeper shook his head. “I can offer no explanation. It may be that during the hours of night the sun itself relaxes and, as it were, sleeps, although this is of course sheerest speculation.”
“Allow me to offer another hypothesis,” said Cugel. “Conceivably the waning of the sun has advanced beyond all possibility of regulation, so that your efforts, though formerly useful, are now ineffective.”
Maier threw up his hands in perplexity. “These complications surpass my scope, but yonder stands the Nolde Huruska.” He directed Cugel’s attention to a large man with a deep chest and bristling black beard, who stood at the entrance. “Excuse me a moment.” He rose to his feet and approaching the Nolde spoke for several minutes, indicating Cugel from time to time. The Nolde finally made a brusque gesture and marched across the garden to confront Cugel. He spoke in a heavy voice: “I understand you to assert that no Emosynaries exist other than ourselves?”
“I stated nothing so definitely,” said Cugel, somewhat on the defensive. “I remarked that I had traveled widely and that no other such ‘Emosynary’ agency has come to my attention; and I innocently speculated that possibly none now operate.”
“At Gundar we conceive ‘innocence’ as a positive quality, not merely an insipid absence of guilt,” stated the Nolde. “We are not the fools that certain untidy ruffians might suppose.”
Cugel suppressed the hot remark which rose to his lips, and contented himself with a shrug. Maier walked away with the Nolde and for several minutes the two men conferred, with frequent glances in Cugel’s direction. Then the Nolde departed and the innkeeper returned to Cugel’s table. “A somewhat brusque man, the Nolde of Gundar,” he told Cugel, “but very competent withal.”
“It would be presumptuous of me to comment,” said Cugel. “What, precisely, is his function?”
“At Gundar we place great store upon precision and methodicity,” explained Maier. “We feel that the absence of order encourages disorder; and the official responsible for the inhibition of caprice and abnormality is the Nolde … What was our previous conversation? Ah yes, you mentioned our notorious baldness. I can offer no definite explanation. According to our savants, the condition signifies the final perfection of the human race. Other folk give credence to an ancient legend. A pair of magicians, Astherlin and Mauldred, vied for the favor of the Gunds. Astherlin promised the boon of extreme hairiness, so that the folk of Gundar need never wear garments. Mauldred, to the contrary, offered the Gunds baldness, with all the consequent advantages, and easily won the contest; in fact Mauldred became the first Nolde of Gundar, the post now filled, as you know, by Huruska.” Maier the innkeeper pursed his lips and looked off across the garden. “Huruska, a distrustful sort, has reminded me of my fixed rule to ask all transient guests to settle their accounts on a daily basis. I naturally assured him of your complete reliability, but simply in order to appease Huruska, I will tender the reckoning in the morning.”
“This is tantamount to an insult,” declared Cugel haughtily. “Must we truckle to the whims of Huruska? Not I, you may be assured! I will settle my account in the usual manner.”
The innkeeper blinked. “May I ask how long you intend to stay at Gundar?”
“My journey takes me south, by the most expeditious transport available, which I assume to be riverboat.”
“The town Lumarth lies ten days by caravan across the Lirrh Aing. The Isk river also flows past Lumarth, but is judged inconvenient by virtue of three intervening localities. The Lallo Marsh is infested with stinging insects; the tree-dwarfs of the Santalba Forest pelt passing boats with refuse; and the Desperate Rapids shatter both bones and boats.”
“In this case I will travel by caravan,” said Cugel. “Meanwhile I will remain here, unless the persecutions of Huruska become intolerable.”
Maier licked his lips and looked over his shoulder. “I assured Huruska that I would adhere to the strict letter of my rule. He will surely make a great issue of the matter unless —”
Cugel made a gracious gesture. “Bring me seals. I will close up my purse which contains a fortune in opals and alumes. We will deposit the purse in the strong-box and you may hold it for surety. Even Huruska cannot now protest!”
