“An inch of foreknowledge is worth ten miles of afterthought —”
“Well spoken!” cried Erwig, swallowing a gulp of arrak. “My own opinion, to an exactitude! Cugel, you are astute!”
“— and in this regard, may I inquire your opinion of Cuirnif?”
“The folk are peculiar in many ways,” said Erwig. “They preen themselves upon the gentility of their habits, yet they refuse to whitewash their hair, and they are slack in their religious observances. For instance, they make obeisance to Divine Wiulio with the right hand, not on the buttock, but on the abdomen, which we here consider a slipshod practice. What are your own views?”
“The rite should be conducted as you describe,” said Cugel. “No other method carries weight.”
Erwig refilled Cugel’s glass. “I consider this an important endorsement of our views!”
The door opened and Erwig’s spouse looked into the hut. “The night is dark. A bitter wind blows from the north, and a black beast prowls at the edge of the marsh.”
“Stand among the shadows; divine Wiulio protects his own. It is unthinkable that you and your brats should annoy our guest.”
The woman grudgingly closed the door and returned into the night. Erwig pulled himself forward on his stool and swallowed a quantity of arrak. “The folk of Cuirnif, as I say, are strange enough, but their ruler, Duke Orbal, surpasses them in every category. He devotes himself to the study of marvels and prodigies, and every jack-leg magician with two spells in his head is feted and celebrated and treated to the best of the city.”
“Most odd!” declared Cugel.
Again the door opened and the woman looked into the hut. Erwig put down his glass and frowned over his shoulder. “What is it this time?”
“The beast is now moving among the huts. For all we know it may also worship Wiulio.”
Erwig attempted argument, but the woman’s face became obdurate. “Your guest might as well forego his niceties now as later, since we all, in any event, must sleep on the same heap of reeds.” She opened wide the door and commanded her urchins into the hut. Erwig, assured that no further conversation was possible, threw himself down upon the reeds, and Cugel followed soon after.
In the morning Cugel breakfasted on ash-cake and herb tea, and prepared to take his departure. Erwig accompanied him to the road. “You have made a favorable impression upon me, and I will assist you across the Plain of Standing Stones. At the first opportunity take up a pebble the size of your fist and make the trigrammatic sign upon it. If you are attacked, hold high the pebble and cry out: ‘Stand aside! I carry a sacred object!’ At the first sarsen, deposit the stone and select another from the pile, again make the sign and carry it to the second sarsen, and so across the plain.”
“So much is clear,” said Cugel. “But perhaps you should show me the most powerful version of the sign, and thus refresh my memory.”
Erwig scratched a mark in the dirt. “Simple, precise, correct! The folk of Cuirnif omit this loop and scrawl in every which direction.”
“Slackness, once again!” said Cugel.
“So then, Cugel: farewell! The next time you pass be certain to halt at my hut! My crock of arrak has a loose stopper!”
“I would not forego the pleasure for a thousand terces. And now, as to my indebtedness —”
Erwig held up his hand. “I accept no terces from my guests!” He jerked and his eyes bulged as his spouse came up and prodded him in the ribs. “Ah well,” said Erwig. “Give the woman a terce or two; it will cheer her as she performs her tasks.”
Cugel paid over five terces, to the woman’s enormous satisfaction, and so departed the village.
After four miles the road angled up to a gray plain studded at intervals with twelve-foot pillars of gray stone. Cugel found a large pebble, and placing his right hand on his buttock made a profound salute to the object. He scratched upon it a sign somewhat similar to that drawn for him by Erwig and intoned: “I commend this pebble to the attention of Wiulio! I request that it protect me across this dismal plain!”
He scrutinized the landscape, but aside from the sarsens and the long black shadows laid by the red morning sun, he discovered nothing worthy of attention, and thankfully set off along the track.
He had traveled no more than a hundred yards when he felt a presence and whirling about discovered an asm of eight fangs almost on his heels. Cugel held high the pebble and cried out: “Away with you! I carry a sacred object and I do not care to be molested!”
The asm spoke in a soft blurred voice: “Wrong! You carry an ordinary pebble. I watched and you scamped the rite. Flee if you wish! I need the exercise.”
The asm advanced. Cugel threw the stone with all his force. It struck the black forehead between the bristling antennae, and the asm fell flat; before it could rise Cugel had severed its head.
He started to proceed, then turned back and took up the stone. “Who knows who guided the throw so accurately? Wiulio deserves the benefit of the doubt.”
At the first sarsen he exchanged stones as Erwig had recommended, and this time he made the trigrammatic sign with care and precision.
Without interference he crossed to the next sarsen and so continued across the plain.
The sun made its way to the zenith, rested a period, then descended into the west. Cugel marched unmolested from sarsen to sarsen. On several occasions he noted pelgrane sliding across the sky, and each time flung himself flat to avoid attention.
The Plain of Standing Stones ended at the brink of a scarp overlooking a wide valley. With safety close at hand Cugel relaxed his vigilance, only to be startled by a scream of triumph from the sky. He darted a horrified glance over his shoulder, then plunged over the edge of the scarp into a ravine, where he dodged among rocks and pressed himself into the shadows. Down swooped the pelgrane, past and beyond Cugel’s hiding place. Warbling in joy, it alighted at the base of the scarp, to evoke instant outcries and curses from a human throat.
Keeping to concealment Cugel descended the slope, to discover that the pelgrane now pursued a portly black-haired man in a suit of black and white diaper. This person at last took nimble refuge behind a thick-boled olophar tree, and the pelgrane chased him first one way, then another, clashing its fangs and snatching with its clawed hands.
For all his rotundity, the man showed remarkable deftness of foot and the pelgrane began to scream in frustration. It halted to glare through the crotch of the tree and snap out with its long maw.
On a whimsical impulse Cugel stole out upon a shelf of rock; then, selecting an appropriate moment, he jumped to land with both feet on the creature’s head, forcing the neck down into the crotch of the olophar tree. He called out to the startled man: “Quick! Fetch a stout cord! We will bind this winged horror in place!”
The man in the black and white diaper cried out: “Why show mercy? It must be killed and instantly! Move your foot, so that I may hack away its head.”
“Not so fast,” said Cugel. “For all its faults, it is a valuable specimen by which I hope to profit.”
“Profit?” The idea had not occurred to the portly gentleman. “I must assert my prior claim! I was just about to stun the beast when you interfered.”
Cugel said: “In that case I will take my weight off the creature’s neck and go my way.”
The man in the black-and-white suit made an irritable gesture. “Certain persons will go to any extreme merely to score a rhetorical point. Hold fast then! I have a suitable cord over yonder.”
The two men dropped a branch over the pelgrane’s head and bound it securely in place. The portly gentleman, who had introduced himself as Iolo the Dream-taker, asked: “Exactly what value do you place upon this horrid creature, and why?”
