“No matter. Come now — through the window. Make not a sound!”
Standing outside in the dark Marlinka cast a horror-stricken glance toward the tower. “Who is on watch? Who guards Vull from Magnatz?”
“No one is on watch,” said Cugel. “The tower is empty!”
Her knees gave way; she sagged to the ground. “Up!” said Cugel. “Up! We must proceed!”
“But no one is on watch! This voids the spell the sorcerer cast upon Magnatz, who swore to return when vigilance ceased!”
Cugel lifted the girl to her feet. “This is no concern of mine; I disclaim responsibility. Did you not seek to fool and victimize me? Where were my cushions? Where was the fine food? And my spouse — where were you?”
The girl wept into her hands, and Cugel led her to the dock. He pulled close a fisherman’s boat, ordered her aboard, threw in his loot.
Untying the boat, he shipped oars and rowed out upon the lake. Marlinka was aghast. “The whirlpools will drown us! Have you lost your reason?”
“Not at all! I have studied the whirlpools with care and know precisely the range of each.”
Out upon the face of the lake moved Cugel, counting each stroke of his oars, and watching the stars. “Two hundred paces east … A hundred paces north … Two hundred paces east … Fifty paces south …”
So Cugel rowed while to right and left of them sounded the suck of whirling water. But the mist had gathered to blot out the stars and Cugel was forced to throw out the anchor. “This is well enough,” he said. “We are safe now, and there is much that lies between us.”
The girl shrank to her end of the boat. Cugel stepped astern and joined her. “Here I am, your spouse! Are you not overjoyed that finally we are alone? My chamber at the inn was far more comfortable, but this boat will suffice.”
“No,” she whimpered. “Do not touch me! The ceremony was meaningless, a trick to persuade you to serve as Watchman.”
“For three-score years perhaps, until I rang the gong from utter desperation?”
“It is not my doing! I am guilty only of merriment! But what will become of Vull? No one watches, and the spell is broken!”
“So much the worse for the faithless folk of Vull! They have lost their treasure, their most beautiful maiden, and when day breaks Magnatz will march upon them.”
Marlinka uttered a poignant cry, which was muffled in the mist. “Never speak the cursed name!”
“Why not? I shall shout it across the water! I will inform Magnatz that the spell is gone, that now he may come for his revenge!”
“No, no, indeed not!”
“Then you must behave toward me as I expect.”
Weeping the girl obeyed, and at last a wan red light filtering through the mist signaled dawn. Cugel stood up in the boat, but all landmarks were yet concealed.
Another hour passed; the sun was now aloft. The folk of Vull would discover that their Watchman was gone, and with him their treasure. Cugel chuckled, and now a breeze lifted the mists, revealing the landmarks he had memorized. He leapt to the bow, hauled on the anchor line, but to his annoyance the anchor had fouled itself.
He jerked, strained, and the line gave a trifle. Cugel pulled with all his strength. From below came a great bubbling. “A whirlpool!” cried Marlinka in terror.
“No whirlpool here,” panted Cugel, and jerked once more. The line seemed to relax and Cugel hauled in the rope. Looking over the side he found himself staring into an enormous pale face. The anchor had caught in a nostril. As he looked the eyes blinked open.
Cugel threw away the line, leapt for the oars, frantically rowed for the southern shore.
A hand as large as a house raised from the water, groped. Marlinka screamed. There was a great turbulence, a prodigious surge of water which flung the boat toward the shore like a chip, and Magnatz sat up in the center of Lake Vull.
From the village came the sound of the warning gong, a frenzied clanging.
Magnatz heaved himself to his knees, water and muck draining from his vast body. The anchor which had pierced his nostril still hung in place, and a thick black fluid issued from the wound. He raised a great arm, slapped petulantly at the boat. The impact threw up a wall of foam which engulfed the boat, spilled treasure, sent Cugel and the girl toppling through the dark depths of the lake.
Cugel kicked and thrust, and propelled himself to the seething surface. Magnatz had gained his feet and was looking toward Vull.
Cugel swam to the beach, staggered ashore. Marlinka had drowned, and was nowhere to be seen. Across the lake Magnatz was wading slowly toward the village.
Cugel waited no longer. He turned and ran with all speed up the mountainside.
Chapter IV
The Sorcerer Pharesm
The mountains were behind: the dark defiles, the tarns, the echoing stone heights — all now a sooty bulk to the north. For a time Cugel wandered a region of low rounded hills the color and texture of old wood, with groves of blue-black trees dense along the ridges, then came upon a faint trail which took him south by long swings and slants, and at last broke out over a vast dim plain. A half-mile to the right rose a line of tall cliffs, which instantly attracted his attention, bringing him a haunting pang of déjà-vu. He stared mystified. At some time in the past he had known these cliffs: how? when? His memory provided no response. He settled himself upon a low lichen-covered rock to rest, but now Firx, the monitor which Iucounu the Laughing Magician had implanted in Cugel’s viscera, became impatient and inflicted a stimulating pang. Cugel leapt to his feet, groaning with weariness and shaking his fist to the southwest, the presumable direction of Almery. “Iucounu, Iucounu! If I could repay a tenth of your offenses, the world would think me harsh!”
He set off down the trail, under the cliffs which had affected him with such poignant but impossible recollections. Far below spread the plain, filling three-quarters of the horizon with colors much like those of the lichened rock Cugel had just departed: black patches of woodland; a gray crumble where ruins filled an entire valley; nondescript streaks of gray-green, lavender, gray-brown; the leaden glint of two great rivers disappearing into the haze of distance.
Cugel’s brief rest had only served to stiffen his joints; he limped, and the pouch chafed his hip. Even more distressing was the hunger gripping his belly. Another tally against Iucounu who had sent Cugel to the northern wastes on a mission of wanton frivolity: Iucounu, it must be allowed had furnished an amulet converting such normally inedible substances as grass, wood, horn, hair, humus and the like into a nutritious paste. Unfortunately — and this was a measure of Iucounu’s mordant humor — the paste retained the flavor of the native substance, and during his passage of the mountains Cugel had tasted little better than spurge, cullion, blackwort, oak-twigs and galls, and on one occasion, when all else failed, certain refuse discovered in the cave of a bearded thawn. Cugel had eaten only minimally; his long spare frame had become gaunt; his cheek-bones protruded like sponsons; the black eyebrows which once had crooked so jauntily now lay flat and dispirited. Truly, truly, Iucounu had much to answer for! And Cugel, as he proceeded, debated the exact quality of revenge he would take if ever he found his way back to Almery.
The trail swung down upon a wide stony flat where the wind had carved a thousand grotesque figures. Surveying the area Cugel thought to perceive regularity among the eroded shapes, and halted to rub his long chin in appraisal. The pattern displayed an extreme subtlety — so subtle indeed, that Cugel wondered if it had not been projected by his own mind. Moving closer, he discerned further complexities, and elaborations upon complexities: twists, spires, volutes; disks, saddles, wrenched spheres; torsions and flexions; spindles, cardioids, lanciform pinnacles: the most laborious, painstaking and intricate rock-carving conceivable, manifestly no random effort of the elements. Cugel frowned in perplexity, unable to imagine a motive for so complex an undertaking.
He went on and a moment later heard voices, together with the clank of tools. He stopped short, listened cautiously, then proceeded, to come upon a gang of about fifty men ranging in stature from three inches to well over twelve feet. Cugel approached on tentative feet, but after a glance the workers paid him no heed, continuing to chisel, grind, scrape, probe and polish with dedicated zeal.
Cugel watched for several minutes, then approached the overseer, a man three feet in height who stood at a lectern consulting the plans spread before him, comparing them to the work in progress by means of an ingenious optical device. He appeared to note everything at once, calling instructions, chiding, exhorting against error, instructing the least deft in the use of their tools. To exemplify his remarks he used a wonderfully extensible forefinger, which reached forth thirty feet to tap at a section of rock, to scratch a quick diagram, then as swiftly retract.
