Tales of the Dying Earth

by Jack Vance

  Cugel drew back. "There are no windows! I should feel stifled."

  "Oh? Very well, let us look into another chamber. . . . What of this? The bed is soft and fine."

  Cugel voiced a question: "What is the reason for the massive iron grid work above the bed? What if it fell during the night?"

  "Cugel, this is sheer pessimism! You must always look for the glad things of life! Have you noticed, for instance, the vase of flowers beside the bed!"

  "Charming! Let us look at another room."

  "Sleep is sleep!" said Faucelme peevishly. "Are you always so captious? ... Well then, what of this fine chamber? The bed is good; the windows are wide. I can only hope that the height does not affect you with vertigo."

  "This will suit me well," said Cugel. "Faucelme, I bid you good night."

  Faucelme stalked off down the hall. Cugel closed the door and opened wide the window. Against the stars he could see tall thin chimneys and a single cypress rearing above the house.

  Cugel tied an end of his rope to the bed-post, then kicked the bed, which at once knew revulsion for the suction of gravity and lifted into the air. Cugel guided it to the window, pushed it through and out into the night. He darkened the lamp, climbed aboard the bed and thrust away from the manse toward the cypress tree, to which he tied the other end of the rope. He gave a command: "Rope, stretch long."

  The rope stretched and Cugel floated up into the night. The manse showed as an irregular bulk below, blacker than black, with yellow quadrangles to mark the illuminated rooms.

  Cugel let the rope stretch a hundred yards. "Rope, stretch no more!"

  The bed stopped with a soft jerk. Cugel made himself comfortable and watched the manse.

  Half an hour passed. The bed swayed to the vagrant airs of the night and under the eiderdown Cugel became drowsy. His eyelids became heavy. ... An effulgence burst soundlessly from the window of the room to which he had been assigned. Cugel blinked and sat upright, and watched a bubble of luminous pale gas billow from the window.

  The room went dark, as before. A moment later the window flickered to the light of a lamp, and Faucelme's angular figure, with elbows akimbo, showed black upon the yellow rectangle. The head jerked this way and that as Faucelme looked out into the night.

  At last he withdrew and the window went dark.

  Cugel became uneasy with his proximity to the manse. He took hold of the rope and said: "Tzat!"

  The rope came loose in his hand.

  Cugel said: "Rope, shrink!"

  The rope became once more ten feet long.

  Cugel looked back toward the manse. "Faucelme, whatever your deeds or misdeeds, I am grateful to you for this rope, and also your bed, even though, through fear, I must sleep in the open."

  He looked over the side of the bed and by starlight saw the glimmer of the road. The night was dead calm. He drifted, if at all, to the west.

  Cugel hung his hat on the bed-post. He lay back, pulled the eiderdown over his head and went to sleep.

  The night passed. Stars moved across the sky. From the waste came the melancholy call of the visp: once, twice, then silence.

  Cugel awoke to the rising of the sun, and for an appreciable interval could not define his whereabouts. He started to throw a leg over the side of the bed, then pulled it back with a startled jerk.

  A black shadow fluttered across the sun; a heavy black object swooped down to alight at the foot of Cugel's bed; a pelgrane of middle years, to judge by the silky gray hair of its globular abdomen. Its head, two feet long, was carved of black horn, like that of a stag-beetle and white fangs curled up past its snout. Perching on the bedstead it regarded Cugel with both avidity and amusement.

  "Today I shall breakfast in bed," said the pelgrane. "Not often do I so indulge myself."

  It reached out and seized Cugel's ankle, but Cugel jerked back. He groped for his sword but could not draw it from the scabbard. In his frantic effort he caught his hat with the tip of his scabbard; the pelgrane, attracted by the red glint, reached for the hat. Cugel thrust 'Spatterlight' into its face.

  The wide brim and Cugel's own terror confused the flow of events. The bed bounded as if relieved of weight; the pelgrane was gone.

  Cugel looked to all sides in puzzlement.

  The pelgrane had disappeared.

  Cugel looked at 'Spatterlight', which seemed to shine with perhaps a somewhat more vivacious glow.

  With great caution Cugel arranged the hat upon his head. He looked over the side and noticed approaching in the road a small two-wheeled cart pushed by a fat boy of twelve or thirteen years.

  Cugel threw down his rope to fix upon a stump and drew himself to the surface. When the boy rolled the push-cart past, Cugel sprang out upon the road. "Hold up! What have we here?"

  The boy jumped back in fright. "It is a new wheel for the wain and breakfast for my brothers: a pot of good stew, a round of bread and a jug of wine. If you are a robber there is nothing here for you."

  "I will be the judge of that," said Cugel. He kicked the wheel to render it weightless, and heaved it spinning away through the sky while the boy watched in open-mouthed wonder. Cugel then took the pot of stew, the bread and the wine from the cart. "You now may proceed," he told the boy. "If your brothers inquire for the wheel and the breakfast, you may mention the name 'Cugel' and the sum 'five terces'."

  The boy trundled the cart away at a run. Cugel took the pot, bread and wine to his bed and, loosing the rope, drifted high into the air.

  Along the road at a run came the three farmers, followed by the boy. They halted and shouted: "Cugel! Where are you? We want a word or two with you." And one added ingenuously: "We wish to return your five terces!"

  Cugel deigned no response. The boy, searching around the sky for the wheel, noticed the bed and pointed, and the farmers, red-faced with fury, shook their fists and bawled curses.

  Cugel listened with impassive amusement for a few minutes, until the breeze, freshening, swept him off toward the hills and Port Perdusz.

  CHAPTER IV FROM PORT PERDUSZ TO KASPARA VITATUS

  1 ON THE DOCKS

  A FAVORABLE wind blew Cugel and his bed over the hills in comfort and convenience. As he drifted over the last ridge, the landscape dissolved into far distances, and before him, from east to west, spread the estuary of the River Chaing, in a great sweep of liquid gunmetal.

  Westward along the shore Cugel noticed a scatter of mouldering gray structures: Port Perdusz. A half-dozen vessels were tied up at the docks; at so great a distance Cugel could not distinguish one from the other.

  Cugel caused the bed to descend by dangling his sword and boots over either side, so that they were seized by the forces of gravity. Driven by capricious gusts of wind, the bed dropped in directions beyond Cugel's control and eventually fell into a thicket of tulsifer reeds only a few yards inland from the river.

  Reluctantly abandoning the bed, Cugel picked his way toward the river road, across soggy turf rampant with a dozen species of more or less noxious plants: russet and black burdock, blister-bush, brown-flowered hurse, sensitive vine which jumped back in distaste as Cugel approached. Blue lizards hissed angrily and Cugel, already in poor humour owing to contact with the blister-bush, reviled them in return: "Hiss away, vermin! I expect nothing better from such low-caste beasts!"

  The lizards, divining the gist of Cugel's rebuke, ran at him by jerks and bounds, hissing and spitting, until Cugel picked up a dead branch, and by beating at the ground kept them at bay.

  Cugel finally gained the road. He brushed off his clothes, slapped his hat against his leg, taking care to avoid contact with 'Spatterlight'. Then, shifting his sword so that it swung at its most jaunty angle, he set off toward Port Perdusz.

  The time was middle afternoon. A line of tall deodars bordered the road; Cugel walked in and out of black shadow and red sunlight. He noticed an occasional hut halfway up the hillside and decaying barges along the river-bank. The road passed an ancient cemetery shaded under stragglin
g rows of cypress, then swung toward the river to avoid a bluff on which perched a ruined palace.

  Entering the town proper, the road swung around the back of a central plaza, where it passed in front of a large semicircular building, at one time a theater or concert hall, but now an inn. The road then returned to the waterfront and led past those vessels which Cugel had noticed from the air. A question hung heavy in Cugel's mind: might the Galante still lie in port?

  Unlikely, but not impossible.

  Cugel would find most embarrassing a chance confrontation with Captain Baunt, or Drofo, or Madame Soldinck, or even Soldinck himself.

  Halting in the roadway, Cugel rehearsed a number of conversational gambits which might be used to ease the tensions. At length he admitted to himself that, realistically, none could be expected to succeed, and that a formal bow, or a simple and noncommittal nod of the head, would serve equally well.

  Maintaining a watch in all directions, Cugel sauntered out on the decaying old wharf. He discovered three ships and two small coastwise vessels, as well as a ferry to the opposite shore.

  None was the Galante, to Cugel's great relief.

  The first vessel, and farthest downstream from the plaza, was a heavy and nameless barge, evidently intended for the river trade. The second, a large carrack named Leucidion had been discharged of cargo and now appeared to be undergoing repairs. The third, and closest to the plaza, was the Avventura, a trim little ship, somewhat smaller than the others, and now in the process of taking on cargo and provisions for a voyage.

  The docks were comparatively animated, with the passage of drays, the shouting and cursing of porters, the gay music of concertinas from aboard the barge.

  A small man, portly and florid, wearing the uniform of a minor official, paused to inspect Cugel with a calculating eye, then turned away and entered one of the nearby warehouses.

  Over the rail of the Leucidion leaned a burly man wearing a striped shirt of indigo blue and white, a conical black hat with a golden chain dangling beside his right ear, and a spigoted golden boss in his left cheek: the costume of the Castillion Shorelanders.6

  Cugel confidently approached the Leucidion and, assuming a jovial expression, waved his hand in greeting.

  The ship-master watched impassively, making no response.

  Cugel called out: "A fine ship! I see that she has been somewhat disabled."

  The ship-master at last responded: "I already have been notified in this regard."

  "Where will you sail when the damage is repaired?"

  "Our usual run."

  "Which is?"

  "To Latticut and The Three Sisters, or to Woy if cargo offers."

  "I am looking for passage to Almery," said Cugel.

  "You will not find it here," said the ship-master with a grim smile. "I am brave but not rash."

  In a somewhat peevish voice Cugel protested: "Surely someone must sail south out of Port Perdusz! It is only logical!"

  The ship-master shrugged and looked toward the sky. "If this is your reasoned opinion, then no doubt it is so."

  Cugel pushed impatiently down at the pommel of his sword. "How do you suggest that I make my journey south?"

  "By sea?" The ship-master jerked his thumb toward the Avventura. "Talk to Wiskich; he is a Dilk and a madman, with the seamanship of a Blue Mountain sheep. Pay him terces enough and he will sail to Jehane itself."

  "This I know for a fact," said Cugel. "Certain cargoes of value arrive at Port Perdusz from Saskervoy, and are then trans-shipped to Almery."

  The ship-master listened with little interest. "Most likely they move by caravan, such as Yadcomo's or Varmous'. Or, for all I know, Wiskich sails them south in the Avventura. All Dilks are mad. They think they will live forever and ignore danger. Their ships carry mast-head lamps so that, when the sun goes out, they can light their way back across the sea to Dilclusa."

  Cugel started to put another question, but the ship-master had retreated into his cabin.

  During the conversation, the small portly man in the uniform had, emerged from the warehouse. He listened a moment to the conversation, then went at a brisk pace to the Avventura. He ran up the gangplank and disappeared into the cabin. Almost at once he returned down the gangplank where he halted a moment, then, ignoring Cugel, he returned at a placid and dignified gait into the warehouse.

  Cugel proceeded to the Avventura, hoping at least to learn the itinerary proposed by Wiskich for his ship. At the foot of the gangplank a sign had been posted which Cugel read with great interest:

  PASSENGERS FOR THE VOYAGE SOUTH, TAKE NOTE!

  PORTS OF CALL ARE NOW DEFINITE. THEY ARE:

  MAHAZE AND THE MISTY ISLES

  LAVRRAKI REAL, OCTORUS, KAIIN

  VARIOUS PORTS OF ALMERY.

  DO NOT BOARD SHIP WITHOUT TICKET! SECURE TICKET FROM TICKET AGENT IN GRAY WAREHOUSE ACROSS WHARF.

  With long strides Cugel crossed the wharf and entered the warehouse. An office to the side was identified by an old sign: OFFICE OF TICKET AGENT

  Cugel stepped into the office where, sitting behind a disreputable desk, he discovered the small portly man in the dark uniform, now making entries into a ledger.

  The official looked up from his work. "Sir, your orders?"

  "I wish to take passage aboard the Avventura for Almery. You may prepare me a ticket."

  The agent turned a page in the ledger and squinted dubiously at a set of entries. "I am sorry to say that the voyage is fully booked. A pity .... Just a moment! There may be a cancellation! If so, you are in luck, as there will be no other voyage this year. . . . Let me see. Yes! The Hierarch Hopple has taken ill."

  "Excellent! What is the fare?"

  "The available billet is for first class accommodation and victualling, at two hundred terces."

  "What?" cried Cugel in anguish. "That is an outrageous fee! I have but forty-five terces to my pouch, and not a groat more!"

  The agent nodded placidly. "Again you are in luck. The Hierarch placed a deposit of one hundred and fifty terces upon the ticket, which sum has been forfeited. I see no reason why we should not add your forty-five terces to this amount and even though it totals to only one hundred and ninety-five, you shall have your ticket, and I will make certain book-keeping adjustments."

  "That is most kind of you!" said Cugel. He brought the terces from his pouch, and paid them over to the agent, who returned him a slip of paper marked with characters strange to Cugel. "And here is your ticket."

  Cugel reverently folded the ticket and placed it in his pouch. He said: "I hope that I may go aboard the ship at once, as now I lack the means to pay for either food or shelter elsewhere."

  "I am sure that there will be no problem," said the ticket agent. "But if you will wait here a moment I will run over to the ship and say a word to the captain."

  "That is good of you," said Cugel, and composed himself in a chair. The agent departed the office.

  Ten minutes passed, then twenty minutes, and half an hour.

  Cugel became restless and, going to the door, looked up and down the wharf, but the ticket agent was nowhere to be seen.

  "Odd," said Cugel. He noticed that the sign which had hung by the Avventura's gangplank had disappeared. "Naturally!" Cugel told himself. "There is now a full complement of passengers, and no need for further advertisement."

  As Cugel watched, a tall red-haired man with muscular arms and legs came unsteadily along the dock, apparently having taken a drop too many at the inn. He lurched up the Avventura's gang-plank and stumbled into the cabin.

  "Ah!" said Cugel. "The explanation is clear. That is Captain Wiskich, and the agent has been awaiting his return. He will be coming down the gang-plank any moment now."

  Another ten minutes passed. The sun was now sinking low into the estuary and a dark pink gloom had descended upon Port Perdusz.

  The captain appeared on the deck to supervise the loading of supplies from a dray. Cugel decided to wait no longer. He adjusted his hat to a proper an
gle, strode across the avenue, up the gangplank and presented himself to Captain Wiskich. "Sir, I am Cugel, one of your first-class passengers."

  "All my passengers are first-class!" declared Captain Wiskich. "You will find no pettifoggery aboard the Avventura!"

  Cugel opened his mouth to stipulate the terms of his ticket, then closed it again; to remonstrate would seem an argument in favor of pettifoggery. He observed the provisions now being loaded aboard, which seemed of excellent quality. Cugel spoke approvingly: "The viands appear more than adequate. It would seem that you set a good table for your passengers!"

  Captain Wiskich uttered a yelp of coarse laughter. "First things come first aboard the Avventura! The viands are choice indeed; they are for the table of myself and the crew. Passengers eat flat beans and semola, unless they pay a surcharge, for which they are allowed a supplement of kangol."

  Cugel heaved a deep sigh. "May I ask the length of the passage between here and Almery?"

  Captain Wiskich looked at Cugel in drunken wonder. "Almery? Why should anyone sail to Almery? First one mires his ship in a morass of foul-smelling weeds a hundred miles across. The weeds grow over the ship and multitudes of insects crawl aboard. Beyond is the Gulf of Swirls, then the Serene Sea, now bedeviled by pirates of the Jhardine Coast. Then, unless one detours far west around the Isles of Cloud, he must pass through the Seleune and a whole carnival of dangers."

  Cugel became outraged. "Am I to understand that you are not sailing south to Almery?"

  Captain Wiskich slapped his chest with a huge red hand. "I am a Dilk and know nothing of fear. Still, when Death enters the room by the door, I leave through the window. My ship will sail a placid course to Latticut, thence to Al-Halambar, thence to Witches Nose and The Three Sisters, and so back to Port Perdusz. If you wish to make the passage, pay me your fare and find a hammock in the hold."

  "I have already bought my ticket!" stormed Cugel. "For the passage south to Almery, by way of Mahaze!"

  "That pest-hole? Never. Let me see your ticket."

  Cugel presented that document afforded him by the purported ticket-agent. Captain Wiskich looked at it first from one angle, then another. "I know nothing of this. I cannot even read it. Can you?"