by Jack Vance
“The matter may be resolved in a manner to satisfy us all,” said Cugel. “Let Iolo enter the hole, to assure himself that his dreams are indeed elsewhere. Then, on his return, he will bear witness to the truly marvelous nature of my exhibit.”
Iolo made an instant protest. “Cugel claims the exhibit; let him make the exploration!”
Duke Orbal raised his hand for silence. “I pronounce a decree to the effect that Cugel must immediately enter his exhibit in search of Iolo’s properties, and likewise make a careful study of the environment, for the benefit of us all.”
“Your Grace!” protested Cugel. “This is no simple matter! The tentacle almost fills the hole!”
“I see sufficient room for an agile man to slide past.”
“Your Grace, to be candid, I do not care to enter the hole, by reason of extreme fear.”
Duke Orbal again glanced up at the tubes which stood in a row along the skyline. He spoke over his shoulder to a burly man in a maroon and black uniform. “Which of the tubes is most suitable for use at this time?”
“The second tube from the right, your Grace, is only one-quarter occupied.”
Cugel declared in a trembling voice: “I fear, but I have conquered my fear! I will seek Iolo’s lost dreams!”
“Excellent,” said Duke Orbal with a tight-lipped grin. “Please do not delay; my patience wears thin.”
Cugel tentatively thrust a leg into the hole, but the motion of the tentacle caused him to snatch it out again. Duke Orbal muttered a few words to his constable, who brought up a winch. The tentacle was hauled forth from the hole a good five yards.
Duke Orbal instructed Cugel: “Straddle the tentacle, seize it with hands and legs and it will draw you back through the hole.”
In desperation Cugel clambered upon the tentacle. The tension of the winch was relaxed and Cugel was pulled into the hole.
The light of Earth curled away from the opening and made no entrance; Cugel was plunged into a condition of near-total darkness, where, however, by some paradoxical condition he was able to sense the scope of his new environment in detail.
He stood on a surface at once flat, yet rough, with rises and dips and hummocks like the face of a windy sea. The black spongy stuff underfoot showed small cavities and tunnels in which Cugel sensed the motion of innumerable near-invisible points of light. Where the sponge rose high, the crest curled over like breaking surf, or stood ragged and crusty; in either case, the fringes glowed red, pale blue and several colors Cugel had never before observed. No horizon could be detected and the local concepts of distance, proportion, and size were not germane to Cugel’s understanding.
Overhead hung dead Nothingness. The single feature of note, a large disk the color of rain, floated at the zenith, an object so dim as to be almost invisible. At an indeterminate distance—a mile? ten miles? a hundred yards?—a hummock of some bulk overlooked the entire panorama. On closer inspection Cugel saw this hummock to be a prodigious mound of gelatinous flesh, inside which floated a globular organ apparently analogous to an eye. From the base of this creature a hundred tentacles extended far and wide across the black sponge. One of these tentacles passed near Cugel’s feet, through the intracosmic gap, and out upon the soil of Earth.
Cugel discovered Iolo’s sack of dreams, not three feet distant. The black sponge, bruised by the impact, had welled a liquid which had dissolved a hole in the leather, allowing the star-shaped dreams to spill out upon the sponge. In groping with the pole, Cugel had damaged a growth of brown palps. The resulting exudation had dripped upon the dreams and when Cugel picked up one of the fragile flakes, he saw that its edges glowed with eery fringes of color. The combination of oozes which had permeated the object caused his fingers to itch and tingle.
A score of small luminous nodes swarmed around his head, and a soft voice addressed him by name. “Cugel, what a pleasure that you have come to visit us! What is your opinion of our pleasant land?”
Cugel looked about in wonder; how could a denizen of this place know his name? At a distance of ten yards he noticed a small hummock of plasm not unlike the monstrous bulk with the floating eye.
Luminous nodes circled his head and the voice sounded in his ears: “You are perplexed, but remember, here we do things differently. We transfer our thoughts in small modules; if you look closely you will see them speeding through the fluxion: dainty little animalcules eager to unload their weight of enlightenment. There! Notice! Directly before your eyes hovers an excellent example. It is a thought of your own regarding which you are dubious; hence it hesitates, and awaits your decision.”
“What if I speak?” asked Cugel. “Will this not facilitate matters?”
“To the contrary! Sound is considered offensive and everyone deplores the slightest murmur.”
“This is all very well,” grumbled Cugel, “but—”
“Silence, please! Send forth animalcules only!”
Cugel dispatched a whole host of luminous purports: “I will do my best. Perhaps you can inform me how far this land extends?”
“Not with certainty. At times I send forth animalcules to explore the far places; they report an infinite landscape similar to that which you see.”
“Duke Orbal of Ombalique has commanded me to gather information and he will be interested in your remarks. Are valuable substances to be found here?”
“To a certain extent. There is proscedel and diphany and an occasional coruscation of zamanders.”
“My first concern, of course, is to collect information for Duke Orbal, and I must also rescue Iolo’s dreams; still I would be pleased to acquire a valuable trinket or two, if only to remind myself of our pleasant association.”
“Understandable! I sympathize with your objectives.”
“In that case, how may I obtain a quantity of such substances?”
“Easily. Simply send off animalcules to gather up your requirements.” The creature emitted a whole host of pale plasms which darted away in all directions and presently returned with several dozen small spheres sparkling with a frosty blue light. “Here are zamanders of the first water,” said the creature. “Accept them with my compliments.”
Cugel placed the gems in his pouch. “This is a most convenient system for gaining wealth. I also wish to obtain a certain amount of diphany.”
“Send forth animalcules! Why exert yourself needlessly?”
“We think along similar lines.” Cugel dispatched several hundred animalcules which presently returned with twenty small ingots of the precious metal.
Cugel examined his pouch. “I still have room for a quantity of proscedel. With your permission I will send out the requisite animalcules.”
“I would not dream of interfering,” asserted the creature.
The animalcules sped forth, and before long returned with sufficient proscedel to fill Cugel’s pouch. The creature said thoughtfully: “This is at least half of Uthaw’s treasure; however, he appears not to have noticed its absence.”
“‘Uthaw’?” inquired Cugel. “Do you refer to yonder monstrous hulk?”
“Yes, that is Uthaw, who sometimes is both coarse and irascible.”
Uthaw’s eye rolled toward Cugel and bulged through the outer membrane. A tide of animalcules arrived pulsing with significance. “I notice that Cugel has stolen my treasure, which I denounce as a breach of hospitality! In retribution, he must dig twenty-two zamanders from below the Shivering Trillows. He must then sift eight pounds of prime proscedel from the Dust of Time. Finally he must scrape eight acres of diphany bloom from the face of the High Disk.”
Cugel sent forth animalcules. “Lord Uthaw, the penalty is harsh but just. A moment while I go to fetch the necessary tools!” He gathered up the dreams and sprang to the aperture. Seizing the tentacle he cried through the hole: “Pull the tentacle, work the winch! I have rescued the dreams!”
The tentacle convulsed and thrashed, effectively blocking the opening. Cugel turned and putting his fingers to his mouth emitted
a piercing whistle. Uthaw’s eye rolled upward and the tentacle fell limp.
The winch heaved at the tentacle and Cugel was drawn back through the hole. Uthaw, recovering his senses, jerked his tentacle so violently that the rope snapped; the winch was sent flying; and several persons were swept from their feet. Uthaw jerked back his tentacle and the hole immediately closed.
Cugel cast the sack of dream-flakes contemptuously at the feet of Iolo. “There you are, ingrate! Take your vapid hallucinations and go your way! Let us hear no more of you!”
Cugel turned to Duke Orbal. “I am now able to render a report upon the other cosmos. The ground is composed of a black spongelike substance and flickers with a trillion infinitesimal glimmers. My research discovered no limits to the extent of the land. A pale disk, barely visible, covers a quarter of the sky. The denizens are, first and foremost, an ill-natured hulk named Uthaw, and others more or less similar. No sound is allowed and meaning is conveyed by animalcules, which also procure the necessities of life. In essence, these are my discoveries, and now, with utmost respect, I claim the grand prize of one thousand terces.”
From behind his back Cugel heard Iolo’s mocking laughter. Duke Orbal shook his head. “My dear Cugel, what you suggest is impossible. To what exhibit do you refer? The boxful of dirt yonder? It lacks all pretensions to singularity.”
“But you saw the hole! With your winch you pulled the tentacle! In accordance with your orders, I entered the hole and explored the region!”
“True enough, but hole and tentacle are both vanished. I do not for a moment suggest mendacity, but your report is not easily verified. I can hardly award honors to an entity so fugitive as the memory of a non-existent hole! I fear that on this occasion I must pass you by. The prize will be awarded to Zaraflam and his remarkable cockroaches.”
“A moment, your Grace!” Iolo called out. “Remember, I am entered in the competition! At last I am able to display my products! Here is a particularly choice item, distilled from a hundred dreams captured early in the morning from a bevy of beautiful maidens asleep in a bower of fragrant vines.”
“Very well,” said Duke Orbal. “I will delay the award until I test the quality of your visions. What is the procedure? Must I compose myself for slumber?”
“Not at all! The ingestion of the dream during waking hours produces not a hallucination, but a mood: a sensibility fresh, new and sweet: an allurement of the faculties, an indescribable exhilaration. Still, why should you not be comfortable as you test my dreams? You there! Fetch a couch! And you, a cushion for his Grace’s noble head. You! Be good enough to take his Grace’s hat.”
Cugel saw no profit in remaining. He moved to the outskirts of the throng.
Iolo brought forth his dream and for a moment seemed puzzled by the ooze still adhering to the object, then decided to ignore the matter, and paid no further heed, except to rub his fingers as if after contact with some viscid substance.
Making a series of grand gestures, Iolo approached the great chair where Duke Orbal sat at his ease. “I will arrange the dream for its most convenient ingestion,” said Iolo. “I place a quantity into each ear; I insert a trifle up each nostril; I arrange the balance under your Grace’s illustrious tongue. Now, if your Grace will relax, in half a minute the quintessence of a hundred exquisite dreams will be made known.”
Duke Orbal became rigid. His fingers clenched the arms of the chair. His back arched and his eyes bulged from their sockets. He turned over backward, then rolled, jerked, jumped and bounded about the plaza before the amazed eyes of his subjects.
Iolo called out in a brassy voice: “Where is Cugel? Fetch that scoundrel Cugel!”
But Cugel had already departed Cuirnif and was nowhere to be found.
Afterword to “The Bagful of Dreams”
The less a writer discusses his work—and himself—the better. The master chef slaughters no chickens in the dining room; the doctor writes prescriptions in Latin; the magician hides his hinges, mirrors, and trapdoors with the utmost care. Recently I read of a surgeon who, after performing a complicated abortion, displayed to the ex-mother the fetus in a jar of formaldehyde. The woman went into hysterics and sued him, and I believe collected. No writer has yet been hauled into court on similar grounds, but the day may arrive.
—Jack Vance 1975
The Mitr
A rocky headland made a lee for the bay and the wide empty beach. The water barely rose and fell. A high overcast grayed the sky, stilled the air. The bay shone with a dull luster, like old pewter.
Dunes bordered the beach, breaking into a nearby forest of pitchy black-green cypress. The forest was holding its own, matting down the drifts with whiskery roots.
Among the dunes were ruins: glass walls ground milky by salt breeze and sand. In the center of these walls a human being had brought grass and ribbon-weed for her bed. Her name was Mitr, or so the beetles called her. For want of any other, she had taken the word for a name.
The name, the grass bed, a length of brown cloth stolen from the beetles were her only possessions. Possibly her belongings might be said to include a mouldering heap of bones which lay a hundred yards back in the forest. They interested her strongly, and she vaguely remembered a connection with herself. In the old days when her arms and legs had been short and round she had not marked the rather grotesque correspondence of form. Now she had lengthened and the resemblance was plain. Eyeholes like her eyes, a mouth like her own, teeth, jaw, skull, shoulders, ribs, legs, feet. From time to time she would wander back into the forest and stand wondering, though of late she had not been regular in her visits.
Today was dreary and gray. She felt bored, uneasy, and after some thought decided that she was hungry. Wandering out on the dunes she listlessly ate a number of grass-pods. Perhaps she was not hungry after all.
She walked down to the beach, stood looking out across the bay. A damp wind flapped the brown cloth, rumpled her hair. Perhaps it would rain. She looked anxiously at the sky. Rain made her wet and miserable. She could always take shelter among the rocks of the headland but—sometimes it was better to be wet.
She wandered down along the beach, caught and ate a small shellfish. There was little satisfaction in the salty flesh. Apparently she was not hungry. She picked up a sharp stick and drew a straight line in the damp sand—fifty feet—a hundred feet long. She stopped, looked back over her work with pleasure. She walked back, drawing another line parallel to the first, a hand’s-breadth distant. Very interesting effect. Fired by sudden enthusiasm she drew more lines up and down the beach until she had created an extensive grate of parallel lines.
She looked over her work with satisfaction. Making such marks on the smooth sand was pleasant and interesting. Some other time she would do it again, and perhaps use curving lines or cross-hatching. But enough for now. She dropped the stick. The feeling of hunger that was not hunger came over her again. She caught a sand-locust but threw it away without eating it.
She began to run at full speed along the beach. This was better, the flash of her legs below her, the air clean in her lungs. Panting, she came to a halt, flung herself down in the sand.
Presently she caught her breath, sat up. She wanted to run some more, but felt a trifle languid. She grimaced, jerked uneasily. Maybe she should visit the beetles over the headland; perhaps the old gray creature called Ti-Sri-Ti would speak to her.
Tentatively she rose to her feet and started back along the beach. The plan gave her no real pleasure. Ti-Sri-Ti had little of interest to say. He answered no questions, but recited interminable data concerned with the colony: how many grubs would be allowed to mature, how many pounds of spider-eggs had been taken to storage, the condition of his mandibles, antennae, eyes…
She hesitated, but after a moment went on. Better Ti-Sri-Ti than no one, better the sound of a voice than the monotonous crash of gray surf. And perhaps he might say something interesting; on occasions his conversation went far afield and then Mitr listened with absorption
: “The mountains are ruled by wild lizards and beyond are the Mercaloid Mechanvikis, who live under the ground with only fuming chimneys and slag-runs to tell of activity below. The beetles live along the shore and of the Mitr only one remains by old Glass City, the last of the Mitr.”
She had not quite understood, since the flux and stream of time, the concepts of before and after, meant nothing to her. The universe was static; day followed day, not in a series, but as a duplication.
Ti-Sri-Ti had droned on: “Beyond the mountains is endless desert, then endless ice, then endless waste, then a land of seething fire, then the great water and once more the land of life, the rule and domain of the beetles, where every solstice a new acre of leaf mulch is chewed and laid…” And then there had been an hour dealing with beetle fungi-culture.
Mitr wandered along the beach. She passed the beautiful grate she had scratched in the damask sand, passed her glass walls, climbed the first shelves of black rock. She stopped, listened. A sound?
She hesitated, then went on. There was a rush of many feet. A long brown and black beetle sprang upon her, pressed her against the rocks. She fought feebly, but the fore-feet pinned her shoulders, arched her back. The beetle pressed his proboscis to her neck, punctured her skin. She stood limp, staring into his red eyes while he drank.
He finished, released her. The wound closed of itself, smarted and ached. The beetle climbed up over the rocks.
Mitr sat for an hour regaining her strength. The thought of listening to Ti-Sri-Ti now gave her no pleasure.
She wandered listlessly back along the beach, ate a few bits of sea-weed and a small fish which had been trapped in a tide-pool.
She walked to the water’s edge and stared out past the headland to the horizon. She wanted to cry out, to yell; something of the same urge which had driven her to run so swiftly along the beach. She raised her voice, called, a long musical note. The damp mild breeze seemed to muffle the sound. She turned away discouraged.