by Jack Vance
The innkeeper pulled at his beard, went to the door, looked up and down the road. Slowly he returned. “Extraordinary! He has paid for both chamber and fowl, and made no representations regarding rebate.”
“We arranged a settlement to our mutual satisfaction. To recompense you for extra effort, I now pay an additional three terces.”
The innkeeper shrugged, took the coins. “It is all the same to me. Come, I will lead you to the chamber.”
Cugel inspected the chamber and was well satisfied. Presently his supper was served. The roast fowl was beyond reproach, as were the additional dishes Lodermulch had ordered and which the landlord included with the meal.
Before retiring Cugel strolled behind the inn and satisfied himself that the bar at the door of the shed was in good order and that Lodermulch’s hoarse calls were unlikely to attract attention. He rapped sharply on the door. “Peace, Lodermulch!” he called out sternly. “This is I, the innkeeper! Do not bellow so loudly; you will disturb my guests at their slumber!”
Without waiting for reply, Cugel returned to the common room, where he fell into conversation with the leader of the pilgrim band. This was Garstang, a man spare and taut, with a waxen skin, a fragile skull, hooded eyes, a meticulous nose so thin as to be translucent when impinged across a light. Addressing him as a man of experience and erudition, Cugel inquired the route to Almery, but Garstang tended to believe the region sheerly imaginary.
Cugel asserted otherwise. “Almery is a region distinct; I vouch for this personally.”
“Your knowledge, then, is more profound than my own,” stated Garstang. “This river is the Asc; the land to this side is Sudun, across is Lelias. To the south lies Erze Damath, where you would be wise to travel, thence perhaps west across the Silver Desert and the Songan Sea, where you might make new inquiry.”
“I will do as you suggest,” said Cugel.
“We, devout Gilfigites all, are bound for Erze Damath and the Lustral Rite at the Black Obelisk,” said Garstang. “Since the route lies through wastes we are banded together against the erbs and gids. If you wish to join the group, to share both privileges and restrictions, you are welcome.”
“The privileges are self-evident,” said Cugel. “As to the restrictions?”
“Merely to obey the commands of the leader, which is to say, myself, and contribute a share of the expenses.”
“I agree, without qualification,” said Cugel.
“Excellent! We march on the morrow at dawn.” Garstang pointed out certain other members of the group, which numbered fifty-seven. “There is Vitz, locutor to our little band, and there sits Casmyre, the theoretician. The man with iron teeth is Arlo, and he of the blue hat and silver buckle is Voynod, a wizard of no small repute. Absent from the room is the estimable though agnostic Lodermulch, as well as the unequivocally devout Subucule. Perhaps they seek to sway each other’s convictions. The two who game with dice are Parso and Salanave. There is Hant, there Cray.” Garstang named several others, citing their attributes. At last Cugel, pleading fatigue, repaired to his chamber. He relaxed upon the couch and at once fell asleep.
During the small hours he was subjected to a disturbance. Lodermulch, digging into the floor of the shed, then burrowing under the wall, had secured his freedom, and went at once to the inn. First he tried the door to Cugel’s chamber, which Cugel had been at pains to lock.
“Who is there?” called Cugel.
“Open! It is I, Lodermulch. This is the chamber where I wish to sleep!”
“By no means,” declared Cugel. “I paid a princely sum to secure a bed, and was even forced to wait while the landlord evicted a previous tenant. Be off with you now; I suspect that you are drunk; if you wish further revelry, rouse the wine-steward.”
Lodermulch stamped away. Cugel lay back once more.
Presently he heard the thud of blows, and the landlord’s cry as Lodermulch seized his beard. Lodermulch was eventually thrust from the inn, by the joint efforts of the innkeeper, his spouse, the porter, the pot-boy and others; whereupon Cugel gratefully returned to sleep.
Before dawn the pilgrims, together with Cugel, arose and took their breakfast. The innkeeper seemed somewhat sullen of mood, and displayed bruises, but he put no questions to Cugel, who in his turn initiated no conversation.
After breakfast the pilgrims assembled in the road, where they were joined by Lodermulch, who had spent the night pacing up and down the road.
Garstang made a count of the group, then blew a great blast on his whistle. The pilgrims marched forward, across the bridge, and set off along the south bank of the Asc toward Erze Damath.
2
The Raft on the River
For three days the pilgrims proceeded beside the Asc, at night sleeping behind a barricade evoked by the wizard Voynod from a circlet of ivory slivers: a precaution of necessity, for beyond the bars, barely visible by the rays of the fire, were creatures anxious to join the company: deodands softly pleading, erbs shifting posture back and forth from four feet to two, comfortable in neither style. Once a gid attempted to leap the barricade; on another occasion three hoons joined to thrust against the posts — backing off, racing forward, to strike with grunts of effort, while from within the pilgrims watched in fascination.
Cugel stepped close, to touch a flaming brand to one of the heaving shapes, and elicited a scream of fury. A great gray arm snatched through the gap; Cugel jumped back for his life. The barricade held and presently the creatures fell to quarreling and departed.
On the evening of the third day the party came to the confluence of the Asc with a great slow river which Garstang identified as the Scamander. Nearby stood a forest of tall baldamas, pines and spinth oaks. With the help of local wood-cutters trees were felled, trimmed, conveyed to the water’s edge, where a raft was fabricated. With all the pilgrims aboard, the raft was poled out into the current where it drifted down-stream in ease and silence.
For five days the raft moved on the broad Scamander, sometimes almost out of sight of the banks, sometimes gliding close beside the reeds which lined the shore. With nothing better to do the pilgrims engaged in lengthy disputations, and the diversity of opinion upon every issue was remarkable. As often as not the talk explored metaphysical arcana, or the subtleties of Gilfigite principle.
Subucule, the most devout of the pilgrims, stated his credo in detail. Essentially he professed the orthodox Gilfigite theosophy, in which Zo Zam, the eight-headed deity, after creating Cosmos, struck off his toe, which then became Gilfig, while the drops of blood dispersed to form the eight races of mankind. Roremaund, a skeptic, attacked the doctrine: “Who created this hypothetical ‘creator’ of yours? Another ‘creator’? Far simpler merely to presuppose the end product: in this case, a blinking sun and a dying earth!” To which Subucule cited the Gilfigite Text in crushing refutal.
One named Bluner staunchly propounded his own creed. He believed the sun to be a cell in the corpus of a great deity, who had created the cosmos in a process analogous to the growth of a lichen along a rock.
Subucule considered the thesis over-elaborate: “If the sun were a cell, what then becomes the nature of the earth?”
“An animalcule deriving nutriment,” replied Bluner. “Such dependencies are known elsewhere and need not evoke astonishment.”
“What then attacks the sun?” demanded Vitz in scorn. “Another animalcule similar to earth?”
Bluner began a detailed exposition of his organon, but before long was interrupted by Pralixus, a tall thin man with piercing green eyes. “Listen to me; I know all; my doctrine is simplicity itself. A vast number of conditions are possible, and there are an even greater number of impossibilities. Our cosmos is a possible condition: it exists. Why? Time is infinite, which is to say that every possible condition must come to pass. Since we reside in this particular possibility and know of no other, we arrogate to ourselves the quality of singleness. In truth, any universe which is possible sooner or later, not once but many times, w
ill exist.”
“I tend to a similar doctrine, though a devout Gilfigite,” stated Casmyre the theoretician. “My philosophy presupposes a succession of creators, each absolute in his own right. To paraphrase the learned Pralixus, if a deity is possible, it must exist! Only impossible deities will not exist! The eight-headed Zo Zam who struck off his Divine Toe is possible, and hence exists, as is attested by the Gilfigite Texts!”
Subucule blinked, opened his mouth to speak, then closed it once more. Roremaund, the skeptic, turned away to inspect the waters of the Scamander.
Garstang, sitting to the side, smiled thoughtfully. “And you, Cugel the Clever, for once you are reticent. What is your belief?”
“It is somewhat inchoate,” Cugel admitted. “I have assimilated a variety of viewpoints, each authoritative in its own right: from the priests at the Temple of Teleologues; from a bewitched bird who plucked messages from a box; from a fasting anchorite who drank a bottle of pink elixir which I offered him in jest. The resulting visions were contradictory but of great profundity. My world-scheme, hence, is syncretic.”
“Interesting,” said Garstang. “Lodermulch, what of you?”
“Ha,” growled Lodermulch. “Notice this rent in my garment; I am at a loss to explain its presence! I am even more puzzled by the existence of the universe.”
Others spoke. Voynod the wizard defined the known cosmos as the shadow of a region ruled by ghosts, themselves dependent for existence upon the psychic energies of men. The devout Subucule denounced this scheme as contrary to the Protocols of Gilfig.
The argument continued at length. Cugel and one or two others including Lodermulch became bored and instituted a game of chance, using dice and cards and counters. The stakes, originally nominal, began to grow. Lodermulch at first won scantily, then lost ever greater sums, while Cugel won stake after stake. Lodermulch presently flung down the dice and seizing Cugel’s elbow shook it, to dislodge several additional dice from the cuff of his jacket. “Well then!” bawled Lodermulch, “what have we here? I thought to detect knavery, and here is justification! Return my money on the instant!”
“How can you say so?” demanded Cugel. “Where have you demonstrated chicanery? I carry dice — what of that? Am I required to throw my property into the Scamander, before engaging in a game? You demean my reputation!”
“I care nothing for this,” retorted Lodermulch. “I merely wish the return of my money.”
“Impossible,” said Cugel. “For all your bluster you have proved no malfeasance.”
“Proof?” roared Lodermulch. “Need there be further? Notice these dice, all askew, some with identical markings on three sides, others rolling only with great effort, so heavy are they at one edge.”
“Curios only,” explained Cugel. He indicated Voynod the wizard, who had been watching. “Here is a man as keen of eye as he is agile of brain; ask if any illicit transaction was evident.”
“None was evident,” stated Voynod. “In my estimation Lodermulch has made an over-hasty accusation.”
Garstang came forward, and heard the controversy. He spoke in a voice both judicious and conciliatory: “Trust is essential in a company such as ours, comrades and devout Gilfigites all. There can be no question of malice or deceit! Surely, Lodermulch, you have misjudged our friend Cugel!”
Lodermulch laughed harshly. “If this is conduct characteristic of the devout, I am fortunate not to have fallen in with ordinary folk!” With this remark, he took himself to a corner of the raft where seating himself he fixed Cugel with a glance of menace and loathing.
Garstang shook his head in distress. “I fear Lodermulch has been offended. Perhaps, Cugel, if in a spirit of amity you were to return his gold —”
Cugel made a firm refusal. “It is a matter of principle. Lodermulch has assailed my most valuable possession, which is to say, my honor.”
“Your nicety is commendable,” said Garstang, “and Lodermulch has behaved tactlessly. Still, for the sake of good-fellowship — no? Well, I cannot argue the point. Ha hum. Always small troubles to fret us.” Shaking his head he departed.
Cugel gathered his winnings, together with the dice which Lodermulch had dislodged from his sleeve. “An unsettling incident,” he told Voynod. “A boor, this Lodermulch! He has offended everyone; all have quit the game.”
“Perhaps because all the money is in your possession,” Voynod suggested.
Cugel examined his winnings with an air of surprise. “I never suspected that they were so substantial! Perhaps you will accept this sum to spare me the effort of carrying it?”
Voynod acquiesced and a share of the winnings changed hands.
Not long after, while the raft floated placidly along the river, the sun gave an alarming pulse. A purple film formed upon the surface like tarnish, then dissolved. Certain of the pilgrims ran back and forth in alarm, crying: “The sun goes dark! Prepare for the chill!”
Garstang however held up his hands in reassurance. “Calm, all! The quaver has departed, the sun is as before!”
“Think!” urged Subucule with great earnestness. “Would Gilfig allow this cataclysm, even while we travel to worship at the Black Obelisk?”
The group became quiet, though each had his personal interpretation of the event. Vitz, the locutor, saw an analogy to the blurring of vision, which might be cured by vigorous blinking. Voynod declared: “If all goes well at Erze Damath, I plan to dedicate the next four years of life to a scheme for replenishing the vigor of the sun!” Lodermulch merely made an offensive statement to the effect that for all of him the sun could go dark, with the pilgrims forced to grope their way to the Lustral Rites.
But the sun shone on as before. The raft drifted along the great Scamander where the banks were now so low and devoid of vegetation as to seem distant dark lines. The day passed and the sun seemed to settle into the river itself, projecting a great maroon glare which gradually went dull and dark as the sun vanished.
In the twilight a fire was built, around which the pilgrims gathered to eat their supper. There was discussion of the sun’s alarming flicker, and much speculation along eschatological lines. Subucule relinquished all responsibility for life, death, the future and past to Gilfig. Haxt, however, declared that he would feel easier if Gilfig had heretofore displayed a more expert control over the affairs of the world. For a period the talk became intense. Subucule accused Haxt of superficiality while Haxt used such words as “credulity” and “blind abasement”. Garstang intervened to point out that as yet all facts were not known, and that the Lustral Rites at the Black Obelisk might clarify the situation.
The next morning a great weir was noted ahead: a line of stout poles obstructing navigation of the river. At one area only was passage possible, and even this gap was closed by a heavy iron chain. The pilgrims allowed the raft to float close to this gap, then dropped the stone which served as an anchor. From a nearby hut appeared a zealot, long of hair and gaunt of limb, wearing tattered black robes and flourishing an iron staff. He sprang out along the weir to gaze threateningly down at those aboard the raft. “Go back, go back!” he shouted. “The passage of the river is under my control; I permit none to go by!”
Garstang stepped forward. “I beg your indulgence! We are a group of pilgrims, bound for the Lustral Rites at Erze Damath. If necessary we will pay a fee to pass the weir, though we trust that in your generosity you will remit the toll.”
The zealot gave a cry of harsh laughter and waved his iron staff. “My fee may not be remitted! I demand the life of the most evil in your company — unless one among you can to my satisfaction demonstrate his virtue!” And legs astraddle, black robe flapping in the wind, he stood glaring down at the raft.
Among the pilgrims was a stir of uneasiness, and all looked furtively at one another. There was a mutter, which presently became a confusion of assertions and claims. Casmyre’s strident tones at last rang forth. “It cannot be I who am most evil! My life has been clement and austere and during the gambling
I ignored an ignoble advantage.”
Another called out: “I am even more virtuous, who eat only dry pulses for fear of taking life.”
Another: “I am even of greater nicety, for I subsist solely upon the discarded husks of these same pulses, and bark which has fallen from trees, for fear of destroying even vegetative vitality.”
Another: “My stomach refuses vegetable matter, but I uphold the same exalted ideals and allow only carrion to pass my lips.”
Another: “I once swam on a lake of fire to notify an old woman that the calamity she dreaded was unlikely to occur.”
Cugel declared: “My life is incessant humility, and I am unswerving in my dedication to justice and equivalence, even though I fare the worse for my pains.”
Voynod was no less staunch: “I am a wizard, true, but I devote my skill only to the amelioration of public woe.”
Now it was Garstang’s turn: “My virtue is of the quintessential sort, being distilled from the erudition of the ages. How can I be other than virtuous? I am dispassionate to the ordinary motives of mankind.”
Finally all had spoken save Lodermulch, who stood to the side, a sour grin on his face. Voynod pointed a finger. “Speak, Lodermulch! Prove your virtue, or else be judged most evil, with the consequent forfeit of your life!”
Lodermulch laughed. He turned, made a great jump which carried him to an outlying member of the weir. He scrambled to the parapet, and drawing his sword, threatened the zealot. “We are all evil together, you as well as we, for enforcing this absurd condition. Relax the chain, or prepare to face my sword.”
The zealot flung high his arms. “My condition is fulfilled; you, Lodermulch, have demonstrated your virtue. The raft may proceed. In addition, since you employ your sword in the defense of honor, I now bestow upon you this salve, which when applied to your blade enables it to slice steel or rock as easily as butter. Away then, and may all profit by the lustral devotions!”
Lodermulch accepted the salve and returned to the raft. The chain was relaxed and the raft slid without hindrance past the weir.