Tales of the Dying Earth

by Jack Vance

  "Quite so. The village yonder is Tustvold?"

  "Properly speaking, Tustvold is that mound of ruins yonder which I quarry for white-stone. The local folk use the name for the village as well, and no great harm is done. What do you seek from Tustvold?"

  "Food and shelter for the night. However, I cannot pay a groat, since my belongings remain aboard the ship."

  The old man gave his head a disparaging shake. "In Tustvold you will get only what you pay for. They are a parsimonious lot, and spend only for advancement. If you will be satisfied with a pallet and a bowl of soup for your supper, I can gratify your needs, and you may dismiss all thought of payment."

  "That is a generous offer," said Cugel. "I accept with pleasure. May I introduce myself? I am Cugel."

  The old man bowed. "I am Nisbet, the son of Nisvangel, who quarried here before me and the grandson of Rounce, who was also a quarry-man. But come! Why stand here shivering when a warm fire awaits inside?"

  The two walked toward Nisbet's abode: a huddle of ramshackle sheds leaning one on the other, built of planks and stone: the accretion of many years, perhaps centuries. Conditions within, while comfortable, were no less undisciplined. Each chamber was cluttered with curios and antiques collected by Nisbet and his predecessors while quarrying the ruins of Old Tustvold and elsewhere.

  Nisbet poured a bath for Cugel and provided a musty old gown which Cugel might wear until his own clothes were clean. "That is a task better left to the women of the village," said Nisbet.

  "If you recall, I lack all funds," said Cugel. "I accept your hospitality with pleasure but I refuse to impose a financial burden upon you."

  "No burden whatever," said Nisbet. "The women are anxious to do me favors, so that I will give them priorities in the work."

  "In that case, I accept the favor with thanks."

  Cugel gratefully bathed and wrapped himself in the old gown, then sat down to a hearty meal of candle-fish soup, bread and pickled ramp, which Nisbet recommended as a specialty of the region. They ate from antique dishes of many sorts and used utensils no two alike, even to the material from which they were fabricated: silver, glossold, black iron, gold, a green alloy of copper, arsenic and other substances. Nisbet identified these objects in an off-hand manner. "Each of the mounds you see rising from the plain represents an ancient city, now in ruins and covered over with the sift of time. When I am allowed an hour or two of leisure, I often go out to mine another of the mounds, and often I find objects of interest. That salver, for instance, was taken from the eleventh phase of the city Chelopsik, and is fashioned from corfume inlaid with petrified fire-flies. The characters are beyond my skill to read, but would seem to recite a children's song. This knife is even older; I found it in the crypts below the city I call Arad, though its real name is no longer known."

  "Interesting!" said Cugel. "Do you ever find treasure or valuable gems?"

  Nisbet shrugged. "Each of these articles is priceless: a unique memorial. But now, with the sun about to go dark, who would pay good terces to buy them? More useful is a bottle of good wine. In this connection, I suggest that, like grandees of high degree, we repair to the parlor where I will broach a bottle of well-aged wine, and we will warm our shins before the fire."

  "A sound notion!" declared Cugel. He followed Nisbet into a chamber furnished with an over-sufficiency of chairs, settees, tables, and cushions of many kinds, together with a hundred curios.

  Nisbet poured wine from a stoneware bottle of great age, to judge from the iridescent oxides which encrusted the surface. Cugel tasted the wine with caution, to find a liquor heavy and strong, and redolent of strange fragrances.

  "A noble vintage," pronounced Cugel.

  "Your taste is sound," said Nisbet. "I took it from the store-room of a wine-merchant on the fourth level of Xei Cambael. Drink heartily; a thousand bottles still moulder in the dark."

  "My best regards!" Cugel tilted his goblet. "Your work lacks nothing for perquisites; this is clear. You have no sons to carry on the traditions?"

  "None. My spouse died long years ago by the sting of a blue fanticule, and I lacked all taste for someone new." With a grunt Nisbet heaved himself to his feet and fed wood to the fire. He lurched back into his chair and gazed into the flames. "Yet often I sit here of nights, thinking of how it will be when I am gone."

  "Perhaps you should take an apprentice."

  Nisbet uttered a short hollow laugh. "It is not all so easy. Boys of the town think of tall columns even before they learn to spit properly. I would prefer the company of a man who knows something of the world. What, by the way, is your own trade?"

  Cugel made a deprecatory gesture. "I am not yet settled upon a career. I have worked as worminger and recently I commanded a sea-going vessel."

  "That is a post of high prestige!"

  "True enough, but the malice of subordinates forced me to vacate the position."

  "By way of the mud-flats?"

  "Precisely so."

  "Such are the ways of the world," said Nisbet. "Still, you have much of your life ahead, with many great deeds to do, while I look back on life with my deeds already done, and none of them greatly significant."

  Cugel said: "When the sun goes out, all deeds, significant or not, will be forgotten together."

  Nisbet rose to his feet and broached another jug of wine. He refilled the goblets, then returned to his chair. "Two hours of loose philosophizing will never tilt the scale against the worth of one sound belch. For the nonce I am Nisbet the quarryman, with far too many columns to raise and far too much work on order. Sometimes I wish that I too might climb a column and bask away the hours."

  The two sat in silence, looking into the flames. Nisbet finally said: "I see that you are tired. No doubt you have had a tedious day." He pulled himself to his feet and pointed. "You may sleep on yonder couch."

  In the morning Nisbet and Cugel breakfasted upon griddle-cakes with a conserve of fruits prepared by women of the village; then Nisbet took Cugel out to the quarry. He pointed to his excavation which had opened a great cleft in the side of the mound.

  "Old Tustvold was a city of thirteen phases, as you can see with your own eyes. The people of the fourth level built a temple to Miamatta, their Ultimate God of Gods. These ruins supply white-stone to my needs. . . . The sun is aloft. Soon the men from the village will be coming out to use their columns; indeed, here they come now."

  The men arrived, by the twos and threes. Cugel watched as they climbed their columns and composed themselves in the sunlight.

  In puzzlement Cugel turned to Nisbet. "Why do they sit so diligently on their columns?"

  "They absorb a healthful flux from the sunlight," said Nisbet. "The higher the column the more pure and rich is the flux, as well as the prestige of place. The women, especially, are consumed with ambition for the altitude of their husbands. When they bring in the terces for a new segment, they want it at once, and hector me unmercifully until I achieve, the work, and if I must put off one of their rivals, so much the better."

  "Odd that you have no competitors, in what must be a profitable business."

  "It is not so odd when you consider the work involved. The stone must be brought down from the temple, sized, polished, cleaned of old inscriptions, given a new number and lifted to the top of a column. This entails considerable work, which would be impossible without this." Nisbet touched the five-faceted amulet that he wore around his neck. "A touch of this object negates the suction of gravity, and the heaviest object rises into the air."

  "Amazing!" said Cugel. "The amulet is a valuable adjunct to your trade."

  "'Indispensable' is the word. . . . Ha! Here comes Dame Croulsx to chide me for my lack of diligence."

  A portly middle-aged woman with the flat round face and russet hair typical of the village folk approached. Nisbet greeted her with all courtesy, which she dismissed with a curt gesture. "Nisbet, again I must protest! Since I paid my terces, you have raised first a segment to Tobersc and anoth
er to Cillincx. Now my husband sits in their shadow, and their wives gloat together at my discomfiture. What is wrong with my money? Have you forgotten the gifts of bread and cheese I sent out by my daughter Turgola? What is your answer?"

  "Dame Croulsx, give me only a moment to speak! Your 'Twenty' is ready for the raising and I was so about to inform your husband."

  "Ah! That is good news! You will understand my concern."

  "Certainly, but to avoid future misunderstanding, I must inform you that both Dame Tobersc and Dame Cillincx have placed orders for their 'Twenty-ones'."

  Dame Croulsx's jaw dropped. "So soon, the andelwipes? In that case I too will have my 'Twenty-one', and you must start on it first."

  Nisbet gave a piteous groan and clawed at his white beard. "Dame Croulsx, be reasonable! I can work only to the limit of these old hands, and my legs no longer propel me at nimble speed. I will do all possible; I can promise no more."

  Dame Croulsx argued another five minutes, then started to march away in a huff, but Nisbet called her back. "Dame Croulsx, a small service you can do for me. My friend Cugel needs his garments expertly washed, cleaned, mended and returned to prime condition. Can I impose this task upon you?"

  "Of course! You need only ask! Where are the garments?"

  Cugel brought out the soiled clothes and Dame Croulsx returned to the village. "That is the way it goes," said Nisbet with a sad smile. "Strong new hands are needed to carry on the trade. What is your opinion in the matter?"

  "The trade has much in its favor," said Cugel. "Let me ask this: Dame Croulsx mentioned her daughter Turgola; is she appreciably more comely than Dame Croulsx? And also: are daughters as anxious to oblige the quarryman as their mothers?"

  Nisbet replied in a ponderous voice: "As to your first question: the folk of the village are Keramian stock, fugitives from the Rhab Faag and none are notable for a splendid appearance. Turgola, for instance, is squat, underslung, and shows protruding teeth. As for your second question, perhaps I have misread the signs. Dame Petishko has often offered to massage my back, though I have never complained of pain. Dame Gezx is at times strangely over-familiar. . . . Ha hm. Well, no matter. If, as I hope, you become 'associate quarryman,’ you must make your own interpretation of these little cordialities, though I trust that you will not bring scandal to an enterprise which, to now, has been based upon probity."

  Cugel laughingly dismissed the possibility of scandal. "I am favorably inclined to your offer; for a fact I lack the means to travel onward. I will therefore undertake at least a temporary commitment, at whatever wage you consider proper."

  "Excellent!" said Nisbet. "We will arrange such details later. Now to work! We must raise the Croulsx 'Twenty'."

  Nisbet led the way to the work-shop on the quarry floor, where the 'Twenty' stood ready on a pallet: a dolomite cylinder five feet tall and ten feet in diameter.

  Nisbet tied several long ropes to the segment. After looking here and there, Cugel put a perplexed question: "I see neither rollers nor hoists nor cranes; how do you, one man alone, move such great masses of stone?"

  "Have you forgotten my amulet? Observe! I touch the stone with the amulet and the stone becomes charged with revulsion for its native stuff. If I kick it lightly — so! no more than a tap! — the magic is fugitive and will last only long enough to bring the segment to its place. If I were to kick with force, the stone might stay repulsive to the land for a month, or even longer."

  Cugel examined the amulet with respect. "How did you gain such sleight?"

  Nisbet took Cugel outside and pointed to a bluff overlooking the plain. "See where the trees hang past the cliff? At that place a great magician named Makke the Maugifer built a manse and ruled the land with his mauging magic. He mauged east and he mauged west, north and south; persons could lift their eyes to his face once, or with effort twice, but never three times, so strong was his maugery.

  "Makke planted a square garden with magic trees at the four corners; the ossip tree survives to this day, and there is no better boot-dressing than wax of the ossip berries. I dress my boots with ossip wax and they are proof against the rocks of the quarry: so I was taught by my father, who learned from his father, and so back through time to a certain Nisvaunt, who first went to Makke's garden for ossip berries. There he discovered the amulet and its strength.

  "Nisvaunt first established himself in the porterage trade and moved goods great distances with ease. He became weary of the dust and dangers of travel and settled on this spot to become a quarryman, and I am the last of the line."

  The two men returned to the work-shed. Under Nisbet's direction, Cugel took up the ropes and pulled at the 'Twenty', so that it slid slowly though the air and out toward the columns.

  Nisbet halted at the base of a column marked with a plaque reading:

  THE LOFTY MONUMENT OF CROULSX

  "WE EXULT ONLY IN THE UPPER ALTITUDES!"

  Nisbet raised his head and called: "Croulsx! Come down from your column! Your segment is ready to mount."

  Croulsx's head, as he peered over the side of the column, was silhouetted against the sky. Satisfied that the calls were intended for himself, he descended to the ground. "Your work has not been swift," he told Nisbet gruffly. "Too long have I been forced to use an inferior flux."

  Nisbet made light of the complaints. "'Now' is 'now', and at that instant known as 'now' your segment is ready and 'now' you can enjoy the upper radiances."

  "All very well with your 'nows'!" grumbled Croulsx. "You ignore the deterioration of my health."

  "I can only work to my best speed," said Nisbet. "In this regard, allow me to introduce my new associate, Cugel. I fancy that work will now go with a fling, owing to Cugel's experience and energy."

  "If such is the case I will now place my order for five new segments. Dame Croulsx will validate the order with a deposit."

  "I cannot acknowledge your order at this moment," said Nisbet. "However, I will keep your needs in mind. Cugel, are you ready? Then climb, if you will, to the top of Xippin's column and haul the segment gently on high. Croulsx and I will guide it from below."

  The segment was efficiently set in place and Croulsx immediately climbed to the top, and arranged himself to best advantage in the red sunlight. Nisbet and Cugel returned to the shed and Cugel was instructed in the techniques of shaping, rounding and smoothing the white-stone.

  Cugel soon understood why Nisbet was delinquent in his deliveries. First, age had slowed his movements to a degree for which his efficiency could not compensate. Secondly, Nisbet was almost hourly interrupted by visitors: women of the village with orders, demands, complaints, gifts and persuasions.

  On Cugel's third day of employment, a group of merchant traders stopped by Nisbet’s abode. They were members of a dark-skinned race notable for amber eyes, aquiline features and proudly erect posture. Their garments were no less distinctive: pantaloons bound with sashes, shins with wing collars, under-jackets and cut-away tabards, in the colors of black, tan, fusk and umber. They wore wide-brimmed black hats with slouch crowns, which Cugel considered of excellent address. They had brought with them a great high-wheeled wagon loaded with objects concealed under a tarpaulin. As the elder of the group conferred with Nisbet, the others removed the cloth, to reveal what appeared to be a large number of stacked corpses.

  Nisbet and the elder came to an agreement and the four Maots — so Nisbet identified them to Cugel — began to unload the wagon. Nisbet took Cugel somewhat aside and pointed to a far mound. "That is Old QaHr which once held sway from the Falling Wall to the Silkal Strakes. During their high age the folk of QaHr practiced a unique religion, which, I suppose, is no more preposterous than any other. They believed that a man or woman upon dying entered afterlife using that bodily condition in which he or she had died, thereupon to pass eternity amid feasting, revelry and other pleasures regarding which propriety forbids mention. Hence it became the better part of wisdom to die in the full flower of life, since, for example, a rachit
ic old man, toothless, short-winded and dyspeptic, could never fully enjoy the banquets, songs and nymphs of paradise. The folk of QaHr therefore arranged to die at an early age, and they were embalmed with such skill that their corpses even today seem fresh with life. The Maots quarry the QaHr mausoleum for these corpses and convey them across the Wild Waste to the Thuniac Conservatory at Noval, where, as I understand it, they are put to some sort of ceremonial use."

  While he spoke the Maot traders had unloaded the corpses, laid them in a row, and roped them together. The elder signaled Nisbet who walked along the line of corpses, touching each with his amulet. He then walked back along the line and delivered to each corpse the activating kick. The Maot elder paid Nisbet his fee; there was an interchange of gracious small talk and then the Maots set off to the northeast, the corpses drifting behind at an altitude of fifty feet.

  Such interludes, while entertaining and instructive, tended to delay the orders whose delivery was ever more urgently demanded, both by the men, who were invigorated by the upper-air radiance, and by the women, who funded the raising of a column both in the interests of their husbands' health and also to enhance the prestige of the family.

  To speed the work, Cugel initiated several labor-saving short-cuts, thereby arousing Nisbet's high approval. "Cugel, you will go far in this business! These are clever innovations!"

  "I am pondering others even more novel," said Cugel. "Clearly, we must keep abreast of demand if only to maximize our own profits."

  "No doubt, but how?"

  "I will give the matter my best attention."

  "Excellent! The problem is as good as solved." So declared Nisbet who then went off to prepare a gala supper, which included three bottles of sumptuous green wine from the stores of the Xei Cambael wine-seller. Nisbet indulged himself to such an extent that he fell asleep on a couch in the parlour.

  Cugel seized the opportunity to conduct an experiment. From the chain around Nisbet's neck he unclasped the five-sided amulet and rubbed it along the arms of a heavy chair. Then, as he had seen Nisbet do, he gave the chair an activating kick.