by Jack Vance
"Thanks put no turnips in the pot. A copper coin or dine on grass."
"Very well," said Dhrun. He took the copper coin from his purse and tossed it to the troll, who gave a grunt of satisfaction.
"Ten apricots, ten plums: no more; and it would be an act of greed to select only the choicest."
Dhrun picked ten good apricots and ten plums while the troll counted the score. When he plucked the last plum, the troll shouted: "No more; be off with you!"
Dhrun sauntered along the trail eating the fruit. When he had finished, he drank water from the stream and continued along the way. After half a mile he stopped, tapped the purse. When he looked inside the penny had returned.
The stream widened to become a pond, shaded under four majestic oaks.
Dhrun pulled some young rushes, washed their crisp white roots. He found cress and wild lettuce, and made a meal of the fresh sharp salad, then continued along the path.
The stream joined a river; Dhrun could proceed no further without crossing one or the other. He noticed a neat wooden bridge spanning the stream, but again, impelled by caution, he halted before setting foot on the structure.
No one could be seen, nor could he discover any evidence that passage might be restricted. "If not, well and good," Dhrun told himself. "Still, it is better that first I ask permission."
He called out: "Bridge-keeper, ho! I want to use the bridge!"
There was no response. Dhrun, however, thought he heard rustling sounds from under the bridge.
"Bridge-keeper! If you forbid my passage, make yourself known! Otherwise I will cross the bridge and pay you with my thanks."
From the deep shade under the bridge hopped a furious troll, wearing purple fustian. He was even more ugly than the previous troll, with warts and wens protruding from his forehead, which hung like a crag over a little red nose with the nostrils turned forward. "What is all this yammer? Why do you disturb my rest?"
"I want to cross the bridge."
"Set a single foot upon my valuable bridge and I will put you in my basket. To cross this bridge you must pay a silver florin."
"That is a very dear toll."
"No matter. Pay as do all decent folk, or turn back the way you have come."
"If I must, I must." Dhrun opened his purse, took out the silver florin and tossed it to the troll, who bit at it and thrust it into his pouch. "Go your way, and in the future make less noise about it."
Dhrun crossed the bridge and continued along the path. For a space the trees thinned and sunlight warmed his shoulders, to cheerful effect. It was not so bad after all, being footloose and independent! Especially with a purse which retrieved money spent unwillingly. Dhrun now tapped the purse, and the coin returned, marked by the troll's teeth. Dhrun went on his way, whistling a tune.
Trees again shrouded the path; to one side a knoll rose steeply above the path from a thicket of flowering myrtle and white dimble-flower.
A sudden startling outcry; out on the path behind him sprang two great black dogs, slavering and snarling. Chains constrained them; they lunged against the chains, jerking, rearing, gnashing their teeth. Appalled, Dhrun jumped around, Dassenach in hand, ready to defend himself. Cautiously he backed away, but with a great roar two more dogs, as savage as the first pair, lunged at his back and Dhrun had to jump for his life.
He found himself trapped between two pairs of raving beasts, each more anxious than his fellows to snap the chain and hurl himself at Dhrun's throat.
Dhrun bethought himself of his talisman. "Remarkable that I am not terrified!" he told himself in a quavering voice. "Well, then, I must prove my mettle and kill these horrid creatures!"
He flourished his sword Dassenach. "Dogs beware! I am ready to end your evil lives!"
From above came a peremptory call. The dogs fell silent and stood rigid in ferocious attitudes. Dhrun looked up to see a small house built of timbers on a ledge ten feet above the road. On the porch stood a troll who seemed to combine all the repulsive aspects of the first two. He wore snuff-brown garments, black boots with iron buckles and an odd conical hat tilted to one side. He called out furiously: "Harm my dogs at your peril! So much as a scratch and I will truss you in ropes and deliver you to Arbogast!"
"Order the dogs from the path!" cried Dhrun. "I will gladly go my way in peace!"
"It is not so easy! You disturbed their rest and mine as well with your whistling and chirrups; you should have passed more quietly! Now you must pay a stern penalty: a gold crown, at the very least!"
"It is far too much," said Dhrun, "but my time is valuable, and I am forced to pay." He extracted the gold crown from his purse and tossed it up to the troll who hefted it in his hand to test its weight. "Well then, I suppose I must relent. Dogs, away!"
The dogs slunk into the shrubbery and Dhrun slipped past with a tingling skin. He ran at full speed down the trail for as long as he was able, then halted, tapped the purse and went his way.
A mile passed and the path joined a road paved with brown bricks. Odd to find such a fine road in the depths of the forest, thought Dhrun. With one direction as good as the other, Dhrun turned left.
For an hour Dhrun marched along the road, while rays of sunlight slanted through the foliage at an ever lower angle.'.. He stopped short. A vibration in the air: thud, thud, thud. Dhrun jumped from the road and hid behind a tree. Along the road came an ogre, rocking from side to side on heavy bowed legs. He stood fifteen feet tall; his arms and torso, like his legs, were knotted with wads of muscle! His belly thrust forward in a paunch. A great crush hat sheltered a gray face of surpassing ugliness. On his back he carried a wicker basket containing a pair of children.
Away down the road marched the ogre, and the thud-thud-thud of his footsteps became muffled in the distance.
Dhrun returned to the road beset by a dozen emotions, the strongest a strange sentiment which caused him a loose feeling in the bowels and a drooping of the jaw. Fear? Certainly not! His talisman protected him from so unmanly an emotion. What then? Rage, evidently, that Arbogast the ogre should so persecute human children.
Dhrun set out after the ogre. There was not far to go. The road rose over a little hill, then dipped down into a meadow. At the center stood Arbogast's hall, a great grim structure of gray stone, with a roof of green copper plates.
Before the hall the ground had been tilled and planted with cabbage, leeks, turnips, and onions, with currant bushes growing to the side. A dozen children, aged from six to twelve, worked in the garden under the vigilant eye of an overseer boy, perhaps fourteen years old. He was black-haired and thick-bodied, with an odd face: heavy and square above, then slanting in to a foxy mouth and a small sharp chin. He carried a rude whip, fashioned from a willow switch, with a cord tied to the end. From time to time he cracked the whip to urge greater zeal upon his charges. As he stalked around the garden, he issued orders and threats: "Now then, Arvil, get your hands dirty; don't be shy! Every weed must be pulled today. Bertrude, do you have problems? Do the weeds evade you? Quick now! The task must be done!... Not so hard on that cabbage, Pode! Cultivate the soil, don't destroy the plant!"
He pretended to notice Arbogast, and saluted. "Good day, your honor; all goes well here, no fear as to that when Nerulf is on the job."
Arbogast turned up the basket, to tumble a pair of girls out on the turf. One was blonde, the other dark; and each about twelve years old.
Arbogast pinched an iron ring around each girl's neck. He spoke in a rumbling bellow: "Now! Run away as you like, and learn what the others learned!"
"Quite right, sir, quite right!" called Nerulf from the garden. "No one dares to leave you, sir! And if they did, trust me to catch them!"
Arbogast paid him no heed. "To work!" he bellowed at the girls. "I like fine cabbages; see to it!" He lumbered across the meadow to his hall. The great portal opened; he entered and the portal remained open behind him.
The sun sank low; the children worked more slowly; even Nerulf's threats and whip-snappi
ngs took on a listless quality. Presently the children stopped work altogether and stood in a huddle, darting furtive looks toward the hall. Nerulf raised his whip on high. "Formation now, neat and orderly! March!"
The children formed themselves into a straggling double line and marched into the hall. The portal closed behind them with a fateful clang! that ech6ed across the meadow.
Twilight blurred the landscape. From windows high at the side of the hall came the yellow light of lamps.
Dhrun cautiously approached the hall, and, after touching his talisman, climbed the rough stone wall to one of the windows, using cracks and crevices as a ladder. He drew himself up to the broad stone sill. The shutters stood ajar; inching forward, Dhrun looked across the entire main hall, which was illuminated by six lamps in wall brackets and flames in the great fireplace.
Arbogast sat at a table, drinking wine from a pewter stoup. At the far end of the room the children sat against the wall, watching Arbogast with horrified fascination. At the hearth the carcass of a child, stuffed with onions, trussed and spitted, roasted over the fire. Nerulf turned the spit and from time to time basted " the meat with oil and drippings. Cabbages and turnips boiled in a great black cauldron.
Arbogast drank wine and belched. Then, taking up a diabolo, he spread his massive legs, and rolled the spindle back and forth, chortling at the motion. The children sat huddled, watching with wide eyes and lax mouths. One of the small boys began to whimper. Arbogast turned him a cold glance. Nerulf called out in a voice pointedly soft and melodious: "Silence, Daffin!"
In due course Arbogast made his meal, throwing bones into the fire, while the children dined on cabbage soup.
For a few minutes Arbogast drank wine, dozed and belched. Then he swung around in his chair and regarded the children, who at once pressed closer together. Again Daffin whimpered and again he was chided by Nerulf, who nevertheless seemed as uneasy as any of the others.
Arbogast reached into a high cabinet and brought two bottles down to the table, the first tall and green, the second squat and black-purple. Next, he set out two mugs, one green, the other purple, and into each he poured a dollop of wine. To the green mug he carefully added a drop from the green bottle, and into the purple mug, a drop from the black-purple bottle.
Arbogast now rose to his feet; wheezing and grunting he hunched across the room. He kicked Nerulf into the corner, then stood inspecting the group. He pointed a finger. "You two, step forward!"
Trembling, the two girls he had captured that day moved away from the wall. Dhrun, watching from the window, thought them both very pretty, especially the blonde girl, though the dark-haired girl was perhaps half a year closer to womanhood.
Arbogast spoke in a voice now foolishly arch and jovial. "So here: a pair of fine young pullets, choice and tasty. How do you call yourselves? You!" He pointed at the blonde girl. "Your name?"
"Glyneth."
"And you?"
"Farence."
"Lovely, lovely. Both charming! Who is to be the lucky one? Tonight it shall be Farence."
He seized the dark-haired girl, hoisted her up to his great twenty-foot bed. "Off with your clothes!"
Farence started to cry and beg for mercy. Arbogast gave a ferocious snort of mingled annoyance and pleasure. "Hurry! Or I'll tear them from your back and then you'll have no clothes to wear!"
Stifling her sobs, Farence stepped from her smock. Arbogast chattered in delight. "A pretty sight! What is so toothsome as a nude maiden, shy and delicate?" He went to the table and drank the contents of the purple cup. At once he dwindled in stature to become a squat powerful troll, no taller than Nerulf. Without delay, he hopped up on the bed, discarded his own garments, and busied himself with erotic activities.
Dhrun watched all from the window, his knees limp, the blood pulsing in his throat. Disgust? Horror? Naturally not fear, and he touched the talisman gratefully. Nonetheless the emotion, whatever its nature, had a curiously debilitating effect.
Arbogast was indefatigable. Long after Farence became limp he continued his activity. Finally he collapsed upon the couch with a groan of satisfaction, and instantly fell asleep.
Dhrun was visited by an amusing notion, and, insulated from fear, was not thereby deterred. He lowered himself to the top of Arbogast's high-backed chair, and jumped down to the table. He poured the contents of the green cup out on the floor, added new wine and two drops from the purple bottle. He then climbed back to the window and hid behind the curtain.
The night passed and the fire burned low. Arbogast snored; the children were silent save for an occasional whimper.
The gray light of morning seeped through the windows. Arbogast awoke. He lay for a minute, then hopped to the floor. He visited the privy, voided, and returning, went to the hearth, where he blew up the fire and piled on fresh fuel. When the flames roared and crackled, he went to his table and climbing upon the chair, took up the green mug and swallowed its contents. Instantly, by virtue of the drops which Dhrun had mixed into the wine, he shrank in size until he was only a foot tall. Dhrun at once leapt down from the window, to chair, to table, to floor. He drew his sword and cut the scurrying squawking creature into pieces. These pieces squirmed and struggled and sought to join themselves, and Dhrun could not relax from his work. Glyneth ran forward and seizing the fresh cut pieces threw them into the fire, where they burnt to ash and so were destroyed. Meanwhile Dhrun placed the head into a pot and clapped on the cover, whereupon the head tried to pull itself out by means of tongue and teeth.
The remaining children came forward. Dhrun, wiping his sword on Arbogast's greasy crush hat said: "You need fear no - more harm; Arbogast is helpless."
Nerulf licked his lips and stalked forward. "And who, may I ask, are you?"
"My name is Dhrun; I am a chance passerby."
"I see." Nerulf drew a deep breath and squared his meaty shoulders. He was, thought Dhrun, a person not at all prepossessing, with his coarse features, thick mouth, pointed chin and narrow black eyes. "Well then," said Nerulf, "please accept our compliments. It was exactly the plan I was about to carry out myself, as a matter of fact; still, you made quite a decent job of it. Now, let me think. We've got to reorganize; how shall we proceed? First, this mess must be cleaned. Pode and Hloude: mops and buckets. A good job now; I don't want to see a single smear when you're done. Dhrun, you can help them. Gretina, Zoel, Glyneth, Bertrude: explore the larder, bring out the best and prepare us all a fine breakfast. Lossamy and Fulp: carry all of Arbogast's clothes outside, also the blankets, and perhaps the place will smell better."
While Nerulf issued further orders, Dhrun climbed to the table top. He poured an ounce of wine into both green and purple mugs, and added to each a drop from the appropriate bottle. He swallowed the green potion, and at once became twelve feet tall. He jumped to the floor and seized the astonished Nerulf by the iron ring around his neck. From the table Dhrun brought the purple potion and thrust it into Nerulf's mouth. "Drink!"
Nerulf attempted to protest, but was allowed no choice. "Drink!"
Nerulf gulped the potion and shrank to become a burly imp about two feet tall. Dhrun prepared to resume his ordinary size but Glyneth stopped him. "First remove the iron rings from about our necks."
One by one the children filed past Dhrun. He nicked the metal with his blade Dassenach, then twisted once, twice, and broke the rings apart. When all had been liberated, Dhrun reduced to his normal height. With great care he wrapped the two bottles and tucked them into his pouch. The other children meanwhile had found sticks and were beating Nerulf with intense satisfaction. Nerulf howled, danced and begged for mercy, but found none and was beaten until he was black and blue. For a few moments Nerulf was allowed surcease, until one of the children was reminded anew of some past cruelty and Nerulf was beaten again.
The girls declared themselves willing to prepare a bountiful feast, of ham and sausages, candied currants, partridge pie, fine bread and butter and gallons of Arbogast's best wine, but they r
efused to start until the fireplace was cleared of ash and bones: all too vivid mementos of their servitude. Everyone worked with a will, and soon the hall was comparatively clean.
At noon a great banquet was served. By some means Arbogast's head had managed to raise itself to the rim of the pot, to which it hooked its teeth and pressed up the lid with its forehead, and with its two eyes watched from the darkness inside the pot as the children reveled in the best the castle's larder could afford. When they had finished their meal, Dhrun noticed that the lid had fallen from the pot, which now was empty. He set up a shout and all ran looking for the missing head. Pode and Daffin discovered it halfway across the meadow, pulling itself forward by snapping at the ground with its teeth. They knocked it back toward the hall, and in the front yard built a kind of gallows, from which they suspended the head by an iron wire tied to the mud-colored hair. At the insistence of all, the better that they could regard their erstwhile captor, Dhrun forced a drop of green potion into the red mouth, and the head resumed its natural size, and even issued a set of rasping orders, which were joyfully ignored.
While the head watched aghast, the children piled faggots below and brought fire from the hearth to set the faggots ablaze. Dhrun brought out his pipes and played while the children danced in a circle. The head roared and supplicated but was allowed no mercy. At last the head was reduced to ash, and Arbogast the ogre was no more.
Fatigued by the day's events, the children trooped back into the hall. They supped on porridge and soup of cabbage, with good crusty bread and more of Arbogast's wine; then they prepared to sleep. A few of the more hardy climbed up on Arbogast's bed, desipite the rancid stench; the others sprawled before the fire.
Dhrun, weary in every bone from his vigil of the night before, not to mention his deeds of the day, nonetheless found himself unable to sleep. He lay before the fire, head propped on his hands and considered his adventures. He had not fared too badly. Perhaps seven years of bad luck had not been inflicted upon him after all.
The fire burned low. Dhrun went to the wood-box for logs. He dropped them upon the coals, to send showers of red sparks veering up the chimney. The flames flared high, and glinted back from the eyes of Glyneth, who also sat awake. She joined Dhrun in front of the fireplace. The two sat clasping their knees and looking into the flames. Glyneth spoke in a husky half-whisper: "No one has troubled to thank you for saving our lives. I do so now. Thank you, dear Dhrun; you are gallant and kind and remarkably brave."
