by Jack Vance
Glyneth stood on the shore, dubiously considering the landscape: a woeful figure in a pretty blue frock. Conceivably all the best magic of Shimrod might not be able to find her, and she would spend all the days of her life under the green and yellow suns of Tanjecterly-unless Visbhume came upon her and hypnotized her with his silver pipe.
She blinked away her tears. As her first urgency she must find a refuge secure from Visbhume.
The crags which came down to the river intrigued her. If she climbed to the near ridge she could overlook a great sweep of country and perhaps discover a human settlement. The idea was not without its dreary possibilities! Strangers were not everywhere accorded kind hospitality, not even among the lands of Earth.
So Glyneth hesitated and wondered how best to survive. The boat offered a measure of security and she was reluctant to leave it behind.
Her indecision was suddenly vacated. From the water rose a sinewy member, as wide as her own waist, ending with a wedge-shaped head, a single green eye and a great fanged mouth. The eye fixed upon her; the mouth gaped wide, showing a dark red interior; the head lunged forward, but Glyneth had already jumped back.
The head and neck slowly subsided into the river. Shuddering, Glyneth backed away from the boat, which no longer seemed a source of security… . Well, then: up to the ridge.
She broke away twigs from her branch, so that it might be used as a club, or a staff, or a makeshift lance. Throwing the strap to Visbhume’s wallet over her shoulder, she set out as bravely as possible downstream along the riverbank toward the crags.
Without incident she arrived at the base of the crags and climbed the first rise of ground. Here she paused to catch her breath and, looking back the way she had come, with dismay thought to see a far bounding black form: almost certainly Visbhume.
The rocks were close at hand, where she could possibly find a hiding place. She climbed up a slope among hummocks of curiously convoluted stones. … As she passed among them, they abruptly uncoiled and jerked erect.
Glyneth gasped in terror; she was surrounded by tall thin creatures gray as stone, with tall pointed heads. Eyes like disks of black glass and long leathery nasal flaps produced an effect of droll dejection, by no means reassuring, especially when one of the group dropped a cord over Glyneth’s neck and led her away at a scuttling trot along a trail through the rocks.
Ten minutes later the group came out upon a flat area with crags rising steep at the back. The goblin-eels thrust Glyneth into a pen also occupied by a rotund six-legged creature with a dull pink body surmounted by an object like an enormous orange polyp, fringed by a hundred eyes growing on stalks. The eyes veered around to peer at Glyneth, who was now in a state beyond terror, with her emotions anaesthetized. … Unreal. She closed her eyes and opened them again. Nothing had changed.
The walls of the pen were woven of branches, in a rude and untidy style. Glyneth stealthily tested the tightness of the weave and decided that without too much effort she could open a hole large enough to permit her passage. She watched the goblin-eels for a moment, wondering what might be the best time to attempt an escape. At the moment the group stood assembled around a pit in the stone, with an opening about four feet in diameter, from which exuded wisps of vapor, or steam.
Several of the goblin-eels stirred the substance in the pit with longhandled paddles. Occasionally one or another touched the stuff on the paddles and tasted it with the nice judgment of connoisseurs. Conversing in whispers, they arrived at a consensus. Several entered the pen and deftly chopped two legs from the pink beast. Ignoring its squeals of pain as it hobbled to the side of the pen the goblin-eels dropped the legs into the pit. Others tossed a bale of vegetation into the steaming vent. A black shrimplike creature, which roared and bellowed and strove mightily against its bonds, was also dragged to the opening and thrown in. Its cries reached a crescendo of roaring, then subsided into plaintive gurgling, dwindled and went silent.
Eyes doleful and droll were now turned toward Glyneth, and tears at last coursed down her cheeks. “How dreadful and dreary that I must die in this vile pit, when I do not want to do so, not in the least!”
A shrill wild sound came from the trail: the fluting and warbling of Visbhume’s silver whistle. The goblin-eels became still, then turned and gave signals of perturbation.
Visbhume appeared, marching smartly to the meter of his music, with an occasional caper of sheer extravagance, when he struck some phrase he considered particularly felicitous.
The goblin-eels began shaking and jerking, as if impelled despite all inclination, and began to hop up and down, in place, while Visbhume played fiery jigs and fare-thee-wells. At last he halted, and cried out in a reedy voice a language Glyneth knew to be that of the goblin-eels: “Who is master here, lord of the irresistible tap-tap-a-tapping?”
All whispered: “It is you, it is you! The Progressive Eels are your minions! Put down your fearful weapon; must we hop and jump to exhaustion?”
“I will show you my mercy, but first, one last little quickstep, for your health’s sake, and so that you remember me the better!”
“Spare us!” cried those who had termed themselves the Progressive Eels. “Come; taste the good slime of our pit!” And: “Put away your magic; eat slime!”
Glyneth had been thrusting at the weave of the pen; she created a hole and squeezed through. “Now! Away, be away! Run, run, run!”
Visbhume pointed: “I will desist, and I will take away with me that creature who even now thinks to escape the pen. Seize her, and bring her to me.”
The Progressive Eels leapt to surround Glyneth, and one seized her hair. A heavy stone, larger than a pair of clenched fists, hissed down to strike the Progressive Eel’s face and crush it to instant pulp.
Stones rattled down the mountainside; Glyneth jerked around in a state close to hysteria; she was not soothed by the silhouette of what appeared to be a monstrous half-human beast, black against the lavender sky. The creature stood a moment, appraising the scene below, then lunged down the rocks with what seemed a total contempt for gravity: bounding, running, sliding, and at last leaping into the midst of the Progressive Eels. It snatched a sword from the scabbard at its leather belt, and with furious zeal set about hacking and chopping. Glyneth shrank back, appalled by the frightful sounds which rose from the combat. Heads with eyes wide in blank surprise rolled along the ground; torsos half-severed fell down, to crawl about with foolish kicks, usually to tumble into the pit.
Hissing and sighing, the Progressive Eels ran off into the rocks, despite Visbhume’s raging commands. At last he blew a great blast on his pipe which brought the eels to a sudden halt.
Visbhume screamed: “Stand fast! Attack this footling beast, with full force, from all directions! It will cringe before your onslaught!”
The Progressive Eels considered the scene of carnage with large blank eyes. Visbhume exhorted them again: “Strike great blows! Hurl stones and hurtful objects, or even nauseous refuse! Take up spears; stab the thing through and through!”
Certain of the eels heeded the instructions and picked up rocks to throw, but Visbhume’s wrath was not yet appeased. He cried: “Attack! Capture! Marshal the battle-worms! To action, all!”
The man-beast wiped its sword on a corpse and showed Glyneth a grimace of drawn lips and white teeth somewhat difficult to interpret. Shrinking back, she stumbled and started to slide into the pit, but the creature seized her arm and pulled her to safety. Glyneth stared wildly around the landscape, seeking an easy route away from this dreadful place; from the corner of her eye she glimpsed the downward trajectory of a great stone. She lurched aside, and the stone crashed to the surface where she had stood. Another stone slanted down to strike the man-beast’s shoulder; he spun around roaring in rage, but chose not to attack. He slung Glyneth over his shoulder and bounded away up the mountainside.
Visbhume set up an instant scream of indignation. “You are taking my wallet, my personal property! Drop it at once! Theft is
a crime! The wallet is mine alone, with my valuable things!”
Glyneth only clutched the wallet more closely, and was whisked up the slope at a speed which made her dizzy.
The creature at last halted and swung Glyneth to the ground.
Glyneth prepared to be devoured or used in some unthinkable fashion, but the creature went to look back the way they had come. It turned around, almost casual in its conduct, showing no signal of menace, and Glyneth drew a deep breath. She ordered her clothes which had become disarranged, then stood hugging Visbhume’s wallet in her arms, wondering woefully how the creature meant to deal with her.
The man-beast made sounds, straining as if it found its larynx a new and unfamiliar tool. Glyneth listened intently; if it meant to harm her, why should it labor to make her understand? Suddenly Glyneth saw that it intended reassurance; fear left her and despite all efforts at self-control, she began to cry.
The creature continued to make sounds, and began to approach intelligibility. Glyneth, trying to listen, forgot her tears. She prompted him: “Speak slowly! …. Say it once again.”
Using a voice thick and slurred, he began to form understandable words. “I will help you. … Do not be afraid.”
Glyneth asked tremulously: “Did someone send you to elp me?”
“A man with white hair sent me. His name is Murgen. I am Kul! Murgen instructed me in what I must do.”
With dawning hope Glyneth asked: “And what is that?”
“I must take you to where you came into this place, as fast as I can. There is little time, since I had to come so far to find you. We are already here too long.”
Glyneth asked with new foreboding: “And what if we are too late?”
“I will tell you then.” Kul went to look down the slope.
“We must go! The rock-worms are coming with long-point spears to draw my blood. A man in black gives them orders!”
“That is Visbhume. He is a magician, and I took his wallet, which has made him angry.”
“I will kill him presently. Can you walk, or shall I carry you?”
“I can walk very nicely, thank you,” said Glyneth.
“It is not dignified to ride over your shoulder with my bottom in the air.”
“Let us see how fast you can run with dignity.” They climbed the slope until Glyneth began to pant, whereupon Kul threw her over his shoulder once again and bounded up the rocks. Looking backwards, Glyneth could see only space and far downward perspectives; Kul seemed to ignore gravity and equilibrium, and Glyneth finally closed her eyes.
Arriving at the ridge, he set her down. “Now, if we go yonder, behind that forest, we will come down upon the little house. I believe that an hour or two still remain to us, before the gate closes. If all is proper, you will soon be home.”
Glyneth looked at Kul sidelong. “And what of you?”
Kul seemed puzzled. “I have not been told.” “Do you have a home here, or friends?”
“No.”
“That seems strange!”
“Come,” said Kul. “Time is short.”
The two ran along the ridge, with Kul ever more urgent for speed, and when Glyneth could run no further, he again lifted her and carried her, bounding at a slant down the slope. Finally, at a place behind the forest, he set her down. “Come now; let us see how the land lays.”
They went under the balls of dark blue and plum-red foliage and looked across the sward. The hut stood at a distance of a hundred yards. Along the riverbank came Visbhume riding a great black eight-legged beast, flat as a plank across its dorsal surface, with a complicated tangle of horn, flexible eye-stalks, feeding tubes for a head and a wide flat back twenty feet long, where Visbhume rode in fine style on the cushioned top bench of a white howdah. Behind came a band of twenty Progressive Eels carrying spears, along with a dozen other creatures wearing armour of a black metallic substance and tall conical helmets which connected directly to their epaulettes. These goblin-knights carried maces and lances and marched on heavy short legs.
Kul said: “Listen carefully, because time is short. I will go to the far end of the forest and show myself. If they march to attack me, you run to the hut. At the door you will notice a rim of golden light. Stop and listen. If you hear nothing, the way is safe; you may pass through. If you hear harsh sounds or any sounds whatever, do not venture yourself; the hole closing and you will be chopped into a thousand motes, this all clear?”
“Yes, but what of you?”
“Have no fears for me. Quickly now; be ready!”
Glyneth cried out: “Kul! Should I wait for you?”
Kul made an urgent gesture. “No!” He lunged off through the forest.
A few moments later Glyneth heard Visbhume’s shrill outcry: “There stands the beast! To the attack! Pierce both with long-points and lances; break him with your maces! Strike with all force and accurate direction! Cut the horrid creature into minute parcels; let his red blood spurt and run! attention all! Do not strike or pierce the maiden!”
The black goblin-knights ran heavily forward, with the progressive Eels skipping to the side, while Visbhume rode well to the rear.
Glyneth waited as long as she dared, then, choosing her path, darted out of the forest.
Visbhume saw her instantly, and swinging about his long steed he sent it cantering across the sward to intercept her. Behind ran the Progressive Eels, hissing and whispering. Glyneth stopped short; she could never reach the hut in time. She retreated to the forest. Visbhume called out: “Halt! Vould you return to Watershade? Stand then, and hear me!”
Glyneth paused uncertainly. Visbhume brought his steed lumbering about in a grand curve, and halted directly between Glyneth and the hut. “Glyneth, make response! What will you say to me?”
Glyneth called out: “I want to go back to Watershade!”
“Just so! Then you must tell me what I want to know!”
Glyneth screwed up her face in sick indecision. Both Dhrun and Aillas would wish her to tell all she knew, if thereby she could save herself. But would Visbhume stand by his terms?
Shee knew very well that he would not do so. Certain of the Progressives eels were crouching and slinking toward her, thinking to make a sudden leap so as to catch her. She backed toward the forest. On sudden inspiration she halted. Reaching into Visbhume’s wallet, she brought out one of the glass eggs full of insects; this she hurled into the midst of the Progressive Eels.
For a moment they stood immobile, staring with disk-eyes glazed over with consternation; then, letting fall their long-pointed spears they lurched hissing and singing across the sward, dropping from time to time to roll and flail arms and legs in the air. Some plunged into the river and were seen no more; others wallowed in the mud along the shore, and crawled at best speed downstream.
Visbhume cried out: “Glyneth, the minutes fly! I will be safe, since my way is mysterious, but you will be lost forever!”
Glyneth called out in her most cajoling voice: “Visbhume let me go back to Watershade; do! And I will thank you, even though you brought me here; and King Aillas himself will answer your questions.”
“Ha ha! Do I seem such a fool? King Aillas will have me quickly hanged! Do you quibble with me while the preciou minutes flow by? I see the portal; it is still open, but already the golden rim is starting to fade! Tell me now!”
“Let me go first!”
Visbhume screamed in rage. “I make the conditions! Tell me now, or I go through the portal and leave you to the vile Progressives!”
Kul suddenly burst from the forest, and bounded toward Visbhume, who cried out in alarm and put his steed into posture of defense, with a pair of coiled tentacles snapping out toward Kul.
Kul picked up one of the long-point spears and came forward, circling and feinting with spear poised to throw, always Visbhume protected himself behind the high-reared neck, and now from the forest came the goblin-knights.
Visbhume began to make a wailing outcry.
“The time is s
hort! Leave me be, that I may return to Earth! How dare you molest me so! Knights, kill me this beast, and quickly! The rim is fading; must I abide on Tanjecterly?”
Kul shouted: “Glyneth! Through the gate!”
Glyneth sidled around Kul and the eight-legged carpet beast, and made a new dash for the hut. She stopped short. The knights had come to attack Kul with maces on high. They chopped, but he slid away and plunged into their midst. Glyneth could see only a welter of movement, and then knights submerged Kul under sheer weight of numbers.
Glyneth, crying out in anguish, seized up a lance; running forward, she stabbed one of the knights; a heavy mailed leg kicked her in the stomach and sent her toppling backward. Then, as she watched, knights seemed to explode up and out as Kul thrust up from among them. With a mace in his hand, he smashed heads and sent knights reeling. Taking note of Glyneth, he shouted: “Go to the hut! Escape while you can!”
Glyneth cried out desperately: “I cannot leave you to fight lone!”
Kul groaned in frustration. “Must I be killed for nothing? Save yourself; at least do this for me!”
To Glyneth’s horror a black knight reared high; it swung up its’ mace and with full power and brought it down upon Kul, who slid to the side to avoid the blow, but fell once again to the sward. Sobbing in despair Glyneth turned and ran for the hut, find Visbhume in front of her, running on long prancing pointed-toe strides, his anxiety now only to extricate himself from Tanjecterly.
Visbhume arrived at the hut with Glyneth close behind, “Visbhume gave a croak of despair and stopped short. “Ah, sorrow, and grief piled on sorrow! The gold is gone! The gate is closed!”
Glyneth likewise came to a shocked standstill. The gold around the door-opening had faded completely, leaving weathered wood.
