by Jack Vance
He looked around the horizon. Magnatz was nowhere to be seen. He swung his arms once or twice, paced back and forth, went to look down at the plaza, where he expected to find artisans assembling the appurtenances he had ordered. But there was no such activity; the towns-people appeared to be going about their usual affairs. Cugel shrugged, went to make another inspection of the horizon. As before, Magnatz was invisible.
Once more he surveyed the plaza. He frowned, squinted: was that his spouse Marlinka walking past in the company of a young man? He focused the optical device upon the supple shape: it was Marlinka indeed, and the young man who clasped her elbow with insolent intimacy was the huntsman to whom she had at one time been affianced. Cugel clamped his jaw in outrage. This sort of behaviour could not continue! When Marlinka presented herself, he would speak emphatically upon the subject.
The sun reached zenith; the cord quivered. Looking over the side Cugel saw that his noon repast was being hoisted in a basket, and he clapped his hands in anticipation. But the basket, when he lifted the cloth, contained only a half-loaf of bread, a chunk of tough meat, a flask of thin wine. Cugel stared at the sorry fare in shock, and decided to descend on the moment to set matters straight. He cleared his throat, called down for the ladder. No one appeared to hear him. He called more loudly. One or two of the folk looked up in mild curiosity, and passed on about their business. Cugel jerked angrily at the cord, hauled it over the pulley, but no heavy rope appeared nor a rope ladder. The light line was an endless loop, capable of supporting approximately the weight of a basket of food.
Thoughtfully Cugel sat back, and assessed the situation. Then directing the optical device once more upon the plaza he searched for the hetman, the one man to whom he might turn for satisfaction.
Late in the afternoon, Cugel chanced to observe the door to the tavern, just as the hetman came staggering forth, obviously much elevated by wine. Cugel called peremptorily down; the hetman stopped short, looked about for the source of the voice, shook his head in perplexity, continued across the plaza.
The sun slanted across Lake Vull; the whirlpools were spirals of maroon and black. Cugel’s supper arrived: a dish of boiled leeks and a bowl of porridge. He inspected it with small interest, then went to the side of the cupola. “Send up the ladder!” he called. “Darkness comes! In the absence of light, it is futile to watch for Magnatz or anyone else!”
As before his remarks passed unheeded. Firx suddenly seemed to take cognizance of the situation and visited several sharp twinges upon Cugel’s vitals.
Cugel passed a fitful night. As merry-makers left the tavern Cugel called to them and made representations regarding his plight, but he might as well have saved his breath.
The sun appeared over the mountains. Cugel’s morning meal was of fair quality, but by no means up to the standard described by Hylam Wiskode, the double-tongued hetman of Vull. In a rage, Cugel bellowed orders to those below, but was ignored. He drew a deep breath: it seemed then that he was cast upon his own resources. But what of this? Was he Cugel the Clever for nothing? And he considered various means for descending the tower. The line by which his food ascended was far too light. If doubled and redoubled so that it bore his weight, it would yield, at most, a quarter of the distance to the ground. His clothes and leathers, if torn and knotted, might provide another twenty feet, leaving him dangling in mid-air. The stem of the tower provided no foothold. With appropriate tools and sufficient time he might be able to chisel a staircase down the outside of the tower, or even chip away the tower in its entirety, eventually reducing it to a short stump from which he might leap to earth … The project was not feasible. Cugel slumped on the cushions in despair. Everything was now clear. He had been fooled. He was a prisoner. How long had the previous Watchman remained at his post? Sixty years? The prospect was by no means cheerful.
Firx, of like opinion, jabbed furiously with barb and prong, adding to Cugel’s woes.
So passed days and nights. Cugel brooded long and darkly, and contemplated the folk of Vull with great revulsion. On occasion he considered ringing the great gong, as his predecessor had been driven to do — but recalling the penalty, he restrained himself.
Cugel became familiar with every aspect of town, lake and landscape. In the morning heavy mists covered the lake; after two hours a breeze thrust them aside. The whirlpools sucked and groaned, swinging here and there, and the fishermen of Vull ventured hardly more than the length of their boats off-shore. Cugel grew to recognize all the villagers, and learned the personal habits of each. Marlinka, his perfidious spouse, crossed the plaza often, but seldom if ever thought to turn her glance upward. Cugel marked well the cottage where she lived and gave it constant surveillance through the optical device. If she dallied with the young huntsman, her discretion was remarkable, and Cugel’s dark suspicions were never documented.
The food failed to improve in quality and not infrequently was forgotten altogether. Firx was persistently acrimonious, and Cugel paced the confines of the cupola with ever more frantic strides. Shortly after sundown, after a particularly agonizing admonishment by Firx, Cugel stopped short in his tracks. To descend the tower was a matter of simplicity! Why had he delayed so long? Cugel the Clever indeed!
He ripped into strips every fragment of cloth the cupola provided, and from the yield plaited a rope twenty feet long. Now he must wait till the town grew quiet: yet an hour or two.
Firx assailed him once more, and Cugel cried out. “Peace, scorpion, tonight we escape this turret! Your acts are redundant!”
Firx gave over his demonstration, and Cugel went to investigate the plaza. The night was cool and misty: ideal for his purposes, and the folk of Vull were early to bed.
Cugel cautiously raised the line on which his food was hoisted; doubled, redoubled and redoubled it again and so produced a cable amply strong to support him. He tied a loop on one end, made the other fast to the pulley. After one last look around the horizon, he lowered himself over the side. He descended to the end of the cable, thrust himself into the loop and sat swaying some four hundred feet above the plaza. To one end of his twenty-foot rope he tied his shoe for a weight, and after several casts, flung a loop around the stem of the column, and pulled himself close. With infinite caution he slipped himself free and using the loop around the column as a brake, slid slowly to the ground. He took himself quickly into the shadows and donned his shoes. Just as he rose to his feet the door to the tavern swung open and out reeled Hylam Wiskode, much the worse for drink. Cugel grinned unpleasantly and followed the staggering hetman into a side-street.
A single blow on the back of the head was enough; the hetman toppled into a ditch. Cugel was instantly upon him, and with deft fingers took his keys. Going now to the public repository, he opened the door, slipped inside and filled a sack with gems, coins, flasks of costly essences, relics, and the like.
Returning to the street Cugel carried the sack to a dock beside the lake, where he hid it under a net. Now he proceeded to the cottage of his spouse Marlinka. Prowling beside the walls, he came to an open window, and stepping through found himself in her chamber.
She was awakened by his hands at her throat. When she tried to scream he cut off her wind. “It is I,” he hissed, “Cugel, your spouse! Arise and come with me. Your first sound will be your last!”
In great terror, the girl obeyed. At Cugel’s order she threw a cloak about her shoulders and clasped sandals upon her feet. “Where are we going?” she whispered in a tremulous voice.
“No matter. Come now — through the window. Make not a sound!”
Standing outside in the dark Marlinka cast a horror-stricken glance toward the tower. “Who is on watch? Who guards Vull from Magnatz?”
“No one is on watch,” said Cugel. “The tower is empty!”
Her knees gave way; she sagged to the ground. “Up!” said Cugel. “Up! We must proceed!”
“But no one is on watch! This voids the spell the sorcerer cast upon Magnatz, who swore to re
turn when vigilance ceased!”
Cugel lifted the girl to her feet. “This is no concern of mine; I disclaim responsibility. Did you not seek to fool and victimize me? Where were my cushions? Where was the fine food? And my spouse — where were you?”
The girl wept into her hands, and Cugel led her to the dock. He pulled close a fisherman’s boat, ordered her aboard, threw in his loot.
Untying the boat, he shipped oars and rowed out upon the lake. Marlinka was aghast. “The whirlpools will drown us! Have you lost your reason?”
“Not at all! I have studied the whirlpools with care and know precisely the range of each.”
Out upon the face of the lake moved Cugel, counting each stroke of his oars, and watching the stars. “Two hundred paces east … A hundred paces north … Two hundred paces east … Fifty paces south …”
So Cugel rowed while to right and left of them sounded the suck of whirling water. But the mist had gathered to blot out the stars and Cugel was forced to throw out the anchor. “This is well enough,” he said. “We are safe now, and there is much that lies between us.”
The girl shrank to her end of the boat. Cugel stepped astern and joined her. “Here I am, your spouse! Are you not overjoyed that finally we are alone? My chamber at the inn was far more comfortable, but this boat will suffice.”
“No,” she whimpered. “Do not touch me! The ceremony was meaningless, a trick to persuade you to serve as Watchman.”
“For three-score years perhaps, until I rang the gong from utter desperation?”
“It is not my doing! I am guilty only of merriment! But what will become of Vull? No one watches, and the spell is broken!”
“So much the worse for the faithless folk of Vull! They have lost their treasure, their most beautiful maiden, and when day breaks Magnatz will march upon them.”
Marlinka uttered a poignant cry, which was muffled in the mist. “Never speak the cursed name!”
“Why not? I shall shout it across the water! I will inform Magnatz that the spell is gone, that now he may come for his revenge!”
“No, no, indeed not!”
“Then you must behave toward me as I expect.”
Weeping the girl obeyed, and at last a wan red light filtering through the mist signaled dawn. Cugel stood up in the boat, but all landmarks were yet concealed.
Another hour passed; the sun was now aloft. The folk of Vull would discover that their Watchman was gone, and with him their treasure. Cugel chuckled, and now a breeze lifted the mists, revealing the landmarks he had memorized. He leapt to the bow, hauled on the anchor line, but to his annoyance the anchor had fouled itself.
He jerked, strained, and the line gave a trifle. Cugel pulled with all his strength. From below came a great bubbling. “A whirlpool!” cried Marlinka in terror.
“No whirlpool here,” panted Cugel, and jerked once more. The line seemed to relax and Cugel hauled in the rope. Looking over the side he found himself staring into an enormous pale face. The anchor had caught in a nostril. As he looked the eyes blinked open.
Cugel threw away the line, leapt for the oars, frantically rowed for the southern shore.
A hand as large as a house raised from the water, groped. Marlinka screamed. There was a great turbulence, a prodigious surge of water which flung the boat toward the shore like a chip, and Magnatz sat up in the center of Lake Vull.
From the village came the sound of the warning gong, a frenzied clanging.
Magnatz heaved himself to his knees, water and muck draining from his vast body. The anchor which had pierced his nostril still hung in place, and a thick black fluid issued from the wound. He raised a great arm, slapped petulantly at the boat. The impact threw up a wall of foam which engulfed the boat, spilled treasure, sent Cugel and the girl toppling through the dark depths of the lake.
Cugel kicked and thrust, and propelled himself to the seething surface. Magnatz had gained his feet and was looking toward Vull.
Cugel swam to the beach, staggered ashore. Marlinka had drowned, and was nowhere to be seen. Across the lake Magnatz was wading slowly toward the village.
Cugel waited no longer. He turned and ran with all speed up the mountainside.
Chapter IV
The Sorcerer Pharesm
The mountains were behind: the dark defiles, the tarns, the echoing stone heights — all now a sooty bulk to the north. For a time Cugel wandered a region of low rounded hills the color and texture of old wood, with groves of blue-black trees dense along the ridges, then came upon a faint trail which took him south by long swings and slants, and at last broke out over a vast dim plain. A half-mile to the right rose a line of tall cliffs, which instantly attracted his attention, bringing him a haunting pang of déjà-vu. He stared mystified. At some time in the past he had known these cliffs: how? when? His memory provided no response. He settled himself upon a low lichen-covered rock to rest, but now Firx, the monitor which Iucounu the Laughing Magician had implanted in Cugel’s viscera, became impatient and inflicted a stimulating pang. Cugel leapt to his feet, groaning with weariness and shaking his fist to the southwest, the presumable direction of Almery. “Iucounu, Iucounu! If I could repay a tenth of your offenses, the world would think me harsh!”
He set off down the trail, under the cliffs which had affected him with such poignant but impossible recollections. Far below spread the plain, filling three-quarters of the horizon with colors much like those of the lichened rock Cugel had just departed: black patches of woodland; a gray crumble where ruins filled an entire valley; nondescript streaks of gray-green, lavender, gray-brown; the leaden glint of two great rivers disappearing into the haze of distance.
Cugel’s brief rest had only served to stiffen his joints; he limped, and the pouch chafed his hip. Even more distressing was the hunger gripping his belly. Another tally against Iucounu who had sent Cugel to the northern wastes on a mission of wanton frivolity: Iucounu, it must be allowed had furnished an amulet converting such normally inedible substances as grass, wood, horn, hair, humus and the like into a nutritious paste. Unfortunately — and this was a measure of Iucounu’s mordant humor — the paste retained the flavor of the native substance, and during his passage of the mountains Cugel had tasted little better than spurge, cullion, blackwort, oak-twigs and galls, and on one occasion, when all else failed, certain refuse discovered in the cave of a bearded thawn. Cugel had eaten only minimally; his long spare frame had become gaunt; his cheek-bones protruded like sponsons; the black eyebrows which once had crooked so jauntily now lay flat and dispirited. Truly, truly, Iucounu had much to answer for! And Cugel, as he proceeded, debated the exact quality of revenge he would take if ever he found his way back to Almery.
The trail swung down upon a wide stony flat where the wind had carved a thousand grotesque figures. Surveying the area Cugel thought to perceive regularity among the eroded shapes, and halted to rub his long chin in appraisal. The pattern displayed an extreme subtlety — so subtle indeed, that Cugel wondered if it had not been projected by his own mind. Moving closer, he discerned further complexities, and elaborations upon complexities: twists, spires, volutes; disks, saddles, wrenched spheres; torsions and flexions; spindles, cardioids, lanciform pinnacles: the most laborious, painstaking and intricate rock-carving conceivable, manifestly no random effort of the elements. Cugel frowned in perplexity, unable to imagine a motive for so complex an undertaking.
He went on and a moment later heard voices, together with the clank of tools. He stopped short, listened cautiously, then proceeded, to come upon a gang of about fifty men ranging in stature from three inches to well over twelve feet. Cugel approached on tentative feet, but after a glance the workers paid him no heed, continuing to chisel, grind, scrape, probe and polish with dedicated zeal.
Cugel watched for several minutes, then approached the overseer, a man three feet in height who stood at a lectern consulting the plans spread before him, comparing them to the work in progress by means of an ingenious optical device. H
e appeared to note everything at once, calling instructions, chiding, exhorting against error, instructing the least deft in the use of their tools. To exemplify his remarks he used a wonderfully extensible forefinger, which reached forth thirty feet to tap at a section of rock, to scratch a quick diagram, then as swiftly retract.
The foreman drew back a pace or two, temporarily satisfied with the work in progress, and Cugel came forward. “What intricate effort is this and what is its object?”
“The work is as you see,” replied the foreman in a voice of penetrating compass. “From natural rock we produce specified shapes, at the behest of the sorcerer Pharesm … Now then! Now then!” The cry was addressed to a man three feet taller than Cugel, who had been striking the stone with a pointed maul. “I detect overconfidence!” The forefinger shot forth. “Use great care at this juncture; note how the rock tends to cleave? Strike here a blow of the sixth intensity at the vertical, using a semi-clenched grip; at this point a fourth-intensity blow groin-wise; then employ a quarter-gauge bant-iron to remove the swange.”
With the work once more going correctly, he fell to studying his plans, shaking his head with a frown of dissatisfaction. “Much too slow! The craftsmen toil as if in a drugged torpor, or else display a mulish stupidity. Only yesterday Dadio Fessadil, he of three ells with the green kerchief yonder, used a nineteen-gauge feezing-bar to groove the bead of a small inverted quatrefoil.”
Cugel shook his head in surprise, as if never had he heard of so egregious a blunder. And he asked: “What prompts this inordinate rock-hewing?”
