Lyonesse II - The Green Pear and Madouc (52 page)

“Much depends upon the flow of circumstances,” said Visbhume. “If an experienced captain of far travels, such as myself, were in charge of the voyage, events might well go with facility.”

“We will give your advice every consideration,” said Glyneth. “You may also keep a sharp lookout for robber knights and nomad beasts.”

The travellers proceeded across Tang-Tang Steppe, but encountered no molestation either by robber knights or by nomad beasts, though occasionally in the distance they saw heavy long-necked beasts grazing upon the fruit of the trees, and a few sparse packs of two-legged wolves hopping and loping across the middle distance. From time to time the creatures paused to stand high, the better to appraise the wole, with Glyneth lolling on the bench of the pergola, Kul below and Visbhume crouched at the rear.

Visbhume became drowsy and lay back on the rug to doze in the warmth of the suns’ light. Glyneth, at a sudden sound, looked around to find that one of the wolves had trotted furtively up behind the wole, then jumped to the rug, where now, sitting on Visbhume’s face, it sucked blood from his chest through the rasping orifices in the palms of its forepaws.

Kul jumped aft, seized the wolf, wrung its neck and threw it astern. Visbhume, with a lambent glare first at Kul, then back toward the corpse of the wolf, now being torn apart by four of its fellows, at last regained his composure. “Had I not been deprived of my things, this outrage could not have occurred!”

Glyneth gave him a scornful glance. “You should not have brought me here in the first place.”

“You must not blame me; I was so commissioned, by a highly placed person!”

“Who? Casmir? That is no excuse. Why does he want to know about Dhrun?”

“A portent, or something of the sort, has caused him alarm,” said Visbhume sourly, candid only through the discomfiture of the wolf’s attack, for which it was convenient to blame Casmir. Glyneth pressed for further details, but Visbhume would say no more until she first responded to his questions with equal frankness, a suggestion which prompted from Glyneth only a laugh of contemptuous amusement, and Visbhume said darkly: “I will never forget such insults!”

The journey proceeded as before. The wolves ran behind for a period, hopping and bounding on long legs, but at last uttered howls of rebuke after the wole and turned away to the south.

Leagues were vanquished by the wole’s running feet, while the black moon drifted around the sky. The group halted to rest a second and then a third time. On each occasion Glyneth raised the magic cottage and caused a fine banquet to appear on the table, at which all dined to repletion. Visbhume, however, was not allowed to drink overmuch wine lest he become large and annoy the others with his boasting. He then went into a fit of tearful complaints for the plight in which he found himself.

Glyneth refused to listen to him. “Again I will point out that these troubles are of your own making!”

Visbhume started to refute her statement, but Glyneth stopped him short. “Neither Kul nor I care to waste our time with foolishness. Instead-” she brought the wallet to the table “-tell me, and I remind you of Kul’s views in regard to evasiveness, how I may blow fire-mites from this tube.”

“You cannot do so,” said Visbhume, smiling and tapping his hands on the table in time to some internal tune.

“And how would you do so?”

“First I would need the fire-mites. Are there any in the wallet?”

Glyneth looked blank. “I do not know.” She brought out a flask. “What is in this little flagon?”

“That is Hippolito’s mental sensitizer. One drop stimulates the mind and helps one achieve an enviable reputation for hilarity and wit. Two drops enhances the aesthetic propensities to an exquisite degree, so that the person so stimulated can translate the patterns of spiderwebs into song-cycles and epic sagas.”

“Three drops?”

“It has never been attempted by human man. Kul might wish to experience a sublime and aesthetic experience; for such as Kul, I recommend four or even five drops.”

“Kul is not an aesthete,” said Glyneth. “These are your healing salves and balms, and this is your hair tonic… . What is in this green bottle?”

Visbhume said delicately: “That, my dear Glyneth, is a tincture of erotic sublimations. It melts chaste maidens previously proof to both season and reason, and induces a wonderful emotion. When ingested by a gentleman, even of stately years, it lends a surge to the flagging zest and invigorates that person who, for whatever reason, finds himself growing, let us say, absentminded.”

“I doubt if we will need this disgusting tonic,” said Glyneth coldly. She drew further objects from the wallet. “Here are your insect-bulbs; here is the tube and here the mirror. Cloth, bread, cheese, wine. Fiddle and bow; also pipes. Wires. What is their purpose?”

“They are useful when one wishes to cross a chasm, or to batter open stone walls. The peremptory spells are difficult to use.”

“And the fire-mites?”

Visbhume made a negligent gesture. “The question is nuncupatory.”

Glyneth screeched: “Kul! Do not kill him!”

Kul slowly subsided to his chair. Visbhume huddled mournfully in the corner. In sudden inspiration, Glyneth pointed to a line of what seemed decorative buttons running along the length of Visbhume’s sleeves. “The buttons! Visbhume, are these the fire-mites?… Kul, be patient. Pull off the buttons.”

“Better yet, Visbhume shall eat several of them.”

Visbhume looked up in startlement. “Never!”

“Then give them here!”

“I dare not!” cried Visbhume. “As soon as they are detached they must be blown through the tube.”

Kul cut from Visbhume’s loose sleeves long strips of black cloth to which the fire-mites were affixed, and thenceforth, as Visbhume walked or moved his arms, his bony white elbows protruded from the rents.

Glyneth rolled the strips of cloth around the tube and so made a bundle. “Now then! Explain, if you will, how these are to be used.”

“Pull the button from the fabric and put it in the tube so that the head looks away, then blow at the person you wish to discommode.”

“What other trickeries are you concealing from us?”

“None! No more! You have scoured me bare! I am helpless!”

Glyneth repacked the wallet. “I hope that you are telling the truth, for your own sake, since, truly, your misery only makes me ill.”

As before, the three slept in sequence. Visbhume protested loudly about sleeping outside for fear of the running wolves. He was at last allowed to sleep in the pantry with the door secured against his escape.

In due course the wole once more set off across the steppe: a rolling savannah dotted with spherical trees, of somewhat different colour than before, with occasional trees of mustard-ocher or black and maroon, rather than the carmine-red of the trees along the Mys River.

Ahead stood a gigantic tree six hundred feet tall. The first boughs left the trunk in a cluster of six, spaced symmetrically around the trunk, each terminating in a great ball of dark yellow-brown foliage, with other layers of branches similarly spaced, all the way to the top. In the distance could be seen several other such giant trees, some even taller.

As the wole passed by the first, the passengers noted to their fascination that in the bark of the trunk, two hundred feet above the ground, arboreal two-legged creatures had cut out apartments interconnected by rickety balconies. The tree-dwellers showed great excitement as the wole passed by, and came out to crowd the balconies, pointing, signalling and performing gesticulations of defiance. Visbhume’s obscene gestures only stirred them to a new pitch of indignation.

Inexorably the black moon veered around the sky. Glyneth tried to estimate how long and how far they had travelled but only succeeded in confusing herself. Visbhume pretended a like uncertainty and was ordered to the ground to run behind the wole until his comprehensions sharpened, and almost at once he was able to render a precise report. “Observe the pink star yonder! When the black moon passes under the star the way is open to Twitten’s Corners. That is my estimate. The reckoning is not certain to the minute,” he added virtuously. “I was reluctant to make a loose statement.”

“And how far is Asphrodiske?”

“Allow me to examine the map in the almanac.”

Glyneth, perhaps overly cautious, removed the key from its socket, then extended it to Visbhume.

Visbhume pointed a crooked knob-knuckled forefinger. “We would seem to be at this point, near this depicted river, which is the Haroo; and I believe I observe the flow ahead, on the left hand. The town Pude marks the beginning of settled territory. Here is the Road of Round Stones; it runs past the Dark Woods and across the Plain of Lilies and so to Asphrodiske, here at this symbol. After Pude the distance still is thirty or forty leagues, and the time draws short. I fear that our sleep has been too sound and our travel too meager.”

“And what if we missed the time?”

“A wait at the axis would seem to be in order.”

“But if we returned to the hut where we started, we could go through there the sooner; is that not correct?”

“So it is! You are a particularly clever girl: almost as clever as you are appealing to the eye.”

Glyneth compressed her lips. “Please keep your compliments to yourself; the implications make me sick to my stomach. When would the pulse again be favorable at the hut, if so it became necessary?”

“When the moon reached the same place in the sky. Notice these notations: they refer to the azimuth of the black moon.”

Glyneth went forward and reported to Kul what she had learned.

“Very well,” said Kul. “We will sleep less soundly and travel more briskly.”

Two or three leagues further along the way, a road slanted down from the north, where a small village of gray houses could be seen. It came around a forested knoll and led off into the east. Kul urged the wole upon the road, but the creature preferred to run on the blue turf, which provided a kinder footing. This road, according to Visbhume, might well lead all the way to Asphrodiske. He pointed at the map. “First we cross the River Haroo, here by the town Pude, then Asphrodiske lies onward, across the Plain of Lilies.”

Down from the slopes of neatly tiered mountains flowed the River Haroo, to pass across the way to Asphrodiske. The road led to a stone bridge of five arches and away to the east, beside the village which Visbhume had named ‘Pude’.

Glyneth asked Visbhume: “Who are the people of the village? Did they come into being here?”

“They are folk from Earth, who across the ages have inadvertently dropped through sink-holes into Tanjecterly. A certain number have been placed here for one reason or another by magicians like Twitten, and they too must bide on Tanjecterly.”

“That would seem a bitter fate,” said Glyneth. “How cruel to be torn away from those who love you! Do you not agree, Visbhume?”

Visbhume put on a lofty smile. “Sometimes stem little reprimands become necessary, especially when one deals with wilful maidens, who refuse to share the bounty of their treasure.”

Kul turned his head and stared at Visbhume, whose smile instantly faded.

Along the road came a wagon, carrying a dozen peasants. They turned to stare in wonder and awe as the wole went by. Their attention seemed primarily fixed upon Kul, and several jumped down from the wagon to take up staves as if to defend themselves from attack.

“That is an odd attitude,” said Glyneth. “We offered them no threat. Are they timid or merely hostile to,strangers?”

Visbhume gave a fluting chuckle. “They are fearful for good reason. Feroces live in the mountains and no doubt have earned themselves a dubious reputation. I foresee problems. It might be wise to dismiss Kul from our company.”

Glyneth called to Kul. “Come into the pergola, on the low bench and draw the curtain, so that the village folk will not be alarmed.”

Kul somewhat reluctantly slid into the lower bench of the pergola, and drew the curtains. Visbhume, watching carefully, came forward and stood in Kul’s previous place. He looked back at Glyneth: “In case questions are asked, I will say that we are pilgrims visiting the monuments of Asphrodiske.”

“Be sure that is all you say,” came Kul’s voice from behind the curtains.

Glyneth, now uneasy, looked in the wallet and brought out a Tormentor Bulb, which she placed in her own pouch.

The wole ran smartly across the bridge and down the principal street of the village. Visbhume seemed extraordinarily alert, and looked back and forth, from side to side. He touched a pad on the wole’s crest and the creature sensibly slowed its pace. Kul rasped: “What are you doing? Keep moving at speed!”

“I do not wish to arouse adverse comment,” said Visbhume. “It is best to pass through settled areas at a seemly and sober pace, so that they will not think us irresponsible hoodlums.” From a tall structure of dressed stone stepped three men wearing tight black trousers, voluminous tunics of green leather and elaborate widebrimmed hats. The foremost held up his hand. “Halt!”

Visbhume brought the wole to a standstill. “Whom is it our privilege to address?”

“I am the Honourable Fulgis, Constable and Magistrate for the village Pude. And you?”

“Innocent pilgrims bound for Asphrodiske, that we may see the sights.”

“All very well, but have you paid toll for the use of the bridge?”

“Not yet, sir. What is the fee?”

“For such a medley as I see before me, ten good dibbets, of sound tolk.”

“Very good! I was afraid that you might ask for a tassel from the rug, each of which is worth twenty dibbets.”

“I meant to include in the toll such a tassel.”

“What?” Visbhume jumped to the ground. “Is not this slightly excessive?”

“Would you prefer to return over the bridge and swim your way across the river?”

“No. Glyneth, pass me down my wallet, that I may pay Sir Fulgis his due.”

Glyneth wordlessly passed down the wallet. Visbhume now took Fulgis aside and spoke earnestly into his ear. Kul spoke to Glyneth in a husky whisper: “He is betraying us! Start the wole to running!”

“I do not know how!”