Tales of the Dying Earth (71 page)

He looked over the side of the bed and by starlight saw the glimmer of the road. The night was dead calm. He drifted, if at all, to the west.

Cugel hung his hat on the bed-post. He lay back, pulled the eiderdown over his head and went to sleep.

The night passed. Stars moved across the sky. From the waste came the melancholy call of the visp: once, twice, then silence.

Cugel awoke to the rising of the sun, and for an appreciable interval could not define his whereabouts. He started to throw a leg over the side of the bed, then pulled it back with a startled jerk.

A black shadow fluttered across the sun; a heavy black object swooped down to alight at the foot of Cugel's bed; a pelgrane of middle years, to judge by the silky gray hair of its globular abdomen. Its head, two feet long, was carved of black horn, like that of a stag-beetle and white fangs curled up past its snout. Perching on the bedstead it regarded Cugel with both avidity and amusement.

"Today I shall breakfast in bed," said the pelgrane. "Not often do I so indulge myself."

It reached out and seized Cugel's ankle, but Cugel jerked back. He groped for his sword but could not draw it from the scabbard. In his frantic effort he caught his hat with the tip of his scabbard; the pelgrane, attracted by the red glint, reached for the hat. Cugel thrust 'Spatterlight' into its face.

The wide brim and Cugel's own terror confused the flow of events. The bed bounded as if relieved of weight; the pelgrane was gone.

Cugel looked to all sides in puzzlement.

The pelgrane had disappeared.

Cugel looked at 'Spatterlight', which seemed to shine with perhaps a somewhat more vivacious glow.

With great caution Cugel arranged the hat upon his head. He looked over the side and noticed approaching in the road a small two-wheeled cart pushed by a fat boy of twelve or thirteen years.

Cugel threw down his rope to fix upon a stump and drew himself to the surface. When the boy rolled the push-cart past, Cugel sprang out upon the road. "Hold up! What have we here?"

The boy jumped back in fright. "It is a new wheel for the wain and breakfast for my brothers: a pot of good stew, a round of bread and a jug of wine. If you are a robber there is nothing here for you."

"I will be the judge of that," said Cugel. He kicked the wheel to render it weightless, and heaved it spinning away through the sky while the boy watched in open-mouthed wonder. Cugel then took the pot of stew, the bread and the wine from the cart. "You now may proceed," he told the boy. "If your brothers inquire for the wheel and the breakfast, you may mention the name 'Cugel' and the sum 'five terces'."

The boy trundled the cart away at a run. Cugel took the pot, bread and wine to his bed and, loosing the rope, drifted high into the air.

Along the road at a run came the three farmers, followed by the boy. They halted and shouted: "Cugel! Where are you? We want a word or two with you." And one added ingenuously: "We wish to return your five terces!"

Cugel deigned no response. The boy, searching around the sky for the wheel, noticed the bed and pointed, and the farmers, red-faced with fury, shook their fists and bawled curses.

Cugel listened with impassive amusement for a few minutes, until the breeze, freshening, swept him off toward the hills and Port Perdusz.

A FAVORABLE wind blew Cugel and his bed over the hills in comfort and convenience. As he drifted over the last ridge, the landscape dissolved into far distances, and before him, from east to west, spread the estuary of the River Chaing, in a great sweep of liquid gunmetal.

Westward along the shore Cugel noticed a scatter of mouldering gray structures: Port Perdusz. A half-dozen vessels were tied up at the docks; at so great a distance Cugel could not distinguish one from the other.

Cugel caused the bed to descend by dangling his sword and boots over either side, so that they were seized by the forces of gravity. Driven by capricious gusts of wind, the bed dropped in directions beyond Cugel's control and eventually fell into a thicket of tulsifer reeds only a few yards inland from the river.

Reluctantly abandoning the bed, Cugel picked his way toward the river road, across soggy turf rampant with a dozen species of more or less noxious plants: russet and black burdock, blister-bush, brown-flowered hurse, sensitive vine which jumped back in distaste as Cugel approached. Blue lizards hissed angrily and Cugel, already in poor humour owing to contact with the blister-bush, reviled them in return: "Hiss away, vermin! I expect nothing better from such low-caste beasts!"

The lizards, divining the gist of Cugel's rebuke, ran at him by jerks and bounds, hissing and spitting, until Cugel picked up a dead branch, and by beating at the ground kept them at bay.

Cugel finally gained the road. He brushed off his clothes, slapped his hat against his leg, taking care to avoid contact with 'Spatterlight'. Then, shifting his sword so that it swung at its most jaunty angle, he set off toward Port Perdusz.

The time was middle afternoon. A line of tall deodars bordered the road; Cugel walked in and out of black shadow and red sunlight. He noticed an occasional hut halfway up the hillside and decaying barges along the river-bank. The road passed an ancient cemetery shaded under straggling rows of cypress, then swung toward the river to avoid a bluff on which perched a ruined palace.

Entering the town proper, the road swung around the back of a central plaza, where it passed in front of a large semicircular building, at one time a theater or concert hall, but now an inn. The road then returned to the waterfront and led past those vessels which Cugel had noticed from the air. A question hung heavy in Cugel's mind: might the 
Galante
 still lie in port?

Unlikely, but not impossible.

Cugel would find most embarrassing a chance confrontation with Captain Baunt, or Drofo, or Madame Soldinck, or even Soldinck himself.

Halting in the roadway, Cugel rehearsed a number of conversational gambits which might be used to ease the tensions. At length he admitted to himself that, realistically, none could be expected to succeed, and that a formal bow, or a simple and noncommittal nod of the head, would serve equally well.

Maintaining a watch in all directions, Cugel sauntered out on the decaying old wharf. He discovered three ships and two small coastwise vessels, as well as a ferry to the opposite shore.

None was the 
Galante,
 to Cugel's great relief.

The first vessel, and farthest downstream from the plaza, was a heavy and nameless barge, evidently intended for the river trade. The second, a large carrack named 
Leucidion
 had been discharged of cargo and now appeared to be undergoing repairs. The third, and closest to the plaza, was the 
Avventura,
 a trim little ship, somewhat smaller than the others, and now in the process of taking on cargo and provisions for a voyage.

The docks were comparatively animated, with the passage of drays, the shouting and cursing of porters, the gay music of concertinas from aboard the barge.

A small man, portly and florid, wearing the uniform of a minor official, paused to inspect Cugel with a calculating eye, then turned away and entered one of the nearby warehouses.

Over the rail of the 
Leucidion
 leaned a burly man wearing a striped shirt of indigo blue and white, a conical black hat with a golden chain dangling beside his right ear, and a spigoted golden boss in his left cheek: the costume of the Castillion Shorelanders.
⁶

Cugel confidently approached the 
Leucidion
 and, assuming a jovial expression, waved his hand in greeting.

The ship-master watched impassively, making no response.

Cugel called out: "A fine ship! I see that she has been somewhat disabled."

The ship-master at last responded: "I already have been notified in this regard."

"Where will you sail when the damage is repaired?"

"Our usual run."

"Which is?"

"To Latticut and The Three Sisters, or to Woy if cargo offers."

"I am looking for passage to Almery," said Cugel.

"You will not find it here," said the ship-master with a grim smile. "I am brave but not rash."

In a somewhat peevish voice Cugel protested: "Surely someone must sail south out of Port Perdusz! It is only logical!"

The ship-master shrugged and looked toward the sky. "If this is your reasoned opinion, then no doubt it is so."

Cugel pushed impatiently down at the pommel of his sword. "How do you suggest that I make my journey south?"

"By sea?" The ship-master jerked his thumb toward the 
Avventura.
 "Talk to Wiskich; he is a Dilk and a madman, with the seamanship of a Blue Mountain sheep. Pay him terces enough and he will sail to Jehane itself."

"This I know for a fact," said Cugel. "Certain cargoes of value arrive at Port Perdusz from Saskervoy, and are then trans-shipped to Almery."

The ship-master listened with little interest. "Most likely they move by caravan, such as Yadcomo's or Varmous'. Or, for all I know, Wiskich sails them south in the 
Avventura.
 All Dilks are mad. They think they will live forever and ignore danger. Their ships carry mast-head lamps so that, when the sun goes out, they can light their way back across the sea to Dilclusa."

Cugel started to put another question, but the ship-master had retreated into his cabin.

During the conversation, the small portly man in the uniform had, emerged from the warehouse. He listened a moment to the conversation, then went at a brisk pace to the 
Avventura.
 He ran up the gangplank and disappeared into the cabin. Almost at once he returned down the gangplank where he halted a moment, then, ignoring Cugel, he returned at a placid and dignified gait into the warehouse.

Cugel proceeded to the 
Avventura,
 hoping at least to learn the itinerary proposed by Wiskich for his ship. At the foot of the gangplank a sign had been posted which Cugel read with great interest:

PASSENGERS FOR THE VOYAGE SOUTH, TAKE NOTE!

PORTS OF CALL ARE NOW DEFINITE. THEY ARE:

MAHAZE AND THE MISTY ISLES

LAVRRAKI REAL, OCTORUS, KAIIN

VARIOUS PORTS OF ALMERY.

DO NOT BOARD SHIP WITHOUT TICKET! SECURE TICKET FROM TICKET AGENT IN GRAY WAREHOUSE ACROSS WHARF.

With long strides Cugel crossed the wharf and entered the warehouse. An office to the side was identified by an old sign: OFFICE OF TICKET AGENT

Cugel stepped into the office where, sitting behind a disreputable desk, he discovered the small portly man in the dark uniform, now making entries into a ledger.

The official looked up from his work. "Sir, your orders?"

"I wish to take passage aboard the 
Avventura
 for Almery. You may prepare me a ticket."

The agent turned a page in the ledger and squinted dubiously at a set of entries. "I am sorry to say that the voyage is fully booked. A pity .... Just a moment! There may be a cancellation! If so, you are in luck, as there will be no other voyage this year. . . . Let me see. Yes! The Hierarch Hopple has taken ill."

"Excellent! What is the fare?"

"The available billet is for first class accommodation and victualling, at two hundred terces."

"What?" cried Cugel in anguish. "That is an outrageous fee! I have but forty-five terces to my pouch, and not a groat more!"

The agent nodded placidly. "Again you are in luck. The Hierarch placed a deposit of one hundred and fifty terces upon the ticket, which sum has been forfeited. I see no reason why we should not add your forty-five terces to this amount and even though it totals to only one hundred and ninety-five, you shall have your ticket, and I will make certain book-keeping adjustments."

"That is most kind of you!" said Cugel. He brought the terces from his pouch, and paid them over to the agent, who returned him a slip of paper marked with characters strange to Cugel. "And here is your ticket."

Cugel reverently folded the ticket and placed it in his pouch. He said: "I hope that I may go aboard the ship at once, as now I lack the means to pay for either food or shelter elsewhere."

"I am sure that there will be no problem," said the ticket agent. "But if you will wait here a moment I will run over to the ship and say a word to the captain."

"That is good of you," said Cugel, and composed himself in a chair. The agent departed the office.

Ten minutes passed, then twenty minutes, and half an hour.

Cugel became restless and, going to the door, looked up and down the wharf, but the ticket agent was nowhere to be seen.

"Odd," said Cugel. He noticed that the sign which had hung by the 
Avventura's
 gangplank had disappeared. "Naturally!" Cugel told himself. "There is now a full complement of passengers, and no need for further advertisement."