Songs of the Dying Earth

The owner of the little calling voice squinted at him with tiny luminous eyes. He was a Twk man, and nearby, his dragonfly sat preening its wings among the leaves.

“To repay this favour,” said the Twk, “I require salt.”

“I have none. Which favour?”

“I am owed,” said the Twk. “Know that flights of my kind were recently lured toward the northern limits, with a promise of endless salination, by the unsympathetic mage Pendatas Baard, in his relentless search for the usufructdom of Undimmoril. He claimed of us many and various deeds. When wages came due, he directed us to the sea’s edge, and recommended we pan the tideless waves for our reward.”

“I am sorry to hear this,” whispered Evillo, “but hush a moment, if you will. My hunters prowl below.”

The Twk gazed over at the three Deodands, who, illumined by the single large star, sniffed about the tree roots beneath, now and then glancing thoughtfully up into the branches.

“Perhaps I shall betray you to them,” mused the Twk. “Sometimes Deodands carry salt, to season less tasty kills.”

Evillo felt an eerie coolth on his arm. Looking distractedly, he found Khiss. But Khiss had grown startlingly during their separation, to the size of a cat.

From below came the discouraging sound of agile feet attempting the tree.

“Contain your amazement,” instructed Khiss, in a new and testy tone. “We must depart at once. Due to your inanity, not only did we once more miss the target, but were segregated during the transmission. We shall now again try the Selfulsion. On this occasion, by all five demons of Lumarth, think only of some terminus secure, and, preferably, blue.”

Evillo’s mind became a perfect blank. But already, Khiss and he were pulsing as their bodily atoms disbanded. From nowhere, a sourceless memory of blueness filled his thoughts. He interpretted this as another of Cugel’s temporary haunts, and conjured the Inn of Blue Lamps, southward, in Saskervoy.

Such had been the delay and confusion none the less, that the two wayfarers entered the inn by a high closed window, and so descended in a hail of glass upon several dissatisfied diners.

Evillo and Khiss extricated themselves from a roast fowl and a large platter of stewed callow with roseberry. The Twk and dragonfly, involved in the Selfulsion owing to proximity, dived into the salt-dish.

A landlord loomed. Evillo assumed that he was Krasnark, the very same who had waited on Cugel in the Fabler’s tale. Black-browed and tall, he glowered. On his forehead, a faint scar boded ill.

“Am I never to free my premises of these surreal incursions? Ever since the fateful night when those two wretches played their gambler’s tricks, the villainy of which only later were revealed to me, bad cess has plagued this inn!”

“It is true,” confided a buxom dame in cerise plast, beaming upon Evillo despite his antisocial entrance. “Poor Krasnark was brained by an unseen force and fell into the still-room below, spilling and breaking items to the value of nineteen florins! Besides, a worthy worminger was wounded in the foot by a crustaceous sphigale let go from its tank, the lighting was damaged, beards were sliced, and gentlemen harried at the trough of convenience.”

“And now,” snarled Krasnark, “the ghoul-goat Cleenisz has taken up residence in the cellar, where it lies in wait for my potboys!”

On this cue, a malevolent bleating of inappropriate volume resounded from below. The floor shook.

“If you have stirred up the thing,” threatened Krasnark, “by your louche flop into my hall, I will charge you the sum of two hundred terces. The probity of Saskervoy is at stake.”

Most of the patrons were now evacuating the inn, even the lady in cerise. Seemingly, they did not take to the voice of Cleenisz.

“I regret, landlord,” said Evillo, “I have not a copper shaving to my name.”

“But,” hissed Khiss, its whisper loudly audible due to its current size, which was now more approximate to that of a small lion, “hand him this ring gleaming there in the spilled salt. It will pay for all.”

Evillo took the ring. It was worth more than the entire inn, very likely, a great smouldering gem of bluish-green set in blue tantalum, and chased with blue gold.

Krasnark’s manner altered. “That will tally to a nicety, sir. Let me entreat you to finish the dinner you have already sampled…or should you wish to follow me to the urinal?”

Evillo did not attend. A turquoise radiance was flaring from the jewel’s heart. It seemed to fill the inn, fading the blue lucifer lamplight to ashes.

There again appeared to him then the mysterious misty woods, hills, valleys, and mountains, the lakes like moire silk, which he had glimpsed so many times before. Evillo, dazzled by the sheen, wondered if this vision, as had the violet eye cusps of the Overworld, at least in Cugel’s experience, so effected the organ of sight as to influence also all other senses. For Evillo seemed to smell the fragrance of trees, flowers, and water, and he almost felt the brush of satin leaves against his face.