He thought of climbing back up and trying again from another tree but decided against it. He was not sure how long the "soft spot" that his spell had created between the two planes would remain soft. It could not do to have the earth solidify just as he was climbing through it. On the other hand, he was a good swimmer and did not fear the three-foot dwarf crocodiles found in Moru Marsh.
He lowered himself to where the ends of the rope dangled. If he had tied one end around the tree with an ordinary loop, the rope would have been long enough to reach the surface of his world. In that case, however, he would not have been able to recover the precious rope after his descent. Therefore he had applied the middle of the rope to the tree and let both ends hang down an equal distance.
The dark, odorous water lay about twenty feet beneath him. A look around showed no sign of the wizard. Here we go, Jorian thought, and released one end of the rope.
He struck with a tremendous splash. The rope poured down after him, striking the water in loops and coils. Taking one end of it in his teeth, Jorian struck out for the nearest shore.
This proved to be a floating bank of reeds. Jorian hauled himself out, brown water running off his shoulders. When he stood up, the surface beneath him quivered, gave, and sank in alarming fashion. The safest mode of progress, he decided, was on all fours. Trailing the rope, he crept towards higher ground, where willows and dark cypresses grew thickly. At last he felt firm soil beneath him and rose to his feet. A water weed trailed from one of the spikes of his crown.
"Karadur!" he called, pulling loose the weed and scraping the swamp water off his skin with his fingers.
He was not surprised when there was no reply. A league-long hike would be hard on the old fellow, and he might not arrive until nightfall. Since Jorian saw nothing else of a useful nature to do, he found a spot masked by ferns, took off his crown, stretched out, and was soon fast asleep.
The sun was farther down in the sky, although still far from the horizon, when a voice awakened Jorian. He sprang up to face Karadur, who stood before him in his normal guise, leaning on a staff and breathing heavily.
"Hail!" said Jorian. "How did you find me, old man?"
"You—ah—snored, O King—I mean, Master Jorian."
"Are we followed hither?"
"Nay, not so far as my arts reveal. Ah me, I am spent! Suffer me to rest." The wizard sank with a sigh into the ferns. "Not in years have I been so fordone. Working two spells at once wellnigh slew me, and this march through the forest has finished me off." He rested his head in his hands.
"Where have you hidden the gear?"
"Alack, I am too spent to think. How found you the afterworld?"
"Oi! Ghastly, from what little I saw," said Jorian. He described the double road of cement and the monstrous vehicles that whizzed along it. "By Thio's horns, life must be riskier there by far than in our own world, with all its wars, plagues, robbers, sorceries, and wild beasts! I'd rather take a chance on one of your Mulvanian hells, where one has to cope merely with a few nice, bloodthirsty demons."
"Saw you—met you any of the inhabitants?"
"Aye; a fellow whom I took to be a carpenter stopped his carriage and bespoke me, albeit neither could understand the other's lingo. He stared at me as the Xylarians would stare if a man-ape from Komilakh were to stroll amongst 'em." Jorian described the man.
Karadur gave a faint chuckle. "That was no carpenter but a peace officer—a man trained in the use of arms but employed solely against evildoers of his own nation instead of against a foreign foe. I believe some of your Novarian city-states possess corps of such stalwarts. It is a plane of great wealth and many curious devices, but I hope never to spend an incarnation there."
"Wherefore not?"
"Because it is a dimension of base materialism, wherein magic is so feeble as to be wellnigh useless; so what scope were there for an accomplished thaumaturge like myself? Those who pass for magicians on that plane, I am informed, are mostly fakers. Why, even the gods of that world are but debile wraiths, able to work but little weal or woe, beyond causing petty strokes of luck, upon those they love and hate."
"Have these folk no religion, then?"
"Aye, or say they do. They also patronize magicians—astrologers and necromancers and such. The reason is not that the gods and wizards of that plane can do them much good or ill, but that they come into incarnation there with buried memories of their previous lives in this world, where such things in sooth are mighty and fell. But, on the whole, the folk of that dimension are blind in spiritual matters."
Jorian slapped a gnat Then I, having no more psychic powen thai a head of cabbage, should do right well there."
"Not so, but far otherwise."
"Why?"
"Your strength and nimbleness—your strongest resources here— would avail you nought, because all tasks calling for such virtues in this world are there performed by soulless machines. What boots it if you can ride forty leagues between sunrise and sunset, when one of those mechanical cars you saw can cover thrice the distance in that time? Your strength were as useless as my moral purity and knowledge of spiritual forces."
"I'm not quite a halfwit, even though my thews be a trifle larger than most men's," said Jorian. "Natheless, belike you speak truth. In any case, old man, daylight will not last forever. So let us forth to find our cache, if you now be fit for walking."
"Aye, I am fit, albeit the prospect gives me no joy." With a groan, the wizard heaved himself to his feet and started poking in the nearest bushes with his staff, muttering:
"Now, let me see, where did I hide that accursed thing? Tsk, tsk. It was under the overhang of a boulder, I am sure, with a layer of leaves to conceal it…"
"No boulders here," said Jorian with a touch of impatience.
'True, true; methinks the place lay a furlong or so to the north, on higher ground. Let us look."
They moved off in the direction indicated and for the next two hours scoured the woods, looking for a boulder. Karadur mumbled:
"Let me see; let me see… It was a boulder of granite, with patches of moss, about as high as your shoulder, O Jorian… I am sure… I think…"
"Did you not blaze a nearby tree, or otherwise leave a marking to guide our search?"
"Let me think. Ah, yes, I marked three trees, on three sides of the cache. But there are so cursed many trees…"
"Why not find it by divination?"
"Because my spiritual powers are spent for the nonce. We must use our material senses or none."
They went back to the swamp and started off in a slightly different direction. Insects danced in level spears of light, shining through the forest, when Jorian said:
"Is this one of your blazes?"
"Why, yes, it is!" said Karadur. "Now, let me see, where are the others…"
"There are no more boulders here than there are fishes in the desert of Fedirun."
"Boulder? Boulder? Why—ah—I remember now! I left it not beneath a boulder at all, but under a tree trunk. There!"
Karadur pointed to a big trunk lying athwart the forest floor. In an instant they had scraped aside the concealing leaves and dragged out a canvas bag. Jorian let a hiss of annoyance escape through his teeth, for the wizard's vague ways often exasperated him. Still, he told himself, one should not be too critical of a man who has saved one's life.
As the sun set, Jorian arose. He was now clad like any forester, in coarse brown tunic and breeks, high laced boots in place of his tattered silken slippers, and sweat-stained green hat with a battered pheasant's feather stuck in the band. In his left hand he balanced a crossbow. A short, heavy, hunting falchion, better suited to gutting game and hacking brush than to swordplay, hung at his girdle.