"And that will be when?"
"A short time, shorter than you might think!"
"Visbhume! You alarm me! Have we enough time?"
"If all goes well and I am in command."
"But how do we know how long or short is our time?"
"By the black moon! When the radius swings to the diameter exactly opposite the gate by which we entered, that is the time! Now, will you join me in deep and unassailable cabal?"
"Kul is terrible and strong."
"So am I! Does he think all my power is gone?"
"I hope so!"
Then you are with me?"
"Of course not."
"What! You prefer the beast to me, Visbhume who lives and dances to the thrilling musics?"
"Visbhume, sleep while you have the chance. Your foolishness is keeping Kul awake."
Visbhume spoke in a low and almost sibilant tone: "For the last time you have flouted me, and how you shall regret it!"
Glyneth made no response.
Kul awoke; the three made breakfast upon milk, bread, butter, cheese, onions and ham from the pantry, then Glyneth called: "House, grow small!"
The cottage shrank quickly to miniature size, and Glyneth carefully returned it to its box. They climbed aboard the wole and once again set off across the plain.
Today Visbhume wished to share the comforts of the pergola with Glyneth. "From this vantage I command a wide view! In a flash I can apprehend danger at a great distance!"
"You are the rearguard," said Kul. "You must spy out dangers overtaking us from behind; that is your duty, and your best vantage is over the hindquarters, exactly as yesterday. Quick now! The black moon rolls around the sky, and we must arrive at Asphrodiske in good time."
Across the plain of blue grass ran the wole, the splayed legs coursing forward and back so that the tassels of the rug jerked to the motion. Kul knelt at the base of the pergola, leaning forward so that his massive shoulders almost filled the space between the wole's ocular horns. Glyneth reclined at her ease across the pergola's cushioned bench, one slim leg idly dangling, while Visbhume hunched at the far end of the rug, glumly looking back the way they had come.
To the north appeared a deep forest of dark blue and purple trees. Drawing near they saw a tall manse of dark timber, built to a style elegant and stately, with many narrow glass windows, turrets and cupolas, as well as a dozen elaborate follies and crotchets included apparently for the sheer relief of boredom. To Glyneth's taste, the style verged upon the eccentric, though out here, overlooking this changeless plain, anyone's taste would seem as sound as any one else's, and Glyneth straightened in her seat, so as not to present a careless or untidy image to possible observation through the tall narrow windows.
As they passed by, a portal opened and out rode a knight in full armour of glossy black and brown metal. From his helm rose a high crest, beautifully wrought, of rods, disks and barbed prongs. The knight rode a creature somewhat like a black splay-legged tiger with a row of sharp horns down its forehead, and carried a tall lance from which fluttered a purple banner, engaged with an emblem of dark red, silver and blue.
The knight halted at a distance of a hundred feet, and Kul politely brought the wole to a halt. The knight called out:
"Who are you, that crosses the breadth of my domain, with neither let nor leave?"
Glyneth called out: "We are strangers to this place, Sir Knight, and no one informed us of your rule. This being the case, will you kindly grant us leave to pass on our way?"
"That is well and softly spoken," declared the knight. "I would be tempted to clemency, did I not fear that others, less courteous than yourself, might be emboldened to take liberties."
Glyneth declared: "Sir, our lips are sealed as if with bars of iron! Never will your forbearance be bruited abroad, and our reports will extol only the splendor of your carriage and the gallantry of your conduct. With our best regards to you and your dear ones, we will now hastily withdraw from your presence."
"Not so fast! Have I not spoken? You are in detention. Dismount and proceed to Lorn House!"
Kul rose to his feet and shouted: "Fool! Return to your manse while life remains to you!"
The knight lowered his lance. Kul jumped down from the wole, to Glyneth's distress. She cried out: "Kul, get back up here! We will run away, and he may chase us if he wishes!"
"His steed is too fast," said Visbhume. "Give me the tube you took from me and I will blow a fire-mite at him. No! Better! In my wallet is a trifle of mirror; give that to me."
Glyneth found the mirror and gave it to Visbhume. The knight aimed his lance at Kul; the triple-horned black tiger sprang forward. Visbhume made a sweeping motion with his hand; the mirror expanded to reflect the knight and his steed. Visbhume snapped away the mirror; the knight and his reflected image clashed together; both lances shivered and both knights were pitched to the ground where they drew swords and hacked at each other, while the tiger-mounts rolled and tumbled in a snarling screaming ball.
Kul jumped aboard the wole; it lumbered away to the east, with the combat still raging behind.
Glyneth went to Visbhume. "That was good work and it will earn you consideration when the final accounting is made. Give me back the mirror."
"Better, far better that it remains with me," said Visbhume smoothly. "In emergencies I will therefore be swift to act."
Glyneth asked pointedly: "Do you recall Kul's admonition? He was anxious to fight the knight; you denied him his exercise and now he may be short-tempered."
"Aaagh, the monstrous brute!" growled Visbhume under his breath, and with unwilling fingers relinquished the mirror.
Time passed; leagues were thrust astern. Glyneth tried to puzzle through the computations in Twitten's almanac, but met no success. Visbhume refused to teach her, declaring that first she must learn two arcane languages and an exotic system of mathematics, each with its particular mode of graphic representation. Glyneth also found a chart, which Visbhume gracelessly interpreted for her. "Here is the Lakkady Hills, the River Mys and the hut; this is the great Tang-Tang Steppe, inhabited only by a few rogue knights and bands of nomad beasts. This is where we now travel."
"And this town here, by the river: is it Asphrodiske?"
Visbhume squinted at the chart. "That seems to be the town Pude, by the River Haroo. Asphrodiske is here, beyond these woods and the Steppe of Sore Beggars."
Glyneth looked dubiously at the black moon, which had moved a considerable distance around the horizon. "It is yet a long way. Have we time?"
"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 look-out 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!"