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?"