Glyneth, in the absence of Visbhume, began to feel less desperate. Sooner or later her friends would find her, and bring her home; of this she felt sure... . Why should Visbhume so insistently inquire upon the circumstances of Dhrun's birth? He could only be acting in the interests of King Casmir, and hence disclosure of the knowledge most probably would not be to the advantage of Dhrun.
The boat drifted into marshy shallows. Glyneth reached into the water and secured a floating branch, which she used to pole herself to the shore. She climbed the bank and searched upriver, but discovered no sign of Visbhume. She turned to look downriver and discovered a line of stony crags descending from a high ridge, at last to thrust into the water. Glyneth eyed these crags with distrust, speculating that they might be the haunt of ferocious beasts. The boat and the squat person in the wide brown hat, digging in the mud, indicated the existence of a human population—but where? And what sort of human beings?
Glyneth stood on the shore, dubiously considering the landscape: a woeful figure in a pretty blue frock. Conceivably all the best magic of Shimrod might not be able to find her, and she would spend all the days of her life under the green and yellow suns of Tanjecterly—unless Visbhume came upon her and hypnotized her with his silver pipe.
She blinked away her tears. As her first urgency she must find a refuge secure from Visbhume.
The crags which came down to the river intrigued her. If she climbed to the near ridge she could overlook a great sweep of country and perhaps discover a human settlement. The idea was not without its dreary possibilities! Strangers were not everywhere accorded kind hospitality, not even among the lands of Earth.
So Glyneth hesitated and wondered how best to survive. The boat offered a measure of security and she was reluctant to leave it behind.
Her indecision was suddenly vacated. From the water rose a sinewy member, as wide as her own waist, ending with a wedge-shaped head, a single green eye and a great fanged mouth. The eye fixed upon her; the mouth gaped wide, showing a dark red interior; the head lunged forward, but Glyneth had already jumped back.
The head and neck slowly subsided into the river. Shuddering, Glyneth backed away from the boat, which no longer seemed a source of security... . Well, then: up to the ridge.
She broke away twigs from her branch, so that it might be used as a club, or a staff, or a makeshift lance. Throwing the strap to Visbhume's wallet over her shoulder, she set out as bravely as possible downstream along the riverbank toward the crags.
Without incident she arrived at the base of the crags and climbed the first rise of ground. Here she paused to catch her breath and, looking back the way she had come, with dismay thought to see a far bounding black form: almost certainly Visbhume.
The rocks were close at hand, where she could possibly find a hiding place. She climbed up a slope among hummocks of curiously convoluted stones. ... As she passed among them, they abruptly uncoiled and jerked erect.
Glyneth gasped in terror; she was surrounded by tall thin creatures gray as stone, with tall pointed heads. Eyes like disks of black glass and long leathery nasal flaps produced an effect of droll dejection, by no means reassuring, especially when one of the group dropped a cord over Glyneth's neck and led her away at a scuttling trot along a trail through the rocks.
Ten minutes later the group came out upon a flat area with crags rising steep at the back. The goblin-eels thrust Glyneth into a pen also occupied by a rotund six-legged creature with a dull pink body surmounted by an object like an enormous orange polyp, fringed by a hundred eyes growing on stalks. The eyes veered around to peer at Glyneth, who was now in a state beyond terror, with her emotions anaesthetized. ... Unreal. She closed her eyes and opened them again. Nothing had changed.
The walls of the pen were woven of branches, in a rude and untidy style. Glyneth stealthily tested the tightness of the weave and decided that without too much effort she could open a hole large enough to permit her passage. She watched the goblin-eels for a moment, wondering what might be the best time to attempt an escape. At the moment the group stood assembled around a pit in the stone, with an opening about four feet in diameter, from which exuded wisps of vapor, or steam.
Several of the goblin-eels stirred the substance in the pit with longhandled paddles. Occasionally one or another touched the stuff on the paddles and tasted it with the nice judgment of connoisseurs. Conversing in whispers, they arrived at a consensus. Several entered the pen and deftly chopped two legs from the pink beast. Ignoring its squeals of pain as it hobbled to the side of the pen the goblin-eels dropped the legs into the pit. Others tossed a bale of vegetation into the steaming vent. A black shrimplike creature, which roared and bellowed and strove mightily against its bonds, was also dragged to the opening and thrown in. Its cries reached a crescendo of roaring, then subsided into plaintive gurgling, dwindled and went silent.
Eyes doleful and droll were now turned toward Glyneth, and tears at last coursed down her cheeks. "How dreadful and dreary that I must die in this vile pit, when I do not want to do so, not in the least!"
A shrill wild sound came from the traiclass="underline" the fluting and warbling of Visbhume's silver whistle. The goblin-eels became still, then turned and gave signals of perturbation.
Visbhume appeared, marching smartly to the meter of his music, with an occasional caper of sheer extravagance, when he struck some phrase he considered particularly felicitous.
The goblin-eels began shaking and jerking, as if impelled despite all inclination, and began to hop up and down, in place, while Visbhume played fiery jigs and fare-thee-wells. At last he halted, and cried out in a reedy voice a language Glyneth knew to be that of the goblin-eels: "Who is master here, lord of the irresistible tap-tap-a-tapping?"
All whispered: "It is you, it is you! The Progressive Eels are your minions! Put down your fearful weapon; must we hop and jump to exhaustion?"
"I will show you my mercy, but first, one last little quickstep, for your health's sake, and so that you remember me the better!"
"Spare us!" cried those who had termed themselves the Progressive Eels. "Come; taste the good slime of our pit!" And: "Put away your magic; eat slime!"
Glyneth had been thrusting at the weave of the pen; she created a hole and squeezed through. "Now! Away, be away! Run, run, run!"
Visbhume pointed: "I will desist, and I will take away with me that creature who even now thinks to escape the pen. Seize her, and bring her to me."
The Progressive Eels leapt to surround Glyneth, and one seized her hair. A heavy stone, larger than a pair of clenched fists, hissed down to strike the Progressive Eel's face and crush it to instant pulp.
Stones rattled down the mountainside; Glyneth jerked around in a state close to hysteria; she was not soothed by the silhouette of what appeared to be a monstrous half-human beast, black against the lavender sky. The creature stood a moment, appraising the scene below, then lunged down the rocks with what seemed a total contempt for gravity: bounding, running, sliding, and at last leaping into the midst of the Progressive Eels. It snatched a sword from the scabbard at its leather belt, and with furious zeal set about hacking and chopping. Glyneth shrank back, appalled by the frightful sounds which rose from the combat. Heads with eyes wide in blank surprise rolled along the ground; torsos half-severed fell down, to crawl about with foolish kicks, usually to tumble into the pit.
Hissing and sighing, the Progressive Eels ran off into the rocks, despite Visbhume's raging commands. At last he blew a great blast on his pipe which brought the eels to a sudden halt.
Visbhume screamed: "Stand fast! Attack this footling beast, with full force, from all directions! It will cringe before your onslaught!"