"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?"
"So it is! You are a particularly clever girclass="underline" almost as clever as you are appealing to the eye."
Glyneth compressed her lips. "Please keep your compliments to yourself; the implications make me sick to my stomach. When would the pulse again be favorable at the hut, if so it became necessary?"
"When the moon reached the same place in the sky. Notice these notations: they refer to the azimuth of the black moon."
Glyneth went forward and reported to Kul what she had learned.
"Very well," said Kul. "We will sleep less soundly and travel more briskly."
Two or three leagues further along the way, a road slanted down from the north, where a small village of gray houses could be seen. It came around a forested knoll and led off into the east. Kul urged the wole upon the road, but the creature preferred to run on the blue turf, which provided a kinder footing. This road, according to Visbhume, might well lead all the way to Asphrodiske. He pointed at the map. "First we cross the River Haroo, here by the town Pude, then Asphrodiske lies onward, across the Plain of Lilies."
Down from the slopes of neatly tiered mountains flowed the River Haroo, to pass across the way to Asphrodiske. The road led to a stone bridge of five arches and away to the east, beside the village which Visbhume had named ‘Pude'.
Glyneth asked Visbhume: "Who are the people of the village? Did they come into being here?"
"They are folk from Earth, who across the ages have inadvertently dropped through sink-holes into Tanjecterly. A certain number have been placed here for one reason or another by magicians like Twitten, and they too must bide on Tanjecterly."
"That would seem a bitter fate," said Glyneth. "How cruel to be torn away from those who love you! Do you not agree, Visbhume?"
Visbhume put on a lofty smile. "Sometimes stem little reprimands become necessary, especially when one deals with wilful maidens, who refuse to share the bounty of their treasure."
Kul turned his head and stared at Visbhume, whose smile instantly faded.
Along the road came a wagon, carrying a dozen peasants. They turned to stare in wonder and awe as the wole went by. Their attention seemed primarily fixed upon Kul, and several jumped down from the wagon to take up staves as if to defend themselves from attack.