Songs of the Dying Earth

Dringo shook his head at Cugel’s opacity. “You can’t fathom another possibility?”

Cugel sat mutely with thin, pursed lips.

Dringo realized that his impatience with his father was more a matter of anxiety than frustration. “I am your son!” he blurted.

He watched Cugel’s face closely for a reaction. It was not what he expected.

Cugel laughed uncontrollably. “That is an impossibility. You are too close to my own age. Iucounu, show yourself. Your trickery lacks coherency.” He leaned forward to study Dringo’s features. Suddenly, he raged: “Clarity has reasserted itself. Iucounu, you have robbed me of more years than I ever imagined! The Spell of Forlorn Encystment has maddened me! I thought myself buried a year or perhaps two, but this? It is too much. The Law of Equipoise has been tilted to an extreme that demands equally severe punition.”

Finally he calmed. He looked again towards Dringo. “So I have a son. Who is your mother? Perhaps you can refresh my memory?”

“My mother’s name was Ammadine. Sadly, she is gone now.”

Cugel shook is head. “No, I don’t remember. However, it is an appealing name. Was she pretty?”

“She was one of the Seventeen Virgins of Symnathis. They are chosen for their beauty and purity, and their arrival at the Grand Pageant is the signal event of the gala. The caravan that was to deliver the young virgins was one year guarded by a young man calling himself Cugel the Clever. Only two arrived as maidens. My mother was not one of them.”

A smile or a smirk crossed Cugel’s face. Dringo couldn’t tell in the faint light. “Yes, I remember. A misunderstanding of responsibility. I was not given an opportunity to enlighten the Grand Thearch. The caravan arrived without incident, and I would rate my conduct at a value well above the remuneration agreed upon, which I might add was never forthcoming.” He paused and reflected. “Was your mother light of hair with amber-grey eyes?”

Dringo answered, “No.”

“Ahh. Was she short with dark hair and breasts that swelled—”

“My mother,” Dringo interrupted, “was a young girl who lost her high station and gave birth to a bastard son who grew up without a father…” His voice faltered.

Cugel nodded. “This I regret. You should consider that during this time Iucounu was exacting harsh punishments upon me for motives both unreasonable in their pettiness, and lack of proportionality, considering the absence of ill will on my part.” His tone lost its flippancy. “I had thought myself finally free of Iucounu, but he found a way to return from his dissolution. Whether from the Overworld, the Underworld or the Demon-world, I know not. But that fact remains. And his revenge was the Spell of Forlorn Encystment.”

Dringo couldn’t help but look at his father somewhat differently, “I too, know first-hand the brutality of Iucounu, father.”

Cugel relaxed back on the rock. “Tell me your story.”

When Dringo had finished, Cugel said to him, “We have much more to tell each other, and I think you have a great deal to teach me of magic. It is settled then. We will join forces to plan the ultimate prank on the Laughing Magician.”

They clasped hands in their oath. The dawn light had brightened the sky and the red orb crested the very hill they had earlier descended.

“I see the sun still rises,” said Cugel to his son. “It appears that this tired old earth has one more day in it. Let us get started.”

THE END

Afterword:

I discovered Jack Vance at the very beginning of my love affair with fantasy and science fiction. His Vandals of the Void, published by the John C. Winston Company, was either the second or the third hardcover book I ever bought; but it was primarily through the Ace Doubles, with their unique branding element of two novels published back-to-back and their imaginative cover art by such greats as Jack Gaughan, Ed Emshwiller, and Ed Valigursky, that I started developing a true appreciation of Jack’s remarkable skills. Having already worked my way through the Winston juveniles and the Robert Heinlein young adult novels at the local library, I hungered for more sophisticated reading. The Ace Doubles at thirty-five cents each were the perfect affordable next step. Big Planet and Slaves of the Klau; The Dragon Masters and The Five Gold Bands—now that was more what I was looking for!

For a young teen boy, though, his books were a challenge. I found myself using the dictionary much more often than normal. It took a couple of his books for me to realize that he even made up words, for cripes sake! His characters had weird names and often they were not very admirable. I was a DC comic guy and I was used to my Superheroes being, well, Superheroes. Still, there was something about this Jack Vance that appealed to me. It was the publication of The Eyes of the Overworld that made Jack Vance one of my favorite authors. It is the second of the four Dying Earth novels, and the first that introduces the character, Cugel the Clever. I mark that moment as the first time I read a book and actually savored the words that made up the story. Jack Vance’s novels had always transported me to strange worlds full of colors and languages and customs, but now for the first time I realized how he did it. There was a reason I had to occasionally look up a word. There was a purpose in Jack Vance making up a word.

Mark Twain wrote: “The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter — it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”

Jack Vance was asked once at a SF convention how he came up with the name “Cugel,” or, for that matter, any of his character’s names. He answered, “I come up with a name and roll it around on my tongue to see how it sounds.” Jack Vance has been called the Shakespeare of science fiction. I roll that around with my tongue and it sounds just right.

— Byron Tetrick

Tanith Lee EVILLO THE UNCUNNING

Tanith Lee is one of the best-known and most prolific of modern fantasists, with more than a hundred books to her credit, including (among many others) The Birthgrave, Drinking Sapphire Wine, Don’t Bite The Sun, Night’s Master, The Storm Lord, Sung In Shadow, Volkhavaar, Anackire. Night’s Sorceries, Black Unicorn, Days of Grass, The Blood of Roses, Vivia, Reigning Cats and Dogs, When the Lights Go Out, Elephantasm, The Gods Are Thirsty, Cast a Bright Shadow, Here In Cold Hell, Faces Under Water, White As Snow, Mortal Suns, Death of the Day, Metallic Love, No Flame But Mine, Piratica: Singular Girl’s Adventure Upon the High Seas, and a sequel to Piratica, called Piratica 2: Return to Parrot Island. Her numerous short stories have been collected in Red As Blood, Tamastara, The Gorgon, Dreams of Dark and Light, Nightshades, and The Forests of the Night. Her short story “The Gorgon” won her a World Fantasy Award in 1983, and her short story “Elle Est Trois (La Mort)” won her another World Fantasy Award in 1984. Her most recent books are The Secret Books of Paradys and a new collection, Tempting the Gods. She lives with her husband in the south of England.

Filling your head with stories of wild adventure and heroic deeds is a tempting way to pass the time when you live in a place as boring as the tiny charmless village of Ratgrad, but as Evillo the Uncunning is about to learn, trying to duplicate those adventures can get you into more trouble than you’re really prepared to handle…