“Where is our salt?” the two of them said, together. Lirianne gave them each a pinch of salt from the pouch at her belt. “Show me,” she said, “and you shall have pepper too.”
The Tarn House did not lack for custom. Here sat a whitehaired man with a long beard, spooning up some vile purple stew. There lounged a dark-haired slattern, nursing her glass of wine as if it were a newborn babe. Near the wooden casks that lined one wall a ferret-faced man with scruffy whiskers was sucking snails out of their shells. Though his eyes struck Chimwazle as sly and sinister, the buttons on his vest were silver and his hat sported a fan of peacock feathers, suggesting that he did not lack for means. Closer to the hearth fire, a man and wife crowded around a table with their two large and lumpish sons, sharing a huge meat pie. From the look of them, they had wandered here from some land where the only color was brown. The father sported a thick beard; his sons displayed bushy mustaches that covered their mouths. Their mother’s mustache was finer, allowing one to see her lips.
The rustics stank of cabbage, so Chimwazle hied to the far side of the room and joined the prosperous fellow with the silver buttons on his vest.” How are your snails?” he inquired.
“Slimy and without savor. I do not recommend them.”
Chimwazle pulled out a chair. “I am the Great Chimwazle.”
“And I Prince Rocallo the Redoubtable.”
Chimwazle frowned. “Prince of what?”
“Just so.” The prince sucked another snail, and dropped the empty shell onto the floor.
That answer did not please him. “The Great Chimwazle is no man to trifle with,” he warned the so-called princeling.
“Yet here you sit, in the Tarn House.”
“With you,” observed Chimwazle, somewhat peevishly.
The landlord made his appearance, bowing and scraping as was appropriate for one of his station. “How may I serve you?”
“I will try a dish of your famous hissing eels.”
The innkeep gave an apologetic cough. “Alas, the eels are…ah…off the bill of fare.”
“What? How so? Your sign suggests that hissing eels are the specialty of the house.”
“And so they were, in other days. Delicious creatures, but mischievous. One ate a wizard’s concubine, and the wizard was so wroth he set the tarn to boiling and extinguished all the rest.”
“Perhaps you should change the sign.”
“Every day I think the same when I awaken. But then I think, the world may end today, should I spend my final hours perched upon a ladder with a paintbrush in my hand? I pour myself some wine and sit down to cogitate upon the matter, and by evening I find the urge has passed.”
“Your urges do not concern me,” said Chimwazle. “Since you have no eels, I must settle for a roast fowl, well crisped.”
The innkeep looked lachrymose. “Alas, this clime is not salubrious for chicken.”
“Fish?”
“From the tarn?” The man shuddered. “I would advise against it. Most unwholesome, those waters.”
Chimwazle was growing vexed. His companion leaned across the table and said, “On no account should you attempt a bowl of scrumby. The gristle pies are also to be avoided.”
“Begging your pardon,” said the landlord, “but meat pies is all we have just now.”
“What sort of meat is in these pies?” asked Chimwazle.
“Brown,” said the landlord. “And chunks of grey.”
“A meat pie, then.” There seemed to be no help for it.
The pie was large, admittedly; that was the best that could be said for it. What meat Chimwazle found was chiefly gristle, here and there a chunk of yellow fat, and once something that crunched suspiciously when he bit into it. There was more grey meat than brown, and once a chunk that glistened green. He found a carrot too, or perhaps it was a finger. In either case, it had been overcooked. Of the crust, the less said, the better.
Finally Chimwazle pushed the pie away from him. No more than a quarter had been consumed. “A wiser man might have heeded my warning,” said Rocallo.
“A wiser man with a fuller belly, perhaps.” That was problem with Twk-men; no matter how many you ate, an hour later you were hungry again. “The earth is old, but the night is young.” The Great Chimwazle produced a pack of painted placards from his sleeve. “Have you played peggoty? A jolly game, that goes well with ale. Perhaps you will assay a few rounds with me?”
“The game is unfamiliar to me, but I am quick to learn,” said Rocallo. “If you will explain the rudiments, I should be glad to try my hand.”
Chimwazle shuffled the placards.
The inn was grander than Lirianne had expected, and seemed queer and out of place, not at all the sort of establishment she would have expected to find along a forest road in the Land of the Falling Wall. “Famous for Our Hissing Eels,” she read aloud, and laughed. Behind the inn a sliver of the setting sun floated red upon the black waters of the tarn.
The Twk-men buzzed around her on their dragonflies. More and more had joined Lirianne as she made her way along the road. Two score, four, a hundred; by now she had lost count. The gauzy wings of their mounts trilled against the evening air. The purple dusk hummed to the sound of small angry voices.
Lirianne pinched her nose and took a sniff. The scent of sorcery was so strong it almost made her sneeze. There was magic here. “Oho,” she said. “I smell wizard.”
Whistling a spritely tune, she sauntered closer. A ramshackle cart was drawn up near the bottom of the steps. Slumped against one of its wheels was a huge, ugly man, bigbellied and ripe, with coarse dark hair sprouting from his ears and nostrils. He looked up as Lirianne approached. “I would not go up there if I were you. It is a bad place. Men go in. No men come out.”
“Well, I am no man as you can plainly see, and I
“Polymumpho is my name. I am a Pooner.”
“I am not familiar with the Pooners.”
“Few are.” He shrugged, a massive rippling of his shoulders. “Are those your Twk-men? Tell them my master went inside the inn to hide.”
“Master?”
“Three years ago I played at peggoty with Chimwazle. When my coin ran out, I bet myself.”
“Is your master a sorcerer?”
Another shrug. “He thinks he is.”
Lirianne touched the hilt of Tickle-Me-Sweet. “Then you may consider yourself free. I shall make good your debt for you.”
“Truly?” He got to his feet. “Can I have the cart?”
“If you wish.”
A wide grin split his face. “Hop on, and I will carry you to Kaiin. You will be safe, I promise you. Pooners only eat the flesh of men when the stars are in alignment.”
Lirianne glanced up. Half a dozen stars were visible above the trees, dusty diamonds glimmering in a purple velvet sky. “And who will be the judge of whether the stars are properly aligned for such a feast, or no?”
“On that account you may place your trust in me.”
She giggled. “No, I think not. I am for the inn.”
“And I for the road.” The Pooner lifted the traces of the cart. “If Chimwazle complains of my absence, tell him that my debt is yours.”
“I shall.” Lirianne watched as Polymumpho rumbled off toward Kaiin, the empty cart bouncing and jouncing behind him. She scampered up the winding stone steps, and pushed her way through the door into the Tarn House.
The common room smelled of mold and smoke and ghouls, and a little leucomorph as well, though none such were presently in evidence. One table was packed with hairy rustics, another occupied by a big-bosomed slattern
