Slaye stood back, grinning in triumph. “Now away with you and the girl. I keep my word to you, no more. You have your miserable lives: depart.”

“Grant me one desire!” pled Cugel. “Transport us to Almery, to the Valley of the Xzan, where I may rid myself of a canker called Firx!”

“No,” said Slaye. “I deny your heart's-desire. Go at once.”

Cugel lifted Derwe Coreme to her feet. Still dazed, she stared at the wreckage of the hall. Cugel turned to Slaye. “The ghoul waits in the promenade.”

Slaye nodded. “This may well be true. Tomorrow I shall chastise him. Tonight I call sub-world artisans to repair the hall and restore the glory of Cil. Hence! Do you think I care how you fare with the ghoul?” His face became suffused and his hand strayed toward the carbuncles of the amulet. “Hence, at once!”

Cugel took Derwe Coreme's arm and led her from the hall to the great front portal. Slaye stood with feet apart, shoulders hunched, head bent forward, eyes following Cugel's every move. Cugel eased back the bolts, opened the door and stepped out upon the terrace.

There was silence along the promenade. Cugel led Derwe Coreme down the steps and off to the side, into the rank growth of the old garden. Here he paused to listen. From the palace came sounds of activity: rasping and scraping, hoarse shouts and bellows, the flash of many-colored lights. Down the center of the promenade came a tall white shape, stepping from the shadow of one pedestal to the next. It paused to listen to the sounds and watch the flaring lights in wonder. While it was so absorbed Cugel led Derwe Coreme away, behind the dark banks of foliage, and so off into the night.

Chapter III: The Mountains of Magnatz

SHORTLY AFTER SUNRISE Cugel and Derwe Coreme emerged from the hillside byre where they had huddled the night. The air was chill and the sun, a wine-colored bubble behind high mist, produced no warmth. Cugel clapped his arms and jigged back and forth, while Derwe Coreme stood pinch-faced and limp beside the old byre.

Cugel presently became irritated by her posture, which implied a subtle disparagement of himself. “Fetch wood,” he told her curtly. “I will strike a fire; we will breakfast in comfort.”

Without a word the erstwhile princess of Cil went to gather furze. Cugel turned to inspect the dim expanse to the east, voicing an automatic curse upon Lucounu the Laughing Magician, whose rancor had flung him into this northern wasteland.

Derwe Coreme returned with an armful of twigs; Cugel gave a nod of approval. For a brief period after their expulsion from Cil she had carried herself with an inappropriate hauteur, which Cugel had tolerated with a quiet smile for himself. Their first couching had been both eventful and taxing; thereafter Derwe Coreme had modified at least her overt behavior. Her face, delicate and clear of feature, had lost little of its brooding melancholy, but the arrogance had altered, as milk becomes cheese, to a new and wakeful appreciation of reality.