Cugel threw away the line, leapt for the oars and frantically rowed for the southern shore. A hand as large as a house raised from the water, groping. Marlinka screamed. There was a great turbulence, a prodigious surge of water which flung the boat toward the shore like a chip, and Magnatz sat up in the center of Lake Vult.

From the village came the sound of the warning gong, a frenzied clanging.

Magnatz heaved himself to his knees, water and muck draining from his vast body. The anchor which had pierced his nostril still hung in place, and a thick black fluid issued from the wound. He raised a great arm and slapped petulantly at the boat. The impact threw up a wall of foam which engulfed the boat, spilled treasure, Cugel and the girl toppling through the dark depths of the lake.

Cugel kicked and thrust, and propelled himself to the seething surface. Magnatz had gained his feet and was looking toward Vull.

Cugel swam to the beach and staggered ashore. Marlinka had drowned, and was nowhere to be seen. Across the lake Magnatz was wading slowly toward the village.

Cugel waited no longer. He turned and ran with all speed up the mountainside.

Chapter IV: The Sorcerer Pharesm

THE MOUNTAINS WERE BEHIND the dark defiles, the tarns, the echoing stone heights — all now a sooty bulk to the north. For a time Cugel wandered a region of low rounded hills the color and texture of old wood, with groves of blue-black trees dense along the ridges, then came upon a faint trail which took him south by long swings and slants, and at last broke out over a vast dim plain. A half-mile to the right rose a line of tall cliffs, which instantly attracted his attention, bringing him a haunting pang of deja-vu. He stared mystified. At some time in the past he had known these cliffs: how? when? His memory provided no response.

He settled himself upon a low lichen-covered rock to rest, but now Firx became impatient and inflicted a stimulating pang. Cugel leapt to his feet, groaning with weariness and shaking his fist to the southwest, the presumable direction of Almery. “lucounu, lucouuu! If I could repay a tenth of your offenses, the world would think me harsh!”

He set off down the trail, under the cliffs which had affected him with such poignant but impossible recollections. Far below spread the plain, filling three-quarters of the horizon with colors much like those of the Uchened rock Cugel had just departed: black patches of woodland: a gray crumble where ruins filled an entire valley; nondescript streaks of gray-green, lavender, gray-brown; the leaden glint of two great rivers disappearing into the haze of distance.