Cugel shook his fist a final time, then took to his heels and fled into the forest.

Chapter VI: The Cave in the Forest

THROUGH THE Old Forest came Cugel, step by furtive step, pausing often to listen for breaking twig or quiet footfall or even the exhalation of a breath. His caution, though it made for slow progress, was neither theoretical nor impractical; others wandered the forest with anxieties and yearnings greatly at odds with his own. All one terrible dusk he had fled and finally outdistanced a pair of deodands; on another occasion he had stopped short at the very brink of a glade where a leucomorph had stood musing: whereupon Cugel had become more diffident and furtive than ever, skulking from tree to tree, peering and listening, darting across open spaces with an extravagantly delicate gait, as if contact with the ground pained his feet.

During a middle afternoon he came upon a small dank glade surrounded by black mandouars, tall and porten-tuous as hooded monks. A few red rays slanting into the glade, illumined a single twisted quince tree, where hung a strip of parchment Standing back in the shadows Cugel studied the glade at length, then stepping forward took the parchment. In crabbed characters a message was indicated:

Zaraides the Sage makes a generous offer! He who finds this message may request and obtain an hour of judicious counsel at no charge. Into a nearby hillock opens a cave; the Sage will be found within.

Cugel studied the parchment with puzzlement. A large question hung in the air: why should Zaraides give forth his lore with such casual largesse? The purportedly free was seldom as represented; in one guise or another the Law of Equivalence must prevail. If Zaraides offered counsel — dismissing the premise of absolute altruism — he expected some commodity in return: at minimum an inflation of self-esteem, or knowledge regarding distant events, or polite attention at a recitation of odes, or some such service. And Cugel re-read the message, his skepticism, if anything augmented. He would have flung the parchment aside had not he felt a real and urgent need for information: specifically knowledge regarding the most secure route to the manse of Lucounu, together with a method for rendering the Laughing Magician helpless.

Cugel looked all about, seeking the hillock to which Zaraides referred. Across the glade the ground seemed to rise, and lifting his eyes Cugel noticed gnarled limbs and clotted foliage on high, as if a number of daobados grew on lofty ground.

With maximum vigilance Cugel proceeded through the forest, and presently was halted by a sudden up-thrust of gray rock crowned with trees and vines: undoubtedly the hillock in question.

Cugel stood pulling at his chin, showing his teeth in a grimace of doubt. He listened: quiet, utter and complete. Keeping to the shadows, he continued around the hillock, and presently came upon the cave: an arched opening into the rock as high as a man, as wide as bis outstretched arms. Above hung a placard printed in untidy characters: