“Patience,” called Cugel. “Allow me time to collect my wits!”

“While you collect your wits we ready the pot of acid in which we plan to immerse your head.”

“Just so, just so,” said Cugel absently, engrossed in the work-book. There was a scraping sound and a tube was thrust into the chamber. Cugel took hold of the tube and twisted it so that it pointed back into the corridor.

“Speak, Cugel!” came the portentous order. “Will you come forth or shall we send a great gust of vile gas into the chamber?”

“You lack that capability,” said Cugel. “I refuse to come forth.”

“You shall see! Let the gas exude!”

The tube pulsed and hissed; from the corridor came a cry of vast dismay. The hissing ceased.

Cugel, not finding what he sought in the work-book, drew forth a tome. This bore the title:

ZARAEDES THE WIZARD
His Compendium of Spells Beware!

Cugel opened and read; finding an appropriate spell, he held the fire-ball close the better to encompass the activating syllables. There were four lines of words, thirty-one syllables in all. Cugel forced them into his brain, where they lay like stones.

A sound behind him? Into the chamber from another portal came the rat-folk. Crouching low, white faces twitching, ears down, they crept forward, tridents leveled.

Cugel menaced them with his sword, then chanted that spell known as the Inside Out and Over, while the rat-folk stared aghast. There came a great tearing sound: a convulsive lift and twist as the passages everted, spewing all through the forest. Rat-folk ran squealing back and forth, and there were also running white things whose nature Cugel could not distinguish by starlight. Rat-folk and the white creatures grappled and tore ferociously at each other, and the forest was filled with snarling and gnashing, shrill screams and small voices raised in outcry. Cugel moved quietly away, and in a bilberry thicket waited out the night.

When dawn arrived he returned cautiously to the hillock, hoping to possess himself of Zaraides' compendium and work-book. There was great litter, and many small corpses, but the articles he sought were not to be found. Regretfully Cugel turned away and presently came upon Fabeln's daughter sitting among the ferns. When he approached, she squeaked at him. Cugel pursed his lips and shook his head in disapproval. He led her to a nearby stream and attempted to wash her, but at the first opportunity she disengaged herself and hid under a rock.

Chapter VII: The Manse of Lucoimu

THE SPELL known as the Inside Out and Over was of derivation so remote as to be forgotten. An unknown Cloud-rider of the Twenty-first Eon had construed an archaic version; the half-legendary Basile Blackweb had refined its contours, a process continued by Veronifer the Bland, who had added a reinforcing resonance. Arche-mand of Glaere had annotated fourteen of its pervul-sions: Phandaal had listed it in the ‘A,’ or ‘Perfected,’ category of his monumental catalogue. In this fashion it had reached the workbook of Zaraides the Sage, where Cugel, immured under a hillock, had found it and spoken it forth.