Free Wyst: Alastor 1716 by Jack Vance Page B

maenads!”
    “No time for sketching!” Thworn called back. “We’ve still
got five or ten miles to go.”
    Jantiff reluctantly put away his sketch pad and caught up
with the others.
    The lane swung out on a meadow and broke into a half-dozen
trails leading off in various directions. Here the group encountered another
set of foragers. “Hello there!” called Uwser, “what’s your house?”
    “We’re desperadoes from Bumbleville in Two-twenty.”
    “That’s a long way from us. “Were all Old Pinkers, from
Seventeen—except Woble and Vich; they’re denizens of the infamous White Palace.
What luck are you having?”
    “Nothing to speak of. We heard a rumor of a lovely bitter-nut
tree, but we couldn’t find it. We ate a few sweet-hops and looked into an
orchard, but the locals warned us off and sent a boy to spy us clear of the premises.
What are you for?”
    “Bonier of all sorts, and we’re a determined group. We’ll
probably push south five or ten miles before we start our forage.”
    “Good luck to you!”
    Thworn led the Old Pinkers south along a trail which took
them at once into a dense forest of black, mace trees. The air in the shade was
dank and chill and smelled strong of mouldering vegetation. Thworn called out:
“Everyone watch for bitternuts and remember there’s a wild plum tree somewhere
in the vicinity!”
    A mill passed with no evidence either of nuts or plums, and
the trail came to a fork. Thworn hesitated. “I don’t recall this fork… I
wonder if we set off along the wrong trail? Well, no matter; the, bonter is—out
there somewhere! So then—the right-hand fork!”
    Ernaly, a rather frail girl with a fastidious manner, said
plaintively: “How far must we, go? I’m really not all that keen on hiking,
especially if you don’t know the way.”
    Thworn said sternly: “My dear girl, naturally we’ve got to
hike! We’re in the middle of the forest with nothing to eat but skane bark.”
    “Please don’t talk about eating,” cried Rehilmus, a blonde
kitten-faced girl with small feet and a ripe figure displayed almost to the
point of sexivation, “I’m ravenous right now.”
    Thworn swung his arm, in a gesture of command. “No
complaints! Up and away and after the banter!”
    The group set out along the right-hand path, which presently
dwindled to a trail winding this way and that under the lowering mace trees.
Kedidah, walking at the rear with Jantiff, grumbled under her breath. “Thworn
doesn’t know where he’s going any more than I do.”
    “What, exactly, are we looking for?” Jantiff asked.
    “These Wold farms are the richest of Weirdland, because they
fringe on the Pleasant Zone. The farmers are mad for copulation; they give
baskets of banter for a bit of fondling. You can’t imagine the tales I’ve
heard: roasted fowl, fried salt-side, pickled batracher, baskets of fruit! All
for a brisk bit of copulation.”
    “It seems too good to be true.”
    Kedidah laughed. “Only if there’s fair play. It’s not unknown
that while the girls are copulating the men are eating until there’s nothing
left, and the walk home is apt to be moody.”
    “So I would imagine,” said Jantiff. “Sunover, for instance,
would never accept such a situation without protest.”
    “I suspect not. Look, Thworn has discovered something!”
    In response to Thworn’s signals the group fell silent. They
advanced cautiously, at last to peer through the foliage out upon a small
farmstead. To one side a half-dozen cattle grazed the meadow; to the other grew
rows of bantock and mealie-bush and tall racks of vat-berries. At the center
stood a rambling structure of timber and petrified soil.
    Garrace pointed: “Look—yonder! Lyssum vines! Is anyone
about?’
    “The place seems deserted,” Uwser muttered. “Notice the fowl
roost to the side!”
    “Well then, I’m for being bold,” said Garrace. “They’re all within, gulping down their noon bonter, and here stand we with our