Free The Eyes of the Overworld by Jack Vance Page B

elevate him to the post of Major-Domo of the Palace!”
    â€œExalted,” stammered Yodo, “this is a signal honor indeed.”
    â€œDrink then of the ancient vintage, to solemnize this new dignity!”
    Yodo bowed low. “With the most heartfelt gratitude, Exalted.” He raised the goblet, drank. Derwe Coreme watched indifferently. Yodo put down the goblet, frowned, gave a convulsive jerk, turned a startled glance at Cugel, fell to the rug, cried out, twitched and lay still.
    Cugel frowningly inspected Derwe Coreme. She appeared as startled as had Yodo. Now she turned to look at him. “Why did you poison Yodo?”
    â€œIt was your doing,” said Cugel. “Did you not order poison in the wine?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œYou must say ‘No, Exalted’.”
    â€œNo, Exalted.”
    â€œIf you did not — who?”
    â€œI am perplexed. The poison perhaps was meant for me.”
    â€œOr both of us.” Cugel signaled one of the footmen. “Remove the corpse of Yodo.”
    The footman signaled a pair of hooded under-servants, who carried off the unfortunate major-domo.
    Cugel took the crystal goblets, stared down into the amber liquid, but did not communicate his thoughts. Derwe Coreme leaned back in her chair, contemplated him at length. “I am puzzled,” she said presently. “You are a man past the teaching of my experience. I cannot decide upon the colour of your soul.”
    Cugel was charmed by the quaint turn of phrase. “You see souls in color, then?”
    â€œIndeed. It was the birth-gift of a lady sorceress, who also provided me my walking boat. She is dead and I am alone, with no friend nor any who thinks of me with love. And so I have ruled Cil with little joy. And now you are here, with a soul which flickers through many colours, like that of no human man to come before me.”
    Cugel forbore to mention Firx, whose own spiritual exhalation, mingling with that of Cugel’s, undoubtedly caused the variegation Derwe Coreme had noted. “There is a reason for this effect,” said Cugel, “which in due course will be voided, or so I hope. Until then, you may regard my soul as one shining with the purest ray imaginable.”
    â€œI will try to keep this in mind, Exalted.”
    Cugel frowned. In Derwe Coreme’s remarks and the poise of her head he noted barely concealed insolence, which he found exasperating. Still, there was ample time to correct the matter after learning the use of the amulet, a business of prime urgency. Cugel leaned back into the cushions, and spoke as one who muses idly: “Everywhere at this time of Earth’s dying exceptional circumstances are to be noted. Recently, at the manse of Iucounu the Laughing Magician, I saw a great libram which indexed all the writings of magic, and all styles of thaumaturgical rune. Perhaps you have similar volumes in your library?”
    â€œIt well may be,” said Derwe Coreme. “The Fourteenth Garth Haxt of Slaye was a diligent collator, and compiled a voluminous pandect on the subject.”
    Cugel clapped his hands together. “I wish to see this important work at once!”
    Derwe Coreme looked at him in wonder. “Are you then such a bibliophile? A pity, because The Eighth Rubel Zaff ordered this particular compendium submerged off Cape Horizon.”
    Cugel made a sour face. “Are no other treatises at hand?”
    â€œDoubtless,” said Derwe Coreme. “The library occupies the whole of the north wing. But will not tomorrow suffice for your research?” And, stretching in languid warmth, she contrived to twist her body into first one luxurious position, then another.
    Cugel drank deep from a black glass goblet. “Yes, there is no haste in this matter. And now —” He was interrupted by a woman of middle age in voluminous brown garments, evidently one of the under-servants, who at this moment rushed into the