Journey to the Isles of Atlantis and Other Fanciful Excursions

by Brian Stableford

  “Vatenlair,” said the king.

  “Yes, Vatenlair, the enchanter, whom I beg you to accept as a son-in-law. I have been able to appreciate his qualities; I believe that he will make me happy. He has made me a fay, whose power is not yet very great, but which he will be able to develop subsequently. In choosing him, I am not making a misalliance; on the contrary, I am elevating myself, for no prince is his equal.” Kneeling before the king, she added: “Give us your consent and you will have secured your daughter’s happiness.”

  Vatenlair had also thrown himself at the king’s knees. “Sire,” he said, “I beg you humbly to give me a favorable response. My power as an enchanter inclines before yours. I only want to take your daughter’s hand by your will.”

  The king was deeply moved; he took the hands of the two young people and joined them together, and having searched in vain for a phrase that was both dignified and cordial, he simply said to them: “Be happy.”

  That decision was not taken without discontenting Queen Betasse, whose mind was very narrow and who thought there was nothing finer than a prince. For a week she had arguments with the king, who, in order to put an end to them, made the decision to give Vatenlair titles. He named him successively Baron de Feusansmeche, in memory of the installation of gas in the palace, and then Marquis de la Tablette, in recognition of the services rendered to him by the instrument that permitted him to speak and hear at a distance. The queen still raised opposition. Then the king decided to name him Comte de Lumière, in order to make allusion to the instantaneous illumination of the palace.

  “Certainly,” said the queen, “all these titles bring him nearer to us, but you wouldn’t give our daughter to any of your subjects nearing those titles.”

  “Well, Madame, since you want absolutely for him to be a prince, and you consider that dignity to be above all the others and are forgetting that he’s already an enchanter, I’ll unite the two titles and appoint him Prince. He will, therefore, be Prince Enchanter! Now you have no further objections to make to me.”

  The queen gave in.

  They immediately occupied themselves with preparations for the mirage, which was to be as brilliant as possible. First of all they invited the king’s twenty-three brothers, all sovereigns of one of the provinces of Alphabetia; then they had the gardens decorated, and also Betaville, through which the cortege was to pass. For a month there was an extraordinary animation, which changed the aspect of that tranquil land completely.

  For his part, Vatenlair, who wanted to make new surprises, did not waste his time. His mechanical factories were full of skillful workers whom he had trained since his arrival, and who, under his direction, constructed a host of machines each more ingenious than the last.

  Since his carriage accident, the king no longer wanted to go abroad other than on foot. That irrevocable decision annoyed Princess Betinette, who thought that it detracted from the magnificence of the royal cortege. Vatenlair reassured her. He promised to make horseless carriages, and also machines that would replace horses.

  Everything was therefore going well and nothing else seemed likely to delay the ceremony when the king suddenly complained of sharp pains in his side, which obliged him to consult his physician.

  The king’s physician was also a surgeon; he examined the sovereign’s scarred wounds again and declared that he could not understand the further suffering. All the lead pellets had been extracted, and, unless others still remained in the flesh, he could not see what could be causing the unusual pains. On the other hand, is any remained, how could they find them reliably? It would be dangerous to make further excavations at random.

  Vatenlair, informed of the result of the physician’s consultation, took charge of resolving the question. He had a mysterious box bought to the king’s apartment, and then a white screen, and, having placed the king between the two objects, he said: “I’m going to make the invisible visible for you. On this white screen, as soon as I’ve activated my machine, the king’s skeleton will be reproduced...”

  At the word skeleton, the king, who already saw himself dead, cried: “No, no, Vatenlair! I don’t want to be subjected to this operation!”

  “It’s not an operation, Sire,” the engineer replied. “No one will touch you, and you won’t suffer at all. You will, in fact, see your bones on this screen, as they are under your flesh, and if they contain a foreign body, it will show up in the same way. If, therefore, you still have lead pellets in any part of your body, the physician will know where they are.”

  In spite of those explanations, it was not easy to persuade the king to consent to the exploration of his body.

  When the king’s skeleton appeared on the screen. Queen Betasse had an attack of nerves that it was necessary to treat first; and it was quite an affair thereafter to explain to her that the king was not running any danger.

  They recommenced the experiment, and they did, indeed perceive several lead pellets, represented by black stains, which were still lodged beneath the king’s epidermis. The physician was then able to operate safely the extraction of those foreign bodies, and the king was immediately relieved.

  “My dear enchanter,” said the king to Vatenlair, “I have given you titles; I have given you my daughter; I’m still in your debt, and I won’t ever be able to acquit myself. Since I’ve known you, you’ve shown me so many marvelous things that my poor head is lost therein.”

  “I’ll enable you see others,” said Vatenlair, “and gradually, all those marvels will seem natural to you.”

  “But can’t I become an enchanter too?” said the king.

  “That,” said the engineer, “isn’t in my power. For the moment, content yourself with being enchanted.”

  XIII. In which there is question of weddings, deaths and conspiracies, and in which Remplume is seen

  to reappear.

  The day of the marriage of Princess Betinette and Prince Enchanter had arrived. In Betaville, ornamented with flowers, flags and streamers, the bells were ringing at full tilt. Songs of delight were heard on all sides; the people had put on their festival clothes and all faces were smiling.

  The king’s brothers had arrived, except for King Omega, who, discontented with the fashion in which his son had acted, had judged it appropriate to absent himself.

  One saw, therefore, King Alpha, who presided over all congresses; Kings Gamma, Delta, Zeta, Eta and Theta; Kings Epsolin and Upsilon, who were twins; Kings Pi, Phi, Chi, Psi and Xi of southern Alphabetia; Kings Iota and Omicron, who were both small, and finally, Kings Kappa, Lambda, Mu, Nu, Rho, Sigma and Tau, magnificently clad. Each of those sovereigns had brought a numerous retinue, the multicolored costumes of which, gilded in all the seams, sparkled in the sunlight.

  While they were chatting on the lawn of the royal palace, one of King Beta’s chamberlains came to announce to them that his master begged them not to make use of their mounts, for his intention was not to ride on a horse. That unexpected decision, which prevented them from showing off all their advantages, could not fail to discontent them, but another chamberlain came in his turn to tell them that places were reserved for them in new vehicles that moved without horses, and were the invention of the bridegroom Prince.

  Immediately, they saw two hundred chariots advancing, each conducted by a servant. They were all of different forms, but those reserved for the sovereigns resembled boats and had masts ornamented with pennants and supporting royal coats of arms. King Beta’s, in which the queen took her place, had the form of a violet flower, which represented in large scale that of the potato. That was a flattery on the part of Vatenlair, to recall the product obtained by the king with the original seed that he had made in the summer palace.

  The young spouses had a special means of locomotion, which had two wheels placed one in front of the other and linked by iron rods that supported a small saddle. The machine was caused to move with the aid of pedals, on which they placed their feet.

  That innovation had an immense success.
No cortege so luxurious, so brilliant and so original had ever been seen.

  In the mobile flower sat King Beta, full of pride, his number one crown on his head and his scepter in his hand, while Princess Betinette and Prince Enchanter rode to either side of his chariot.

  That evening, at the ball, there as a new marvel for the guests, in seeing the brilliant lighting in the drawing rooms, which was a novelty for them.

  For an entire week there was nothing but fêtes and surprises of every kind, so that the sovereigns returned to their Estates delighted with the reception that they had been given, but also a little jealous.

  Those excessive pleasures had wearied King Beta a great deal, however, and especially Queen Betasse, whose health left much to be desired. She took to her bed after the departure of the kings, languished for a few months, and eventually died, leaving the king inconsolable.

  It was in vain that Prince Enchanter multiplied the most astonishing inventions in order to distract him, and Princess Betinette surrounded him with cares and covered him with filial caresses; the king did not want to be consoled, and a month after the queen, he followed her into the tomb.

  Princess Betinette succeeded him on the throne, but she was not loved as her father had been; the people did not know her, for she rarely showed herself to them; then too, the choice she had made in preferring a stranger for a husband was contrary to all custom. Remplume maintained those pernicious ideas throughout the realm, and did not hesitate to calumniate Vatenlair by saying that he had passed himself off as a sorcerer with the king in order to marry the princess, but that he was only an impostor.

  As soon as he had knowledge of these malevolent rumors, Vatenlair strongly suspected that Remplume was their instigator, but he wanted to make sure of it. Evidently, there must be a conspiracy, and therefore conspirators, but how could he discover the place of their meetings and introduce himself into it? That was the difficulty.

  He summoned the prefect of police—for he had a prefect of police, who had been that of his father-in-law, King Beta. He was a little old man with a forbidding manner; his eyes, veiling by thick eyebrows, never looked anyone in the face; his toothless mouth was dissimulated by a unkempt beard, and his cranium, as bare and yellow as a duck’s egg, was sheltered beneath a black skullcap that never quit him. His name was Ratatinus.21

  Throughout King Beta’s reign, Ratatinus had had nothing to do; his position had been a veritable sinecure. On the death of King Beta it had been necessary for him to emerge from his torpor somewhat; Remplume was agitating the country, and Vatenlair charge him every day with missions to which he was not accustomed, but as the inhabitants of Betaville were all his friends, he was reluctant to act against them, all the more so because he gladly accepted their interested little gifts.

  Vatenlair, however, who did not joke, had threatened him with disgrace if he did not show more activity. He had therefore harassed a few petty merchants who had not been generous with him, a joiner, among others, who had worked several times for Vatenlair and complained of his exigencies.

  Ratatinus therefore rendered to the engineer’s orders.

  “Monsieur Prefect of Police,” said the engineer. “I know that there is much chatter on our account; I’m astonished that you have not yet old me anything about it.”

  “I can’t prevent inconsequential gossip,” said Ratatinus. “It existed in the time of the late king, who did not complain about it.”

  “The late king, who was too good, acted in his fashion. Queen Betinette, whose husband I am, does not want to be subjected to that species of opposition, and she has charged me with telling you to put a stop to it.”

  “By what means, Prince? What means? I can’t stop people talking.”

  “You don’t know your profession, then, Monsieur Ratatinus? Well, I’ll teach you. On my arrival in your country I stirred up a great deal of jealousy; people forget the progress that I have brought about, but they profit from it nevertheless. My science is denied because no one can equal it, and in order to succeed in undermining me, they dare to attack the queen. You must know the man who is at the head of the conspiracy.”

  “You’re mistaken, Prince. There is no conspiracy, merely a few malcontents...”

  “All right, malcontents. You must know them.”

  “Oh, they’re people of no importance.”

  “You speak very lightly. I want to know who they are.”

  “Well, I can cite one to you, a joiner, Rabotin, is one of your workers, a vulgar man. Those people don’t always measure their words and go beyond their thoughts.”

  “And that’s all? You don’t know any others?”

  “There are a few others, but their names don’t come to mind.”

  “Isn’t Remplume, the former astrologer of the late king, also one of them?”

  “Remplume!”

  “Yes, Remplume. You know him well.”

  “I know him, but I’ve never heard him say anything against the queen.”

  “Nor against me?”

  “Oh, he wouldn’t dare.”

  “You think so? So much the better for him. In any case, I want to interrogate the joiner Rabotin. Be kind enough to send him to me today. Then I intend, you understand, that all these rumors cease immediately. You have powers to make them cease, of which you’re not making use: fines and prison. If you want to keep your place, you have what you need. Go, Monsieur!”

  No one had ever talked to Ratatinus like that. He was exasperated. He quit the prince with ideas of revolt and vengeance, and promised himself to recount his conversation to Remplume, whom he congratulated himself quietly for not having denounced. Suspicions now weighing on Rabotin, he immediately sent him an order to present himself to the prince, and as the poor joiner was inoffensive, the thought that Vatenlair, reassured, would not take his investigation any further.

  Rabotin was a joiner who had crossed his path. He was not a bad man; on the contrary, he liked work and as skillful, but he had the fault of being too slow and too meticulous. When he was pressed he lost his head and sent away all callers. It was then that he inveighed against Vatenlair, who was almost his only client, and who always demanded that his orders be carried out with rapidity. When he had vented his spleen, he resumed his work with a will and quickly forgot his ill humor. He was an orderly man who kept himself to himself and did not frequent his comrades; urged by Remplume, they had tried several times to make him share their ideas of revolt, but he had always refused their propositions and criticized their actions.

  “Why,” he said to them, “do you want me to be hostile to a man who gives us work? Without him, would I have been able to establish myself? And what were you doing before he came? Believe me, don’t kill the chicken that gives us eggs!”

  Before his inertia, the others had not persisted, but they had ceased their confidences.

  When the prefect of police gave Rabotin the order to go to see the prince he carefully refrained from telling him why he had been summoned; the joiner thought, therefore, that he was going in search of a new commission, and it was with a light step that he went to the palace.

  On entering the prince’s cabinet, Rabotin saw immediately that it was not a matter of a new commission. Vatenlair seemed anxious.

  “Approach,” he said to the joiner. “It appears that you’ve been speaking ill of me?”

  Rabotin went scarlet. “Me! Who told you that?”

  “Ratatinus, the Prefect of Police.”

  Rabotin reflected momentarily, and then responded abruptly: “Well, yes, it’s true.”

  Vatenlair seemed astonished

  “Yes,” the workman went on, “there are times, when you press me for the work, that I don’t know where my head is any longer, and I say a heap of stupid things to relieve myself; but it’s to myself that I say that and not to others, I’m not like...”

  Suddenly, he stopped, sensing that he was about to go too far.

  “Why are you stopping? You’re afraid of denouncing someon
e? But my poor Rabotin, you’re forgetting that I know everything, and don’t need to be told anything. Do you think I don’t know about Remplume’s maneuvers?”

  “What! You know?” said the naïve joiner

  “But I scorn them, and when I want to stop them, I count on being able to find you, if I need you.”

  “I’m entirely devoted to you,” said Rabotin.

  “Are you sure? Just now you didn’t want to name my enemy.”

  “There was no need, since your prefect of police had already designated him to you.”

  “That’s where you’re mistaken. It’s you that Ratatinus had designated, in order to deflect suspicions and save Remplume.”

  “What! It’s Ratatinus who denounced me! But he’s a miserable calumniator.”

  “So I didn’t believe him, and that’s not why I sent for you.”

  “Speak, Sire; I’ll obey you.”

  “Sire? No, no flatteries. I’m only the queen’s husband, and for you, at the moment, the engineer, your employer. Now, this is what I’m asking of you: join the league of malcontents.”

  Rabotin started “Me! Ally myself with those wretches! Obey Remplume, who’s the vilest of men! I’d rather...”

  “Stop, Rabotin, for I’ve just asked you to join them.”

  “What! You want…?”

  “Yes, I want you to be part of the conspiracy, because I need a friend within it.”

  “A friend?”

  “Don’t you want to be one?”

  “Yes, oh, yes! What would I have to do, then?”

  “Well, if there’s a conspiracy...”

  “What! Of course there’s a conspiracy! You know that full well, since you’ve named its leader.”

  “Remplume—yes. But the conspirators meet somewhere.”

  “Oh, that’s not a mystery; everyone in Betaville knows that the conspirators spend the night of Saturday and Sunday in the Leopard Tavern. At midnight, when all the drinkers have gone and the tavern is closed, they go back through a little door and are admitted by a password. The room where they meet is dimly lit, so they don’t know one another; the only know the leader, Remplume.”