The Clocks of Iraz

by L. Sprague DeCamp

  "Hocus pocus

  Keep your locus

  Do not soak us!"

  "Then he sat down and resumed eating, saying: 'If we get wet, O Forvil, you shall pay for the damage to our raiment.'

  "The guests likewise remained seated and ate, albeit nervously, since they did not wish on one hand to wet their finery, nor on the other to entreat their king discourteously by fleeing the tide whilst he faced it unflinching. And so things went for a time, whilst the picnic was consumed and the sweet wines were poured.

  "But, strangely, the tide failed to rise at the appointed time. People looked surreptitiously at pocket sundials and at one another and—with deepening awe—at their lively little king, who ate and drank unconcerned. At last there was no doubt about it, that the tide had been halted in its wonted rise. Forvil stared at his king with his fat face the color of gypsum plaster.

  "Fusinian was perturbed by this phenomenon, for he knew well enough that he had uttered no real magical spell, nor summoned a horde of demons to hold back the tide. And, whilst he pondered— keeping a straight face the whiles—one of his children approached him, saying: 'Daddy, a lady up on the hill asked us to give this to you.'

  "Fusinian saw that the note was from the witch Gloe, who dwelt in the hills of southern Kortoli and had long coveted the post of chief magician of the kingdom. The fact was that she was not even a licensed wizardess, because of a long-standing feud betwixt her and Fusinian's Bureau of Commerce and Licenses. She had come uninvited to the picnic in hope of persuading King Fusinian to intervene with his bureaucrats. When, by her super-normal powers, she overheard the colloquy between Fusinian and Forvil, she seized the opportunity and, concealed in the woods above the bluff, cast her mightiest spell, to hold back the tide.

  "Glow's powers were, however, limited, as are those of all sentient beings. For most of an hour she held back the tide but then felt her authority weakening. She therefore scribbled this note and called to her the young prince, who was playing tag with the other children on the slope of the bluff. The note said: 'Gloe to His Majesty: Sire, my spell has slipped, and the waters are returning. Get you to higher ground.'

  "Fusinian divined what had happened. But, if he confessed the truth, all the effect of retarding the tide would be lost, and Forvil would win this round. So he stood up and cried:

  " 'My friends, we have sat here gorging and swilling longer than is good for us. To settle our stomachs, I ordain a race to the top of yonder bluff. There shall be three classes: first, the children below the age of thirteen; the winner shall have a pony from the royal stables. Second: the ladies, for whom the prize shall be a silver tiara from the royal coffers. Third: the men, the swiftest of whom shall receive a crossbow from the royal armory. I warn you that I shall take part in the third race. Since, howsomever, 'twere ridiculous to award a prize to myself, I will, if I win, bestow it upon him who comes in second. Line up, children! Ready, set, go!' And the children were off like the wind in a yelling mob. Then he said: 'Line up, girls! You'd better hike those gowns up to the knee, if you would make any speed. Ready, set, go! And now, gentlemen…' And he repeated the performance with the men."

  Zerlik put in: "If the king were competing, would not all the courtiers make a point of losing?"

  "With some kings, aye; but not with Fusinian, whom they knew to be a true sportsman. They knew that he would resent it if he caught anyone patronizing him by deliberately holding back. So they all ran their best. Being very wiry and active, Fusinian did in sooth reach the top of the bluff the first of the men. But poor Forvil, being fat, was puffing and waddling along at the base of the bluff when the tide came in with a rush, knocked him down, rolled him over, and half drowned him before a pair of servants pulled him out of the water.

  "Fusinian always disclaimed any hand in the phenomenon of the tides, saying that it must have been the libration of the moon or some such thing. But his folk believed not these disclaimers and looked upon him with more awe than ever."

  "Did he reward the witch?"

  "Nay; for he said that she'd acted without authorization and, moreover, had given him a very uncomfortable time whilst trying to think his way out of the predicament into which she had plunged him. When he came down with a persistent itch on the soles of his feet, he suspected that Gloe in revenge had sent it upon him by goe'tic magic. But nought could be proven; and his chief wizard, Doctor Aichos, managed to cure it."

  "And the Honorable Forvil?"

  "In consequence of these events, Fusinian entertained a lively suspicion of his cousin. Being Fusinian, he thought of an original way to discourage Forvil from hanging about the court and intriguing for power. Pretending that Forvil was a connoisseur of all the arts, he invited him down to the dungeon beneath his palace to listen to Fusinian practicing on his bagpipes. Forvil's perceptive criticisms of his playing, he said, would soon make him the finest piper in Novaria. After three days of this, Forvil 'got religion,' as they say, and became a priest of Astis. Thereafter his sacerdotal duties furnished him with a legitimate excuse for not listening to the howls of the royal instrument. In any case, he gave up his intrigues lest worse befall him."

  An hour after sunrise, the fog thinned. A land breeze sprang up. The fog dissolved into patches and dwindled away; the sun blazed forth. Jorian hoisted the anchor and broke out the yellow sails. When they were well out to sea, Zerlik said:

  "How convenient, that the wind should take us out to sea again when we wish to go thither! Did you pray to your Psaan?"

  Jorian shook his head. "I like it not. A regular land breeze springs up at night and takes coasters and fishermen out to sea ere dawn. This feels like the kind of easter that heralds a storm… Murrain! Do I see ships off our starboard bow?"

  Zerlik ducked around the mizzen. "Aye, that you do! One is a sailing ship; the other looks like some sort of galley but is also under sail."

  'Take the tiller." Through the spyglass, Jorian examined the ships, which were bearing briskly down upon the Flying Fish. "Fry my balls, but I'm a dolt for not keeping a sharper watch! I ought to have seen them as soon as their mastheads showed. Now they've seen us."

  "Pirates?"

  "Indubitably. That blue thing they fly is the Algarthian flag."

  "Can we flee?"

  "No chance, curse it. If I knew the rocks and shoals hereabouts, I might seek refuge in water too shallow for them to follow; but I don't. If we had Karadur, belike he could cast a glamor on us to make us invisible, or at least to make us look like a rock in the sea. But we have him not."

  "Why do the Twelve Cities not get together to extirpate this nuisance?"

  "Because they're too busy quarreling amongst themselves, and one is ever hiring the pirates to plague another. Some years ago, in the reign of Tonio of Xylar, the Syndicate of Ir did hire the Zolonian navy to root the rascals out. But then the Novarians lapsed into their old ways, and the pirates sprang up in the archipelago again."

  "You need an all-powerful emperor, like our king. What shall we do if they stop us?"

  "We're humble fishermen, remember? Get a line over the side and troll."

  The approaching ships were now near enough for details to be made out. One was a carack, converted from merchant service. The other had been a bireme, which now had her lower oar ports blocked to make her more serviceable in rough weather. Her oars had been shipped, but now several were thrust out through the upper ports on each side to add to her speed.

  "I will not!" said Zerlik.

  Jorian turned a puzzled frown. "Will not what?"

  "Pretend to be a humble fisherman! I have been running and hiding ever since I met you, and I am sick of it. I will defy these scoundrels to do their worst!"

  "Calm down, you idiot! You can't fight a whole shipload of freebooters."

  "I care not!" cried Zerlik, becoming ever more excited. "At least, I shall take a few of these wretches with me!"

  He ducked into the cabin and reappeared with his scimitar, which he unwrapped from its oilsk
in covering and drew from its sheath. He waved it at the approaching ships, forcing Jorian to duck to avoid getting slashed.

  "Come on!" shrilled Zerlik. "I defy you! Come, and you shall taste the steel of a gentleman of—"

  A heavy thump cut off his words, and he slumped to the floor of the cockpit, his sword clanging beside him. Jorian had struck him on the head with the heavy leaden ball forming the pommel of his dagger. He lashed the tiller, sheathed and put away the scimitar, got out the fishing tackle, and let a line trail a stern.

  "Heave to!" came a shout through a speaking trumpet from the forecastle of the galley.

  A sharp tug on Jorian's fishing pole told of a strike. He jerked the pole and felt a solid, quivering pull.

  "Heave to, I said!" came the cry from the galley. "Are you fain to be run down?"

  "Can ye na see that I've got a fish?" yelled Jorian, struggling with line and pole.

  There was a buzz of talk on the galley. Some sportsman among the Algarthians was arguing that Jorian should be given a chance to land his catch before being pirated. The galley swung to starboard, backing water with her starboard oars. She furled her sail and rowed parallel to the Flying Fish, twenty paces away. The carack trimmed sail to follow more distantly.

  Jorian landed a mackerel. Leaving the fish to flop in the bottom of the cockpit beside the unconscious Zerlik, he brought the Flying Fish into the wind and luffed.

  "God den, me buckos, and what would ye with me?" he said in down-west Xylarian dialect. "Would ye buy some of me fish? There be this bonny fresh one ye seen me catch, and a dozen or three more salted in the hold. What would ye?"

  More muttering on the galley. The man with the trumpet called: "We'll take your fish, Master Fisherman." As the galley maneuvered close to the Flying Fish, the man said: "What ails the other fellow, lying in the bilge?"

  "Ah, the poor spalpeen—me nephew, he be—had no better sense than to try to drink the port dry, afore we cast off. So now he be as ye see him. He'll be jimp in an hour."

  Someone on the galley lowered a basket on a line over the side. While several pirates with boathooks held the two vessels apart, Jorian tossed his fresh mackerel into the basket and followed it with salted fish from the hold. When the basket had been hoisted back aboard the galley, Jorian said:

  "Now about me price…"

  The pirate with the trumpet grinned over his rail. "Oh, we'll give you something vastly more precious than money."

  "Eh? And what might that be?"

  "Namely, your life. Farewell, Master Fisherman. Shove off!"

  Jorian sat scowling up and moving his mouth in silent curses as the galley rowed away and broke out its sails. Then his scowl changed to a smile as he put his tiller to starboard, so that the little ship, as she backed before the shore wind, swung clockwise. The sails filled, and the Flying Fish resumed her southward course. Zerlik stirred, groaned, and pulled himself up on the thwart. He asked:

  "What did you hit me with?"

  Jorian unhooked his dagger from his belt. "See this? The blade won't come out unless you press this button. Hence I can use it as a bludgeon, holding the sheath and striking with this leaden pommel. I had one a couple of years ago, when I was adventuring with Karadur. I lost it later, but I liked the design so well that I had another made. It comes in handy when I wish, not to slay a man, but merely to stop him from doing something foolish—like getting my throat cut so that he can show what a fearless, gallant gentleman he is."

  "I will get even with you for that blow, you insolent bully!"

  "You'd better save your revenge until after we reach Iraz. I doubt if I could handle this craft alone; and if I could not, I'm sure you couldn't."

  "Are you always so invincibly practical? Have you no human emotions? Are you a man or a machine of cogs and wires?"

  Jorian chuckled. "Oh, I daresay I could make as big a fool of myself as the next, did I let myself go. When I was a young lad like you—"

  "You are no doddering graybeard!"

  "Forsooth, I'm not yet thirty; but the vicissitudes of an irregulous life have forced maturity upon me. If you're lucky, you will grow up fast, too, ere some childish blunder puts you into your next incarnation—as has almost happened thrice on this little voyage."

  "Humph!" Zerlik ducked into the cabin, where he sat, holding his head and sulking, for the rest of the day.

  Next day, however, he was cheerful again. He obeyed orders and performed his duties on the ship as if nothing had happened.

  Chapter Three

  THE TOWER OF KUMASHAR

  For nearly a hundred leagues, the mighty lograms inarched along the western coast. The dragonspine of the range, clad in evergreen forests of somber hue, continued down into the sea. Hence, this part of the Western Ocean was spangled with islets and sea-washed reefs and rocks, forcing ships to detour to seaward. Then the Lograms dwindled into the hills of Penembei, green in spring but a drab dun color, with only a faint speckling of green, in autumn.

  As the sun arose above these green-spotted brown hills on the twenty-fourth of the Month of the Unicorn, Jorian aimed his spyglass southward along the coast. He said:

  "Take a look, Zerlik. Is that your clock tower—that little thing that sticks up where the shoreline meets the horizon?"

  Zerlik looked. "It could be… I do believe that it is… Aye, I see a plume of smoke from the top. That is the veritable Tower of Kumashar."

  "Named for some former king, I suppose?"

  "Nay, not so. It is a curious story as to how this came to pass."

  "Say on."

  "Know that Kumashar was an eminent architect and engineer, over a century ago in the reign of Shashtai the Third, otherwise called Shashtai the Crotchety. Now, Kumashar persuaded King Shashtai to hire him to build this lighthouse tower—without the clocks, however; those were installed later."

  "I know," said Jorian. "My own dear father installed them when I was a little fellow."

  "Really? Now that I think, I believe Karadur said something of that in this letter. Did your father take you to Iraz with him?"

  "Nay; we dwelt in Ardamai, in Kortoli, and he was gone for several months on this contract. He claimed your king cheated him out of most of his fee, too; some confiscatory tax on money taken out of the kingdom. But go on with the tale."

  "Well, King Shashtai wished his own name—not that of the architect —inscribed on the masonry for all to see. When Kumashar said that his name, too, ought to appear, the king waxed wroth. He told Kumashar that he was getting above himself and had better mend his ways.

  "But Kumashar was not so easily balked. He built the tower with a shallow recess on one side, and on the masonry of the recess he personally chiseled: 'Erected by Kumashar the Son of Yuinda in the Two Hundred and Thirtieth Year of the Juktarian Dynasty.' Then he covered this inscription with a coating of plaster, flush with the rest of that side of the tower, and on the plaster he inscribed the name of the king as commanded.

  "For some years, the tower bore the name of King Shashtai. But then the plaster softened in the brumal rains and peeled away, exposing the name of the architect.

  "King Shashtai was furious when he learnt how he had been flouted. It would have gone hard with Kumashar had he not—fortunately or unfortunately, depending upon how one looks at it—already died of natural causes.

  "So the king commanded that the offending inscription be chiseled out and one more to his liking substituted. But his officials had esteemed Kumashar highly and did not much like Shashtai the Crotchety, who was by this time old and infirm himself. So they politely acceded to the king's commands but then found endless pretexts for delaying the work. There was never quite enough money in the treasury, or unforeseen technical problems had arisen, or something. And soon King Shashtai died in his turn, leaving the inscription still unmodified."

  "Showing that the power even of these mighty monarchs is limited by human factors," said Jorian. "I went all through that as king of Xylar. Tis one thing to say to one's minio
n: 'Do this,' and have him reply:

  'Yes, sire; I hear and obey'; and quite another to follow one's order down the chain of command and see that it be not mislaid along the way. What sort of king have you now?"

  "King Ishabar?" Zerlik's features took on a stiff controlled expression. He gave a mechanical smile, such as Jorian had often seen on the faces of courtiers and officials during his own reign in Xylar. "Oh, sir, what a splendid monarch he is! Quite a paragon of wisdom, justice, courage, morality, prudence, dignity, generosity, and nobility."

  "Sounds too good to be true. Has he no faults?"

  "Ughroluk preserve us! Nay, not a fault. Of course, he is a bit of a gourmet. He sensibly devotes himself to the harmless pleasures of the table and leaves the details of running the state to experts, over whom he merely exercises a benevolent supervision. Moreover, he is too prudent to risk his precious person by buzzing about the kingdom, forcing heavy expenses upon the locals to entertain him and upsetting the provincial officials and military commanders by importunate interference. Like a good king, he stays home in his palace and minds his business."

  In other words, thought Jorian, the fellow is a lazy, self-indulgent hog who sits gorging in his gilded sty and lets the kingdom shift for itself.

  The hills leveled off into the broad valley of the river Lyap, at the mouth of which sprawled vast Iraz. The Flying Fish sailed serenely past the suburb of Zaktan, on the northern side of the river. Zerlik pointed to a large, many-spired building, on whose gilded domes and turrets the midday sun flashed.

  "The temple of Nubalyaga," he said.

  "Who or what is Nubalyaga?"

  "Our goddess of the moon and of love and fertility. The racecourse lies behind it. There is supposed to be a secret tunnel under the river, joining that temple with the royal palace. It is reported to have been dug at vast expense in the reign of King Hoshcha, to serve the king on the occasions of the Divine Marriage; but I know of none who will admit having actually seen it."

  "If it ever existed, it must have filled up with water," said Jorian. "Those things always leak, and it would take an army with mops and buckets to keep it dry. But what's this Divine Marriage?"