The Clocks of Iraz

Chapter Five THE TUNNEL OF HOSHCHA

THE MORNING OF THE TWENTY-SIXTH WAS OVERCAST, PREsaging another autumnal rain. The mouth of the Lyap was covered with small craft, plying back and forth like a swarm of water insects as they conveyed thousands of Irazis across the river to Zaktan.

Jorian and Karadur strolled up the street that led from the Zaktanian waterfront. The street ended at the edge of the temenos of the temple of Nubalyaga. Following the flow of the crowd, Jorian and Karadur proceeded around the temple grounds to the right. This brought them to the temple entrance at the eastern end of the temenos.

The temple was a huge structure of domes and spires. The silver plating of its tiles glowed softly under the gray sky. Flanking the entrance were two thirty-foot statues of Nubalyaga in the form of a beautiful naked woman. One statue showed her as bending a huge bow; the other, pouring water from a jar.

"The one on the left is chasing away the eclipse," said Karadur, "whilst the other controls the tides."

Jorian stopped to look. "That's funny," he said. "Last night I dreamt that a woman just like that sculptor's model appeared unto me."

"Oh? What did she?"

"She said something like: 'Beware the second crown, my son.' Since the dame was clad as you see those statues, and since I have been unwontedly virtuous since you and I parted in Metouro, I sought to make love to her; but she turned to smoke and vanished. Since I thought the dream but a manifestation of my bridled lusts, and since the words did not seem to make sense, I paid no special heed and have now forgotten the rest of the vision."

"Hm. One needs must be alert to such things, because the gods—ah —really do appear to mortals thus, as you well know."

"If the advice of this goddess be no better than that of that little green god, Tvasha, who advised us in Shven, I can do without it."

Since the temple stood on an elevation, the street leading eastwards from it sloped downwards. Down this street flowed a river of folk: Irazis, the men in kilts or trousers and their women in enveloping robes; foreigners from Fedirun and Novaria and even—sweating in their furs and heavy woolens—blond barbarians from distant Shven. Among the Irazi men, kilt-wearing partisans sported the red and white colors of their faction, while adherents of the Pants wore blue and gold.

"It gratifies me to hear that you are subduing the lusts of the flesh," said Karadur. "It is the requisite preliminary step towards moral perfection and spiritual enlightenment. Have you, then, adhered to some ascetic philosophy or cultus?"

"Nay; I merely felt that Estrildis would mislike it if she knew I'd been dipping my wick. That's love for you. If I ever get her back, I'll make up for lost time."

They came to the outer wall of the Hippodrome, where rows of stone arches, one atop another, supported the tiers of seats. The crowd divided and flowed around the structure to the entrances. Jorian said:

"Our passes admit us through Entrance Four. Which is that?"

'To the right," replied Karadur.

Hawkers of flags, toy chariots, handwritten programs, and food and drink mingled with the crowd, crying their wares. Jorian and Karadur found Entrance Four and were swept in with the tide. An usher saluted as he saw the royal passes and directed their holders to seats below the royal box, at the halfway mark on one side of the long, elliptical course.

Jorian and Karadur settled in their seats and opened their lunch. On their left, where seats were reserved for active members of the Pants, the stands were a mass of blue and gold. On their right, red and white likewise filled the stands in the bloc composed of Kilts. Members of the two blocs scowled at each other across the intervening strip reserved for noblemen and officials, where sat Jorian and Karadur. Now and then, an epithet was shouted above the general din.

Jorian was finishing his beer when a fanfare announced the king. All in the stands arose as Ishbahar waddled into his box and lowered himself into the gilded throne. When the audience had sat again, the king motioned to his crier, who produced a speaking trumpet. The king held up a sheet of reed paper and a reading glass. He began to read in his wheezy squeak, pausing between sentences so that the crier could bellow his words.

It was a dull little speech, what Jorian could understand of it: "… auspicious occasion… glorious nation… gallant contestants… good sportsmanship… may the best team win…"

As the king finished, a man arose from among the Pants and shouted: "When will Your Majesty bring the slayers of Sefer to book?"

The king replied through his crier: "Pray, good sir, do not bring up this question now. The time is inappropriate. We are pursuing the matter…" But the voice even of the leather-lunged crier was lost in the chant of "Justice! Justice!" that rose from the massed Pants. In their turn, the Kilts began shouting in rhythm: "Down! Quiet! Down! Quiet!"

"Who's Sefer?" asked Jorian.

"An official of the Pants, who was found slain. The Pants swear he was killed by a gang of Kilts; the Kilts deny all knowledge of it."

The shouts of the crier, together with a threatening move on the part of the squads of gleaming guardsmen in bronzen cuirasses and crested steel helmets, at length abated the shouts of the rival factionists.

"They are putting the tortoise race first," said Karadur, "to amuse the mob and take the factionists' minds—if that be the word I wish—off their feud."

At the starting post at one end of the course, Jorian sighted through his spyglass four huge tortoises. When they stood up on their thick, bowed legs, the tops of their shells were the height of a tall man from the ground. On the back of each tortoise was strapped a saddle, similar to a camel saddle. On each saddle sat a man in motley clown's costume.

At the blast of a trumpet, the four tortoises ambled forward. It took them a long time to reach the part of the track directly before Jorian. In the meantime, bets flew thick and fast.

As the tortoises plodded past at a slow walk, the crowd roared at the antics of the riders, of whom two wore the colors of the Kilts and two, those of the Pants. They reached out to thwack one another with slapsticks, turned somersaults off their mounts and bounded back on, and indulged in a hundred zany gambols.

Jorian: "I feel a certain kinship for the Kilts, even though I wear trews."

"How so, my son? Are you becoming aristocratical-minded?"

"Not at all. Their colors, red and white, are those of the flag of Xylar. The Xylarian war cry, in fact, was 'red and white!'" Jorian sighed. "Betimes I regret that those lackwits wouldn't let me show what a good king I could be."

The tortoises passed on around to the other side of the course. A single circuit constituted their race. The good humor of the crowd seemed to have been restored.

Next came a race between two teams of zebras. Then a detachment of the Royal Guard, their metal polished to mirrorlike surfaces, marched around the course to the tune of a military band, stopping from time to time to perform a brief precision drill with their spears.

Six camels, ridden by brown-robed Fediruni desert men, raced four laps around the course. Then a float bearing a gilded image of the god Ughroluk, drawn by white oxen and preceded by a hundred priests singing a mighty hymn, passed slowly around the course. Many in the crowd joined the priests in singing. The god, crowned with ostrich plumes dyed scarlet and gold and emerald, bore a silver thunderbolt in one hand and a golden sunbeam in the other.

A pair of King Ishbahar's elephants, draped in purple and gold, lumbered around the track, not seeming to hurry much despite the yells of their mahouts and the whacks of their goads. Then two teams of unicorns raced.

"Now come the horses," said Karadur. "Being the fleetest draft animals, their race will decide the day as between the Pants and the Kilts."

Tension grew. A trumpet peal sent the four teams off. As the four chariots—two blue and gold, two crimson and silver—thundered past, the roar from the blocks of factionists drowned out all other sounds.

There were seven laps to the race. With each lap, the excitement waxed. As the chariots whirled past, men stood up, shaking fists, sobbing, frothing, and screaming.

When the cluster of vehicles rounded the first turn on the fourth lap, there was a crash and a glimpse of pieces of chariot flying. Two cars had collided. A detached wheel continued along the course on its own for half a bowshot before toppling over. When the dust had blown away enough for Jorian to see, he glimpsed a pair of stretcher-bearers trotting across the sand to pick up a victim. There was also a glimpse of an injured horse struggling to rise.

By the time the two surviving cars approached on their next lap, the service crew had largely cleared away the wreckage. The two survivors passed and repassed on the straightaway, neither able to gain a definitive advantage. On the last lap, they whirled to the finish line abreast. As they sped past the royal box, Jorian could not see that either had the advantage.

Officials huddled in consultation at the edge of the track. Then a pair of them hastened up the steps to the royal box. More consultation, and the crier shouted:

"Driver Paltoi, of the Pants, wins!"

The Pants applauded. Jorian noted that the Penembians applauded like Novarians, by clapping their hands, not by snapping their fingers like Mulvanians.

A growl arose from the Kilts. It grew, mingled with cries of "Foul! Foul!" The Pants shouted back.

"Was there a foul?" asked Jorian.

Karadur shrugged. "Alas, I am no expert on sports; nor are my old eyes up to detecting such irregularities. Natheless, methinks we had better make ourselves scarce."

"Why?"

"The races are over, all but the awards to the winners; but my spiritual senses tell me a riot is brewing. Besides, it looks like rain."

"All right," said Jorian, rising.

As he did so, a large beer mug, turning over and over in the air, flew from the bloc of Kilts towards the Pants. It struck Jorian's head with a crash and shattered. Jorian slumped back into his seat.

"My boy!" cried Karadur. "Are you injured?"

Jorian shook his head. "That does not seem to have split what few brains I have left. Let's go."

He rose again, staggering a little, and started for the exit. A trickle of blood ran down one side of his face.

More missiles flew over the central strip between the two blocs of factionists. As the gentry in this strip left their seats to run for cover, the two blocs rose and rushed at each other, drawing hitherto hidden daggers and short swords. Trumpets blew. The crier screamed. Whistles sounded.

Squads of glittering guardsmen clattered hither and yon, striving to beat the combatants apart with spear shafts. Others fought their way to the royal box to protect the king, who sat quivering and helplessly waving his fat hands. Fighting spread all over the Hippodrome, while the more peaceable members of the audience ran for the exits. The noise grew deafening.

Pulling Karadur by one bony wrist, Jorian forced his way through the crush at Entrance Four. In the concourse outside, knots of factionists were already hurling missiles, brandishing improvised clubs, kicking, punching, and stabbing.

Jorian tried to thread his way among the combatants to the main entrance without becoming embroiled. As he reached the gate, a fierce yell from behind made him turn.

"Kill the dirty foreigners!" shrieked a man. A flash of lightning revealed the man as Borai, the former director of the House of Learning. He was haranguing a group of armed Kilts. Beside him stood Yiyim, the former clockmaster. Thunder growled.

"The old witch cast a spell on our team!" screamed Borai. "That cost us our victory!"

"And the young one is his apprentice!" added Yiyim. "Slay them both! Tear them to pieces!"

The well-gnawed carcass of a chicken whirled through the air and missed Jorian; so did a horse turd. A paving stone, however, grazed Jorian's already bloody scalp and staggered him.

"Run, my son!" gasped Karadur.

"Whither?" shouted Jorian.

"The temple! To the temple of Nubalyaga! Demand sanctuary!"

The pair trotted across the street, just as rain began to fall. The gang of Kilts broke into a run behind them. As they reached the slope leading up to the temple, Karadur said:

"Go on, my son. I cannot run up yon hill."

"I won't leave you—"

"Go on, I say! I am old; you have many years—"

Without further words, Jorian gathered up the ancient bag of bones in his arms and ran up the hill carrying Karadur, despite the Mulvanian's pleas. Jorian slipped on the rain-wet cobblestones and fell; Karadur's bulbous turban came off and rolled away. Jorian scrambled up again with his burden and ran on. The mob behind them gained.

At the entrance to the temple, a pair of eunuch guards, standing inside the gate, crossed their spears to bar the way. Jorian, his red face streaked with mingled rain, sweat, mud, and blood, was too winded to speak. Karadur cried:

"Admit us in the name of the lady Sahmet, sirs! I am Doctor Karadur of the House of Learning!"

The eunuchs lowered their spears. As soon as Jorian and Karadur were inside, the eunuchs clanged the bronzen gate valves shut. Other guards hastened from other parts of the temenos. In a trice, a dozen eunuchs, with cocked crossbows, stood in a line behind the gate.

"Begone, or we will shoot through the bars!" they shouted.

The mob milled and screamed but made no effort to assault the gate. Jorian and Karadur hastened towards the main temple building.

"I owe you my life," said Karadur.

"Oh, nonsense! Had I thought the matter out, I should probably have left you. You almost deserve it for assuring me that Borai and Yiyim were harmless. Where's this Lady Sahmet?"

"I will send in our names. If she be not engaged in ritual, methinks she will see us."

Despite the drizzle, the mob of Kilts, under the leadership of Borai and Yiyim, had spread out into a cordon, which seemed to be extending itself clear around the temenos.

"They're laying siege to the place," said Jorian.

"I am sure the king's men will clear them away. If not, belike Sahmet can solve our difficulty."

"If we had one of those flying things you have spoken of, we could flit over their heads. But then, if we had a carriage, we should have a horse and carriage, if we had a horse. Isn't that a fire?" Jorian pointed to a column of smoke and sparks, which rose above the nearby roofs.

"Aye; the fools will burn down the city if given a free hand."

High Priestess Sahmet received Jorian and Karadur in her chamber of audience. She was a tall, large-boned woman in her forties, handsome but too massive of jaw and beaklike of nose to be called beautiful. Qad in a gauzy robe of pale gray embroidered with symbols in silver thread, she sat in a chair of pretence and stared with large, dark eyes at the disheveled fugitives. A couple of lesser priestesses glided about.

"It is a pleasure to see you again, good Doctor Karadur," she said in a deep, resonant voice, "albeit one could wish the circumstances less frantic. And who is the young man?"

"I am Jorian the Kortolian," said Jorian, "presently clockmaster to His Majesty. I am honored to meet Your Sanctity."

The woman gave Jorian a penetrating stare. She snapped her fingers. "Inkyara! More light, if you please." When a branched candlestick had been set on a taboret and lit, Sahmet said:

"Master Jorian, methought I knew you."

"Madam! I misdoubt I have had the pleasure—"

"I mean not in the sense of knowing you on this material plane. But I have seen you in visions."

"Yes, madam?"

"You are the barbarian savior!"

"Eh? Oh, come now, Madam Sahmet. I am no barbarian! I learnt my letters when I was but five, in school in Ardamai; and I have studied at the Academy at Othomae. My table manners may not be up to courtly standards, but I do not make a pig of myself. I am only an honest craftsman, and in any case I am unqualified to save Iraz from any doom. But what mean you to do with us?"

"Not cast you to that slavering mob, certes." She spoke in an undertone to one of the lesser priestesses, who glided out and presently returned. After a whispered colloquy, Sahmet said:

"Fires have sprung up in several parts of Iraz as well as Zaktan, and the soldiers are too busy fighting them to control the mobs of factionists. The crowd of Kilts surrounding this temple has been reinforced, so you cannot leave by the streets."

"Neither have we magical power to fly over their heads," said Jorian.

"Let me think," said Sahmet. "I am loath to harbor you overnight, since for entire males to pass the night here, other than on the occasion of the Divine Marriage, would offend the goddess. Happily, there is another course. Ere I reveal it to you, howsomever, I must have your promise to do me a small favor in return."

Jorian's eyes narrowed. "Madam, I have been in and out of not a few tight places in my short life, and buying pigs in pokes is one thing I have learnt to avoid. If I can, I shall be glad to help you—but I must needs know about this favor."

"It amounts to little. I do but ask that you play a small part in one of our forthcoming observances."

"If you mean to make a eunuch of me, madam—"

"Bountiful heavens, nothing like that! I solemnly promise that it shall cost you not the least scrap of your splendid physique. More I cannot say now."

"Nor senses, faculties, and abilities?"

"Nor those, either. Well, sir?"

Jorian argued a little more, but no further details could he elicit from Sahmet. He exchanged glances with Karadur, but the old wizard was not helpful. Jorian did not like to promise anything under such vague conditions, but he saw no alternative.

"Very well, Madam Sahmet," he said, "I agree."

"Good! You shall not rue your choice. Now come with me."

An assistant priestess hurried up with a small lanthorn, which she handed to Sahmet. The high priestess led them out. They passed through halls and rooms and down steps until Jorian was lost. In an underground passage, dimly lit by a single sconce, Sahmet halted at a massive, bolted, wooden door.

"Master Jorian," she said, "I would not do this for any wight, even to save life. But, since this peril involves the barbarian savior, I have no choice." She slipped a massive ring off one finger. "Take this. When you come to the door at the far end of the tunnel, knock four times, thus." She tapped twice with a knuckle, paused, and tapped twice more. "When the peephole opens, show this ring—which, may I add, I wish returned when this peril has passed."

She drew back the bolt and opened the door. Then she held out a hand. "Fare you well, gentlemen." She gripped Jorian's hand longer and more forcibly than he expected. "I may see you again, Master Jorian—and sooner than you think."

She handed Jorian the lanthorn, whose single candle stub sent feeble rays through its windows of glass. The heavy door boomed shut behind Jorian and Karadur.

The passageway sloped down and down and down. The stones lining the tunnel became wet and slimy. Jorian said:

"This must be that tunnel under the Lyap I've heard of. I am sure we're below the water table."

"The what, my son?"

"The water table. Know you not how, a certain distance below the surface, water fills up all the pores betwixt the grains of soil? Hence, if one digs below that level, one gets a well."

"Nay, I did not know, having devoted my life to the spiritual as opposed to the material sciences. How learnt you such things?"

"I picked them up when I was surveying for the Syndicate of Ir."

"You are assuredly a versatile fellow."

Jorian grinned in the gloom. "I suppose I am." He recited:

Jorian hastened to add: "I'm really not so self-conceited as all that. Tis just that the rhyme amused me."

Karadur chuckled. "My boy, you are all that you say; albeit I doubt that you are really so determined upon a quiet life as you proclaim. Otherwise you would not—"

"Oh, yes? And who dragged me from my quiet, peaceful surveying job to this hotbed of intrigue and insurrection?"

"Ah, but in your last letter you said you would do aught to recover your Estrildis."

"Oh, well, so I did. But now I'm sure we are below the Lyap. What keeps the water out? I see no pumps."

"The water is kept from Hoshcha's Tunnel by a trio of wizards, spell-casting night and day. They are Goelnush, Luekuz, and Firaven, in my Department of Applied Thaumaturgy. Just now the House of Learning is embroiled in a furious feud, which I am supposed to resolve and compose. So high has partisan feeling run that the deans of my two schools will not speak to each other."

"What's this?"

"Goelnush, Luekuz, and Firaven form part of the School of Spirit. Now, engineers in the School of Matter claim that with pumps of the latest design, they can keep the tunnel as dry as my three wonderworkers, at less cost and with less chance of failure. The dean of the School of Spirit retorts that pumps are quite as likely to break down as a group of well-trained thaumaturges; that besides labor to furnish power for the pumps, we should require plumbers to keep the pumps and pipes in order; and that the pumping apparatus with its pipes would occupy so much of the tunnel that it would impede the king's monthly journeys through it."

"Is this the Divine Marriage whereof Zerlik told me?"

"Aye. You know of that, then?"

"I know what Zerlik told me. Is this ritual marriage consummated?"

"Well—ah—yes, it is. In sooth, when the king can no longer play his manful part, he is disposed of."

"Good gods, this is as bad as Xylar! How is it done?"

"When the king can no longer—ah—carnally penetrate the high priestess, she reports the fact to her nominal husband, the high priest of Ughroluk. Then the high priest, with a delegation of lesser priests, waits upon the king and presents him with the sacred rope, wherewith to hang himself."

"And the silly ass does it?"

"Aye; although this suicide has taken place but once in the last century. All the other kings have perished in war, or by assassination, or from some common ill, ere the rope came into play."

Holding his lanthorn up, Jorian walked a few steps along the dark tunnel in silence. Then he said:

"By Thio's horns, you don't suppose that promise Sahmet exacted from me was to take the king's place in this ceremony?"

"I know not, my son, but I fear she had some such scheme in mind."

"There you are! I listen to your moral preachments on the virtues of continence and try to practise them; but the very gods conspire against my new-found virtue."

"True, O Jorian. Little though I esteem fornication, I fear I must condone it this once."

"Well, that's something. At least, I don't suppose Sahmet will turn into a gigantic serpent, as did the princess Yargali. Now, I can see why Sahmet might not find Ishbahar to her taste as a bedfellow. But why pick on me?"

"You were to hand; she has seen you—or claims she has seen you—in her visions; and perhaps she finds you attractive."

"If I'm attractive to her looking like this, she'll find me utterly ravishing when cleaned up. Well, I daresay I can hold up my end, in all senses of the phrase. We won't tell Estrildis about it and hope that, if she find out, she'll forgive me natheless."

"Your secret is safe with me, my son."

"Good. But why need the king anything so costly as this tunnel for his connubial visits? Why cannot he cross the Lyap in a boat, like everyone else?"

Karadur shrugged. "Some say that King Hoshcha—who was not of the line of Juktar the Great and whose right to the throne was therefore questioned—was full of fancies about being assassinated as he rode through the streets. Others aver that he wished the tunnel as a means of escape from his palace in the event of revolution. In any case, he began the use of the tunnel for the Divine Marriage, and his successors have imitated him."

"What finally happened to Hoshcha?"

"After all his precautions—which included wearing a steel breastplate under his robes—he slipped in getting out of his bath and fractured his skull."

At the head of the long, narrow flight of steps that ended Hoshcha's Tunnel, Jorian rapped four times on the heavy door. When the peephole opened, he held up Sahmet's ring.

A bolt clanked and the door groaned open. There stood King Ishbahar in a dressing gown, without his wig. The lamplight shone on his egg-bald pate. A pair of guardsmen stood behind him; beyond these, servants hovered.

"By Nubalyaga's cleft!" cried the king. "Jorian! Whatever befell you, my boy? Come in, come in! You, too, Doctor."

They stepped into the king's dressing room, and Jorian told briefly what had happened to him and his companion since the start of the riot. A guardsman closed the door, which became merely one more panel in the wall. The handle of the bolt that secured it looked like a piece of gilded ornamentation.

"You did the proper thing," said the king. "We shall order the arrest of those villains Borai and Yiyim. You two shall sup with us this even. But first, my dear Jorian, you must clean up. You look as if you had been fighting a dragon and getting the worst of it, heh heh. You shall have the use of our royal bathtub, no less!"

"Your Majesty's consideration overwhelms me," said Jorian.

"Stuff and nonsense, my boy! We are friends, not merely sovran and subject. Evvelik! Conduct these gentlemen to the bathroom and furnish them with the needfuls."

The royal bathtub was a huge affair of burnished copper. As Jorian soaked and soaped, he murmured to Karadur, who was washing his face and hands:

"O Karadur, is this king deemed a little queer?"

"Nay; barring his fondness for the table—"

"I mean, with a lust for boys or men in lieu of women."

"Oh, ah I see. Nay again. Whereas that aberration is rife in Irazi, I think not that the charge has ever been laid against Ishbahar. When young, he had several wives, of whom all but two have died or been cast off; but I know of no other outlet for his lusts. Forsooth, methinks his only present passion is for rare victuals. Why?"

"Why else should he seek to make a bosom friend and confidant of a nobody—a mere foreign artisan—like me? It makes no sense."

"Perchance he simply likes you, my son. Or again, perchance it is concerned with Sahmet's plans for you."

"Oh. We must look further into this matter. And by the bye, meseems this tub were an admirable flying vehicle for our foray into Xylar. If we kept the weight well down in it, 'twere stabler than the common flying carpet or broomstick."

Karadur shook his head dubiously. "It would take a mighty demon to loft such a weight, and demons resist being imprisoned in copper or silver, since they know it is difficult for them to escape therefrom."

"Why not try Gorax, whom you keep mewed up in that ring? He's the strongest demon I know of."

"Alas, Gorax owes me but one more labor. Then he will be free to return to his own plane. Hence I dare not release him save for the direst need."

"I should have thought that being chased by that mob this afternoon were a case of direst need."

"True; but so scattered were my old wits that I never thought of Gorax at all."

Over one of King Ishbahar's colossal repasts, Jorian asked: "How went the riots, Your Majesty?"

"Luckily for Iraz, the rain waxed so heavy that it dispersed the factionists. Hence only a few score were slain and a few houses looted and burnt. This factiousness is a dreadful thing, but we know not how to end it. Have some of these oysters, which have come all the way from the coast of Shven, packed in ice."

"Why not simply stop the races, sire?"

"Ah, one of our predecessors—Huirpalam the Second, as we recall— tried that. Then the two factions united to revolt, drag poor Huirpalam to the Hippodrome, and tear him to pieces—a small piece at a time. We would not invite a similar fate, heh heh."

"If you will pardon your servant's saying so, methinks Your Majesty will have to face these factions down, soon or late. But that is Your Majesty's concern. Tell me, sire, what is this about Madam Sahmet's wishing me to take part in a service to the moon goddess?"

The king looked startled. "She has told you already? One moment." He signed to everybody present save Jorian and Karadur—even the bodyguards and the food taster—to leave the chamber. Then he said, barely above a whisper: "Know you the fate of a futterless king in Penembei?"

"I have been told of it, sire."

"It is true." The king pointed to a massive bracket overhead, whence hung a lamp. "All too true. They take away that lamp, and we are supposed to toss the rope over yon gallows. We stand on a table, make fast the knot, and overset the table—ugh! Thus they get rid of an unwanted monarch without laying impious hands on his sacred person."

"Is Your Majesty finding his sacerdotal duties—ah—"

"Arduous? Have we your solemn oath of secrecy?"

Jorian and Karadur both swore. Ishbahar went on: "Our life is in your hands. We would not entrust it to you gentlemen, save that desperate conditions demand desperate remedies. For several months, now, our lady Sahmet has been dissatisfied with our performance; and forsooth, we had as lief abandon such games, since our girth imposes mechanical difficulties upon the coital process, and the fires of youth have long since burnt low.

"So, you see, our life is already in the hands of Madam Sahmet. She has but to tell her nominal husband, High Priest Chaluish, and he will pay us a visit with the sacred rope. She refrains for two reasons: Imprimus, that she hates High Priest Chaluish and would do nought to favor him; secundus, that I have promised her a lusty springald with an iron yard as my surrogate, an she will keep tacit about my limitations. And you shall be he."

Jorian: "I trust I shall prove worthy of the honor. But we once had a king in Kortoli who faced a similar predicament."

'Tell us, dear boy."

"This was King Finjanius, who reigned just after the Dark Age following the fall of Old Novaria to nomadic invaders from Shven. The Kortolian rule was that, when the king was no longer for any reason deemed worthy to rule, the chief priests of the kingdom called upon him to present him with a goblet of poison to drink. If he drank not, they said, the magical nexus betwixt him and his land would be broken, and the crops would wither and the people starve.

"Now, Finjanius was sent to the Academy at Othomae for his higher education. The Academy was then a new institution with but a handful of professors—none of the ivy-clad buildings it now boasts. In the Academy, Finjanius absorbed what were then deemed heretical 'modern' ideas. Shortly after his return from Othomae, he succeeded to the throne when his uncle, the old king, died.

"For a year or so, Finjanius ran the affairs of Kortoli according to his best lights. Being young, he had little reverence for tradition and introduced many novelties, such as no longer requiring subjects to knock their heads on the ground nine times in approaching him, or no longer forbidding them to speak to him unless he spoke first. This last rule had nearly lost him a military campaign against Aussar, when none of his officers durst warn him of an ambush.

"Finjanius it was who introduced the public bath to Kortoli and encouraged all the people, regardless of age, sex, or rank, to mingle freely in these establishments. Moreover, he patronized them himself and did not scruple to indulge in vulgar horseplay with his subjects, splashing and ducking them and being splashed and ducked in turn.

"Such conduct made him popular with the commons but gravely offended the more conservative elements. These at length determined that Finjanius needs must go. Since the chief priests also belonged to the leading and most tradition-bound families, a consensus was soon obtained. Presently, a delegation of priests waited upon the king with the fatal draft.

" 'Oho!' quotha, 'what is this?'

" The gods,' said the high priest of Zevatas, 'have decided that Your Majesty is no longer worthy to rule.'

" 'How know you that, sirrah?' said Finjanius.

" They have informed us in visions and dreams, sire,' replied the priest. 'They demand the life of the chiefest man of the kingdom, lest they loose their wrath upon the land.'

" 'So they crave the chiefest life, eh?' said the king. He counted the priests and found that there were eight in the party. 'Now, whereas I am doubtless the chief man in Kortoli, you holy fathers are also not without standing. Would you not agree, messires?'

" 'Aye, sire; else we were not qualified to pass the gods' commands on to you.'

" 'In sooth, let us suppose that the life of one of you is worth—ah— let us say, one eighth of mine. That were plausible, were it not?'

" 'Aye, milord king,' said the priest.

" Then,' said Finjanius, 'an the gods desire the chiefest We, they should be just as well satisfied with eight lives, each worth one eighth of mine. Ho, guards! Seize me these eight gentlemen and hang them forthwith!'

"And so it was done. Thereafter none durst broach such a proposal to the king again, and hence the custom fell into abeyance."

King Ishbahar said: "Do you propose, dear Jorian, that we adopt a course like unto your king's?"

"That is up to Your Majesty. It has been done; and what men have done, men can do again." Jorian turned to Karadur. "Is that not one of the proverbs of your Mulvanian sage, what is his name?"

"Cidam," said Karadur.

The king shuddered, his chins quivering. "Alas! Would—would that we had the hardihood to essay such an enterprise." A pair of tears trickled down his fat cheeks. "But we could not defy tradition. We fear we are not of the stuff of your Finjanius." The king burst into sobs and covered his face with his hands.

"Your Majesty!" said Karadur. "An your servitors and guardsmen return and find you weeping, they will think we have entreated you ill and slay us."

The king wiped his face with his napkin and smiled through his tears. "Let us forget our griefs, then. Have some more of this Vindine wine! Master Jorian, we trust you are an entire man, with the usual lusts and faculties?"

"Aye, sire."

"Then you should not find the task confronting you arduous or disagreeable. Whilst a trifle older than you, Sahmet is neither unattractive nor cold. Neither. Remember, it is not just your prick that you pleasure, but our royal neck, as well, that you save. We will have Herekit make you out a commission as Friend of the King forthwith, for such you will be in a most literal way."

"I thank Your Majesty," said Jorian. "When does this sacred orgy take place?"

"At the next full moon, eleven nights hence. Let us drink to your success. May you give Her Sanctity a night she shall remember to her grave!"