The Clocks of Iraz

Chapter Eight THE BARBARIAN SAVIOR

THE OVERCAST SKY PALED TO PEARLY GRAY, JORIAN told Colonel Chuivir: "The Fedirunis will attack the East Wall first, in about half an hour."

"How in the name of Ughroluk do you know?"

"Because at that time, the east clock will show the third hour."

"But will not the other clocks show the same—oh!" Chuivir stared round-eyed at Jorian. "You mean you have set them all to show different times!"

Jorian nodded, and Chuivir gave a command. Messengers departed on a run. Soon, nearly all the Royal Guard was assembled along the East Wall, with their armor gleaming dully in the gray light. Mingled with them were several companies of militia. Most of the militiamen bore either crutches or spears to whose buttends short crosspieces had been affixed. When all were in place, there was a man for every six feet of wall. A skeleton guard of militia was left on the other walls.

From the swarming, dun-colored camp of the Fedirunis, ram's horns gave their soft bleat. A flood of figures, robed in brown, sand color, and dirty white, poured out from the tent city and streamed towards the East Wall. They covered the earth like a swarm of ants. Foremost among them came hundreds of pairs of men, each pair carrying a ladder. Others gathered in knots and unlimbered the powerful, double-curved compound horn bows of Fedirun.

"Keep your heads down!" shouted Chuivir. The command was passed down the line.

The Fediruni bows twanged, and sheets of arrows shrieked up from their line. Some shafts soared over the battlements; others struck the stones and rebounded. A few struck home. Cries arose along the line of the defenders, and the physicians of Iraz ran up and down with their gowns flapping, seeking the wounded.

The swarm of foes flowed up to the wall. All along the line, hundreds of ladders were planted in the ground. Their other ends rose like the booms of cranes as the attackers pushed on them from behind with hands and spear points.

"Loose!" cried Chuivir.

All along the wall, arbalesters of the Royal Guard stepped out from behind their merlons to discharge their crossbows into the crowd below. Then they ducked back again to reload. Elsewhere, squads of militiamen placed boxes of heavy stones and cauldrons of boiling oil, molten lead, and red-hot sand in the embrasures and tipped them until the contents poured down on the heads beneath. Screams resounded.

Still the ladders rose until their upper ends, even with the top of the wall, came to rest.

"Wait until they are loaded, Colonel," said Jorian.

"Curse it, stop telling me how to run my business!" snapped Chuivir. "I was going to do just that." He raised his voice: "Crutch men, wait for the signal! How far up are they, Captain Jorian?"

Jorian risked a peek out an embrasure. "Three man-heights. Give them a little more… Now!"

As the heads of the most active climbers approached the top of the wall, the Fediruni archers ceased shooting for fear of hitting their own. Chuivir shouted: "O-o-over!"

All along the wall, militiamen hooked their crutches into the tops of the ladders and pushed. Here and there a man fell to a Fediruni arrow, but another took his place. The ladders swayed outward and fell, dropping their shrieking burdens into the crowd.

The Fediruni leaders dashed up and down, screaming commands and exhortations. Up went the ladders again. Again, swarms of brown-robed figures scrambled up them.

Jorian found himself next to an embrasure in front of which an Irazi militiaman had fallen with an arrow through his throat. The top of a ladder showed in the gap between the merlons. Before Jorian could gather his wits, a black-bearded brown face, surmounted by a white head cloth held in place by a camel's-hair rope, popped into the embrasure. Golden hoops hung gleaming and swaying from the man's ear lobes.

Jorian snatched up the crutch that the fallen Irazi had dropped. His first attempt to place it against one of the uprights of the ladder miscarried; he missed and almost hurled himself through the embrasure. Before he could recover and replace the implement, the Fediruni leaped like a cat through the embrasure and had at him with a scimitar.

Jorian threw up the crutch to parry a whistling cut, which drove into the wood and nearly severed the crutch. He struck at the man, but the crutch broke at its weakened point. The man slashed again; his blade clashed against Jorian's mail as Jorian leaped back.

By the time the man drew back his arm for a third blow, Jorian had his sword out. A straight thrust took the unarmored man in the ribs. The Fediruni still had the strength to complete his cut, which clanged on Jorian's helmet, knocking it down over his eyes and filling his head with stars.

Jorian pushed his helmet back into place, to see the Fediruni leaning against the merlon. The scimitar dropped from his lax fingers as the man slowly sagged to the pavement.

Meanwhile, another Fediruni had hoisted himself through the embrasure. This man carried both a scimitar and a leathern buckler in his right hand. Over his brown robe he wore a crude cuirass of boiled leather, painted red and blue, and on his head a light steel cap with a slender spike on top. As he came, he shifted the buckler to his left hand and engaged Jorian. There was a quick exchange of cuts and thrusts; the man was a skilled fighter.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jorian saw a third Fediruni, with his shaven skull bare, climbing through. If the third man gained the wall and assailed him from behind, Jorian knew he would have little chance. Despite the hero tales, it was rare indeed that a single swordsman could defeat two competent foes at once. If Jorian took his attention for a heartbeat off the man he was fighting, the fellow would instantly have him.

He tried to speed up his cuts and lunges to kill the man before the other came. But the man caught the blows on his buckler and sent back one whistling counter-cut after another…

The third man had reached the wall and slithered around behind Jorian, who knew what was happening but could do nothing to stop it. Then a shriek arose behind him, and the sound of a falling body. The eyes of the man he was fighting shifted past him, and in an instant Jorian ran him through the throat.

"Here is another!" cried Chuivir, drawing a bloody sword from the Fediruni behind Jorian. "Help me!"

The colonel referred to a fourth Fediruni, now poised on the topmost rung of the ladder with a scimitar in his teeth. Jorian and Chuivir each drove the point of his sword into one of the two uprights.

"Over!" said Chuivir.

They shoved. The ladder swayed out. It seemed to stand balanced for an incredible time, while the topmost Fediruni looked down with eyes that widened with terror in his swarthy face. The last sight that Jorian had of him, as the ladder toppled, was of the man's opening his mouth to scream and dropping the sword he had held in his teeth.

"That was close," said Chuivir. "They have gained another foothold yonder; come along!"

The two rushed along the wall to where several Fedirunis had formed a solid knot with their backs to an embrasure, while others, climbing up the ladder from behind, tried to push in.

"Watch!" said Jorian.

He put a foot on the adjacent embrasure and hurled himself up on top of the merlon. A small, slender Fediruni was just pushing through the embrasure behind the knot of battlers. At the moment, he was on hands and knees in the embrasure.

Jorian swung up his arm and brought his sword down in a long, full-armed cut. He had the satisfaction of seeing the man's head fly off, to roll among the trampling feet of the fighters. The blood-spouting body collapsed in the embrasure, and through Jorian's mind flitted a fleeting thought of wonder that so small a man should contain so much blood. A scarlet pool spread out on the flagstones, so that the fighters slipped and staggered in it.

The body hindered the next climber, who pushed and tugged at it to clear it out of the way. While he was so engaged, Jorian caught him in the face with a backhand cut. The man fell off the ladder, carrying away those below him in a whole concatenation of screams and crashes.

"Hand me a crutch!" Jorian shouted.

A spear was at length passed up to him. With this he pried one of the uprights of the ladder away from the stone and sent it toppling. The Fedirunis on the wall, cut off from support and slipping and falling in the puddles of blood, were soon beaten down and hacked to pieces.

Panting, Jorian, in dented helm and rent hauberk, confronted Colonel Chuivir, around whose left arm a physician was tying a bandage. Below, the Fedirunis sullenly flowed back towards their tent city. They carried many of their wounded; but many more were left behind, along with hundreds of corpses.

"Bad?" said Jorian.

"Scratch. You?"

"Never touched me. Thank you for your help."

"No trouble. When and whence is the next attack?" asked Chuivir.

"Soon, north. The north clock is set an hour after the east."

"The Free Company, eh?"

"Aye. Not many, but fell fighters."

"With that armor, they will not be able to climb so monkeylike. Adjutant, everybody but the skeleton guard to the North Wall!"

An hour later, the Free Company withdrew from the North Wall, leaving scores of armored figures lying like smashed beetles at its base. Jorian, bleeding from a cut on the side of his jaw, told Chuivir: "The pirates next."

The houses that had been illegally built against the West Wall, facing the waterfront, furnished the pirates with an easy means of getting halfway up the wall. They made several lodgments on the top of the wall and clung to them despite the hardest fighting; Jorian took another light wound, on his right arm. But the houses, being inflammable, soon blazed up under a shower of incendiary missiles from the wall. Pirates struggling to emplace short ladders on the roofs of the houses were engulfed in flames and died screaming.

By the time the clock on the south side of the Tower of Kumashar showed the third hour, Mazsan's peasant army had heard about the defeats of the other three forces. There was talk of a mysterious mixup in timing, and of the unexpected strength of the defenders. The yells of Mazsan's officers and even blows with the flats of swords failed to get the peasants to rush the wall. They stood sullenly muttering; some began to trickle away.

Trumpets blared in the hills. Little black specks grew to squadrons of the regular Penembic cavalry, riding down the East Road and deploying.

"Tereyai!" shouted voices along the wall, as the frontier army rolled into view.

As the word went round, Mazsan's peasants dissolved in mad flight. The Fedirunis, fearful of being cut off from their homeland, abandoned their camp, swarmed on their camels and horses, and scattered. The Algarthian pirates scrambled aboard their ships, cast off, and hoisted sail.

The Free Company struck its camp in orderly fashion. It formed three hollow squares, with pikes leveled outwards in all directions and crossbowmen inside the squares. The mercenaries marched leisurely away on the North Road, as if daring anybody to try to stop them. No one did.

"My boy!" cried the king. "You have saved Iraz! Nothing were too good for you! Nothing!"

"Oh, come, sire," said the bandaged Jorian, affecting more modesty than he really felt. "All your servant did was to sit up half the night tinkering with the clocks, to make the four dials register different hours."

"But that proves the prophecy. Or rather, both prophecies. You are the barbarian savior, and the salvation of the city depended upon the clocks' functioning—albeit not quite in the sense that one would expect, heh heh. Name your reward!"

"All I want, Your Majesty, is that copper bathtub."

"Forsooth? Well, it is a queer sort of reward; but if that is your desire, you shall have it. Shall we have it delivered to Doctor Karadur's quarters?"

"Nay, sire. Leave it where it is for the time being. But one of these days I shall want it. And one other thing!"

"Yes? Yes?"

"Pray stop calling me a barbarian! I am only an honest craftsman, as civilized as the next wight."

"Oh," said the king. "We see the difficulty. You think of a 'barbarian' as a rude, uncouth, illiterate oaf from some backward land where they know not letters and cities. But in the prophecy, methinks, the word was used in its older sense, to mean any non-Penembian. The change in meaning took place during the century preceding this one; we told you we used to be a bit of a scholar.

"So, you see, in that sense you are a barbarian, however refined your manners and vast your erudition. And the prophecies are proven after all. By the way, it is fortunate that our victory took place when it did, and that you sustained no grievous wounds. In three nights, we shall have a full moon again."

Jorian wrinkled his forehead. "So, Your Majesty?"

"Have you forgotten? That is the monthly Divine Marriage of Nubalyaga!"

"Oh," said Jorian.

Three nights later, at the full of the moon, Jorian gave the ritual knock on the massive door at the north end of Hoshcha's tunnel. The door swung open, and in it stood two minor priestesses in gauzy gowns. They bowed low, saying:

"All hail, Your Majesty, soon to be divine!"

Jorian nodded affably. "Whither away, lassies?"

"Follow us."

Jorian followed them through winding corridors, up stairs, and through portals. Once he passed the main chamber of the temple. Through an open door, he glimpsed scaffolding and saw men moving about. He heard the sounds of sawing and hammering and the clink of masons' chisels.

The Free Company and the Algarthians had looted the temple of all the gold and precious stones they could pry off the decorations. They might have destroyed the whole structure had not Mazsan's influence restrained them. Now craftsmen were working overtime to refurbish the fane.

"Priestesses!" said Jorian, "Where—ah—I mean when do I—ah—"

"Oh, sire!" murmured one. "You needs must be suitably clad ere the god incarnate himself in you!"

They led him at last into a smaller chamber, where garments were laid out on a divan.

"Now, sire," they said, "if Your Majesty will graciously sit…"

Jorian sat on the end of the divan while they pulled off his shoes and buskins.

"Now arise, sire, and stand still whilst we prepare you."

Jorian stood up, and they began to undress him. They took off his Irazi cap, unbuttoned his vest and shirt, and untied the draw string of his trousers. Jorian soon stood in his breechclout, which one of the girls began to unfasten.

"Eek!" said Jorian. "Ladies, please!"

"Oh, but this, too, must come off!" said a priestess with a giggle. "Surely a man of Your Majesty's age and experience…"

"Oh, very well," grumbled Jorian. "I am an old married man, and in my native land we all bathe together. It just seemed odd."

Off came the breechclout. The appraising stares of the priestesses made Jorian wince. One said:

"Think you he will do, Gezma?"

The other priestess cocked her head thoughtfully. "He may. The gods have endowed him with length, but as for strength—well, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, they say, whilst the proof of the—"

"Ahem!" said Jorian. "If you must discuss me as if I were a prize bull, I had rather you did it out of my hearing. Besides, it is cool for standing in one's skin."

With squeals of suppressed laughter, the priestesses draped Jorian in flame-colored gauzy robes, which they bound with a scarlet sash. They completed his raiment with a golden wreath on his head and pearl-sewn sandals on his feet.

"Oh, my, does he not look the very god?" said one.

"He is!" cried the other, sinking to her knees and touching her forehead to the floor. "Great Ughroluk!" she prayed. "Deign to look with favor upon thine humble subjects!"

"Deliver us from sin and evil!" said the other, prostrating herself likewise.

"Stretch forth thy divine hand over the pious priesthood of thine eternal consort!"

Jorian fidgeted while the two young women poured out their pleas. He did not feel godlike. He certainly did not feel as if he could pass miracles to save anybody from sin and evil.

"Yes, yes, I will do my divine best," he said at last. "Now where do we… ?"

The priestesses scrambled up. "Will Your Divine Majesty follow us?"

More corridors, and then he came to a chapel. One of the priestesses whispered: "Usually the rite is held in the main sanctum, but that is full of craftsmen."

As Jorian entered, a small orchestra of lyres and pipes played a delicate, tingling melody. In the center of the room stood a huge bed. The air was heavy with incense and perfume.

Before the altar at one side stood High Priestess Sahmet. Like Jorian, she was enveloped in gauze. On her noble brow, a silver tiara flashed with white gems. In the dim light of the little oil lamps hung from the ceiling, she looked almost beautiful. As Jorian approached, she bowed low, murmuring:

"All hail, divine consort! All hail, king of the gods!"

"All hail, Your Sanctity," said Jorian. "Here is your ring, madam."

The following morning, Jorian met Karadur in King Ishbahar's palace, whither the wizard had gone to report to his royal employer. The two set out afoot for Karadur's quarters. As they passed through the Gate of Happiness, Jorian squinted up at Mazsan's head, which occupied one of the spikes atop the gate. He said:

"Some of his ideas seemed sound to me. Too bad they couldn't have been tried out. If someone could persuade the king to command them.

"That has been tried," said Karadur. "Mazsan himself once urged Ishbahar to redistribute the lands of the great magnates amongst the peasants. But these lords are powerful men, with their own armed followings, and they would not without demur accede to the loss of their power and pelf. A hero-king might undertake it, were he willing to risk an uprising led by the magnates; but poor old Ishbahar…" The Mulvanian shrugged. "How went things last night?"

Jorian laughed. "Damnedest experience of my life, and I've had some beauties." He told of his robing and his being conducted to the wedding chapel. He continued: "They made me stand for hours, clad in those gauzy things like one of the he-whores you see mincing up and down Shashtai II Street, whilst they went through an eternity of ritual. They sang hymns and intoned prayers, whereof I could understand nought, since they were in an old form of the language. They handed me a silver thunderbolt and a golden sunbeam and bade me wave them about in prescribed motions.

"Well, I am not exactly decrepit, but 'tis hard to keep up one's interest for hours—if 'interest' be the word I seek. At last the mummery was over, and Sahmet and I were hailed as the lawfully wedded god and goddess. These deities had supposedly taken up their temporary abodes within our mortal frames."

"Felt you any divine possession?" asked Karadur.

"Nary a bit. Belike the true Ughroluk and Nubalyaga were otherwise occupied. Or, belike, when they feel like a bit of amorous libration, they can do it perfectly well in their own persons without employing mortals as surrogates.

"Anyway, Sahmet led me to the bed. I was taken aback by the thought of frittering the dame with all the company looking on bug-eyed. I wondered if I could—ah—rise to the occasion under those circumstances. But the priestesses hauled out screens, which they set up around the bed, and snuffed all but one of the lamps. I heard them swishing out of the chamber, and then the only sound was that of that damned orchestra, tweetling and plunking away in the corner.

"Well, even when I had a harem in Xylar, I never invited in the Royal Band to play whilst I plumbed the depths. I may be old-fashioned, but for some things I like privacy. Howsomever, necessity is a stern schoolmaster and Sahmet, a handsome woman. So I set about my business, with the usual kissing and fondling and disrobing. Presently we were one flesh, as say the preachers."

"How fared you?"

"Wherefore would you know, old ascetic? The details would shock your pure soul."

"Indulge my curiosity, my son. All human affairs are of moment to me, even though my spiritual profession limits my participation in worldly activities. Of course, such things are of but abstract concern to me, who must needs conserve his chastity to attain the highest levels of magical practise. But my knowledge of amatory matters is all gained at second hand, from books, and you can furnish knowledge the books overlook."

"Very well. The first try was not very successful. As a result of my year of virtuous conduct, I was like a crossbow on a hair trigger. Sahmet was disappointed, but I told her not to worry; that with a respite I should be able to repeat my performance.

"So, for the next half-hour, we ate and drank and talked of this and that. I told her of some of the deeds of King Fusinian. Then I was ready again, and this time I did a proper fifty-stroke job. The lady flopped beneath me like a fish on a hook. She said it was the first time in years that she had really enjoyed a man; in fact, ever since she had quarreled with Chaluish.

"But think you she was then ready to drop off to sleep? By Vaisus' brazen arse, nay! She lusted for more. After another half-hour, I managed to work up another stand and gave her a proper frigging.

"But then she wanted still more. Becoming weary, I pretended to go to sleep, which in sooth soon became the real thing. But this morn, at the dawn's first light, I was aroused by my holy bedmate, diddling with me in hopes of raising my temple column."

"Did she succeed?"

"Oh, aye, it worked; if anything, too well." Jorian yawned. "I could sleep the clock around. Afterwards she crushed me to her ample bosom with hot words of love. She swore I should never leave Iraz but remain here for ay, to riddle her night and day."

"You could fare further and do worse," said Karadur.

"What? Become a male concubine? And give up my little Estrildis? You must think me a mere tomcat, fornicating about the world as opportunity offers."

"Nay, my son. This is, after all, the lawful consummation of a sacerdotal rite and hence no—ah—fornication."

"Not so lawful. The ram in this holy tupping is supposed to be the king, and I'm not the king. If High Priest Chaluish find out and have a mind to make trouble… No, thank you! These high intrigues are too chancy for a simple fellow like me.

"Besides, who knows what'll happen when Ishbahar dies? With all that fat, he looks not like a good risk. Then the new king and the priestess might decide to have me quietly murdered—they're skillful with poison here—to rid themselves of my awkward presence.

"In any case, whilst I may not be of the stuff of heroes, I care not to be any lady's fancy man. Puttering is good healthy fun, but I'd rather earn my bread with my hands and head than with my prick. Besides, I like it better with my own dear little wife, with whom 'tis an act of love and not of mere lust. Now I have the king's promise of the copper bathtub, all I need is a proper spell from you to make it fly. Then ho for Xylar!"

"The spell is still incomplete," said Karadur.

"Well, hurry it up! Put more men on the job!"

"When I can, I will. But just now we at the House of Learning are occupied with preparations for the grand festival that the king has commanded for five days hence, to celebrate the salvation of Iraz. If you be not too busy with your clocks, I could employ your engineering skills at the House, in the designs of some of our stage effects."

"Glad to help," said Jorian.