The Clocks of Iraz

by L. Sprague DeCamp

"May fiends torment, for a million eternities, the bastard who lashed this sail cover! He tied it in a hard knot, around to the front where I can't see it."

  "Hasten, or the Xylarians will be upon us." The pursuers were now close enough for their faces to be discerned.

  "I do my utmost. Shut up and hold her bow steady!"

  The mainsail yard, swathed in the canvas sail cover, extended out for several feet beyond the bow. The knot that secured the lashing was at the forward end of this yard. To reach it, Jorian had to sprawl out lizardlike on the yard, gripping for dear life with his left arm, with his feet on the anchor, while he felt around the butt end of the yard with his free hand. To untie a hard knot with one hand takes doing even when one can see the knot, let alone when one has to work solely by touch.

  The freshening wind drove larger and larger waves up the estuary. The Flying Fish leaped to each impact like a horse at a fence. Smash! smash! went the little ship's bow as she came down from each pitch.

  Tossed up and down, eight or ten feet to each toss, Jorian had much ado to keep his grip on the yard. The sun, near to setting, turned the seaward waves to gold, which glared in Jorian's eyes like the glow from a furnace.

  The barge drew closer. The Xylarians were within easy bowshot, but Jorian was sure they would not try archery. For one thing, the wind would carry their shafts awry; for another, they wanted him alive.

  "Zevatas damn it!" he screamed as his hat blew off, alighted gently on a wave, and went sailing up the estuary on its own.

  "Jorian!" called Zerlik. "A man is readying a lariat."

  When it seemed hopeless, Jorian felt the knot yield to his straining fingers. The black pursuing barge was almost within spitting distance. The knot came loose at last. Feverishly, Jorian unhooked the sail cover, bundled it up, and tossed it aft. It came down on Zerlik and wrapped itself pythonlike about him. In trying to free himself from the canvas, he let go his oar.

  "Keep her head into the wind!" bellowed Jorian, heaving on the main halyard.

  Zerlik bundled up the sail cover and returned his attention to his oar. "Here comes the noose!" he called.

  One Xylarian cast his lariat, but the cast fell short, into the heaving blue water. The yellow mainsail went up. Its luffing in the strong wind shook the ship. Jorian shouted:

  "Point her to starboard!"

  "Which is that?"

  "Oh, my gods! Back water, stupid!"

  Zerlik caught a crab with his oar but at last did as commanded. As the bow fell off to starboard, the wind, with sharp cracks, filled the sails on the port tack. The Flying Fish heeled to starboard and began to pick up speed.

  As Jorian scrambled aft, he saw that the Xylarian with the lariat was again whirling his noose. The man's black hood had fallen back, exposing a head of long, wheat-colored hair. The man, Jorian thought, was probably a nomad from the steppes of Shven. Xylar often hired these Northerners for the Royal Guard because of their skill with the lariat, since the principal duty of the Guard was, not to protect the king, but to keep him from escaping and to catch him alive if he tried.

  This time, Jorian was within easy casting distance. He scuttled into the cockpit.

  "Ship your oar," he said, "and catch hold of my belt in back."

  "Why?"

  "Just do it."

  The oar clattered inboard. Jorian stood up in the cockpit, with one hand on the mizzen backstay, and thumbed his nose at the Xylarians. Zerlik caught his belt from behind. The Xylarian put one foot on his gunwale to make his cast.

  Helped by the wind, the noose whirled through the air and settled around Jorian's shoulders. Jorian seized the rope in both hands and gave a mighty heave. Zerlik pulled at the same time. The Xylarian was jerked clear out of the barge, splash!

  With cries of rage and alarm, the pursuers stopped rowing. Those on the near side of the barge rose and stretched out their oars to the man in the water. One, in his zeal, hit the swimmer over the head. The head vanished but soon bobbed up again.

  The Flying Fish gained speed. Jorian crouched in the cockpit, holding the tiller with one hand and with the other, reeling in the rope. He grinned at Zerlik.

  "One can never have too much good rope on shipboard," he said.

  The barge fell astern, while the Xy larians hauled their dripping comrade aboard. Zerlik asked:

  "Are we safe, now?"

  "I know not. She seems to point pretty well on this tack; but we have yet to learn how featly she comes about and how well she points with the sails taken aback."

  "What means that?"

  Jorian explained the features of lateen sails and the good and bad points of shifting the yards to the leeward of the masts with each tack. He cast a worried glance ahead, where the far side of the estuary was opening out as they neared it: a long, low green line of marshes and woods, interspersed with croplands and villages.

  "Get forward, Zerlik," he said, "and watch for shoal water. All we need now is to run aground."

  "How shall I do that?"

  "Look straight down and yell when you think you see bottom."

  After a while, Jorian called a warning, put the helm sharply down, and brought the Flying Fish about on the starboard tack. The little ship responded well and pointed almost as high on this tack as on the other. Zerlik called:

  "The Xylarians have not yet given up, O Jorian. They seek to cut us off."

  Jorian shaded his eyes. Laboring into the teeth of the wind, the pursuers were forging seaward. Although the Flying Fish moved much faster than the barge, the angle at which the lateener was forced to sail by the direction of the wind brought the two vessels on converging courses.

  "Should we not tack again, ere we come close?" asked Zerlik.

  "Mayhap; but they'd still be south of us. They'd run farther out to sea and intercept us on the next tack. I have a better idea."

  With a dangerous glint in his eye, Jorian held his course. Closer came the barge.

  "Now,""said Jorian, "take the trumpet, go forward, and shout a warning, that we mean to exercise our right of way. Let them stand off if they would not be run down."

  "Jorian! The collision would smash both ships!"

  "Do as I say!"

  Shaking his head, Zerlik went forward and shouted his warning. The Xylarians turned faces towards the Flying Fish, swiftly bearing down upon them. There was motion aboard the craft as some of the pursuers readied their nets and lariats. The Flying Fish kept on.

  "Can you swim, Zerlik?" asked Jorian.

  "A little, but not from here to shore! My gods, Jorian, would you really ram them?"

  "You shall see. Repeat your warning."

  At the last minute, the barge burst into action. The rowers backed water, the sea foaming over their oars. The Flying Fish raced past so close to windward that the barge rocked in her wake. One Xylarian stood up to shake a fist until his comrades pulled him down again.

  "Whew!" breathed Zerlik. "Would you have truly run them down?"

  Jorian grinned. "You'll never know. But, with that much way on, 'twould not have been hard to dodge them. Anyway, we can now devote ourselves to the sea road to Iraz—if storms, calms, sea monsters, and pirates interfere not. Now excuse me whilst I pray to Psaan to avert these perils."

  Night fell, but the brisk wind held. Having lost his lunch and being unable to eat any dinner, Zerlik sat moaning with his head in his hands.

  "How do you stand it?" he asked, watching with revulsion as Jorian, one hand on the tiller, put away a hearty supper. "You eat enough for two."

  Jorian bit a piece out of an apple, swallowed, and replied: "Oh, I used to get seasick, too. On my first cruise against pirates, as king of Xylar, I was sick as a dying dog. I was like that fellow in the operetta, The Good Ship Petticoat, by Galliben and Silfero—you know, the one who sings about being a pirate captain bold."

  "I know it not. Could you give it to me?"

  "I can try, albeit vocal training is one skill for which I've not had time." In a heavy bass voice, slightly off ke
y, Jorian sang:

  "Oh, I am a pirate captain bold;

  I fill my vessel with jewels and gold

  And slaughter my captives, young and old,

  To rule the raging sea, oh!

  "And whether the blast be hot or cold,

  And the tossing main be deep or shoaled,

  I'm master of all that I behold

  As I cruise the ocean free, oh!

  "But although with treasure I fill my hold,

  And my loot at a bountiful price is sold,

  I harbor a secret that's never been told:

  I'm sick as a dog at sea, oh!"

  "That is good!" said Zerlik. "I would learn it; for I know no Novarian songs." He started off in a high but well-controlled tenor.

  "You sing better than I ever shall," said Jorian after he had helped his comrade through the lyrics.

  "Ah, but amongst us, to carry a tune well is deemed one of the accomplishments of a gentleman! How got you over your seasickness?"

  "Well, thanks to Psaan—"

  "Thanks to whom?"

  "Psaan, the Novarian sea god. Anyway, my system adjusted, and I've never been seasick since. Perhaps you will adapt likewise. That reminds me: Is my—ah—colorful past known in Iraz?"

  "Nay, at least so far as I know."

  "Then how did you learn of it?"

  "Doctor Karadur told me about your having been king of Xylar and accompanying him to Mulvan and Shven, to make it easier for me to find you. He swore me to secrecy, howsomever."

  "Good for him! Karadur is a wise old man, if sometimes absent-minded. Now, when we reach your homeland, I want no word of my former kingship or aught else breathed abroad. To the Irazis I shall be merely a respectable technician. Do you understand?"

  "Aye, sir."

  "Then come hither and take the tiller. It must be the hour of the owl already, and I needs must get some sleep."

  "May I run her closer to shore? I can barely see the coast, and so much water around me makes me nervous."

  Zerlik gestured to eastward, where the Xylarian coast formed a black strip between sky and sea, both illuminated by the rising moon. The moon cast a million silvery spangles on the waves between the Flying Fish and the shore.

  "Gods, no!" said Jorian. "Off a lee shore like this, the more water around us the better. Keep her as far from shore as we are now, and wake me if aught happens."

  Next day, the west wind continued, blowing little cotton-wool clouds across the deep-blue sky. Zerlik still complained of headache but summoned enough strength to eat. Jorian, with a scarf tied around his head in piratical fashion in place of his lost hat, took the tiller. As he guided the Flying Fish, he quizzed Zerlik about the language of Penembei. After an hour of explanation, he clapped a hand to his forehead.

  "Gods and goddesses!" he cried. "How do little Penembians ever master so complicated a tongue? I can understand having indicative, interrogative, imperative, conditional, and subjunctive moods; but when you add to those the optative, causative, dubitative, reportative, accelerative, narrative, continuative, and—"

  "But of course, my good Jorian! That is why we deem our speech superior to all others, for one can say exactly what one means. Now, to go over the aorist perfect reportative of the verb 'to sleep' again. In Novarian you would say: 'They say that I used to sleep' but in Penembic we do all that with a single word—"

  "A single word with fifty-three suffixes," growled Jorian. Later he said: "Perhaps you'd better merely teach me common expressions, like 'Good morning' and 'How much?' I used to think myself a fair linguist; but your grammar baffles me."

  "Ah, but once you learn the rules, you have but to follow them to speak correctly. There is none of those irregularities and exceptions that make your Novarian tongue so maddening."

  By mid-afternoon, the wind and the sea had moderated. Feeling better, Zerlik moved about, learning the spars, the lines, and the other parts of the ship.

  "I shall be a true mariner yet!" he exclaimed in a rush of enthusiasm. Standing on the gunwale abeam of the mizzenmast, he burst into the song from The Good Ship Petticoat As he reached the final "oh!" he let go the mizzen stay to make a dramatic gesture. At that instant, the Flying Fish lurched to a large wave. With a yell of dismay, Zerlik fell into the sea.

  "By Vaisus' brazen arse!" cried Jorian as he put the helm down. The Flying Fish turned into the wind, lost way, and luffed. Jorian gathered up the rope he had taken from the Xylarians, belayed one end to a cleat, and hurled the rest of it to Zerlik, whose head bobbed into sight and out again with the rise and fall of the waves.

  With the third cast, Zerlik got his hands on the rope. Jorian hauled him by the slack of his fisherman's blouse up over the counter. While Zerlik, bent into a knot of misery, retched, coughed, spat, and sneezed,

  Jorian said: "That'll teach you to keep a grip on something all the time you're out of the cockpit! Remember the rule: one hand for yourself, one for the ship."

  "Ghrlp," said Zerlik.

  The wind fell. The sun set behind a bank of fog, which rolled in from the sea. Jorian said:

  "We shall be becalmed in that fog. We'd better head into shore and anchor."

  An hour later, as the first tendrils of fog drifted past the Flying Fish, Jorian dropped anchor and furled sail. The wind died. The waves became smooth little oily swells, just big enough to rock the Flying Fish gently. Jorian and Zerlik bailed out the bilge water with sponge and bucket.

  When daylight vanished, utter darkness settled down, since the moon did not rise until hours after sunset. Jorian lit a small lanthorn. When he and his companion tired of language lessons, they played skillet by the feeble light. Jorian won several marks.

  "Never bluff more than once at a sitting," he said. "Would you like me to take first watch?"

  "Nay; I could not sleep, with all the salt water I have swallowed."

  Later, Jorian was awakened. Zerlik whispered: "I hear something!" Yawning and rubbing his eyes, Jorian ducked out of the cabin. A pearly opalescence in the fog showed that the moon had risen. The ocean was still as a pond, so that Jorian could not tell direction.

  The sound was a rhythmic thump. Jorian, listening, said: "Galley oars."

  "Whose galley?"

  Jorian shrugged. "Belike Ir; belike Xylar; belike Algarthian pirates."

  "What were the galleys of Ir or Xylar doing out in this murk?"

  "I know not. The sea power of both states is at ebb—Ir because their pinchpenny Syndicate won't keep up their fleet; Xylar because they don't have me to keep 'em on their toes. Hence I surmise that all the ships of both are snug in harbor, and that the oars we hear are piratical."

  "I should think the Algarthians would fear running aground as much as we do."

  "They have wizards whose second sight enables them to warn their ships away from rocks and shoals. They can also see storms and fogs approaching from afar. Now let's be quiet, lest they hear us."

  "A Penembic gentleman," muttered Zerlik, "would scorn to let such scum frighten him into silence."

  "Be as knightly as you please, when you're on your own. Just now, 'tis my skin, too—as you remarked the other day. Since I am neither a Penembian nor a gentleman, I prefer saving my hide to parading my courage. Now shut up."

  "You ought not to speak to me like that—" began Zerlik indignantly, but Jorian shot him so fierce a look that he subsided.

  The sound of the oars grew louder. Mingled with them was the splash of the oar blades, the tap of the coxswain's drum, and an occasional snatch of speech. Jorian cocked an ear.

  "I cannot quite make out their language," he breathed.

  The sounds receded and died. Zerlik said: "May we speak, now?"

  "I think so."

  "Well, if these Algarthian wizards can foresee the weather, why cannot they control it?"

  "Seeing is one thing; doing, quite another. There have been but few wizards who could control the winds and the waves, and their efforts have gone awry as often as not. Take the case of King
Fusinian and the tides."

  "What story is this?"

  Jorian settled himself. "Fusinian was a former king of my native Kortoli. A son of Filoman the Well-Meaning, he was called Fusinian the Fox on account of his small stature, agility, and quickness of wit.

  "Once, King Fusinian invited the leading members of his court to a picnic on the beach of Sigrum, a few leagues from Kortoli City, where the waves of the Inner Sea break on the silvery sands. A fine beach for picnicking, swimming, and like amusements it is. The beach lies in a long curve at the foot of a low bluff. Thither went Fusinian, with his lovely queen Thanuda and the royal children, and his high officers of state with their wives and children, too.

  "Now, one of the guests was Fusinian's distant cousin Forvil, then enjoying a sinecure as curator of the royal art gallery. Being fat and lazy, Forvil impressed those who knew him—including the king—as a harmless nonentity. But the fact was that Forvil cherished royal ambitions of his own and, at the time of the picnic, had already begun to put forth tendrils of intrigue.

  "In Fusinian's presence, however, the Honorable Forvil was full of unctuous flattery. This time he outdid himself, for he said: 'Your Majesty, your servants have placed the picnic chairs and tables where the rising tide will inundate us all'

  " 'Really?' said Fusinian, staring. 'By Zevatas, I do believe you're right! I shall order all this gear moved to higher ground forthwith.'

  " 'Oh, sire, that will not be needed,' quoth Fbrvil. "So great are Your Serene Majesty's powers that you have but to command the tides, and they will obey you.' For the tides in the Inner Sea, while smaller than those along this coast, are still big enough to drench a crew of picnickers who carelessly site their feast below the high-water mark.

  " 'Don't talk nonsense,' said Fusinian, and turned to give the command to move the chairs and tables.

  " 'Oh, but sire! Tis a simple fact!' persisted Forvil. 'An you believe me not, command the sea, and you shall see!'

  " 'Damn it, I will!' said Fusinian, no little annoyed, for he suspected that Forvil essayed to make a fool of him. 'And you, dear cousin, shall see what nugacities you are uttering.' So Fusinian stood up and waved his hands in mystic passes and cried: