The Clocks of Iraz

by L. Sprague DeCamp

  "The king has forbidden it. He is fain not to have the wizard on duty sneeze and let in the floods just as he is traversing the tunnel on his tryst with Sahmet. Therefore he insists that my best men be kept at this task. And speaking of the king, there is—ah—umm—another complication."

  "What's this? Out with it!"

  "The—ah—His Majesty but this morn forbade me to assist you in any way in leaving Iraz. He must be apprehensive as to what might befall him if you were not present at the next full moon to pleasure the priestess."

  Jorian glowered. "Curse it, you hauled me away from a good, respectable job, where I was at least geographically near to my darling, to this distant and turbulent city, on the promise of getting me means to rescue her. All you needed, you said, was to become director of the House of Learning, and the fish was in the creel. Well, thanks to my clockery, you're now director—and what happens? You can't do this for this reason, and you can't do that for that, and so on. I can make things hot for people who betray me—"

  "My son, my son! Pray, take not that harsh and hostile tone. At the moment, I admit I envisage no easy thoroughfare to your noble goal. Only have patience, and the gods will open the way for us. They have never met—yes, Nedef?" Karadur changed from Novarian to Penembic. "O Jorian, this is our official scryer; Master Nedef, I present Jorian the Kortolian, our new clockmaster. You were saying?"

  "Doctor Karadur," said the scryer, "I fear I have portentous news."

  "You may speak before Master Jorian."

  "Iraz is threatened by a host of assailants."

  "Eh? Vurnu, Kradha, and Ashakal What assailants? We are at war with none."

  "May I sit, sir? I am weak with what I have seen."

  "By all means, sit. Now tell us forthwith."

  The scryer drew a long breath. "North, east, south, and west—they converge upon us from all sides. Prom the west comes a fleet of Algarthian pirates; from the south, a rabble of armed peasants under Mazsan and his faction; from the east, a swarm of Fediruni nomads on camels; and from the north, a Free Company of mercenaries from Novaria."

  "How nigh are they?"

  "Some are nigher than others; they may reach us on the morrow."

  "How got the Fedirunis past the army along our eastern borders? Have they defeated the frontier force?"

  "I know not, Doctor. They were already well inside the border when I discovered them."

  "We must notify the king instanter," said Karadur.

  They found King Ishbahar at his afternoon repast, which he called "tea."

  "Sit down, sit down, our dear fellows!" he cried. "Have a cup of genuine tea, brought at vast expense from Kuramon in the Far East. Have some of these honey biscuits to go with it. Try some of these sardines. Have you tea in Novaria nowadays?"

  "It can be obtained, Your Majesty," said Jorian, "but it has never really taken hold. Perhaps the fact that the upheavals in Salimor cut off the supply from time to time have discouraged its use. Howsomever—"

  "The Novarians ought to take it up," said Ishbahar. "They are too much given to drunkenness, we hear. A pleasant but nonintoxicating drink were better for their health." The king bit off the end of a huge plantain from Beraoti. "Moderation in all things is our guilding principle. Temperance." The plantain rapidly diminished.

  "No doubt, sire. But we have something important to—"

  "In fact, dear boy, how would you like a royal concession, to freight tea up the coast to Xylar? You could build up a profitable trade—"

  "Sire," said Jorian, "Iraz is about to be attacked. Had we not better break the impending siege ere discussing trade routes?"

  "Iraz? Besieged?" said the king, holding an olive in front of his open mouth. "Nubalyaga save us, but what is this?"

  Karadur explained the visions that the scryer had seen in his crystal ball.

  "Oh, dear!" said the king, looking sadly at the piles of uneaten food. 'To have to break off such a splendid tea in the middle! The sufferings we kings endure for the welfare of our people! Ho, Ebeji! Summon Colonel Chuivir!"

  When the glittering commander of the Royal Guard had clanked in and saluted, Ishbahar asked Karadur to repeat his tale. Then he asked Chuivir:

  "However did those barbarians get past the frontier undetected?"

  "You forget, sire, that General Tereyai has assembled the frontier army for maneuvers in the foothills of the Lograms, leaving the border covered by only a skeleton force. The Fedininis must have surprised one of the frontier fortresses and poured through ere the alarm could be spread."

  "Where is Admiral Kyar?"

  "I believe he has put to sea in his flagship, to exercise his rowers."

  "Then, Colonel, you would seem to be the ranking officer in Iraz. Kindly get word to General Tereyai and Admiral Kyar as soon as you can. Meanwhile, you shall mobilize the Royal Guard and call up the companies of the factions."

  "But, Your Majesty, how shall I—how do you wish me to carry out your commands? Shall I send a barge out to seek the admiral—"

  Ishbahar slapped the table, making the cups and dishes dance. "Colonel Chuivir! Bother us not with those details; just carry out our orders! Now go and get to work!" When the crestfallen colonel had clanked out, the king shook his head. "Woe is us! We do believe we committed an error in appointing Chuivir to that command. He looked so magnificent on parade, but he has never fought a battle in his life."

  "Then how did it happen, sire?" asked Jorian.

  "He was a cousin of our third wife and well-liked in society. Since we relied upon the frontier force to keep the foe a decent distance from Iraz, we never expected that the actual defense of the city would devolve upon this amiable popinjay. Herekit!"

  "Aye, sire?" said the secretary.

  "Draft me a letter to Daunas, Grand Bastard of Othomae, inquiring whether he would hire out to us a few squadrons of his lobster-plated heavy cavalry, and on what terms. And command two of our swiftest couriers to stand by, booted and saddled. Draft another to Shaju, king of kings of Mulvan, urging him to invade the deserts of Fedirun from the east, since this land will be partly stripped of warriors. Suggest that he loot their sacred city of Ubar." The king turned back to his guests with a sigh. "Ah, well, we have done what we can. Now the fate of the city rests upon our gallant subjects."

  "Does Your Majesty plan to take an active part in the defense?" asked Jorian.

  "Bountiful heavens, dear boy, nay! Can you imagine us, with our girth, trading spear-thrusts on the battlements? Besides, we have always been a man of peace, with little use for fire-eating sword-rattlers. And now, meseems, our city and our life must needs depend upon these same swashbucklers. Doctor Karadur, you should muster your scientists and wizards to the work of defense. Have you, perchance, a spell to summon some unhuman race—say, the silvans of the Lograms—to our aid?"

  "I will see what the House of Learning can do," said Karadur. "But let Your Majesty not count upon any such assistance. The unhumans have little love for mankind, having been harshly entreated by them. To seek to compel aid from them is like holding a sword by the wrong end, so that it wounds the hand of the wielder. But I go—"

  "Stay, stay. Now that we have given the essential commands, there is no reason why we should not finish our tea."

  "But, sire, I—"

  "Nay, relax. A quarter-hour more or less will not decide the fate of the city. Do have some of these mushrooms, gathered in the jungles of Baraoti."

  "If Your Majesty thinks them safe…" said Jorian, staring uneasily at a yellow-spotted purple fungoid growth of singularly repulsive appearance.

  "Nonsense! We have been eating these for years, and we have not lost a royal taster yet, heh heh."

  Jorian manfully swallowed a mouthful of fungus. To give himself a pretext for not eating another, he said:

  "Your Colonel Chuivir reminds your servant of the tale of King Filoman and the golem general."

  "Go ahead, dear boy," said the king. "You will not mind if we steal a bit of your mushroom,
will you?"

  "Feel free, sire."

  "This king," began Jorian, "otherwise called Filoman the Weil-Meaning, was the father of the celebrated Fusinian the Fox. King Filoman was also an outstanding ruler in his way. He had the noblest emotions and the best intentions of any Kortolian monarch. He was intelligent, courageous, honest, hard-working, moral, kind, and generous. His only fault was that he had no common sense, and in practice this fault often cancelled all his other virtues put together.

  "One legend says that this fault was caused by an astrological conjunction at his birth. Another avers that, when the fairies gathered for his naming ceremony, the fairy who was supposed to confer common sense lost her temper when she beheld another fairy wearing a gauzy gown just like hers and flounced out in a rage without bestowing her gift.

  "Early in his reign, King Filoman confronted the problem of the defense of his realm. Being a peace-loving man, he supposed that others felt likewise. In this opinion he was encouraged by his minister, an oldster named Periax whom he had inherited from the previous reign.

  "Periax urged Filoman to reduce the army to a mere royal guard. 'Wars,' quotha, 'are caused by mutual fears and suspicions, which in turn are caused by armaments. Get rid of the armaments and you will abolish war. When our neighbors see us disarming, they will know that we have no aggressive intentions towards them and lose their fear of us. Then they will follow our example, and peace and brotherhood shall reign forevermore.'

  "Periax did not enlarge upon the real reason for his advice. This was that he was himself too old and creaky to sit a horse, brandish a sword, and perform other warlike acts. In these early times, the king and his ministers were expected to lead charges in person. Periax reckoned that, as a result of his pacific policy, war would at least be deferred until after his natural death, and he cared not for what befell the kingdom thereafter.

  "Periax's argument seemed to Filoman like sound sense, so he virtually disbanded his army. Now, at this time, Kortoli's southern neighbor, Vindium, was under the rule of Nevors the Daft, whose character is implied by his sobriquet. I need not detail the enormities of his reign: wasting his treasury on solid gold statues of himself; slaying ministers, kinsmen, and associates on the slightest pretext; whimseys like making his army dress up as frogs and go hopping about the parade ground on all fours, shouting 'Diddit! Diddit!' while King Nevors rolled on the ground screaming with laughter.

  "In time, a cabal of noblemen and officials got the king apart from his bodyguard, hacked him to pieces, and threw the pieces into the Inner Sea. Then the problem arose, who should take the unlamented Nevors' place? For he had slain all his near kin.

  "As it happened, an astute and ambitious lawyer, Doctor Truentius, had foreseen these events and gathered a powerful following among the commons. When King Nevors was slain, Truentius marched to the palace at the head of thousands of his partisans, chased out the relicts of the old reign, and proclaimed a republic with himself as First Consul.

  "Truentius was the most brilliant man in Vindium. He had read all the historians and philosophers and prophets and had thought deeply on questions of government. He it was who, more or less singlehanded, invented republican government in Novaria. He drew up a constitution for Vindium which, considering its early date, is still acclaimed as a marvel of profound and original thought.

  "Knowing himself the ablest man around, Truentius inferred that his decisions as to what was best for the Vindines were necessarily right. Therefore, anyone who opposed them was by definition an enemy of the people and hence a scoundrel for whom the direst punishment were too lenient. Soon Vindium City saw in its main square a large wooden block, served by a man with a black hood over his head and a large ax in his hands, wherewith to smite off the head of anyone so malign and perverse as to dispute the infallible reasoning of Doctor Truentius.

  "After a couple of years of this, Truentius, finding that such domestic problems as the production and distribution of wealth and the reconciliation of order with liberty stubbornly resisted the best efforts of himself and his headsman, bethought him of spreading the blessings of popular government to the rest of the Twelve Cities. Besides the benefits that such a program would confer upon the other Novarians, it would rally the Vindines, who were beginning to fall into seditious factions, behind their First Consul and furnish him with a pretext for making his rule even more absolute. He therefore sent an ultimatum to King Filoman of Kortoli, demanding that Filoman abdicate in favor of a popularly elected consul.

  "Naturally perturbed, King Filoman sought advice. The advice he got from his councillors, however, was so contradictory that Filoman could make nought of it. Some were for arming every man in the kingdom and resisting to the last; but others pointed out that no such stock of arms existed.

  "Some said to reactivate the old army and recall the retired officers to the colors. But it transpired that most of these officers had gone abroad to seek service as mercenaries. The former general of the Kortolian army, for instance, was now serving as a captain in the forces of the Grand Bastard of Othomae. It would take too long to recall them, even if they were willing to come.

  "Old Periax urged Filoman to yield to Truentius' overwhelming force. But others said that, judging by his master's conduct, the new First Consul's first act would be to set up a chopping block in Kortoli City to shorten everybody who might possibly be a threat to him, which included all those present.

  "At last it was decided to make some arms, and buy some, and call up the lustier young men, and hire such former officers as could be found to train them to use them.

  "The only thing that saved Kortoli from conquest during this parlous time was the fact that Truentius, too, had his military troubles. For most of the officers of the Vindine army, as members of the old regime, either had been executed or had fled. Truentius knew that the mob of mechanics and merchants, with whose help he had seized power, would not be up to a real campaign without much organization and training.

  'To gain time, Filoman was urged to seek a parley with Consul Truentius. To strengthen Filoman's hand, it was decided to hold a plebiscite of all adult male Kortolians, as to whether they wished to continue under the rule of King Filoman or to change to a republican system like that of Vindium. When the plebiscite was held, the Kortolians gave Filoman ninety-seven out of every hundred votes. This may have been the voters' honest opinion, since Filoman was then greatly beloved for his modesty, kindliness, and other virtues. Besides, Truentius' republican doctrines had been somewhat discredited by tales of his unbridled use of the ax.

  "The question also arose, who should command the new Kortolian army? Several councillors put themselves forward for the post. But, whenever one proposed himself, the others shouted him down, crying that he was an ambitious schemer who sought to use his power to usurp the throne. So vehement was the opposition to any name proposed that Filoman felt he needs must leave his choice in abeyance for the time being.

  "The parley with Truentius was duly arranged. It took place on an islet in the river Posaurus, which divided Vindium from Kortoli. Each was to bring no more than three armed men with him. In due course, the two met, ate lunch, and got down to business. Truentius said:

  " 'My good Filoman, love you your people?'

  " 'Certes!' replied the king. 'Have I not proven it an hundred times over?'

  " 'Then, an you truly love them, you must yield your throne as I have demanded. Otherwise you will bring down upon them a brutal, sanguinary war. The choice is yours, and so is the responsibility.'

  " 'And wherefore should I do that?'

  " 'First, because I demand it and have the force to compel your compliance; second, because it is the good and righteous thing to do. Monarchy is an ancient superstition, an outmoded charade, an obsolete form of injustice and oppression.' And Truentius lectured Filoman on the reasons for a popular republic.

  " 'But,' said Filoman, 'we have just polled the Kortolians, and they voted overwhelmingly to keep the monarchy.'

>   'Truentius laughed. 'My dear Filoman, do you expect me to take your vote seriously, when you held the plebiscite and counted the votes?'

  " 'Do you insinuate that I cheated?' cried Filoman in wrath. 'Never has anyone so impugned my honesty in the five years of my reign!'

  "Truentius merely laughed some more. 'Well, let us suppose that you did report the votes truthfully. You are a naive enough young fool to have done just that. It still makes no difference, since the people nathe-less voted for a republic'

  " 'How do you make that?'

  " 'Why, it is simple. Any population is divided into two factions: the people, and the enemies of the people. Since my program is the best one for the people, anybody who opposes it must logically be an enemy of the people.'

  " 'Mean you,' said Filoman, 'that if ninety-seven out of every hundred vote for me and three for you, the three are the people and the other ninety-seven the enemies thereof?'

  " 'Certes, my lad. Right glad am I to see that you learn the facts of politics so quickly.'

  " 'But that is absurd!' cried Filoman. 'It is merely a pretext for the infinite expansion of your own power!'

  "Truentius sighed. 'I will try once more to explain, albeit I fear your grasp of logic is inadequate. My guiding principle is: all power to the people. The people, I assume, are always right. Do you follow me so far?'

  " 'Aye.'

  " Then, if certain malevolent or misguided persons make a decision that is obviously wrong, it follows that they cannot belong to the people. Therefore they must be enemies of the people.'

  " 'But who decides which decision is right?'

  " 'No mere mortal mind decides that, but the iron laws of logic. For ensample, I have explained to you why a republican government is preferable to a monarchy. This is an objective fact, which no personal whim, error, or bias can alter, any more than they can change the sum of two and two. Therefore—'

  "But Filoman interrupted: 'Never! I will die fighting ere I suffer you to put this monstrous doctrine into effect!'