Jorian bounded out of his ship. "Karadur!" he shouted.
The oldster drew rein and stiffly dismounted. Jorian folded him in a bearlike hug. Then they held each other out by the arms.
"By Imbal's brazen balls!" cried Jorian. "It's been over a year!"
"You look well, my son," said Karadur, on the middle finger of whose left hand shone a golden ring with a large, round, blue stone. "The sun has burnt you as dark as a black from the jungles of Bcraoti."
"I've been conning this little tub for ten days, without a hat And by the way, Holy Father, she's yours."
"What mean you, O Jorian?"
"The Flying Fish belongs to you. You furnished the wherewithal to buy her in Chemnis."
"Now, really, my son, what should I ever do with a ship like that? I am too old to take up fishing as a means of livelihood. So keep the ship; I relinquish her to you."
Jorian chuckled. "The same impractical old Karadur! Well, I'm no fisherman, either, so perhaps your feelings won't be hurt if I sell her… On second thought, perhaps I had better keep her. When one becomes involved in one of your enterprises, one never knows when a speedy scape will be needed. But tell me: Where in the forty-nine Mulvanian hells is that ninny Zerlik? He was supposed to fetch me away yesterday."
Karadur shook his head. "A light-minded wight, I fear. I encountered him by happenstance this morn at the palace, whither he had come to deliver his report to the king. When he saw me, he clapped a hand to his forehead and cried: 'Oh, my gods, I forgot all about your friend Jorian! I left him awaiting me on the waterfront!' And then the tale came out."
"What had he been doing?"
"When he left you, he hastened home to greet his household and to see whether his charioteer had yet returned with his car and team. As it fell out, they had come in the day before; and so excited was Zerlik by the reunion with his beloved horses that he forgot about you."
"And also, I daresay, by the pleasant prospect of flittering his wives all night," said Jorian. "If I never see that young ass again, 'twill be too soon."
"Oh, but he greatly admires you! He talked me deaf about what a splendid comrade you were in a tight place: so masterful and omnicompetent. When you have completed your work here, if you embark upon another journey, he would fain accompany you, to play squire to your knight."
" Tis gdod to know that someone esteems me, but he'd only be in the way. I suppose he is not a bad lad; just a damned fool. But then, I doubtless committed equal follies at his age. Now whither away? I need a bath."
'To my quarters, where you shall lodge. Put your bags on the spare ass, and we will deliver Zerlik's at his house on the way."
Over lunch at Karadur's apartment, in a rooming house near the palace, Jorian said: "As I understand it, you wish me to fix the clocks in the Tower of Kumashar, and this will somehow free Estrildis from Xylar. What's the connection?"
"My son, I have no instant method of recovering your spouse—"
"Then why haul me a hundred leagues down the coast? Of course, if the job pay well—"
"But I confidently expect to obtain such a method as a result of your success with the clocks. The little lady has not become some other's wife, has she?"
"I'm sure not. I got word to her by one of my brothers, who traveled through Xylar, selling and repairing clocks, and smuggled a note in to her. The note urged her, if she still loved me, to hold out; that I should find a way to bring her forth. But how will my repairing Irazi clocks do that?"
"It is thus. The high priest of Ughroluk once uttered a prophecy, that these clocks should save the city from destruction, provided that they were kept running on time. Last year the clocks stopped; nor could Clockmaster Yiyim prevail upon them to function again. This is not surprising, since Yiyim was an impoverished cousin of the king, who had been appointed to this post because he was in penury and not because he knew aught about clocks."
"What's the state of the horological art in Iraz?"
"None exists, beyond a few water clocks imported from Novaria and the grand one that your father installed in the tower. In the House of Learning, several savants strive to master the art. They have attained to the point where one of their clocks loses or gains no more than a quarter-hour a day. In a few years, methinks, Iraz will make clocks as good as any. Till then, the Irazis must make do with sundials, hourglasses, and time candles."
"What's this House of Learning?" asked Jorian.
"It is a great institution, set up over a century ago under—ah—who was that king?" Karadur snapped his fingers. "Drat it! My memory worsens every day. Ah! I remember: King Hoshcha. It has two divisions: the School of Spirit and the School of Matter. The former deals with the magical arts; the latter, with the mechanical arts. Each school includes libraries, laboratories, and classrooms wherein the savants impart their principles to students."
"Like the Academy at Othomae, but on a grander scale," said Jorian.
"Exactly, my son, exactly; save that the Academy—ah—devotes itself mainly to literary and theological studies, whereas the House of Learning deals with more utilitarian matters. I have a post in the School of Spirit."
"Come to think, I heard of this House when I was studying poetry at the Academy. Wasn't it they who developed the modern windmill?"
"Aye, it was. But the House of Learning is not what it was erst-whiles."
"How so?" asked Jorian.
"Hoshcha and his immediate successors were enthusiasts for the sciences, both material and spiritual. Under them, the House received lavish subsidies and achieved great advances. But later kings discovered that, for all the achievements of their laboratories, they were still bound by mortal limitations. A more efficient draft harness did not keep the king's officials from grafting and peculating and oppressing the people. A spell against smallpox did not cure the king of lusts, follies, and errors of judgment. An improved water wheel did not stop his kinsmen from trying to poison him to usurp the throne."
"If you fellows are given your heads, you'll have this world as mechanized as that afterworld, whither our souls go after death and where all tasks are done by machinery. You'll remember that I glimpsed it in my flight from Xylar."
Karadur shrugged and continued: "Discovering that life, even though materially better in some ways, was not really happier, the kings began to lose interest in the House of Learning. During the last half-century, appropriations have been steadily lessened. There have been no great advances since the invention of the telescope, thirty-odd years ago.
"The present head of the House of Learning is one Borai—another sinecurist, unqualified for his task. Because of the prophecy concerning the clocks, the king and his advisers have been greatly exercised over their malfunction. The king has brought pressure to bear upon Borai, who in turn has brought it upon the dean of the School of Matter, who in his turn has applied it to Yiyim the Clockmaster—all to no avail.
"None of these gentlemen can admit the principle that appointments to the House of Learning ought to be on a basis of merit and knowledge, for then their own posts would be endangered. The expert, they assert, is too full of prejudices and convictions that this or that is impossible. Only the gentlemanly amateur can view these arcane arts in a judgmatical spirit. And so things have buzzed along for months, with much loquacity but no action.
"Last month, His Majesty gave a banquet to the professors of the School of Spirit. The king entertained us with such gustatory rarities as the tongues of the fatuliva bird of distant Burang—gods of Mulvan, how that man eats! Being myself a man of very simple tastes, I paid little heed to these exotic delicacies but seized the opportunity to broach some of my own ideas to His Majesty. I implied that, had I Borai's authority, I could eftsoons have his tower clocks put in order.