"Rise, good people! Ah, Doctor Karadur!"
The king waddled forward. In his path lay a puddle from yesterday's rain, but one of the gentlemen quickly threw his mantle over it.
Karadur bowed. The king said: "And is this your young—ah—Master—ah—"
"Jorian, Your Majesty," said Karadur.
"Master Jorian? A pleasure to know you, young sir, heh heh. Axe the clocks running?"
"Aye, O King," said Jorian. "Would you fain see the works?"
"Indeed we would. Is the lift working?"
"Aye, sire."
"We trust all its parts are sound and solid, for we are not exactly a sylph, heh heh! Let us go; let us go."
The king puffed his way through the portal. Inside, the ground floor of the tower had received a hasty sweeping and cleaning. A pair of mules walked the boom of the mill around, while a muleteer from time to time cut at one or the other with his whip. The gears and shafting grumbled. The king stepped aboard the lift.
"Doctor Karadur!" he said. "It were inconsiderate to ask one of your years to climb thirty flights, so you shall ride with us. You, too, Master Jorian, to answer technical questions."
"Your Majesty!" said one of the gentlemen—a tall, thin man with a pointed gray beard. "No offense to Messires Karadur and Jorian, but it were risky to entrust yourself to the car without a bodyguard."
"Well, heh heh, one stalwart soldier ought to suffice."
"If lift will bear weight, sire," said Jorian.
"What is its limit?"
"I know not for sure, but methinks we press it."
"Ah, well, we cannot diet down in time for this ride. Colonel Chuivir!"
"Aye, sire?" replied the most guttering soldier of all, a strikingly handsome man as tall as Jorian.
"Detail a squad of the guard to ascend the tower by the stairs, keeping on a level with us as the lift bears us aloft. Pick strong men with sound hearts! We would not have them collapse halfway up, heh heh."
Like the tower, Saghol, the ground-floor lift attendant, had been cleaned up for the occasion. He jerked his cords, and the lift rose, groaning. The squad of guardsmen clattered up the stairs, keeping pace with the lift.
At the top, the king got off the lift, which wobbled as his weight left it, and wheezed his way up to the clockwork floor. Jorian followed. The soldiers, red-faced, sweating, and gasping, filed into the clockwork chamber after him.
On the clockwork floor, the machinery was in full noisy operation. The shaft driven by the horse mill on the ground floor rotated, driving the pump that raised water from the sump to the reservoir above. Water ran from this reservoir through a pipe to a large wheel bearing a circle of buckets. As each bucket filled, the escapement released the wheel, allowing it to rotate just far enough to bring an empty bucket under the spout. At the bottom of their travel, the buckets tipped, spilling their water into the trough, whence it ran to the sump. The bucket wheel drove a gear train connected to the shafts of the four clocks on the four sides of the tower. Another mechanism struck a gong on the hour.
"We have not been up here in years, heh heh," said King Ishbahar, raising his voice to be heard above the clatter and splashing. "Pray explain this to me, good Master Jorian."
Jorian's Penembic was now fairly fluent if ungrammatical. With Karadur helping to translate when he got stuck, Jorian told the king about clockwork. While Jorian spoke, several gentlemen, having come up on the second trip of the lift, filed into the chamber.
"You should know Doctor Borai, O Jorian," said the King. "He is director of our House of Learning—at least for now."
Borai, potbellied, gray-bearded, and kilted, bowed to Jorian, mumbled something that Jorian could not hear, and shot a slit-eyed glare at Karadur.
"Pardon us a moment," said the king. "We would speak to him of plans for the city, and where better to discuss such things than this lofty eyrie, whence it is spread out below us like a map?"
The king waddled over to a window, where to Borai he pointed out various things below, talking animatedly. A plump, trousered man a little older than Jorian addressed him.
"Permit me, Master Jorian. I am Lord Vegh, stasiarch of the Pants. I see by your garb that you are a person of progressive ideas, like those of my honorable association. When you take out Penembic citizenship, perhaps you would care—"
"Soliciting a new member already, eh, Vegh?" said the tall, thin grandee with the pointed gray beard. "Not sporting, you know."
"First come, first served," said Vegh.
"Excuse me, my lords," said Jorian. "I be not up on Irazi politics. Explain, pray."
Vegh smiled. "This is Lord Amazluek, stasiarch of the Kilts. Naturally, he would prefer to enlist you in his—"
"Bah!" said Amazluek. "The poor fellow has but lately arrived in Iraz. How should he know the glories of our ancient traditions, which my association cherishes and upholds? Be advised, young sir, that if you would fain make your way amongst people of the better sort here, you ought to abandon those barbarous nether garments—"
"I believe I was conversing with Master Jorian, when you cut in,
Amazluek," said Vegh. "Will you kindly mind your business, whilst I—"
"It is my business!" cried Amazluek. "When I see three cozening an innocent young foreigner—"
"Cozening!" shouted Vegh. "Why, thou—"
"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" said several courtiers, thrusting themselves between the angry stasiarchs.
"Anyway," said Amazluek, "none of my association has turned traitor and fled to the provinces to raise a rebellion!" He turned his back and stalked off.
"What he talk about?" said Jorian, looking innocent.
Vegh: "Oh, he alludes to that rascal Mazsan, leader of a dissident faction. He was a member of my honorable association ere we expelled him. There are always bloodthirsty extremists, and Mazsan is ours."
"Yes?"
"You see, Master Jorian, we—the Pants, that is—are the moderates of Iraz. We follow the middle way, in urging that the Royal Council be elected and given legislative powers. On one hand we have mossbacked conservatives, like Amazluek, who would hold back all progress. On the other, we have fanatics like Mazsan, who would abolish the monarchy altogether. We are the only sensible folk."
"What this about Mazsan disappearing?"
"He and some followers have dropped out of sight, and rumor says they fled the city when their attempt to unseat me failed. But none has seen them since. I suspect that some of Amazluek's rich young thugs caught the lot at a conspiratorial meeting, murdered them, and concocted the tale of their flight to discredit all the Pants. When—"
"Gentlemen!" wheezed the king. "We do believe we have seen enough for the nonce. Let us all return to the courtyard, where we shall have somewhat to say."
When they were drawn up in the courtyard in the middle of a hollow square of the Royal Guard, King Ishbahar said:
"It is our pleasure to announce that, in recognition of their services to our crown and state in repairing the clocks of the Tower of Kumashar, we hereby appoint Doctor Karadur of Mulvan director of the House of Learning, and Master Jorian of Kortoli our new clockmaster. In recognition of their many years of faithful service, Doctor Borai and Clockmaster Yiyim are retired on pension. Doctor Borai is hereby made honorary commissioner of city planning."
"Oi! Who said I wanted to be clockmaster?" Jorian whispered to Karadur.
"Do be quiet, my son. You needs must do something whilst I grapple with the problem of your wife, and the pay is fair."
"Oh, well. Borai doesn't seem to like being pensioned."
"That is not surprising, seeing that his income will be halved. The city-planning thing carries no salary."