" '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:
"Then he sat down and resumed eating, saying: 'If we get wet, O Forvil, you shall pay for the damage to our raiment.'
"The guests likewise remained seated and ate, albeit nervously, since they did not wish on one hand to wet their finery, nor on the other to entreat their king discourteously by fleeing the tide whilst he faced it unflinching. And so things went for a time, whilst the picnic was consumed and the sweet wines were poured.
"But, strangely, the tide failed to rise at the appointed time. People looked surreptitiously at pocket sundials and at one another and—with deepening awe—at their lively little king, who ate and drank unconcerned. At last there was no doubt about it, that the tide had been halted in its wonted rise. Forvil stared at his king with his fat face the color of gypsum plaster.
"Fusinian was perturbed by this phenomenon, for he knew well enough that he had uttered no real magical spell, nor summoned a horde of demons to hold back the tide. And, whilst he pondered— keeping a straight face the whiles—one of his children approached him, saying: 'Daddy, a lady up on the hill asked us to give this to you.'
"Fusinian saw that the note was from the witch Gloe, who dwelt in the hills of southern Kortoli and had long coveted the post of chief magician of the kingdom. The fact was that she was not even a licensed wizardess, because of a long-standing feud betwixt her and Fusinian's Bureau of Commerce and Licenses. She had come uninvited to the picnic in hope of persuading King Fusinian to intervene with his bureaucrats. When, by her super-normal powers, she overheard the colloquy between Fusinian and Forvil, she seized the opportunity and, concealed in the woods above the bluff, cast her mightiest spell, to hold back the tide.
"Glow's powers were, however, limited, as are those of all sentient beings. For most of an hour she held back the tide but then felt her authority weakening. She therefore scribbled this note and called to her the young prince, who was playing tag with the other children on the slope of the bluff. The note said: 'Gloe to His Majesty: Sire, my spell has slipped, and the waters are returning. Get you to higher ground.'
"Fusinian divined what had happened. But, if he confessed the truth, all the effect of retarding the tide would be lost, and Forvil would win this round. So he stood up and cried:
" 'My friends, we have sat here gorging and swilling longer than is good for us. To settle our stomachs, I ordain a race to the top of yonder bluff. There shall be three classes: first, the children below the age of thirteen; the winner shall have a pony from the royal stables. Second: the ladies, for whom the prize shall be a silver tiara from the royal coffers. Third: the men, the swiftest of whom shall receive a crossbow from the royal armory. I warn you that I shall take part in the third race. Since, howsomever, 'twere ridiculous to award a prize to myself, I will, if I win, bestow it upon him who comes in second. Line up, children! Ready, set, go!' And the children were off like the wind in a yelling mob. Then he said: 'Line up, girls! You'd better hike those gowns up to the knee, if you would make any speed. Ready, set, go! And now, gentlemen…' And he repeated the performance with the men."
Zerlik put in: "If the king were competing, would not all the courtiers make a point of losing?"
"With some kings, aye; but not with Fusinian, whom they knew to be a true sportsman. They knew that he would resent it if he caught anyone patronizing him by deliberately holding back. So they all ran their best. Being very wiry and active, Fusinian did in sooth reach the top of the bluff the first of the men. But poor Forvil, being fat, was puffing and waddling along at the base of the bluff when the tide came in with a rush, knocked him down, rolled him over, and half drowned him before a pair of servants pulled him out of the water.
"Fusinian always disclaimed any hand in the phenomenon of the tides, saying that it must have been the libration of the moon or some such thing. But his folk believed not these disclaimers and looked upon him with more awe than ever."
"Did he reward the witch?"
"Nay; for he said that she'd acted without authorization and, moreover, had given him a very uncomfortable time whilst trying to think his way out of the predicament into which she had plunged him. When he came down with a persistent itch on the soles of his feet, he suspected that Gloe in revenge had sent it upon him by goe'tic magic. But nought could be proven; and his chief wizard, Doctor Aichos, managed to cure it."
"And the Honorable Forvil?"
"In consequence of these events, Fusinian entertained a lively suspicion of his cousin. Being Fusinian, he thought of an original way to discourage Forvil from hanging about the court and intriguing for power. Pretending that Forvil was a connoisseur of all the arts, he invited him down to the dungeon beneath his palace to listen to Fusinian practicing on his bagpipes. Forvil's perceptive criticisms of his playing, he said, would soon make him the finest piper in Novaria. After three days of this, Forvil 'got religion,' as they say, and became a priest of Astis. Thereafter his sacerdotal duties furnished him with a legitimate excuse for not listening to the howls of the royal instrument. In any case, he gave up his intrigues lest worse befall him."
An hour after sunrise, the fog thinned. A land breeze sprang up. The fog dissolved into patches and dwindled away; the sun blazed forth. Jorian hoisted the anchor and broke out the yellow sails. When they were well out to sea, Zerlik said:
"How convenient, that the wind should take us out to sea again when we wish to go thither! Did you pray to your Psaan?"
Jorian shook his head. "I like it not. A regular land breeze springs up at night and takes coasters and fishermen out to sea ere dawn. This feels like the kind of easter that heralds a storm… Murrain! Do I see ships off our starboard bow?"
Zerlik ducked around the mizzen. "Aye, that you do! One is a sailing ship; the other looks like some sort of galley but is also under sail."
'Take the tiller." Through the spyglass, Jorian examined the ships, which were bearing briskly down upon the Flying Fish. "Fry my balls, but I'm a dolt for not keeping a sharper watch! I ought to have seen them as soon as their mastheads showed. Now they've seen us."
"Pirates?"
"Indubitably. That blue thing they fly is the Algarthian flag."
"Can we flee?"
"No chance, curse it. If I knew the rocks and shoals hereabouts, I might seek refuge in water too shallow for them to follow; but I don't. If we had Karadur, belike he could cast a glamor on us to make us invisible, or at least to make us look like a rock in the sea. But we have him not."
"Why do the Twelve Cities not get together to extirpate this nuisance?"
"Because they're too busy quarreling amongst themselves, and one is ever hiring the pirates to plague another. Some years ago, in the reign of Tonio of Xylar, the Syndicate of Ir did hire the Zolonian navy to root the rascals out. But then the Novarians lapsed into their old ways, and the pirates sprang up in the archipelago again."
"You need an all-powerful emperor, like our king. What shall we do if they stop us?"