"Well, we shall see," said Zamben. "Meanwhile, Nako, how would my love like another?"
"What a man you are!" cried Nasako, beginning to cast off her just-donned garments.
During the next two months, the court noted that Zamben, not content with being the second most powerful man in the Empire, had also ingratiated himself with the Emperor. He did so well as to oust Reiro the beggar from his position as Emperor's crony. Zamben even became an expert on the history of art, the better to admire Tsotuga's prized gewgaws.
The favorite-haters at court muttered that for an emperor to make a personal friend of a minister was a violation of sound method. Not only was the mystical balance among the Five Elements upset, but also Zamben might entertain usurpatory notions, which his friendship might enable him to put into effect. But none dared to broach the subject to the explosive-tempered Tsotuga. They shrugged, saying, "After all, it is the Empress's duty to warn him. If she cannot, what chance have we?"
Zamben went his smiling way, smoothly running the government by day and fraternizing with the Emperor by night.
At last came his opportunity. The Emperor was toying with his fan over a game of Sachi. Zamben dropped a piece-an elephant-on the floor so that it rolled under the table.
"Let me get it," said Tsotuga. "It is on my side."
As he bent to fumble for the piece, he dropped his fan. He straightened up holding the piece, to find Zamben holding the fan out to him. Tsotuga snatched it back. "Excuse my discourtesy," said the Emperor, "but I am fain not to let that thing out of my hands. It was stupid of me not to have put it away ere reaching for your elephant. It is still your move."
Days later, in the summer house, Empress Nasako asked, "Did you get it?"
"Aye," replied Zamben. "It was no trick to hand him the duplicate."
"Then what are you waiting for? Fan the old fool away!"
"Tut, tut, my sweet. I must assure the loyalty of my partisans. It is said that he who would swallow a pumpkin with one bite shall reap the reward of his gluttony. Besides, I have scruples."
"Oh, pish-tush! Are you just a pillow-warrior, strong in the yard but weak in the sword arm?"
"Nay, but I am a careful man who avoids offending the gods or biting off more than he can chew. Hence I would fan away only one who tried to do me ill. Knowing your imperial spouse, madam, I am sure he will soon force me to defend myself."
The evening came when Zamben, whose skill at Sachi had never seemed remarkable, suddenly beat the Emperor five games in a row.
"Curse you!" bawled Tsotuga as he lost his fifth king. "Have you been taking lessons? Or were you more skilled all along than you seemed?"
Zamben grinned and spread his hands. "The Divine Bureaucrats must have guided my moves."
"You-you-" Tsotuga choked with rage. "We will show you how to mock your emperor! Begone from the world!"
The Emperor whipped out his fan and fanned, but Zamben failed to disappear. Tsotuga fanned some more. "Curse it, has this thing lost its charge?" said Tsotuga. "Unless it be not the real-"
His sentence was cut off as Zamben, opening the true magical fan, swept the Emperor out of existence. Later, Zamben explained to the Empress, "I knew that when he found that his fan did not work, he would suspect a substitution. So there was nought to do but use the real one."
"What shall we tell the court and the people?"
"I have thought all that out. We will give out that, plagued by the summer's heat, in an absentminded moment he fanned himself."
"Would it work that way?"
"I know not; who were so rash as to try it? In any case, after a decent interval of mourning, I shall expect you to carry out your end of the bargain."
"Right willingly, my love."
Thus it came to pass that the widowed Empress wedded Zamben of Jompei, after the latter had, at her demand, put away his two previous wives. The minister acquired the courtesy title of "Emperor" but not the full powers of that office. Technically he was the consort of the Dowager Empress and guardian of and regent for the heir.
As to what would happen when the fourteen-year-old Prince Wakumba reached his majority, Zamben did not worry. He was sure that, whatever betid, he could charm the young Emperor into continuing his power and perquisites.
He thought of having the Prince murdered but quickly put that plan aside. For one thing, he feared that Nasako would have him killed in turn, for her supporters far outnumbered his. He had a hard enough task just keeping on good terms with her. She was disillusioned to find that in her new husband she had obtained, not an ever-panting satyr, but merely an ambitious politician so immersed in political maneuvers, administrative details, and religious rituals that he had little time and strength left over for stoking her fires. When she complained, he spoke of his "essential new project."
"What is that?" she demanded.
"I will not," he said, "waste more time in searching for that code book. Instead, I shall reconstruct the code by trial and error."
"How?"
"I shall try combinations of raps and note what I get each lime. In the centuries that the fan has existed, hundreds of beings must have been fanned away."
The next day Zamben, flanked by six heavily armed palace guards, sat in the Chamber of Audience, which had been cleared of all others save two secretaries. Zamben tapped his left wrist once. A beggar appeared on the floor before him.
The beggar screamed with terror and fainted. When the man had been revived, it was found that he had been fanned out of existence more than a century before, in a fishing village on the shore of the ocean. He was astounded suddenly to find himself in a palace.
Zamben commanded, "Write: one tap on left wrist, beggar. Give him one golden dragon and show him out."
Two taps on the left wrist produced a swineherd, and so it was recorded. During the day, persons of all sorts were rapped into existence. Once a leopard appeared, snarling. Two guardsmen rushed upon it, but it sprang out the open window and vanished.
Some combinations of raps failed to bring results. Either they were not connected with victims of any definite kind, or no beings of that kind had ever been fanned away and not recalled.
"All right so far," said Zamben to the Empress that night.
"What if your experiments bring back Tsotuga?"
"By the fifty-seven major deities, I had not thought of that! An emperor, I suppose, needs a combination of many taps to bring him back. The instant I see him, I will fan him back to limbo."
"Have a care! I am sure that fan will sooner or later bring evil upon him who uses it."
"Fear not; I shall be cautious."
The next day, the experiments continued and the secretaries' lists of formulae lengthened. Three taps each on left wrist, right wrist,
and forehead produced the missing Finance Minister Yaebu, much shaken.
Following Yaebu came an ass and a fuller. When the ass had been captured and led out, and the fuller had been soothed and sent away with his fee, Zamben tapped his left and right wrists each three times and his forehead four times.
There was a rush of displaced air. Filling most of the Chamber of Audience was a dragon. Zamben, his jaw sagging, started to rise. The dragon roared and roared, and the guards fled clattering.
Through Zamben's mind flashed a tale he had heard about the fan. Centuries before, it had saved the Gwoling prince, Wangerr, from a dragon on Banshou Island. This must be the same.
Zamben began to open the fan, but astonishment and terror had paralyzed him a few seconds too long. The great, scaly head swooped; the jaws slammed shut.
The only person left in the chamber was one of the secretaries, cowering behind the throne. This man heard a single scream. Then the dragon hunched itself out the window with a crashing of broken window frame and-since the aperture was still too small for it-of a goodly part of the wall. The scribe peeked around the throne to see the scaly tail vanishing through the jagged gap that yawned where the window had been, and a cloud of brick and plaster dust filling the Chamber of Audience.