The Unbeheaded King
L. Sprague De Camp
Chapter One THE PALACE OF XYLAR
A LARGE COPPER BATHTUB, ITS POLISHED SURFACE REDLY reflecting the light of the setting sun, soared above the snow-clad peaks of the Lograms. It wove around the loftiest summits and scraped over the lower ones, betimes with but a few cubits to spare.
"Gorax!" yelled one of the two men in the tub. "I have commanded thee not to miss those peaks so straitly! Wouldst stop my old heart from sheer fright? Next time, go around!"
"What's his answer?" asked the other man.
The first cocked his head as if listening. At last he spoke: "He says he is fain to get this journey over with. He also begs that I suffer him to alight on one of these mountains to rest; but I know better. Did I permit him, his last labor for me were completed. Away the fiend would flit to his native dimension, leaving us stranded on an icy mountain top."
The speaker was a small, lean, brown-skinned man in a coarse brown robe. The wind of the tub's motion rippled the silky white hair that hung down beneath his bulbous white turban and fluttered his vast white beard. He was Karadur, a seer and wizard from Mulvan.
The other tub-rider was a large man in late youth, with a ruddy complexion further reddened by the mountain winds, deep-set dark eyes and black hair and beard, and a scar across his face that put a slight kink in his nose. This was Jorian of Ardamai in Kortoli, once King of Xylar and, before and since, a poet, mercenary soldier, professional taleteller, bookkeeper, clockmaker, and surveyor.
Continuing an argument that had begun before they narrowly missed the mountain peak, Karadur said: "But, my son! To rush unprepared into such an adventure were a sure formula for disaster. We should instruct Gorax to set us down in some safe land, where we have friends, and plan our next move."
"By the time we've done planning," said Jorian, "the Xylarians will have gotten word of my flight from Penembei. I know, because when I was King, the secret service was on its toes. Then they will set traps for me, hoping I'll try to rescue Estrildis. And then…"
Jorian brought the edge of his hand sharply against his neck. He alluded to the bloody Xylarian custom of cutting off the king's head every five years and throwing it up for grabs, the catcher to be the next king. Karadur's magic had enabled Jorian to escape his own beheading. Ever since, Xylar had sought to recapture its fugitive king, to drag him back and resume their interrupted ceremony so that his successor could be chosen in the time-honored way.
"Besides," Jorian continued, "so long as Gorax remains your slave, we have this aerial vehicle to approach the palace from aloft. You yourself said that, if you permit him to alight, that were the end of his services. Any earthbound attempt were rendered that much harder. Why think you I brought this along?" He pointed to the coil of rope lying at one end of King Ishbahar's tub. "Could you magic that rope as you did the one in Xylar?"
Karadur shook his head. "Alas, nay! It requires the capture of a spirit from the Second Plane, for which I have no present facilities." Then Karadur tried another tack. In his high, nasal voice, he droned on: "But Jorian dear! The world harbors many attractive women. Why must you remain fixated upon this one? She is a nice girl; but you have enjoyed many women, both during your kingship and since. So it is not as if she were the only possible mate—"
"I've told you before," growled Jorian, "she's the one I chose myself. Those other four wives were picked for me by the Regency Council. Nought wrong with them; but 'twas an arrangement political. What would an ascetic old sage like you know of love?"
"You forget that I, too, was once young, difficult though you may find that to believe."
"Well, if King Fusinian of Kortoli could risk his life to rescue his beloved Thanuda from the troll Vuum, I were a recreant knave not to make an effort."
"There are still those other women of whom you have had carnal knowledge since your escape."
"You can't blame me about the high priestess. I had little choice in that matter."
"Aye; but there were others—"
Jorian snorted. "I try to be faithful to Estrildis; but I'm not yet able, after long abstinence, calmly to dismiss unplumbed a fair lass who crawls into bed with me, begging that I pleasure her. When I reach your age, perhaps my self-control will be equal to the challenge."
Karadur said: "How know you the Xylarians have not bestowed your Estrildis upon another?"
"They hadn't when my brother Kerin was there, repairing their clocks. I suspect they save her as bait for me. Through Kerin, I got word to her to hold out."
"Suppose her affections prove less perdurable than yours? Suppose she, too, has found agreeable the company of another of the opposite sex?"
"Ridiculous!" snapped Jorian. "She always told me I was her true love, and I trust her as far as I trust any mortal."
"Ah, but ofttimes Astis—the goddess whom we in Mulvan call Laxari—afflicts the steadiest of mortals with a passion that overrides the weightiest resolves and the most cogent reasonings. Misprize not the havoc that fate and the vagaries of human nature can make with our soberest plans. As said the wise Cidam, 'Blessed be he who expecteth the worst, for verily he shall ne'er be disappointed.'"
Jorian scowled. "You mean, let's suppose she has willingly suffered some knave to mount her in my absence? I suppose it could happen. Since I was the best swordsman in Xylar, excepting Tartonio, the fencing master who taught me, I should easily skewer the villain. Some would say to slay the woman, too, but I'm too chicken-hearted."
"You say you love her, right?"
"Aye, desperately."
"Then you would fain not wantonly render her unhappy, would you?"
"Of course not!"
"But suppose she really loves this wight? Then you had broken her heart to no purpose. If by force or fraud you compelled her to live with you thereafter, your domestic scene were something less than heavenly."
Jorian shook his head. "Curse it, old man, but you think of some of the direst predicaments! Whatever I propose, you are endlessly fertile in reasons why it were a folly, a blunder, and a wicked knavery. Betimes you have reason; but if I harkened to all your cavils, I'd stand immobile until I sprouted roots. Methinks I must await the event and guide my actions accordingly."
Karadur sighed. "It is difficult for one so young to take the long view of what is best for all concerned."
Jorian glanced up. Overhead the stars were coming out. "Pray tell your demon to go slowly. We would not run into Mount Aravia in the dark."
"Mount Aravia? I believe a colleague of mine, named Shenderu, dwells there as a wise hermit. Could we not pay him a visit?" At Jorian's expression, Karadur sighed again. "Nay, I suppose not."
A scarlet-and-golden dawn found the flying bathtub still over the Lograms, although the ridges became lower as the travelers flew northward. Soon the mountains ended, and for hours they soared above the vast Marshes of Moru. This dubious place was nominally part of Xylar. In practice it was a no-man's land, inhabited by a few desperate men, by dwarf crocodiles, and, it was rumored, by descendants of the dragons that the cannibal Paaluans once brought to Novaria. Generations before, these sophisticated cannibals sent a foraging expedition to Ir on the west coast of the broad Novarian peninsula.
Curious about everything, Jorian peered over the side of the tub. He looked in vain for a Paaluan dragon among the black pools and gray-green tussocks of this everglade, whence the approach of winter had bleached most of the color. Karadur cautioned:
"Lean not so far, my son! Gorax complains that you rock the tub and might overset it, despite his endeavors to fly it on an even keel."
"The tub has no keel," grinned Jorian. "But I get his point."