"Not your best, my son," said Karadur. "We know not whether Penembei in fact be doomed. If that fellow Ch&vir, whom you nominated king, make good his claim, he may prove a good-to-middling monarch. Besides, methinks you require a conjunction at the beginning of that last line."
"That would spoil the meter," said Jorian. "The first foot should always be an iamb, according to Doctor Gwiderius."
"Who?"
'The professor who taught me prosody at the Academy of Othomae. Well, how's this?"
Karadur shook his head. "That implies that I, too, am leaning over the side. As you can perceive, I am careful to keep to the centerline."
"What a literal-minded gaffer you are! All right, let's see you compose a better!"
"Alas, Jorian, I am no poet; nor is Novarian my native tongue. To compose a verse incorporating the thoughts of yours in Mulvani, and obeying all sixty-three rules of Mulvanian versification, were a task requiring more comfort and leisure than the gods see fit at the moment to accord us."
By afternoon they had left the Marshes of Moru and soared above the forests of southern Xylar. By sunset the forest was giving way to farmland.
"Tell Gorax," said Jorian, "that we do not wish to arrive at Xylar City before midnight."
"He says we shall be fortunate to arrive ere dawn," said Karadur. "He groans—mentally of course—with fatigue."
"Then have him speed up. The last thing we wish is to find the sun rising just as I am shinny ing down that rope."
"Just what do you intend, Jorian?" Karadur's voice expressed a growing tremor of apprehension.
"Simple. Kerin told me they have Estrildis quartered in the penthouse apartment on the roof. They think that putting her up there will make it harder for me to get her—assuming that I shall approach the palace on the ground." Jorian chuckled. "So, when we reach the roof, I'll belay the rope to the faucet, drop the other end over the side, slide down, and carry off Estrildis before any mouse knows I'm there. I wish we had one of your ensorcelled ropes."
"If we ever alight long enough for the sorcerous operation, I will prepare one."
"This faucet was King Ishbahar's pride and joy," said Jorian. "An engineer in the House of Learning invented it. The only trouble was that the king's servants had to mix hot and cold water in a tank on the palace roof, and they could never get the proportions right. Poor Ishbahar was ever being either chilled or boiled. I proposed that he install two faucets, one for hot water and one for cold, so that he could adjust the mixture to suit himself. But, what with the siege of Iraz and the revolt of the racing factions, he never got around to trying my idea."
Karadur shook his head. "With all these new inventions pouring out of the House of Learning, in a few centuries our plane will be like the afterworld, where all is done by buzzing, clattering machines and magic is of no account. I pray never to spend an incarnation in such a world."
Jorian shrugged. "I try to make the best of things, be they magical or mechanical. At least we can thank King Ishbahar's monstrous fatness that we have so huge a tub, wherein the twain of us can comfortably sleep. Didst ever hear how he came to have it made?"
"Nay, my son. Tell me, pray."
"When Ishbahar acceded to the throne, he was already vastly obese, eating having been his favorite pastime from boyhood on. Well, the night following his coronation, he was, naturally, weary after a day of standing about and making ceremonial motions and uttering prescribed responses to the high priests of the leading cults. So he commanded his lackeys to prepare a bath for him, and told his favorite wife to await him in the royal bed.
"The royal bathtub, however, had been made for his predecessor, Shashtai the Eighth, who was a small, spare man. Ishbahar tested the water with his finger and found it just right. With a sigh of happy anticipation, he mounted the step that the lackeys had placed beside the tub and lowered himself into the water. But alas! As he sank down, he found himself firmly wedged between the sides of the tub. He called out to a servant: 'Ho, this won't do! We are squeezed to a jelly! Help us out, pray!' So the servitor caught the king's arm and heaved, but without effect. Between the king's vast weight and the wedging effect of the sloping sides of the tub, Ishbahar was stuck fast.
"They called more servants, and all together heaved on the king's arms—to no avail. A guardsman was called, to thrust the butt of his halberd over the edge of the tub and under the royal arse, to my him up. Ishbahar bore the pain bravely except for a few groans, but still he remained stuck. Then two flunkeys added their weight to that of the guardsman on the head end of the halberd, but they only succeeded in breaking the spear shaft.
"Then the king had the chief engineer of the School of Matter in the House of Learning dragged out of bed. The engineer looked over the problem and told the king: 'Your Majesty, I can get you out. All we need do is bore a hole in the ceiling and install a hoist with compound pulleys. By looping ropes under your armpits and thighs, we shall have you out in a jiffy.'
" 'How long will this take?' asked King Ishbahar.
"The engineer thought a moment and said: 'May it please Your Majesty, allowing time for drawing up a plan and assembling materials, I am sure we can have you out in a fortnight.'
" 'And meanwhile we shall sit here soaking?' said Ishbahar. 'Come, come, my good fellow! Fetch us the head of the School of Spirit.'
"So they brought in the head wizard of the School of Spirit, a bitter rival of the chief engineer in the House of Learning. The enchanter said: 'Your Majesty, I have just the thing! It is my newly developed levitation spell, which can easily handle up to three talents avoirdupois. Let me fetch my instruments, and all shall be well.'
"So, after midnight, the wizard ordered all the others out of the bath chamber and began his spell. He bumed mysterious powders in a brazier, whence arose many-hued smokes that writhed and twined like ghostly serpents. He chanted mystical phrases, and shadows chased each other about the walls, albeit there was no solid body in the chamber to cast them. The hangings rippled, and the candle flames flickered, although there was no wind in the chamber.
"At length the wizard cried three words of power, and King Ishbahar rose—but the tub rose with him, still firmly attached to the royal haunches. At length the wizard was compelled by sheer fatigue to let the king and his tub settle back to the floor. This tub, you understand, had no faucet and no pipes to let water in and out, so it could be freely moved.
"At length the favorite wife, named Haziran, came in to see what was keeping her lord so long. She found the king still in the tub, and the chief engineer and the chief wizard and the servants all standing about, muttering disconsolately at their failure to get the king unstuck. They were proposing desperate expedients, such as starving the king until he shrank enough no longer to fit so snugly, like a cork in a bottle.
"Haziran looked the situation over and said, 'You are all a pack of fools! This is a ceramic tub, is it not? Well, you lackeys, take the water out. Doctor Akraba—' That was the chief engineer.'—fetch me a heavy hammer, forthwith!'