The Clocks of Iraz

"Whew!" said Jorian, peering uneasily down the shaft. "That scared me worse than when the princess Yargali turned into a monster serpent whilst I was in bed with her."

"Now, now, my son!" said Karadur. "Do you still practise your old vice of self-deprecation?"

Jorian grinned weakly. "Not very often, Holy Father. Anyway, I misdoubt these fellows understand Novarian." He stepped to one of the windows. Beneath him, vast Iraz lay spread out, with broad, straight processional avenues cutting at various angles through the tangle of lesser streets and alleys. Amid the sea of red-tiled roofs, the metallic roof-plates of temples and other public buildings flashed blindingly in the sunlight, like gems scattered about a red-patterned counterpane.

"Oi!" said Jorian. "Karadur, tell me: is that the palace? And that the temple of Ughroluk? And that the House of Learning? Where lies our tenement?"

Karadur pointed out landmarks. Jorian said: "I wonder the king add not a few coppers to his treasury by letting the vulgus up the tower for a small fee, to enjoy the view."

"One of Ishbahar's predecessors did that; but so many young people, disappointed in love, ascended the tower to jump from the top that the privilege was rescinded. If you have seen enough, follow me."

The old man led Jorian up a narrow stair to the next level, cluttered by a mass of machinery. To one side rose another lift, like the one that had brought them halfway up the tower but smaller.

"That takes fuel up to the beacon," said Karadur. "There is Yiyim now."

A metallic tapping came from the clockwork. Then a small, gnomish man with a graying beard popped out of the gearing. In one hand he gripped a hammer, with which he had been tapping one of the huge brass gearwheels.

"O Yiyim," said Karadur, "this is Jorian the Kortolian, whom the king has commanded to repair the clocks. Jorian, I present Clockmaster Yiyim."

Yiyim stood glaring with fists on hips, silent but for the hiss of breath in his nostrils. Then he hurled his hammer to the floor with a clang.

"You cursed old pickthank!" he screeched. "Offspring of a demon and a sow! Incondite meddler!" He added several more epithets, for which Jorian's limited Penembic was inadequate. "So your plot finally came to a boil, eh? And you think I'll show this young mountebank how these clocks work, so that he can steal the credit for starting them and cozen me out of my post, eh? Well, not one word of help shall you have from me! If the twain of you get caught in the gears and ground to sausage, so much the better. May the gods piss on you!"

Yiyim vanished down the stairs. The sounds of the lift told of his departure.

"Something tells me I had better not stand at the base of the tower whilst that fellow's at the top," said Jorian, "where he could drop something on me."

"Oh, he is harmless. If you succeed, Ishbahar will pension him off; and he surely would not risk loss of his pension by fomenting trouble."

"Yes? Umm. I've seen what happened before when you trusted somebody to be upright and reasonable." Jorian picked up the hammer. "Here's one tool, anyway. There's a tool rack on yonder wall, but with nary a tool in it."

"They have all been mislaid or purloined over the years," said Karadur. "You needs must furnish your own."

"I shall, when I've looked over the works…"

For an hour, Karadur sat cross-legged on the floor, absorbed in meditation, while Jorian tapped and pried and fingered the clockwork. At last he said:

"I haven't worked on clocks for years, but it is plain as your whiskers why this machine won't run."

"What is the cause, my son?"

"Causes, you mean. For one thing, one of the pallets of the escapement is bent. For another, somebody must have struck this gear in the train a heavy blow and marred one of the teeth. For three, the oil in the bearings has been allowed to dry and get sticky, so the wheels wouldn't turn even if all the other faults were righted."

"Can you rectify these deficiencies?"

"I think so. But first I must order tools. Who would be the best man in Iraz for that?"

On the twenty-third of the Month of the Stag, a procession arrived at the courtyard of the Tower of Kumashar. First marched a musical band. Then came a company of the royal guard, consisting of one platoon each of pikemen, swordsmen, and arbalesters. Then came the royal litter, borne on the shoulders, not of slaves, but of the leading gentlemen of the court, half of them in kilts and half in trousers. A squadron of cavalry brought up the rear.

The courtiers set down the litter in front of the main entrance. As the curtains of the litter parted, the soldiers clanged to salute, while the civilians dropped to one knee.

An enormously fat man in a gold-embroidered white robe, with a curly wig on his head and a serpent crown on top of that, emerged slowly from the litter. The effort made him puff and wheeze.

When King Ishbahar had caught his breath, he made an upward gesture, so that the sun flashed on the huge ruby seal stone on the middle finger of his left hand. In a high, wheezy voice he said: