“No more,” wept King Roy. “No more—the rest is lost, I remember no more. It is all like a black stain, all other memory is lost.” He fell silent, hunched on his throne, scepter clenched in bony fist, ashen-faced, eyes haggard and unseeing.
“So,” spoke Zulkeh, musing in deep thought. At length he emerged from his contemplation. “I must ponder upon this matter, Your Majesty. A most profound maloneirophrenia! Now had it been snakes which grasped you so, ‘twould be a simple problem. Snakes are a trifle. Ropes are also quickly fathomed. Tentacles, likewise. But beards? That is quite a different matter.”
The mage fell silent, lost for some moments in his thoughts, then spoke again. “Your Majesty, this problem will require my full study, the application of my most cunning dialectic. But rest assured—the solution will emerge in due time.”
“Time?” demanded King Roy. “How much time?”
” ‘Tis difficult to say, Your Majesty. Certainly weeks, probably months, possibly years.”
“Months!” screeched King Roy. “Years!” His eyes bulged. “I don’t have years! I must know now! I must know the danger, that I may take steps to avert it!”
“Bah!” oathed Zulkeh. “Think you a question of such gravity—a portent of such overwhelming peril—can be discerned in its unveiled essence in the twinkling of an eye? Years, I said, and years it may well be. I shall almost certainly be forced to travel to divers and odd locations, heathen lands and the like, where beard lore is most fully developed.”
Then did apoplexy seize upon the royal visage. “You are hereby commanded by royal edict to report to me at this palace one week from today!”
“Utterly impossible!” spoke the mage. “One week could barely allow me to scratch the surface of the problem.”
“Two weeks, then—and not a minute more!” And with these words King Roy lowered his head, grasping it in both hands. “Go now!” he groaned.
* * *
“What does it all mean, master?” asked the dwarf later, as they rode through the crooked alleys back to their domicile.
“It means ill, Shelyid, great ill,” spoke the wizard in a dark voice. “Of what ill, and whence, I know nothing as yet. But the truth is there, and I shall unearth it—never fear!—wherever the search may take us.”
“Us?” queried Shelyid. “Us, master?” His beady eyes began to glaze. “But what have I to do with searching out great ills, master?” He whined in his throat. “That sounds dangerous, searching for great ills and perils and such. I am no mighty mage such as yourself, to wander about the world like that. I’m just a dwarf, a wretched dwarf.”
“True, quite true,” agreed Zulkeh, patting the gnome’s head. “But you will be needed to carry my things.”
And then did the wizard launch into a most learned discourse, opening up to Shelyid’s understanding the necessary place of the burden carrier in history, recounting tales of faithful servitors of yore and their role in sundry legendary exploits of ancient sorcerers and warlocks, in which these humble drudges found not only their proper place but a share as well (paltry though it was) of the glory and—alas, usually—the gory end of these selfsame puissant probers of the unknown. But, in truth, his exposition was in vain, for his apprentice had long since fainted dead away, whether in awe at such deep and profound thoughts or in horror at the now-revealed impermanence of his fate, it is difficult to say.
CHAPTER IV.
A Wizard’s Travail. Failure—But the Truth Revealed Therein. The Dwarf Reproved. The Wizard’s Decision. The Dwarf Reproved. The Wizard’s Command. The Dwarf Reproved.
In the days which followed, Shelyid’s fears slowly abated. For it seemed, after all, that the wizard had no intention of departing his domicile. To the contrary, Zulkeh did now forego even the morning promenades which he had in the past enjoyed upon occasion. Not once did he leave the death house.
Yet this sedentary life bespoke not sloth on the mage’s part. Quite the contrary—never had Shelyid seen the wizard so engrossed in his work. At all times Zulkeh could be found in his study or laboratory, delving into the sorcerous arts, taking neither rest nor sustenance. Soon the multitude of tomes, tablets and scrolls which filled their domicile became disarranged even further, as the mage investigated their arcanities. Odd experiments did he conduct, in the course of which many revolutionary advances in the field of alchemy were achieved, only to be impatiently discarded as irrelevant to the task at hand. Bizarre talismans did he bring forth, applying to them the most peculiar incantations. Conjurations, summonings—more than once did Shelyid flee in terror as the misty form of some fell creature from the netherworld took shape, called up by the wizard’s lore.