It gives me great pleasure to announce, however, that this gap has now been filled. After years of diligent search, your humble narrator was eventually able to uncover a long lost manuscript written by Korzeniowski Laebmauntsforscynneweëld. The author of this manuscript is one of the least well known illuminati of the famed scholarly clan. Yet, as the gentle reader will soon have occasion to determine for himself, Korzeniowski’s obscurity is entirely undeserved. It results solely from the fact that—unlike the vast majority of his clan, who made a pusillanimous accommodation to the forces which triumphed in the Great Calamity—Korzeniowski Laebmauntsforscynneweëld remained true to Reason and chose exile over surrender. Thus did he accompany the Director of Companies in that latter’s precipitous flight from the Great Calamity.
Of the odyssey which followed, the epic tale of the voyage of Ozarae’s greatest nabob and his companions across the uncharted oceans in a luxury yacht to their final exile in the islands, I will say nothing. The interested reader is referred to Nordhoffandhall Laebmauntsforscynneweëld’s classic account, Financiers Against The Sea.
The troubled and bitter exile of the Director of Companies in the heathen islands was, as the gentle reader will soon discover, brief. The final end of the leader who, prior to the Great Calamity, was recognized the world over as the supreme embodiment of social discipline, can now be told. For not only does Korzeniowski’s tale recount, long after the event, the journey of the wizard Zulkeh from Goimr to the Caravanserai, but it unfolds as well the last moments of the life of the Director of Companies, the greatest man of his epoch.
Thus, it is with great pleasure as a chronicler, combined with deep sadness as a louse of Reason, that I herewith present the tale.
The Last of the Line
By Korzeniowski Laebmauntsforscynneweëld
(beginning portion)
The native boy came onto the deck bearing a tray; upon it rested four glasses—filled with an amber liquid. He moved silently to the railing; set the tray upon the stool by the Director’s side. The Director of Companies turned from his view of the ocean—glanced down at the tray—glared fiercely at the servant.
“Lord!” he exclaimed. “Jim, I told you to bring drinks for everyone!”
The boy gazed impassively at the Director; then, his eyes sweeping the deck in a glance, took in the other four of us.
“But, sahib,” he said in his barbarous accent, “tuan tu maik fo.”
“I know two and two makes four, you ninny!” roared the Director. “There are five of us!”
No expression crossed Jim’s face; his black eyes stared opaquely at the four glasses; leaning over the rail, he peered at his reflection in the waters; unknowable thoughts moved through his mind.
“Mistaik iz mine,” he muttered, and left the deck.
“Lord in heaven, rescue me!” snarled the Director. “I don’t believe the incompetence of these damned natives. Can’t even count the fingers on one hand.” He sighed heavily and stared out over the ocean. The rays of the setting sun gleamed in the mirror of the sea; of a sudden, he thrust to his feet and gripped the railing.
“Under Western’s eyes,” he said sadly, “this sort of thing never happened.”
We watched his back affectionately as he stood looking seaward. We knew how sorely he felt the loss of his old and trusted valet; and while this loss was but the least of the calamities which had befallen him, perhaps, for that very reason, it vexed him the most. For me, things were what they were; Barley—well, Barley was Barley; as for the accountant and the lawyer, the worst of it was—that it was. But for the Director it was an affront to his entire spirit. The typhoon of his youth had brought him to the pinnacle of success and power; only then, as he stretched forth the maturity of his grasp, to find his victory swept away by the sudden madness; leaving him as he was now, an outcast of the islands in an alien world.
“It was all Mayer’s folly!” he roared suddenly, without looking around. “He should have crushed the rebel when he had the chance! The idiots! All of them!” He glowered out to sea; then spoke again. “Then—then! God, to think of it—the opportunities lost! Bungled from the beginning; Mayer was only the last of the fools. From the beginning, I say! Inkman and the Angel could have done it—at one stroke—they had the chance! I gave them all they asked—then!—at the beginning!—even the Rap Sheet! And for what? For what? To think of it!” He hurled his glass into the sea.