“What time was . . . that?” asked the Shah in a peculiar voice.
The Prince looked up, alertly. The minister raised his head, an expression of concern on his face.
“Well after midnight, Great One,” said the officer from the doorway.
“And he … went . . . went . . .” said the Shah.
“Out onto the dunes, Great One,” said the puzzled officer.
“Your Effulgence,” cried the minister. “Are you all right?”
“All right … all … all .. .” murmured the Shah, stopping with his mouth half open.
“Great One, answer me! Are you in pain? What’s the matter?”
“He seems to have stopped,” said the Prince, in an interested voice as he stepped forward into the doorway. “Like a clock! What was that you gave him?”
“His morning medicine. He has taken it every morning, for years.”
“P’naki?”
The minister shook his head, put his finger to his lips and said to the kneeling officer, “You’re excused. The Shah is obviously unwell.”
The officer scurried away as quickly as he could on all fours.
“Then it was P’naki,” said the Prince, when the officer had gone. He stepped into the room.
“Oh, yes, Prince Delganor. Of course.”
“Every day, hmm?”
“The merest sprinkling.”
“Maybe it went bad,” suggested the Prince.
The minister heard this with open-mouthed amazement. “I’ve never heard of it doing that, Prince Delganor.”
“You also take P’naki.”
“Yes, sir. But only once every … oh, ten years or so.”
“You wouldn’t mind taking some from the Shah’s supply?”
“Sir! Are you suggesting . . .”
“Just the merest sprinkling, as you say. It can’t hurt you.”
“No, it certainly cannot,” said the minister, wrathfully, as he laid his master back upon his bed and took the key from between stiffened fingers. He unlocked the box, poured a cup of water, sprinkled a spoonful of dust on the surface, and downed the drink, the whole while maintaining his expression of dignified outrage.
“Tell me about P’naki,” purred the Prince.
“I can tell Your Highness nothing Your Highness does not already know,” snapped the minister. “We know you want the supply increased. It cannot be increased. We have explained that. The desert grows only so much, no more.” Actually, the desert would grow all the Shah could bless, but the Shah would bless only as much as he needed and was convenient. And lately they’d had trouble getting enough candidates even for that!
“But if we plant it in Bliggen?” The Prince watched him narrowly, looking for signs of incipient stalling.
The minister moved back to his Shah, smoothing back the hair, covering the supine body with a coverlet. “It would not grow in Bliggen. It grows only in the desert of Mahahm, and even there it grows to its proper purpose only with the blessing of the Shah.”
“Whom, it seems, you no longer have around to do the blessing,” said the Prince, joining him near the bed. He poked the body lying there and received, in response, a flicker of eyelid. “Is he still alive?”
“That is a question for the doctors, Your Highness, and we should certainly return to the palace at once. We have no doctors here, but there are doctors in Mahahm-qum.”
“Oh, by all means,” murmured the Prince. “And what do we do about the Marshal?”
“He will either find his way back here, or to Mahahm-qum, or he won’t. We cannot afford to spend time and effort hunting for him with the Shah in this condition.”
“I agree.” The Prince smiled. “We certainly can’t.”
“If Your Highness will permit,” said the minister, bowing toward the door.
“Since it seems you did not poison the Shah, we will permit, yes,” said the Prince in an uneasy voice. For the first time, he considered that there might be an end to life even with P’naki. Was P’naki then, only a long delay and not a reprieve from mortality? “If it wasn’t poison, what was it? Was he very old?”
“He was, is, very old, Your Highness. Very, very old.”
So was the Prince, very old, and he did not like the thoughts those words brought to his mind. He himself was about due for his next dose of P’naki. Since his own supply was probably no longer available, it would be necessary to borrow some from Ybon.