Kesrick, page 8
Landing once again on solid earth (which the Paynim, flinging himself precipitously from the saddle, made haste to embrace and to cover with blubbery kisses, being most unused to flying), they dismounted and led their beasts into the gardenlike plot.
“Oh, how lovely!” exclaimed the Princess Arimaspia, clasping her white hands together in the scented valley between her white breasts. And in sooth the oasis presented a most appealing aspect to the exhausted and saddle-weary travelers. A lucent pool of pure water lay enframed in glossy greensward; flowering fruit trees bent above the water as if to admire their fruitage in the glassy mirror, and tall palms nodded in the evening breeze. The heavens above darkened to the purples of evening, and a Shooting Star traced its brief but brilliant track of silvery fire adown the dusky skies. Peace, obviously, and rest, reigned in this bower.
They unburdened their steeds, and the Hippogriff, at least, was led into the shallows to disport and to refresh itself, while the others relaxed upon the dewy sward and caught their breaths.
So pleased to be safely away from the enchanted palace of the blue Efreet was he, that Pteron quoted lengthy aphorisms and apothegms from the works of those noted authorities, Calphurnius Bassus and the famous historian, Alcofribas Nasier.
So relaxed and amiable did Kesrick feel, that he did not even become wearied.
XII
THE TREACHERY OF GAGLIOFFO
After the luncheon which they enjoyed earlier, and which had been unexpectedly doubled, due to the surprise discovery of the Scythian Princess and the disenchantment of the Paynim, the supplies of nutriment which the sorcerer had prudently packed away in the wicker baskets slung across the hindquarters of the Magic Horse were more than considerably depleted.
Therefore, while the Princess Arimaspia and Sir Kesrick diligently searched among the blooming trees of the oasis, hoping to find additional provender to swell their feast, Gaglioffo and Pteron unpacked what little viands remained undevoured. There yet remained a bottle or two of the red wine of Schiraz and the white wine of Kismische yet un-broached, and certain jellies and comfits and sweetmeats. These were laid out on a spread cloth, and when the young lovers returned, bearing melons, citrons, mangoes, coconuts, and a variety of nuts and berries, the table was complete.
And thus it was that they dined, while above them twilight erected its dome of shadows and silences, and the first wan and trembling stars ventured forth, and the full moon rose like a globe of luminous silver, to caress the sands of the circumambient desert with its pure and frosty rays.
“Tell me, Princess,” requested the sorcerer Pteron, leaning comfortably on one elbow and sampling the sweetmeats with his other hand, “as you are presumably knowledgeable in these regions of the world, what desert is this, if you know, and in what nation?”
Arimaspia prettily contorted her ivory brows in a little frown. “Sir Sorcerer,” she spoke up thoughtfully, “it may well be one of the sandy wastes which adorn the bosom of the most northerly parts of the famous Kingdom of Persia, or, perchance, of the most southerly portions of mine own native Scythia. One desert looks, after all, very much like any other desert, and as the cold wind made mine eyes water, during our flight hither, I did not really have a chance to peruse the landscape.”
Pteron nodded, having arrived at very much the same conclusion, himself. “When we have completed our repast, then,” he said amiably, “and have rested a bit from our perils and exertions, it is my intention to return to my house in Taprobane, while Sir Kesrick, I doubt me not, intends to direct his Hippogriff on the long flight into the West, where his ancestral home reposes among the valleys and fields of the country of the Franks.”
Kesrick blinked sternly at this unexpected remark.
“Magister, we can hardly abandon the Princess of Scythia to whatever horrible fate may await her here in these lion-guarded wastes, and neither will the laws of chivalry permit us to desert poor Gaglioffo in similar straits!” he protested.
“Come, come, my dear sir,” puffed the sorcerer; but the knight of Dragonrouge would not be overruled.
“The laws of chivalry are clear and exact upon precisely this problem,” he asserted. “Having rescued a Princess from a monster, one is obligated, by the knightly code, to see her safely home to the bosom of her family, and very much the same obligation exists between a wizard who has been fortunate enough to disenchant a poor and hapless fellow like Gaglioffo, here, whom we must certainly escort to a place of safety.”
“The agreement between yourself and me, Sir Kesrick, only covered that period of time in which our interests were mutual,” said Pteron. “Which is to say, the quest and discovery of the talismans which interest us; that quest having fortunately terminated in success, we are, both of us, free to go our own ways. If you feel honor-bound to escort the Princess to the Scythian capital, or this fellow to some civilized country, that is entirely your own decision, and does not effect myself.”
Kesrick bent upon the sorcerer a severe disapproving gaze.
“Upon the obligations of gentlemen,” he said in stern and unrelenting tones, “I can only cite the eloquent and eminently reasonable arguments of Zorobasius, which are, as you will recall, irrefutable.”
“But—!”
“And, moreover, in these same arguments, the distinguished Ptolemopiters assents, in a treatise (which, if you have not had the opportunity to peruse, I must recommend to one of your discernment) wherein he amply demonstrates the purest reason and logic behind the earlier discourse—”
“Oh, very well, very well!” said the sorcerer hastily, and that was an end to the matter.
On most subjects the amiable youth could be persuaded this way or that, the sorcerer had already discovered, but when the question at hand hinged on anything relating to the laws of chivalry, he became adamantine.
“I have not yet had the opportunity to scrutinize closely your magic jewel,” said Pteron. “May I have a look at it?”
Kesrick removed the pommel-stone from his wallet, where he had put it away for safekeeping, and handed it to the sorcerer, who peered at it through a small but powerful lens.
“Excellent workmanship, indeed,” he murmured after a time, “and it now occurs to me that I have heard of such a talisman before.”
“Indeed?” said the young knight in polite inquiry. The sorcerer nodded in a positive manner.
“Yes, yes,” he puffed excitedly, “I am quite certain; in fact, I would stake my thaumaturgical reputation on this matter. Young sir, what you have here is one of the most powerful and celebrated of all the famous talismans of antiquity: for it is none other than the Pantharb itself, the former prized possession of the Hindoo magician, Iarchas, who owned it back in the days of the noted Appolonius Tyanaeus. Among its other powers, it has the unique property of reflecting any malign enchantment back upon the enchanter who cast the spell in the first place. I at last understand exactly why the villainous Zazamanc wished to deprive you of its protection, for otherwise he would not have been able to work any magic against your person, at dire peril of his own safety.”
“Well, well,” smiled Kesrick, impressed. The sorcerer handed the fiery-colored jewel back to its owner, who again placed it in his leathern wallet. Neither of them, being engrossed in studying the pommel-stone, had noticed the wily Gaglioffo edging near as if eavesdropping on their conversation.
By this time night had fallen and they all felt much too weary from the many venturings and exploits and perils of the long day to continue on their journey to the famous capital of Scythia and decided to spend the night in this pleasant spot. From his wicker baskets, the sorcerer produced warm blankets and each of the adventurers rolled up in one of these and promptly fell asleep.
All, that is, save for one of them.
The sun had already lifted above the edges of the world when they awoke from their deep and refreshing slumbers the next morning, and it was not long before the sorcerer and the knight made a number of depressing and disastrous discoveries.
“Where in the name of Deggial is the Magic Horse?” demanded Pteron in astonishment, for the ebony creature no longer stood near the graceful palm tree to which he had yestereve tethered it.
“For that matter, Magister,” Kesrick exclaimed in fearful shock, “where is the Princess Arimaspia?” For she, too, was not to be seen. But there were her empty blankets, beneath the fragrant jessamine bush where she had lain.
A dreadful surmise struck both of our heroes in the same instant, and they turned to observe that Gaglioffo, as well, was missing.
“By Ampharool!” cursed the sorcerer in tones of extreme bitterness, “but the rascally black-avised scoundrel has made off with your Princess and my Magic Horse! Doubtless the villain has flown to Scythia, to claim the reward offered for rescuing the Princess Arimaspia from the Rosmarin, as well as to demand her hand in marriage—did you notice how the scoundrel eyed the young woman in poorly concealed lust, whenever he could do so without believing himself observed by either of us?”
“I did, indeed, but thought little of the matter,” groaned Sir Kesrick, who was charitably inclined on this point, since he could hardly imagine any man who would not have stared at the beautiful sixteen-year-old Princess of Scythia, especially since she still scorned any proffer of raiment and went about attired in nothing but her own loveliness.
Digging in his wallet, he made another horrible discovery.
“The magic pommel-stone of famous Dastagerd is missing, too,” cried the youth in tones of complete and utter despair.
Pteron searched the pockets of his robe in grim silence, and, of course, discovered that the Ring of Soliman Djinn-ben-Djinn was also to be listed among the objects purloined during the night by the wicked Paynim.
“The absolute scoundrel!” muttered the sorcerer. “Well, he was aptly named, and I should have suspected the truth of him all along.”
“Whatever are we to do now?” asked Kesrick, crushed to the depths of despair by these dismal and depressing discoveries.
“Your Hippogriff can bear us both upon his back, for he did not seem greatly to tire beneath the added burthen of the Scythian Princess, and I am no heavier,” observed Pteron.
“In that case, I suggest we depart at once for the Scythian court to expose this vile impostor,” cried Kesrick. Such was his eagerness to rescue the beauteous Arimaspia from the clutches of the rascally Paynim, that he did not even pause to break his fast.
In less time than it takes to tell the tale, they were awing and away, soaring across the burning sands in the direction of the capital of Scythia.
While these events had been taking place, you need not for one moment suppose that Zazamanc the Egyptian wizard had been idle or had relaxed at all in his various villainies. Indeed, the very moment that the magic cloud conjured up by Pirouetta the Fairy of the Fountain had plucked the Frankish knight from his grasp, and without even pausing to vent his frustrations by laying waste to the countryside or leveling Dragonrouge itself, the wizard instantly repaired in his iron chariot, drawn by a matched team of Wyverns, to his subterranean palace beneath the burning sands of the Moghrab, and began consulting the oracles of sortilege in order to discover the whereabouts of the Frankish knight.
He had at length found Kesrick in his magic crystal, a black mirror of polished obsidian which reposed in a frame of iron worked all over with the grinning visages of demons. By means of this crystal he had followed the adventures of our hero, even as I have related them, and now crouched atop a tall stool whose legs were made from the thigh-bones of his vanquished enemies, pondering a vast tome which lay open before him upon a narrow lectern fashioned from the rotten wood of gallows and coffins. Above his head there dangled by a length of iron chain a retort of glass filled with clarified phosphorus, whose coldly weird effulgence fell upon the great book he was feverishly perusing, as it likewise shed its uncanny luminance on dripping walls of ragged stone, where skeletons dangled in rust-eaten chains.
“This Pteron is a clever fellow, by the Fiend Asmodeus!” swore Zazamanc in his harsh, grating voice, tugging viciously at the end of his long stiff beard, “and now that the vapid young chevalier has managed to recover his accursed pommel-stone, I dare not intervene in his adventures….”
A gleam of cunning came into his black, wicked eyes, and he lay one gnarled finger along his jutting beak of a nose.
“But if I dare not intervene in person,” he said slyly to himself, “perhaps I can enlist the aid of an accomplice to perform as my surrogate!”
Springing from the tall stool, he strode across the dungeon floor and tugged at a length of hangman’s rope. From the depths of the subterranean palace a bell tolled mournfully, and erelong there came in answer to this summons the dragging footsteps of a cadaver animated by Black Necromancy, whose rotting visage was pullulating with maggots.
“Prepare the iron chariot for my immediate departure,” the wizard commanded.
XIII
WED AND WIDOWED
Even as Kesrick and Pteron had assumed, it was none other than the villainous Gaglioffo who had carried off the two magic talismans and the Magic Horse, which he was able to operate, having closely observed the sorcerer manipulating the various knobs and pegs that directed the ensorcelled steed. As an afterthought, the Paynim had fallen upon the sleeping Princess, and had adroitly bound and gagged the young woman before she was more than half-awake; for, as the sorcerer Pteron had observed, the rogue had conceived of a violent passion for the nubile Scythian from the very moment he had first observed her tender, and quite nude, body while in the person of the Rosmarin. His subsequent disenchantment had done nothing to alleviate his infatuation, save, perhaps, to replace one appetite with another, or so, at least, we may charitably hope.
It was not, this thievery, prompted by any particular fears of his compatriots, for the scoundrelly Paynim quite trusted the chivalrous instincts of the Frankish knight, and the gentlemanly urgings of the sorcerer Pteron—no, but if Gaglioffo was ever to express his personal philosophy, it might well have been phrased, “Mahound watches over you, but hide your own rubies.” In other words, self-interest was the guiding light of Gaglioffo’s miserable life, and it had rarely failed him yet.
Sometime about the mid of night, then, he had burglarized the slumbering knight and the snoring sorcerer of the two talismans which seemed so important to them, had carried off the Princess, and, now, mounted upon the Magic Horse, was traversing the midnight skies like a blazing meteor, bound in the direction of the capital of Scythia, where it was his impertinent plan to claim the hand of Arimaspia in marriage, and also to collect the very sizable fortune offered by the King of the Scythians to whomsoever might be able to destroy the Rosmarin.
This city, called Sauromatia, was built upon the shores of the River Tanais, which the Magic Horse reached about sunrise. The river glittered and flashed in the morning sun, and the city itself was very fair, its yellow domes and minarets floating as if substanceless upon a sea of mist, perforated with tall black cypresses, and dawnlight glowed upon the marble fronts of palaces, and long arcades of shining pillars, and a veritable forest of obelisks, and lofty carven arches that spanned half-circles of the hot blue sky.
Gaglioffo landed in the palace courtyard, and immediately began making such a hullabaloo that they had to rouse the King from his slumbers. Kings are rarely accustomed to arising before noon or thereabouts, and thus, cursing and slapping the servants, King Octamasadas dragged on his second-best robe, clapped his Tuesday crown on his balding head, and ventured out onto the balcony which overlooked the courtyard, in order to discover what all the yelling was about.
Spying the crowned figure, Gaglioffo addressed him as follows:
“Monarch of famous Scythia, I am the internationally renowned sorcerer Pteron, come to claim the rewards offered for the rescue of the Princess Arimaspia, and also her hand in marriage, for I have destroyed the fiendish monster, Rosmarin, and here is the Princess herself, safe and untouched!”
With these words, he whisked the Princess from the back of the Magic Horse and adroitly removed her gag and severed her bonds with a small knife heretofore hidden in his sash.
“D-daughter, is it indeed you?” queried Octamasadas III in a trembling voice.
“Yes, wicked stepfather,” spoke up Arimaspia, “but—”
“You need have no doubts as to my prevarication, O King of the Scythians,” shouted the Paynim boldly, “for only a sorcerer of my fame could possibly fly about the world on a Magic Horse of ebony, such as that you see before you, or possess such important magical talismans as these”—and here he produced the Seal-Ring of Soliman Djinn-ben-Djinn and the magic pommel-stone of Dastagerd.
“Oh, my,” said the King tremulously, touching his fingers to his lips.
“But he is not—” began the Princess furiously, but once again the treacherous Paynim cut her off.
“ ’Twer best for you, King, that you marry us at once and hand over the fortune promised in your edict, for by the sorcerous powers at my command, I could in a twinkling transform your vaunted palace into a garbage heap, and yourself into a crow!”
“Goodness me,” moaned the King, thinking to himself that some mornings it simply does not pay to get up.
“Whatever is all this clamor about?” demanded Queen Thomyris, coming out onto the balcony in her dressing-gown, with her hair all done up in curlers. Her husband informed her in terse words, whereupon the foolish and weak-willed woman cried aloud to the gods and exchanged a timid glance of endearments with her daughter, who was furiously trying to get a word in edgewise, so as to expose the rascally Paynim as the impostor that he was.
