“It is in connection with the Perciplex, and since you have made certain efforts to secure this crystal —”
“Osherl, I command you! Get to the point! What of the Perciplex?”
“To make a long story short, I tend to believe that it has been discovered by a flantic5, who at first thought to bring it to you, and then was diverted by a counter-offer from someone who shall go nameless, but the flantic now swoops here and there in indecision … There! See him now! He is coming in this direction. The Perciplex is clutched in his dextral claw … No! He wavers … He has changed his mind; no doubt he has heard more persuasive terms.”
“Quick then! After him! Strike him with pervulsions! Turn him back, or wrest away the Perciplex! Osherl, will you make haste?”
Osherl stood back. “This is a matter between you and Hache-Moncour; I am not allowed to enter such contests, and here Ildefonse will support me.”
Rhialto roared furious curses. “Then come; I will chase down the creature! He will learn more of sorrow than even he cares to know! Put a full charge of speed into my air-boots!”
Rhialto sprang into the air and ran on great lunging strides after the flapping black flantic, which, swinging its gray head about and observing Rhialto, only flew the faster.
The chase led to the south and west: over a range of mountains and a forest of ocher and gray palmatics, then across a swamp of slime-puddles, trickling watercourses and tufts of black rushes. In the distance the Santune Sea reflected a leaden gleam from the overcast.
The flantic began to tire; its wings beat down with ever less force, and Rhialto, leaping across chasms of air, began to overtake the creature.
With the sea below and no haven in sight, the flantic turned suddenly to attack Rhialto with claws and battering wings, and Rhialto was almost taken unawares. He dodged the furious lunge, but by so close a margin that the wing-edge struck his shoulder. He reeled and toppled; the flantic dived upon him, but Rhialto desperately twisted away. Osherl, standing to the side, uttered a compliment: “You are more agile than I expected. That was a deft contortion.”
Rhialto jerked aside a third time, and the flantic’s claws tore his cloak and sent Rhialto whirling away. He managed to scream a spell of effectiveness and threw a handful of Blue Havoc towards the swooping hulk, and the dazzling slivers penetrated the torso and slashed holes in the wings. The flantic threw back its head and vented a scream of fear and agony. “Manling, you have killed me; you have taken my one precious life, and I have no other! I curse you and I take your blue crystal with me where you can never recover it: to the Kingdom of Death!”
The flantic became a limp tangle of arms, wings, torso and long awkward neck, and toppled into the sea, where it sank quickly from sight.
Rhialto cried out in vexation. “Osherl! Down with you; into the sea! Recover the Perciplex!”
Osherl descended to look diffidently into the water. “Where did the creature fall?”
“Precisely where you stand. Dive deep, Osherl; it is by your negligence that we are here today.”
Osherl hissed between his teeth and lowered a special member into the water. Presently he said: “There is nothing to be found. The bottom is deep and dark. I discover only slime.”
“I will hear no excuses!” cried Rhialto. “Dive and grope, and do not show yourself until you have found the Perciplex!”
Osherl uttered a hollow moan and disappeared below the surface. At last he returned.
Rhialto cried: “You have retrieved it? Give it to me, at once!”
“All is not so simple,” stated Osherl. “The gem is lost in slime. It shows no radiance, and it has no resonance. In short, the Perciplex must be considered lost.”
“I am more sanguine than you,” said Rhialto. “Anchor yourself on this site, and on no account allow either Hache-Moncour or Sarsem to interfere. I will consult with you shortly.”
“Make haste,” called Osherl. “The water is deep, dark and cold, and unknown creatures toy with my member.”
“Be patient! Most important: do not shift your position by so much as an inch; since you are now like a buoy marking the location of the Perciplex.”
Rhialto returned to the pavilion beside the ruins of Luid Shug. He terminated the search and allowed the stimulations to lapse, to the relief of the company.
Rhialto flung himself wearily into a chair and gave his attention to Shalukhe, the Paragon of Vasques Tohor, where she sat pensively on the couch. She had recovered much of her self-possession, and watched Rhialto with eyes dark and brooding. Rhialto thought: “She has had time to reflect on her plight. She sees nothing optimistic in her future.”
Rhialto spoke aloud: “Our first concern is to leave this dismal place forever. And then —”
“And then?”
“We will study the options open to you. They are not entirely cheerless, as you will presently learn.”
Shalukhe gave her head a shake of perplexity. “Why do you trouble yourself for me? I have no wealth; my status is now gone. I have few skills and no great diligence. I can climb hyllas trees for pods and squeeze hyssop; I can recite the Naughty Girls’ Dream of Impropriety; these are skills of specialized value. Still —” she shrugged and smiled “— we are strangers and you owe me not even caste-duty.”
Rhialto, happy in the absence of Osherl’s cynical gaze, went to sit beside her. He took her hands in his. “Would you not rescue a helpless civilized person from a cannibal’s cutting-table if you were able?”
“Yes, naturally.”
“I did the same. Then, with so much accomplished, I became aware of you as a person, or rather, a combination of persons: first a lost and forlorn waif; then as Shalukhe the Swimmer, a maiden of remarkable charm and urgent physical attributes. This combination, for a vain and pompous person like myself, exerts an irresistible appeal. Still, as a man of perhaps inordinate self-esteem, I would not think it proper to intrude unwelcome intimacies upon you; so, whatever your fears in this regard, you may put them aside. I am first and last a gentleman of honour.”
Shalukhe the Swimmer’s mouth twitched at the corners. “And also a master of extravagant sentiments, some of which perhaps I should not take seriously.”
Rhialto rose to his feet. “My dear young lady, here you must trust to the accuracy of your instincts. Still, you may look to me for both comfort and protection, and whatever may be your other needs.”
Shalukhe laughed. “At the very least, Rhialto, you are able to amuse me.”
Rhialto sighed and turned away. “Now we must go off to deal with Osherl. I suspect that he is acting in concert with my enemies, if only passively. This of course is intolerable. We will now fly this pavilion south, across the Mag Mountains, over the Santune Sea, to where Osherl has stationed himself. There we will make further plans.”
Rhialto uttered a cantrap of material transfer, to convey the pavilion across the land and over the sea to where the flantic had sank beneath the waves. Osherl, for the sake of convenience, had assumed the form of a buoy, painted red and black to conform with maritime regulations. A human head wrought in iron protruded from the top, with a navigation light above.
“Rhialto, you have returned!” cried Osherl in a metallic voice. “Not a moment too soon! I have no taste for a life at sea.”
“No more have I! As soon as we recover the Perciplex, our work is done.”
Osherl gave a harsh melancholy cry, in the tones of a sea-bird. “Have I not explained that the Perciplex is lost in the depths? You must give up this obsession and accept the inevitable!”
“It is you who must accept the inevitable,” said Rhialto. “Until the Perciplex is in my hands, you must remain here to mark and certify this spot.”
Osherl tolled his warning bell in agitation. “Why not exercise your magic and move the sea aside? Then we may search in convenience!”
“I no longer command such magic; my best power was stolen by Hache-Moncour and others. Still, you have supplied me with the germ of an idea … What is the name of this particular sea?”
“That is an irrelevant item of trivia!”
“Not at all! I am never irrelevant, nor yet trivial.”
Osherl produced a heavy moaning curse. “During this epoch, it is an inland arm of the Accic Ocean: the Santune Sea. During the Seventeenth Aeon, a land-bridge rises across the Straits of Garch; the sea slowly dries and becomes extinct. During the last epoch of the Seventeenth Aeon the old sea-bed is known as the Tchaxmatar Steppe. In the second epoch of the Eighteenth Aeon, Baltanque of the Tall Towers rises five miles to the north of our present station, and persists until its capture by Isil Skilte the archveult. Later in the Eighteenth Aeon the sea returns. I hope that your sudden fascination with Middle-Earth geography has been satiated?”
“Quite so,” said Rhialto. “I now issue the following orders, which must be implemented in most minute detail. Without stirring from your position, you will transfer me and my subaltern, Shalukhe the Swimmer, to a convenient moment during the latter Seventeenth Aeon when the bed of the erstwhile Santune Sea is dry and ready to be searched for the Perciplex.
“Meanwhile you are explicitly ordered not to move from your present anchorage by so much as one inch, nor may you appoint substitute guardians, specifically and particularly Sarsem, to maintain the vigil while you deal with other business.”
Osherl set up a weird moaning sound, which Rhialto ignored. “The Perciplex is under your foot at this moment; if it is not there when we return in the Seventeenth Aeon, there can be only one party at fault: yourself. Therefore, guard well, with all obduracy. Allow neither Sarsem nor Hache-Moncour, nor any other, to hoodwink you and seduce you from your duty!
“We are now disposed to the transfer. Let there be no errors! The recovery of the true and original Perciplex, and its delivery to me, has become your responsibility! Many, many indenture points ride on the outcome of your work! So then: to the Seventeenth Aeon!”
