“That is different.”
“I now order you and Osherl to search the forest and find the Perciplex, and then immediately bring it here to me.”
“I cannot do so. I am working to other orders. Let Osherl search. He has been assigned to your service.”
“Sarsem, listen carefully! Osherl, you must be my witness! I hesitate to call out that Great Name on such small affairs, but I am becoming ever more annoyed by your tricks. If you interfere once again in my recovery of the Perciplex, I will call upon —”
Both Osherl and Sarsem set up a fearful outcry. “Do not so much as mention the Name; he might hear!”
“Sarsem, is my meaning clear?”
“Most clear,” muttered the youth.
“And how will you guide your conduct now?”
“Hmmf … I must use evasive tactics in the service of Hache-Moncour so as to satisfy both him and you.”
“I warn you that I am henceforth highly sensitive. Your three points have been justly earned; already you have caused me far too much travail.”
Sarsem made an inarticulate sound and was gone.
14
Rhialto turned his attention to Osherl. “Yesterday I thought to locate the Perciplex near that tall button-top. Now there is work to be done!”
“By me, no doubt,” gloomed Osherl.
“Had you been faithful, the work would have been done, we would be at Boumergarth arranging Hache-Moncour’s well-earned penalties; you would have earned probably two points instead of being fined three: a difference of five indenture points!”
“It is a tragedy over which I, alas! have little control!”
Rhialto ignored the implicit insolence. “So then: shoulders to the wheel! A scrupulous search must be made!”
“And I must work alone? The task is large.”
“Exactly so. Range around the forest and assemble here, in order and discipline, all bogadils, ursial lopers, manks and flantics, and any other creatures of sentience.”
Osherl licked the ropy lips of his shop-keeper face. “Do you include the anthropophages?”
“Why not? Let tolerance rule our conduct! But first, elevate the pavilion upon a pedestal twenty feet high so that we need not be subjected to the crush. Instruct all these creatures to civil conduct.”
In due course Osherl assembled the specified creatures before the pavilion. Stepping forward, Rhialto addressed the group: remarks which his glossolary, working at speed, rendered into terms of general comprehension.
“Creatures, men, half-men and things! I extend to you my good wishes, and my deep sympathy that you are forced to live so intimately in the company of each other.
“Since your intellects are, in the main, of no great complexity, I will be terse. Somewhere in the forest, not too far from yonder tall button-top, is a blue crystal, thus and so, which I wish to possess. All of you are now ordered to search for this crystal. He who finds it and brings it here will be greatly rewarded. To stimulate zeal and expedite the search, I now visit upon each of you a burning sensation, which will be repeated at ever shorter intervals until the blue crystal is in my possession. Search everywhere: in the rubbish, among the forest detritus, in the branches and foliage. The anthropophages originally tied this crystal to the person of someone present, so let that be a clue. Each should search his memory and go to the spot where he might have discarded or scraped off the object. Go now to the button-top tree, which will be the center of your effort. Search well, since the pangs will only intensify until I hold the blue crystal in my hand. Osherl, inflict the first pang, if you will.”
The creatures cried out in pain and departed on the run.
Only moments passed before an ursial loper returned with a fragment of blue porcelain, and demanded the reward. Rhialto bestowed upon him a collar woven of red feathers and sent him out once again.
During the morning a variety of blue objects were laid hopefully before Rhialto, who rejected all and increased both the frequency and force of the stimulating pangs.
Somewhat before noon Rhialto noticed unusual conduct on the part of Osherl, and instantly made inquiry: “Well then, Osherl: what now?”
Osherl said stiffly: “It is actually none of my affair, but if I kept my own counsel, you would never let me hear the end of it. There might even be spiteful talk of indenture points —”
Rhialto cried: “What do you have to tell me?”
“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.”
