On the third turnabout, he ended up facing the desk, right foot out, arms extended, fingers splayed.
"Appear!" he shouted, this time in his and Tremaine's native tongue.
A brief burst of flame enveloped the desk, and a puff of smoke rose. When the smoke cleared, there, seated where the king had been moments before, was the king's double, smiling, ready to serve.
Tremaine had stepped warily back, but now edged forward, studying the royal doppelganger.
"Majesty, for the thousandth time, I am in awe of your skill."
"Pretty good job, eh?"
"Marvelous. Does it speak?-"
"Sure I do," the double said.
"You'll take care of everything?" the king asked his conjured twin.
"Don't worry about it. Go ahead, take off."
"Right, thanks."
The king pulled out of his robes, revealing the purple jogging suit that he wore underneath, and his yellow-andpurple running shoes. He bundled up the robes and tossed them at Tremaine. The crown went a second later.
"Whoa!" Tremaine said, dropping the robes to catch the electrum crown. "Sire, please be careful!"
The king went to a wall and cast another spell, and in no time an opening, in the form of an arched doorway, appeared in what had been an expanse of bare stone. Beyond stood tall trees, green grass spreading from their bases.
"Look, I'm out of here. My duplicate will handle things. His signature is as good as mine."
"Sire, do you really think you ought to?"
"Tremaine, indulge me in this."
"Very well, sire."
"Good. I going out for my usual afternoon run, which I've skipped for the past thirty-one years, and then I have a bachelor party to show up at. See you later."
Incarnadine, Lord of the Western Pale and King of the Realms Perilous, walked through the arch. After giving a look around, he broke into a run and was off into dappled sunlight.
Tremaine sighed. He took up a sheaf of papers from the desk.
"And now, sire, I bring up the issue of pay raises for the staff."
The royal stand-in nodded emphatically. "It's about time the staff had a raise."
"But, sire, they are cost-of-living escalators that you yourself authorized-" Tremaine did a take. "Pardon, sire. Did you just say-?"
The doors banged open.
"Oh, dear," Tremaine said.
"And this, gentlefolk, is the Royal Office itself!" Heads poked in and necks craned.
"It's the king!"
"The king is here!"
His Serene and Transcendent Majesty rose from his oaken desk and strode toward the door, smiling, arms out and open.
"Welcome, welcome! Come right in, good my lords and ladies!"
"Now, this has possibilities," Tremaine mused to himself.
CHAPTER TWO
His name was rance of Corcindor and he robbed graves for a living. Times were difficult.
He was hard up for a grave.
He came down from the mountains above Garlanis into the foothills of Midresh, through which a mighty river raced and crashed as it followed a winding course ever downward, tumbling over cataract and rapids until it spilled into the Valley of Goan and the marshy plains of Veklin, there to swell wide and slow to a lazy crawl and flow past the fertile fields of Gan, the grassy knolls of Tabor and the dusty flats of Vilben. Farther along the river narrowed and rushed again at the foot of the cliffs of Heeth. Then, finally, it slowed and widened once more to flow gently by a huge boulder called, for some reason, Weird Larry.
But he didn't go there.
He came down from the mountains and went the other way, descending into rough land, black rocks breaking up through blacker earth. The air hung thick and fetid, palpable, cloying. Dark clouds hovered. Stale odors seeped from every crack and chasm. This was not a nice place.
He eased his mount to a halt and surveyed. A gnarled scrub forest to the east; a gradual flattening to the west. The sun boiled behind thick clouds on the horizon. Ruins to the south and east. To the west also. In fact, nothing but ruins lay about. This was ancient Zin; the Zinites had built much, and much remained of their handiwork, crumbled and weathered though it was. But the stench of death and decay lay over the land, a pall of oppressive misery and despair hung over all.
"Gods," Rance said. "This is depressing."
Grand edifices these ruins once had been temples, palaces, courtyards, and squares; all now were heaps of tumbled block, here and there a long column, sometimes two together holding up the remains of a shattered pediment. There were, however, a few intact structures. One was an ancient convenience bazaar. The sign read, in ancient demotic script:
STOP 'N' HAGGLE.
He had his eye on the stepped pyramid at the edge of the plain. A tomb, perhaps. Unrifled? He doubted it, but there could be scraps left behind: an interesting potsherd, perhaps a whole urn; even a bauble of some sort, some souvenir that would fetch a good price back in Corcindor. Maybe some trading stamps and a bottle opener.
He would make camp soon, perhaps on this ridge ahead, so he could survey the land below for targets of opportunity. He continued on.
He followed a narrow pass between two craggy outcrops. When he reached its end and came out onto the slope of the hill, he was astonished to find a small town. He had thought nothing lived here.
His mount whickered nervously. He turned his head and watched a vague shadow take on shape and substance. A quaint tavern lay on his right. The rest of the little town had a bad case of the quaints as well, for all that it might have sprung into existence a moment ago-as indeed he suspected was the case. But the spell had likely been cast centuries before, set here to trap the unwary intruder.
He ignored it all. His mount sidestepped, neighing and quivering. He searched the land below for possibilities. He needed money, and badly. There had to be something below that generations of grave robbers had overlooked.
"Hello, cutie! Have the time?" He looked up. A fair-haired woman with a hard but attractive face was smiling at him, leaning out of an upper-story window.
"Time is what I have least of, woman."
She shrugged. "Not even a moment to spare?" She parted her blouse and exposed heavy, pink-nippled breasts.
"I…" He looked again. As breasts went, they were very nice indeed.
But his better judgment told him nay. He turned away from her.
She sniffed. "Well, all right for you."
He kneed his mount, and the beast bolted forward. He had to rein it in.
"Some men just haven't got what it takes."
He ignored that comment and others directed at his back. The town seemed to bunch up ahead, blocking his path, a jumble of shop fronts and houses.
"You look a mite hungry, sir. Care to bide awhile?"
He regarded the portly, white-aproned man walking toward him, then turned his head. Another-tall, gaunt and grim-faced-approached from the opposite direction.
"I care to pass through, if you good people will let me."
"Certainly, honored sir," the innkeeper said, "but you do look a bit peckish. I've just put on a pot of stew. It'll be done after a few mugs of good beer."
"Thank you, no."
The other grabbed the reins. The eyes were dead.
His sword was a flashing reflection of the sun, brief and brilliant. The tall one suddenly lacked a right hand. He screamed and backed away, the stump spurting blood.
The man-if indeed he was a man-stood in wide-eyed astonishment, watching bright blood splash into the dust. "Hey! You… you cut off my hand!"
"Uh… Yes, I did, yes," Rance said.
"I don't believe… Did you see that? He cut off my hand. He cut off my frigging hand, just like that!"
"Hardly friendly," the innkeeper commented.