"What is that?" she demanded.
"I will not," he said, "waste more time in searching for that code book. Instead, I shall reconstruct the code by trial and error."
"How?"
"I shall try combinations of raps and note what I get each lime. In the centuries that the fan has existed, hundreds of beings must have been fanned away."
The next day Zamben, flanked by six heavily armed palace guards, sat in the Chamber of Audience, which had been cleared of all others save two secretaries. Zamben tapped his left wrist once. A beggar appeared on the floor before him.
The beggar screamed with terror and fainted. When the man had been revived, it was found that he had been fanned out of existence more than a century before, in a fishing village on the shore of the ocean. He was astounded suddenly to find himself in a palace.
Zamben commanded, "Write: one tap on left wrist, beggar. Give him one golden dragon and show him out."
Two taps on the left wrist produced a swineherd, and so it was recorded. During the day, persons of all sorts were rapped into existence. Once a leopard appeared, snarling. Two guardsmen rushed upon it, but it sprang out the open window and vanished.
Some combinations of raps failed to bring results. Either they were not connected with victims of any definite kind, or no beings of that kind had ever been fanned away and not recalled.
"All right so far," said Zamben to the Empress that night.
"What if your experiments bring back Tsotuga?"
"By the fifty-seven major deities, I had not thought of that! An emperor, I suppose, needs a combination of many taps to bring him back. The instant I see him, I will fan him back to limbo."
"Have a care! I am sure that fan will sooner or later bring evil upon him who uses it."
"Fear not; I shall be cautious."
The next day, the experiments continued and the secretaries' lists of formulae lengthened. Three taps each on left wrist, right wrist, and forehead produced the missing Finance Minister Yaebu, much shaken.
Following Yaebu came an ass and a fuller. When the ass had been captured and led out, and the fuller had been soothed and sent away with his fee, Zamben tapped his left and right wrists each three times and his forehead four times.
There was a rush of displaced air. Filling most of the Chamber of Audience was a dragon. Zamben, his jaw sagging, started to rise. The dragon roared and roared, and the guards fled clattering.
Through Zamben's mind flashed a tale he had heard about the fan. Centuries before, it had saved the Gwoling prince, Wangerr, from a dragon on Banshou Island. This must be the same.
Zamben began to open the fan, but astonishment and terror had paralyzed him a few seconds too long. The great, scaly head swooped; the jaws slammed shut.
The only person left in the chamber was one of the secretaries, cowering behind the throne. This man heard a single scream. Then the dragon hunched itself out the window with a crashing of broken window frame and—since the aperture was still too small for it—of a goodly part of the wall. The scribe peeked around the throne to see the scaly tail vanishing through the jagged gap that yawned where the window had been, and a cloud of brick and plaster dust filling the Chamber of Audience.
Yaebu and Nasako became co-regents. Lacking a man, the lusty Dowager Empress took up with a handsome groom from the imperial stables, half her age but well equipped to pleasure her, having no thoughts to distract him from his lectual duties. Yaebu, a conservative family man with no lust for exalted adultery, became prime minister. He ran the Empire in a somewhat hesitant, bumbling way but not unsuccessfully.
Since there was no emperor, even a nominal one, young Prince Wakumba had to be enthroned forthwith. After the day-long ceremony, the lad slowly pulled off the plumed and winged crown of state. He complained, "This thing seems even heavier than usual." He poked about inside it.
Yaebu hovered anxiously, murmuring, "Have a care, my liege! Watch out that you harm not that holy headgear!"
Something went spung, and a metal flap snapped up inside the crown.
"Here is that secret compartment," said Wakumba, "with a—what is this? —a book in it. By the fifty-seven divinities, this must be that code book that Dad was hunting!"
"Let me see!" cried Yaebu and Nasako together.
"That is it, all right. But since the dragon ate the fan along with my stepfather, the book is of no use. Let it be put in the archives with other curios."
Nasako said, "We must ask Koxima to make another magical fan, so that the book shall again be useful."
It is not, however, recorded that the court wizard of Kuromon ever succeeded in this endeavor. For aught I know, the code book still reposes peacefully in the Kuromonian archives in Chingun, and those who, like Tsotuga and Dzakusan, were fanned away and never brought back, still await their deliverance.
TWO YARDS OF DRAGON
EUDORIC DAMBERTSON, ESQUIRE, rode home from his courting of Lusina, daughter of the enchanter Baldonius, with a face as long as an olif ant's nose. Eudoric's sire, Sir Dambert, said:
"Well, how fared thy suit, boy? Ill, eh?"
"I—" began Eudoric.
"I told you 'twas an asinine notion, eh? Was I not right? When Baron Emmerhard has more daughters than he can count, any one of which would fetch a pretty parcel of land with her, eh? Well, why answerest not?"
"I—" said Eudoric.
"Come on, lad, speak up!"
"How can he, when ye talk all the time?" said Eudoric's mother, the Lady Aniset.
"Oh," said Sir Dambert. "Your pardon, son. Moreover and furthermore, as I've told you, an ye were Emmerhard's son-in-law, he'd use his influence toget you your spurs. Here ye be, a strapping youth of three-and-twenty, not yet knighted. 'Tis a disgrace to our lineage."
"There are no wars toward, to afford opportunity for deeds of knightly dought," said Eudoric.
"Aye, 'tis true. Certes, we all hail the blessings of peace, which the wise governance of our sovran emperor hath given us for lo these thirteen years. Howsomever, to perform a knightly deed, our young men must needs waylay banditti, disperse rioters, and do suchlike fribbling feats."
As Sir Dambert paused, Eudoric interjected, "Sir, that problem now seems on its way to solution."
"How meanest thou?"
"If you'll but hear me, Father! Doctor Baldonius has set me a task, ere he'll bestow Lusina on me, which should fit me for knighthood in any jurisdiction?"
"And that is?"
"He's fain to have two square yards of dragon hide. Says he needs 'em for his magical mummeries."
"But there have been no dragons in these parts for a century or more!"
"True; but, quoth Baldonius, the monstrous reptiles still abound far to eastward, in the lands of Pathenia and Pantorozia. Forsooth, he's given me a letter of introduction to his colleague, Doctor Raspiudus, in Pathenia."
"What?" cried the Lady Aniset. "Thou, to set forth on some yearlong journey to parts unknown, where, 'tis said, men hop on a single leg or have faces in their bellies? I'll not have it! Besides, Baldonius may be privy wizard to Baron Emmerhard, but 'tis not to be denied that he is of no gentle blood."
"Well," said Eudoric, "so who was gentle when the Divine Pair created the world?"