Sitting at a desk in the Academy, the philosopher made a steeple of his fingers, saying: "You wish me to evoke a demon and compel it to bring your wife forth from an underground cell in Xylar?"
"Aye, sir. Canst do it?"
"I believe so."
"What would that cost?"
Abacarus made notes on a waxed tablet with a stylus. After calculating, he said: "I'll undertake the task for fifteen hundred Othomaean nobles. I cannot guarantee success; I can only promise to do my best."
Jorian suppressed a temptation to whistle. "Let me borrow your tablet, Doctor. Let's see; in Penembian royals that would be…" He calculated and looked glumly at Karadur. "Had I but known, I'd have fetched a whole tubful of gold from Iraz."
"Gorax could not have borne the weight," Karadur protested.
"Can you pay?" asked Abacarus.
"Aye, though 'twill leave me nigh penniless. Why so much?"
"The spell requires rare ingredients, which will take at least a month to collect. Moreover, it is fraught with no small risk. Fifth Plane demons are formidable bondservants."
Jorian made a half-hearted effort to bargain Abacarus down, but the philosopher-sorcerer was adamant. At last Jorian said: "Shall we agree, half now and half when my wife is delivered to me unharmed?"
"That seems fair," said Gwiderius.
Abacarus cast a sour look at his colleague but grunted assent. Jorian counted out the money. Back at the Silver Dragon, he told Karadur:
"We'd better find ourselves livelihoods whilst waiting for Abacarus. Else we shall run out and be cast into the street. You can read palms or the like, whilst I seek work I can do."
Three days later, Jorian, having canvassed the city in vain for jobs in clock making and surveying, reported to Karadur that he had obtained a job in a windmill. Karadur had a new tale of woe.
"I found a booth for rent and made ready to hang out my sign," he said, "when a man of the local seers' guild appeared, with three bully boys. He told me, politely, that I needs must join the guild, at twice the regular rate because of being a foreigner. Since his escort looked eager for a pretext to set upon me with fists and feet, I forwent argument, promising to pay ere I began practice."
"How much did they want?"
"Fifty nobles for the initiation fee, plus dues of one noble a quarter."
"At that rate, we shan't be able to pay Abacarus his second installment, unless the goddess Elidora suddenly smile upon us."
"You could sell your sword. Whilst I know little of weaponry, me-seems it would fetch a substantial price."
"And then what should I do the next time a dragon or a band of rogues assail me? I have a better thought. Let's appeal to Goania. Surely she has influence with this seers' guild."
The next day, while Karadur went to see Goania, Jorian departed for his first day's work at the mill. The miller, an elderly Othomaean named Lodegar, explained that he was taking on Jorian because hitherto he and his wife had run the mill together. He trimmed the sails while the wife sat at the spout from the millstones and caught the flour in bags as it poured out. Now he was getting old for such gymnastics. His son, a soldier, could not help; so he would collect the flour while Jorian manned the sails.
Jorian had a vague idea that running a windmill was easy. One dumped the grain into the hopper, made a few adjustments for wind speed and direction, and waited for the flour to pour out.
The reality proved different. The wind was ever veering and backing, so that the turret bearing the sails had to be turned to face it. A circle of thick wooden pegs arose around the circular top of the tower, and the circumference of the turret bore a series of equally spaced holes on its inner surface. By thrusting a crowbar between the pegs and into one of the holes and heaving, one turned the turret a few degrees.
Outside, the main shaft of the turret bore four booms, crossing at the axis of the main shaft and thus providing spars to bear eight triangular sails, like a ship's jib. The clew of each sail was tied by a rope to the end of the adjacent boom. To shorten sail, one stopped the rotation of the booms by snubbing with a rope, unhitched the sail, wound it several times around its boom to lessen the area exposed to the wind, and tied the clew again to the end of the next boom in the circle. To spread sail, one reversed the operation.
Jorian was kept on the run all day. When the wind shifted direction, he had to man the crowbar to turn the turret. When it freshened, he scrambled down the ladder to stop the booms' rotation and shorten several of the jibs, lest the millstones, by spinning too fast, scorch the grain. When the wind died, he had to go down again to fly more sail, lest the machine grind to a halt. Between times, the miller directed him to lubricate the wooden shafting and gears with liquid soap, kept in a bucket and applied with a large paint brush.
During the morning, Jorian, bustling about in response to Lodegar's commands, tripped on the bucket and knocked it over. Liquid soap ran out over the floor and trickled between the boards into the base of the mill. Lodegar exploded:
"Vaisus smite you with emerods, ye clumsy oaf! Therius stiffen your joints and soften your prick! Go now to my house, get a bucket of water and some rags from my wife, and clean up this mess, or 'twill be too slippery to walk upon!"
The cleanup took hours, because Jorian had to leave it every few minutes to shift the bearing of the turret, or to descend the ladder to spread or shorten sail.
As night fell, Jorian returned to the Silver Dragon, barely able to put one foot before the other. He slumped down on a bench in the common room, too tired to climb the stair to his and Karadur's room. "Beer, Master Rhuys!" he croaked.
Karadur appeared. "Why Jorian, you look fatigued! Was the work at the mill exacting?"
"Nay; 'twas as light as tossing a feather from hand to hand. How fared you?"
"Goania summoned Nennio, the chief of the seers' guild. She persuaded him to agree that I pay my initiation fee in installments over a year. Further he would not abate his demands. She told me privily that the fifty nobles are mainly a bribe to the officers of the guild. No more than a tenth of the sum reaches the guild's coffers, the rest disappearing into the purses of Master Nennio and his henchmen."
"Why does not some disgruntled guild member bring an action against these larceners?"
Karadur glanced about and lowered his voice. "Because, she whispered, they turn over a portion to the Grand Duke, who therefore protects them in their peculations. But say it not aloud in Lord Gwitlac's demesne, an you value your health."
Jorian sighed. "No wonder the romancers write tales of imaginary commonwealths, where all are honest, industrious, sober, and chaste, since such a thing seems not to exist in the real world. Is the afterworld any more virtuous?"
Karadur shrugged. "We shall doubtless ascertain soon enough; or sooner yet, if you permit that restless tongue to betray us."
"I guard my utterances. If such a land of universal virtue existed, I fear 'twere somewhat dull to dwell in."
"We need not fear, Jorian, that such a reign of tedium will ever afflict us. Betimes some simple dullness were welcome!"
Chapter Four THE DEMON RUAKH
JORIAN BECAME HARDENED TO MILL WORK, SINCE HE WAS A powerful man, albeit somewhat softened by his life in Iraz. To one who had repaired clocks for a living, the mechanism was simple. Whenever the machine stopped, Jorian located the trouble before Lodegar did. One of the wooden gear teeth on the main shaft had come loose and jammed the gear, and Jorian quickly repaired it.
The month of the Eagle was well along when Abacarus sent word that he was ready to call up a demon from the Fifth Plane. The next evening, trudging through a light dusting of snow, Jorian and Karadur gathered in Abacarus's oratory. This was a small, circular room in one of the ornamental towers of the Philosophy Building of the Academy. They found the sorcerer marking a pentacle with chalk on the center of the floor, all the furniture having been moved aside. Holding the other end of the measuring string was Abacarus's apprentice, a weasel-like young man named Octamon.