the forest and the darkness of the night. Behind him he hears shouts of “Disgraceful!” and “For shame!', crashes headfirst into a tree, sees stars, blinks, and there he is, standing in the palace vestibule in front of the Black Cabinet of dreams that dream, and by his side, Subtillion the mental engineer, smiling a crooked smile. Crooked, as Subtillion was hiding his disappointment: the Alacritus-Ramolda dream had in reality been a trap set for the King, for had Zipperupus heeded the old cybercrone’s advice, Mygrayn, who was only pretending to weaken, would have run him through at the open gate. This the King avoided, thanks only to his extraordinary cowardice.
“Did Milord enjoy the fair Ramolda?” inquired the sly Cybernerian.
“She wasn’t fair enough,” said Zipperupus, “so I didn’t see fit to pursue the matter. And besides, there was some trouble, and fighting too. I like my dreams without fighting, do you understand?”
“As Your Royal Highness wishes,” replied Subtillion. “Choose freely, for in all these cabinet dreams there is only delight in store, no fighting…”
“We’ll see,” said the King and plugged into the dream entitled “The Marvelous Mattress of Princess Bounce.” He was in a room of unsurpassed loveliness, all in gold brocade. Through crystal windowpanes light streamed like water from the purest spring, and there by her pearly vanity the Princess stood, yawning, preparing herself for bed. Zipperupus was greatly amazed at this unexpected sight and tried to clear his throat to inform her of his presence, but not a sound came out—had he been gagged?—so he tried to touch his mouth, but couldn’t, tried to move his legs—no, he couldn’t—then desperately looked around for a place to sit down, feeling faint, but that too was impossible. Meanwhile the Princess stretched and gave a yawn, and another, and a third, and then, overcome with drowsiness, she fell upon the mattress so hard, that King Zipperupus was jolted from head to toe, for he himself was the mattress of Princess Bounce! Evidently the young damsel was having an unpleasant dream, seeing how she turned and tossed about, jabbing the King with her little elbows, digging him with her little heels, until his royal person (transformed into a mattress by this dream) was seized with a mighty rage. The King struggled with his dream, strained and strained, and finally the seams burst, the springs sprang, the slats gave way and the Princess came crashing down with a shriek, which woke him up and he found himself once again in the palace vestibule, and by his side, Subtillion the Cybernerian, bowing an obsequious bow.
“You chuckleheaded bungler!” cried the indignant King. “How dare you?! What, villain, am I to be a mattress, and someone else’s mattress at that? You forget yourself, sirrah!”
Subtillion, alarmed by the King’s fury, apologized profusely and begged him to try another dream, persuading and pleading until Zipperupus, finally appeased, took the plug and hooked himself into the dream, “Bliss in the Eightfold Embrace of Octopauline.” He was standing in a crowd of onlookers in a great square, and a procession was passing by with waving silks, muslins, mechanical elephants, litters in carved ebony; the one in the middle was like a golden shrine, and in it, behind eight veils, sat a feminine figure of miraculous beauty, an angel with a dazzling face and galactic gaze, high-frequency earrings too, and the King, all a-tremble, was about to ask who this heavenly vision was, when he heard a murmur of awe and adoration surge through the multitude: “Octopauline! It’s Octopauline!”
For they were celebrating, with the utmost pomp and pageantry, the royal daughter’s betrothal to a foreign knight of the name Oneiromant.
The King was a bit surprised that he wasn’t this knight, and when the procession had passed and disappeared behind the palace gates, he went with the others in the crowd to a nearby inn; there he saw Oneiromant, who, clad in nothing but galligaskins of damask studded with gold nails and holding a half-empty stein of fortified phosgene in his hand, came over to him, put an arm around him, gave him a hug and whispered in his ear with searing breath:
“Look, I have a rendezvous with Princess Octopauline tonight at midnight, behind the palace, in the grove of barb-wire bushes next to the mercury fountain—but I don’t dare show up, not in this condition, I’ve had too much to drink, you see—but you, good stranger, why you’re the spit and image of me, so please, please go in my place, kiss the Princess’ hands for me and say that you’re Oneiromant, and gosh, I’ll be beholden to you forever and a day!”
“Why not?” said the King after a little thought. “Yes, I think I can manage it. But when?”
“Right now, there’s not a moment to lose, it’s almost midnight, just remember—the King knows nothing of this, no one does, only the Princess and the old gatekeeper, and when he bars your way, here, put this heavy bag of ducats in his hand, and he’ll let you pass!”
The King nodded, took the bag of ducats and ran straight for the castle, since the clocks, like cast-iron hoot owls, were already beginning to strike the hour. He sped over the drawbridge, took a quick look into the gaping moat, shuddered, lowered his head and slipped under the spiked grating of the portcullis—then across the courtyard to the barbwire bushes and the fountain that bubbled mercury, and there in the pale moonlight he saw the divine figure of Princess Octopauline, beautiful beyond his wildest dreams and so bewitching, that he shook with desire.
Observing these shakings and shudderings of the sleeping monarch in the palace vestibule, Subtillion chortled and rubbed his hands with glee, this time certain of the King’s demise, for he knew that when Octopauline enfolded the unfortunate lover in those powerful eightfold arms of hers and drew him deep into the fathomless dream with her tender tentacles of love, he would never, never make it back to the surface of reality! And in fact, Zipperupus, burning to be wrapped in the Princess’ embrace, was running along the wall in the shadow of the cloisters, running towards that radiant image of silvery pulchritude, when suddenly the old gatekeeper appeared and blocked the way with his halberd. The King lifted the bag of ducats but, feeling their pleasant weight in his hand, was loath to part with them—what a shame, really, to throw away a whole fortune on one embrace!
“Here’s a ducat,” he said, opening the bag. “Now let me by!”
“It’ll cost you ten,” said the gatekeeper.
“What, ten ducats for a single hug?” jeered the King. “You’re out of your mind!”
“Ten ducats,” said the gatekeeper. “That’s the price.”
“Can’t you lower it a little?”
“Ten ducats, not a ducat less.”
“So that’s how it is!” yelled the King, flying off the handle in his usual way. “Very well then, dog, you don’t get a thing!” Whereupon the gatekeeper whopped him good with the halberd and everything went spinning around, the cloisters, the fountain, the drawbridge, and Zipperupus fell —not asleep, but awake, opening his eyes to see Subtillion at his side and in front of him, the Dream Cabinet. The Cybernerian was greatly confounded, for now he had failed twice: the first time, because of the King’s craven character, the second, because of his greed. But Subtillion, putting a good face on a bad business, invited the King to help himself to another dream.
This time Zipperupus selected the “Wockle Weed” dream.
He was Dodderont Debilitus, ruler of Epilepton and
Maladyne, a rickety old codger and incurable lecher besides, with a soul that longed for evil deeds. But what evil could he do with these creaking joints, these palsied arms and gouty legs? “I need a pick-me-up,” he thought and ordered his degenerals, Tartaron and Torturus, to go out and put whatever they could to fire and sword, sacking, pillaging and carrying off. This they did and, returning, said:
“Sire and Sovereign! We put what we could to fire and sword, we sacked, we pillaged, and here is what we carried off: the beauteous Adoradora, Virgin Queen of the Mynamoacans, with all her treasure!”
“Eh? What’s that you say? With her treasure?” wheezed the quimsy King. “But where is she? And what’s all that sniveling and shivering over there?”
“Here, upon yon royal couch, Your Highness!” barked the degenerals in chorus. “The sniveling comes from the prison-eress, the above-mentioned Queen Adoradora, recumbent on her antimacassar of pearls! And she shivers first, because she is clad in naught but this exquisite, gold-embroidered shift, and secondly, in anticipation of great indignities and degradation!”
“What? Indignities, you say? Degradation? Good, good!” rasped the King. “Hand her over, I’ll ravish and outrage the poor thing at once!”
“Impossible, Your Highness,” interposed the Royal Surgeon and Chirurgeon, “for reasons of national security.”
“What? I can’t ravish? I can’t violate? I, the King? Have you gone mad? What else did I ever do throughout my reign?”
“That’s just it, Your Highness!” urged the Surgeon. “Your Highness’ health has been seriously impaired by those excesses!”
