“Such a desire is blasphemous, Manuel, for the Eternal Father did no more than that with His primal sculptures in Eden.”
Dom Manuel blinked his vivid blue eyes as if in consideration. “Well, but,” he said, gravely, “but if I am a child of God it is only natural, I think, that I should inherit the tastes and habits of my Father. No, it is not blasphemous, I think, to desire to make an animated and lively figure, somewhat more admirable and significant than that of the average man. No, I think not. Anyhow, blasphemous or not, that is my need, and I must follow after my own thinking and my own desire.”
“If that desire were satisfied,” asks Alianora, rather queerly, “would you be content to settle down to some such rational method of living as becomes a reputable sorcerer and king?”
“I think so, for a king has no master, and he is at liberty to travel everywhither, and to see the ends of this world and judge them. Yes, I think so, in a world wherein nothing is certain.”
“If I but halfway believed that, I would endeavor to obtain Schamir.”
“And what in the devil is this Schamir?”
“A slip of the tongue,” replied Alianora, smiling. “No, I shall have nothing to do with your idiotic mud figures, and I shall tell you nothing further.”
“Come now, pettikins!” says Manuel. And he began coaxing the Princess of Provence with just such cajoleries as the big handsome boy had formerly exercised against the peasant girls of Rathgor.
“Schamir,” said Alianora, at last, “is set in a signet ring which is very well known in the country on the other side of the fire. Schamir has the appearance of a black pebble; and if, after performing the proper ceremonies, you were to touch one of these figures with it the figure would become animated.”
“Well, but,” says Manuel, “the difficulty is that if I attempt to pass through the fire in order to reach the country behind it, I shall be burned to a cinder, and so I have no way of obtaining this talisman.”
“In order to obtain it,” Alianora told him, “one must hard-boil an egg from the falcon’s nest, then replace it in the nest, and secrete oneself near by with a crossbow, under a red and white umbrella, until the mother bird, finding one of her eggs resists all her endeavors to infuse warmth into it, flies off, and plunges into the nearest fire, and returns with this ring in her beak. With Schamir she will touch the boiled egg, and so restore the egg to its former condition. At that moment she must be shot, and the ring must be secured, before the falcon can return the talisman to its owner. I mean, to its dreadful owner, who is”—here Alianora made an incomprehensible sign—“who is Queen Freydis of Audela.”
“Come,” said Manuel, “what is the good of my knowing this in the dead of winter! It will be months before the falcons are nesting again.”
“Manuel, Manuel, there is no understanding you! Do you not see how badly it looks for a grown man, and far more for a famed champion and a potent sorcerer, to be pouting and scowling and kicking your heels about like that, and having no patience at all?”
“Yes, I suppose it does look badly, but I am Manuel, and I follow—”
“Oh, spare me that,” cried Alianora, “or else, no matter how much I may love you, dearest, I shall box your jaws!”
“None the less, what I was going to say is true,” declared Manuel, “and if only you would believe it, matters would go more smoothly between us.”
XI
Magic of the Apsarasas
Now the tale tells how, to humor Alianora, Count Manuel applied himself to the magic of the Apsarasas. He went with the Princess to a high secret place, and Alianora, crying sweetly, in the famous old fashion, “Torolix, Ciccabau, Tio, Tio, Torolililix!” performed the proper incantations, and forthwith birds came multitudinously from all quarters of the sky, in a descending flood of color and flapping and whistling and screeching.
The peacock screamed, “With what measure thou judgest others, thou shalt thyself be judged.”
Sang the nightingale, “Contentment is the greatest happiness.”
The turtledove called, “It were better for some created things that they had never been created.”
The peewit chirped, “He that hath no mercy for others, shall find none for himself.”
The stork said huskily, “The fashion of this world passeth away.”
And the wail of the eagle was, “Howsoever long life may be, yet its inevitable term is death.”
“Now that is virtually what I said,” declared the stork, “and you are a boldfaced and bald-headed plagiarist.”
“And you,” replied the eagle, clutching the stork’s throat, “are a dead bird that will deliver no more babies.”
But Dom Manuel tugged at the eagle’s wing, and asked him if he really meant that to hold good before this Court of the Birds. And when the infuriated eagle opened his cruel beak, and held up one murderous claw, to make solemn oath that indeed he did mean it, and would show them too, the stork very intelligently flew away.
“I shall not ever forget your kindness, Count Manuel,” cried the stork, “and do you remember that the customary three wishes are always yours for the asking.”
“And I too am grateful,” said the abashed eagle—“yes, upon the whole, I am grateful, for if I had killed that long-legged pest it would have been in contempt of the court, and they would have set me to hatching red cockatrices. Still, his reproach was not unfounded, and I must think up a new cry.”
So the eagle perched on a rock, and said tentatively, “There is such a thing as being too proud to fight.” He shook his bald head disgustedly,
