"but drink up! you can’t drink all day if you don’t start in the morning.”
merlin smiled politely at his host’s remark, and took another hearty swig of the ale. he felt the gargoyle’s eyes fixed intently on him, but perhaps, he thought, that is just his way, and he means nothing by it.
“do you get many visitors from other planets?” merlin asked the gargoyle, attempting to make what he thought might be polite conversation.
“not so many, but perhaps a fair amount considering how sparsely populated the planet is.”
merlin nodded, not being sure how to reply.
“but,” the gargoyle continued, “we happened to have a visitor just the other day, one outwardly very different from yourself. would you care to see it?”
merlin thought that his host wanted him to say yes, so he did.
“well then drink up, and when you have finished i will show you our visitor and perhaps get your opinion on it. then we can come back here and drink some more, what do you say?”
“that sounds very agreeable,” merlin replied.
merlin tossed back the remains of his tankard, and the gargoyle then led him into the shadowed cathedral .
they ascended a long flight of winding stairs.
then the gargoyle led merlin down a long corridor.
the corridor seemed much longer than merlin would have guessed possible from his view of the building from the outside.
the walls were lined with frescoes, and also with hung paintings, containing endless scenes of warfare and conquest interspersed with a few idyllic landscapes and depictions of tender love and romance.
none of them seemed exactly familiar to merlin, but at the same time he felt he had seen them all a million times before.
at last they came to a small room.
the room contained a single large window, opened to the blue sky, and a single chair in which a man sat hunched over and apparently dozing.
something was crawling across the floor, which merlin at first took to be a large lobster.
on a closer look it was a human child of a bright red hue, with an aggressive look on its little face as it looked up and beheld merlin and the gargoyle.
“and here is our visitor,” the gargoyle pointed to the crawling child. “we found him in some weeds the other day, and do not know quite what to make of him, or of the language that he speaks.”
at the sound of the gargoyle’s voice, the man in the chair shook himself from his sleep and looked up.
it was king richard the lion hearted!
“richard!” exclaimed merlin. “i had not thought to find you here! we all wondered what had happened to you.”
but before richard could reply, a large white bird appeared on the sill of the open window and said something to the gargoyle in a strange language.
“you will have to excuse me,” the gargoyle said courteously to merlin, and opening its wings - and almost hitting merlin in the face with them - flew out the widow with the bird.
leaving merlin alone with king richard and the red-faced child, which began to whimper, and then to shout in a language unfamiliar to merlin what sounded like violent curses.
“do you know what it is saying?” merlin asked richard.
“it is cursing the day it was born and the existence of the universe, and also calling on some sort of bandit god that troubles the sleep of the rulers of this planet.”
“oh. and what is the name of this deity?”
richard looked around the room. “his name is not to be spoken aloud.”
“oh come now, old fellow, have we not known each other for years? what is its name?”
richard hesitated. “its name is - kobra!”
“kobra!”
the mountebank awoke. he was in his bed in his little room in the inn. it was still dark.
he heard shouting from the lower floors of the inn.
he got up and hastily put his clothes on.
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