Cover illustration

Chronicles of Khorlia, volume one — printed for Westercon, 1975 by Barry and Lee Gold, Polysotechnic Press, 100 copies, to be sold at 50¢. All copy is wordguarded. All material is Copyright 1975 by Dave Fox.

Fenachrone was first published in June, 1936, by the Lambengarde chapter of the Science Fiction League (the first European chapter) with Newton Ross, then a pupil at Arnol Gregor Tertiary, serving as editor. Since that first outpour, the zine has grown to fifty printed pages monthly and become the most influential fanzine in Europe, translated into at least four other languages by devoted fans in a half dozen countries.

The majority of the material in the American Fenachrone is naturally translated from the Khorlian Script edition. Of its 50 plus or minus pages, many are unsuited for our American readers, being about people or topics unfamiliar to American fandom. What is left is still quite a lot — interesting talks delivered at LSFS meetings or at the meetings of other Khorlian fan orgs; reviews or news of books, mags, films, etc.; club news of interest to American fandom; and occasional articles written especially for Fenachrone's American edition by Peggy or Henry or by our editor emeritus, Newton Ross.

How about the actual mechanism involved in bringing a Khorlian fanmag to western America? Every month Newton Ross, whose job with Toleman-Lockheed takes him to Burbank, California several times monthly, brings with him two copies of Fenachrone, plus messages from Peggy and Henry. These he gives to Dave Fox, along with any ideas of his own he may have had en route. Newton says there's nothing like flying along at 42,000 [feet] at a good steady 600 miles an hour to stimulate the mind, especially in one of Wing Khorlia's five-engine Rohmercorps 114 jet-liners. Dave takes his copies and reads one thru, checking for usable articles, etc. (Incidentally, Dave has complete authority and responsibility in his selection of what will go into Fenachrone. This is a policy that was thrashed out in a long debate among the literary members of the Society and was finally decided by a personal message from Applecross Palace, expressing trust in Dave's judgment and revealing that research by the Khorlian Genealogical Council had proved that some of the noblest blood in Khorlia flows in his veins. (I blush.—DF) Anyway, Dave goes over his copy of our outpour several times, then translates the items chosen, with Newton Ross lending a hand whenever he's at Dave's home, and types up the mimeo stencils. His regular run is about 60 [as of 1966], which includes 50 copies for APA-L [the copy count then required], three for our staff in Lambengard, some for American fans who cannot get to the [LASFS] meetings, one for his looseleaf file, and a couple for Dave's file. (Dave is given a small but adequate allowance to cover the cost of paper, stencils, and ink.)

On Monday, 9 Junlun, 1936, after a hectic weekend of typing and re-typing, ditto machine breakdown, and all of the other manifold sins and iniquities which can afflict amateur publishers, the first outpour of Fenachrone, "The Voice of Khorlian Fandom," was handed out to the members of the three-years-old Lambengard Science Fiction Society, and copies were mailed to various Khorlian fans and a few overseas correspondents. The title page looked pretty crude, but it took all we had, and for awhile it looked like there'd never be a second outpour — the member who owned the ditto machine had a quarrel with someone and quit, taking his gadget with him — but we managed to stagger on with a rented mimeo, and just before our fourth outpour, when things were getting desperate (renting a mimeo was draining our treasury!), a truck bearing the winged wheel emblem of the Lord Courier's service pulled up at my house, two uniformed men got out, and after asking if I lived there, carried in a sizable crate and set it on the living room floor.

When I got home from school and opened it, I found a mimeograph, painted denstery-green [sic] and stenciled "Duplicator MK 14M-A25, Second Fuslog Message Battalion," ten one kilogram cans of ink, five reams of paper, four quires of stencils, and a box filled with styli, lettering guides, and other useful items. By this time my mother was sure that I'd gotten the crate by mistake and would get in trouble for opening it, while my dad, home from his job at the government offices, was not worried but quite puzzled. There was a short note in the box which cleared things up — at least for my father. It read, "For the use of Newton Ross and his science fantasy friends, from Brother Fox," and was sealed with the red, green, and blue "Aum Die" insignia of the Office of the Dynast. When my dad saw this, he looked surprised, then chuckled, but all he would say was that mother need not worry, he was sure that the crate was really for me, and that I certainly had an important friend. It wasn't till my first visit to Applecross Palace that I learned who "Brother Fox" was. The machine lasted us a good many years and turned out fanzines galore.

But to return to Fenachrone: On that Junlun Monday of thirty years ago, we proudly brought forth an eight page dittoed mag, with the first page handwritten and the rest typed, no illos, and no humor. The Staff consisted of the editor and head duplicator (me), assistant editor and head mailer (Fulton Amonson, who's still a fan), and an ever-changing bunch of members who wrote stuff for the mag and helped put it out just to see their stuff published. As time went on, the mag grew from eight to 12 pages, and late in 1938, when I was no longer editor but still contributed articles whenever I could between papers for my classes at the University, I was invited for a fifth time to Applecross Palace, and there I met Mr. Thomas McHenry, the owner of Gray Fox Press, who offered the free services of his company in printing Fenachrone. Needless to say, I accepted, and our mag has been printed ever since, a welcome change from the limitations of mimeography.

Now, thirty years later, our fanzine is fifty pages long each outpour, with a semi-slick cover, at least five regular columns, and plenty of illos, comes out monthly, and serves fans all over Khorlia and many in other English-speaking countries all over the world. Peggy Barker and Hank Purwell preside over a staff of sub-editors and contributors who still burn with the old ambition — to see their work in print, be it prose, poetry or art — and even some of us prehistoric Founding Members come up with a piece once in a while.

Newt Ross has asked me to write a piece about the club that we had when our first mag was put out, back in 1936, so here goes.

The Lambengard Science Fiction Society had about 30 members then, and when 25 of us came to a meeting it was a big one. We were also European Chapter #1 of Hugo Gernsback's Science Fiction League. We had been going for some three years and had progressed from meeting in members' homes to gathering in a small rented storeroom on Pelton Street, in a rather crummy part of Lambengard. I was Governor, some girl was Scribe [Hilda Schactman, who later married a professor at Odivad and spent a great deal of her time denouncing science-fiction and fandom—NR], Lloyd Wilson, still a reader of s-f, was Bursar, and Newt, of course, was Editor, publisher, head densterman, and what-have-you, of our first Group Enterprise, Fenachrone.

This was a solemn moment in our history — ditto material cost money, and we were lucky when we had 12 rikesbuken in our treasury. "Not by swift deeds, but by tedious argument and petty acts, slowly done, do Great things come about," so says Lohan Delf in his Price of Happiness, and this has seldom been truer than in the case of Fenachrone. Newt had been pushing for a mag for two years, and twice the club had nearly broken up over the issue. When we finally decided on it, it took nearly 6 lunae to get together enough copy and money for an outpour.

I still remember the Sunday night we put that first one together. It was around 1 AM, Monday, when we got thru, and after we'd quit admiring the neat stack of mags sitting on the Governor's desk ready to be given out that evening, we came out into the clear Junlun night and started for the car line and the long ride home, and Newt turned to me and said, "Gee, Fulton, there may be better ones, but there's only one first one!"

—Fulton Amonson

Newton Ross — friend, fan, citizen of the Federated Kingdoms of Khorlia — and an employee of Lockheed-Toleman. Newton's job as Senior Courier (the guy in the spy show who carries the heavy locked briefcase chained to his wrist) brings him to Burbank every week or so, and we usually get together when he's here. We met at a Lockheed Employees' picnic. Betsy was enjoying the free rides; Marge was reading; and I had just fished a couple of prozines out of the foot locker, when a tallish man strolling by stopped and asked me if I read much science fiction. This was the start of a friendship.

Newton, quite active in Khorlian fandom, had never contacted any American fans and enjoyed the chance to meet new friends. He joined LASFS during the Pelz Administration and gets to meetings whenever his tight schedule permits. It was his idea for me to put out an American edition of Fenachrone.

Dave Fox in Fenachrone XXXIV

People keep asking me questions about Khorlia. What is it? Where is it? How old is it? Would it be fun to visit? What language is spoken? Is the money hard to understand? And lots more,. I'll try to answer a few of them.

Khorlia (more formally, the Federated Kingdoms of Khorlia) is a sovereign state of some nineteen million population. It is a "limited democracy," which means that while it has an alive and fully functioning parliament (we call ours the Reichsmeet), there is also a more or less hereditary ruler, the Dynast, with the power, someone has suggested, of a very popular prime minister. Certainly a real Ruler, and not a powerless figurehead like English royalty, outspoken on both foreign and domestic issues.

Unlike some of our smaller neighbors, we have our own money based on the Rikesbuk, which is worth about $1.50, US [as of 1988]. Since our smallest coin, the Plotney, is 1/144th of a rikesbuk, it is close enough in value to be interchangeable with the US cent, which makes money-changing and spending an easy thing.

What's there to see? Plenty! We are one of the older nations in Europe, and some of our cities are even older. Templed Aquatinium , first Greek, then Roman, and still loyal to the Empire; ages-old Ahndore, city of magic (this is the city that H. Phillips Lovecraft found so delightful); Odivad, Khorlia's university town; and many more.

For sports and fun, visit the Khorlian Riviera; for something more strenuous, climb and ski on the Khorlian Alps; for more civilized pleasures, sample cuisines in the Gallic directorates in Khorlia's French south-east; explore historic Lambengard, or if you have the time, take the long, dreamy summer cruise up the Fox River from busy Claudesport to storied Xofheim, ancestral home of the Xofs, Overlords of Khorlia and fourteen times rulers of Khorlia.

Where is Khorlia? East of France, west of Italy, and a bit southeast of Switzerland. Needless to say, the Federated Kingdoms is thoroughly covered by Eurail, and all the world's great airlines, including our own Wing Khorlia, land at our cities. People still ask us, "Where is Khorlia?" All we can answer is, "Look in your atlas; it was there the last time we looked!" It would be a very funny atlas and an odd continuum that didn't include the Federated Kingdoms!

ENGLISH SPOKEN HERE. With us English is no second tongue, inadequately taught and soon forgotten; it is our native language! Khorlia is one of the five major nations, plus assorted island republics, where English is the native tongue. Ah, you say, but how about the written language? Well, we think that our phonetic script is about the best thing ever, but for the convenience of our visitors who will be with us briefly, all important signs (traffic, restaurants, museums, "Damen und Herren") are reliterated in English, German, French, and Japanese. So relax, you'll be in good hands.

For our Fantasy Fan clients, science fiction and fantasy are popular in Khorlia. His Power, the Dynast, is a fan and has a library which rivals in size and diversity the legendary Ackerman Library, while every major city has a fan group.

This publication is not only a tourist advertisement for the Federated Kingdoms but a plug for APA-L, the Thinking Fan's Group Zine, and of course both outpours of Fenachrone, Khorlian and State-side. APA-L has attracted a talented and cosmopolitan group of writers and illustrators to the staff. In Khorlia, Fenachrone is the best of the Khorlian fanzines, coming out monthly with fifty semi-slick pages of stories, illos, and articles in each outpour. The American version, appearing with magnificent irregularity in APA-L, features material from the Khorlian zine plus occasional articles by Dave Fox, the editor.

Enjoy the matchless performance and the fabulous elegance of the Silent Sixteen. Visit our showrooms here in Khorlia and in the fashion centers of the world and taste the supreme thrill of driving the mighty STARK V16 in the Convertible Sedan, Town Sedan, or the exclusive Limousine Grande models. Only Stark builds a car with a supercharged, sleeve valve, twin-ignition, sixteen cylinder engine. Only in a Stark do you have the whisper of five hundred Q-U-I-E-T horsepower, only Stark has the Tru-tork five-speed automatic transmission with a smooth speed range from five to one hundred and seventy-five miles per hour, only Stark builds a body that says LUXURY in every detail.

Stark Motor Combine also manufactures vehicles for every civilian need, and Allwheel Drive trucks — and a complete line of Armotracs for the Khorlian and selected foreign military establishments. Our latest development, for the Khorlian Fuslog, is the three hundred metric ton semi-amphibious Super Dinosaur Armotrac. Weapons available for this vehicle include the Aspin-Wahl recoilless 400 mm cannon, fifty millimeter machineguns by the same firm, a broad spectrum of rockets, guided and free-range, from the workshops of Rohmercorps' Rocket Division, and specialized (and RESTRICTED) control devices. Information regarding any unrestricted Stark product may be obtained by contacting the Stark representative in your country, or Stark Motor Combine, 300 Notwen Blvd., Xofheim, Federated Kingdoms of Khorlia, cable ANSTAR

Ride the flying wings of Wing Khorlia in comfort unapproached and unequalled by any other airline in the world! Ride FAST! Wing Khorlia's master pilots nudge the sound barrier, and keep right on nudging it, saving hours of flight-time for the impatient executive or the weary tourist. Wing Khorlia's Rohmer-Manchu 200-passenger wings are built for it. Fans — fly to the LSFS Lizacon at half price.

(a paid advertisement)

A group of our readers, notably June Konigsberg, have remarked upon the resemblance of several Khorlian characters to those used in English for similar sounds. This is hardly surprising to anyone versed in Khorlian history.

When Geoffrey Lamben fled the Norman Conquest and sailed to Khorlia, he brought not only his fighting men and their families but the noble lady who was his wife. The Lady Jorymar was something of a rara avis in her day, a noblewoman who cared more for her native tongue than for Latin, and who let her preference be known far and wide. As the Lamben fortunes prospered, Middle English became a popular item among the nobility, and as the word spread of the Lady's kindness to the peasant folk, the common people took Lady Jorymar and her language to their hearts. When Duke Geoffrey was killed at the Battle of Ranville, his sons carried on his conquest ably, and his widow toured the growing duchy, teaching the English tongue to any who would listen, with such success that by 1099, when Henry Lamben was crowned the first king of Middle Khorlia (or Lambenya, as it soon became), much to the distress of the clergy, the ceremony was performed in English.

From this beginning, English spread over all Khorlia, replacing the barbaric Xofic spoken in the north-east, the bastard Franco-Khorlian of the west, and the myriad languages and dialects used in the smaller states. This despite the furious resistance of the Xof family, who regarded the Lambens as upstart newcomers and their language as an affront to all things Khorlian.

However, there was one difficulty. Spoken English spread swiftly, but written English was simply ignored, and the traditional Xofic Script was used. This, according to one writer of that day, was like harnessing a spirited charger to a dead horse, and indeed it did seem to be a mistake to attempt to burden writers and readers with the ponderous intricacies of Old Xofic.

By 1200 all Khorlia spoke English, but the upper class still clung to Xofic Script, and only at the newly founded University of Odivad did anyone openly call for a change. Still, such things do move slowly. In the fall of 1630, the Council of Reconciliation met for the first time in the chambers of Saint David College, Odivad, and the following spring brought a group of "humble proposals" for the replacement of some of the more difficult Xofic characters or groups of characters with their Roman alphabet counterparts.

Despite the uproar in the north (the Chief Librarian of Xofheim's Buchhaus fired and exiled by Duke Donal Xof for agreeing with the reformers), these changes were finally accepted. The seal of approval was put on these changes when the reigning king, one of the better Xofs, publicly praised the Council and endorsed its work.

In these proposals was set the pattern which future reformers would follow — a few letters changed at a time; replacement, when necessary, by Roman alphabet symbols; no slavish adherence to English forms of usage, and for each new character, one phonetic value only. For the next two centuries this policy brought about changes few in number but of lasting influence.

In 1847, a new organization, The Phonetics Committee, began to agitate for a series of reforms which would make Khorlian a completely phonetic written language. The movement was growing from year to year, attracting many eminent figures in linguistics and literature, when in 1870, the Austrians walked in and took over the government of Khorlia. One of the first non-political groups suppressed by the invading government was the Phonetics Committee — some member of the Austrian herrenvolk had decided that phonetics was a dangerously republican idea.

However, if the phonetics-minded scholars were forbidden to work in public, they could still work secretly, and fifty years later, just three years after Khorlia's War of Liberation ended so gloriously, the existence and work of the Committee of Revision was proclaimed publicly, and their completed Plan for an All-Phonetic Script was revealed to the nation. The members of the Rikesmoot from Odivad, aided by rikesmen from Xofheim, Lambengard, and ancient Aquatinum, with the official blessing of the Grand Regent Field Marshall Garfield Ross, introduced the first Language Reform Bill. Two months later it was passed, virtually unaltered, and on Seplun first, 1921, after a year of preparation, it was put into effect, making the Federated Kingdoms one of the few major nations with a true phonetic script. Out of 34 letters, about 14 are obviously derived from the Roman alphabet, four have come from the Old Xofic, and the rest have been borrowed from a variety of sources.

Little did the Lady Jorymar guess what would be the result of her fondness for her native tongue — a once polyglot nation united by one language, strong ties of culture and trade with England, and, because of the hopeless conflict between English sounds and Xofic spelling, a new and common sense written language.

Alphabet

This is the Khorlian Alphabet, or as we call it, the Ahlzag. It is made up of 33 characters. With each character we have typed, in English Script, the name of the character and its sound in English.

Khorlian Alphabet

Bibliography

Evans, Carleton W., Our First Thousand Years, A Linguistic History of Khorlia, Xofheim, Buchhaus Press, 1954 Evidé, Jacques, The Years of Infamy, 1870-1916, Tuone, Khorlian Library Ltd., 1924 Mills, L. Anderson, Why Not Khorlian?, New York Proceedings of the Modern Language Association, (Dec., 1947), pp. 406-17. Rennard, John Baker, Whither Thou Goest, Lambengard, Jakkaison, Inc., 1955 Wilson, John Athearn, The Grand Lexicon, a Dictionary of the Khorlian Language, Odivad Press, 1921

This letter was printed in the fan letter section of the Lambengard edition of Fenachrone [in the summer of 1967]. We have added some follow up material.

Dear FANS and FELLOW HUMANS: BEWARE! The Extra-Terrestrials may be among us even now! Plotting Mankind's downfall, moving freely in our midst! Watch out! The funny people, the "freaks, the dwarfs and midgets, the BIG folks, the "blind" men tapping their uncannily sure way thru our cities, the "hydrocephalics" — what a perfect cover for a being with a brain three times human size, the "spastics" in their electric wheelchairs — convenient transportation for beings from Mars-sized worlds, unable to stand or walk under our gravitation. Who would censure a "deaf-mute" for his inability to speak, never suspecting that "he" comes from a race that can hear perfectly but has communicated by telepathy for ten thousand years? Or how about the men on crutches who forget sometimes which leg is the crippled one? Why crutches at all? You'd need crutches too if your hind legs had been removed to enhance your Terran disguise. We are rich and we are powerful here on Earth, but the Extra-Terrestrials are working to take us over, for that dreadful evening when we turn on our radios and TV sets by order to hear the ghastly croaking voice and shudder to at the ghastly inhuman features of some THING from another star system as it announces our enslavement and dictates the first humiliating details of our degradation!! Sons of Terra, BEWARE!!, eternal Vigilance is Freedom's price! Simon Trouchke 1416 S. Semolina St., Apt. B Lambengard 25, Lambenya

Newton Ross tells me that after the letter had been run in the August 28th outpour, several members went over to talk to the writer, more out of curiosity than anything else. They were met at the door by a rather peculiar looking woman who claimed to be the apartment manager and who first denied that Si Trouchke had ever lived there. Then she admitted that she had had such a tenant but said he had moved out, leaving no forwarding address.

She offered to show them his apartment, and they had just started up the stairs when Paula Lerner suddenly declared that she was feeling ill and asked them to take her home right away. This brought things to a half since they had come in only one car, and apologizing to the woman, they started toward Paula's. In the car, Paula admitted that she was faking. When she was asked why, she shuddered and replied "She thot that none of us could see her face in the hall, when she turned away from us, but I saw it in the mirror! She had another eye, right in her forehead!"

The young fans regarded it as sort of a joke, but Newton took it more seriously and contacted Primintel thru his connections in the Aum Die. That afternoon, when police investigators went to the house, it was deserted and there were signs of a bloody struggle in Trouchke's dingy room. Neighbors told the police that two nights before, there had been a disturbance which had terminated when two large vans pulled up in front of the shabby rooming house, and that since then they had not seen any of the people who had lived there. Discreet inquiries had revealed that none of the people known to live there had reported to work since the disturbance. So the case stands.

News of the Realm

[Spring, 1966] The LSFS is buzzing these days with preparations for our annual Walpurgis Night Party. This year's theme is "Down the Ten Thousand Steps, Abomination of Abominations," and everyone is working on his or her idea of what a Lovecraft monster looks like. All over Khorlia, the novelty shops are stocked with masks, wands, pointed hats, children's grimoires, and costumes designed to make kids into authentic wizards, witches, monsters, etc. In Xofheim the Worshipful Company of Magicians is presenting its six hundredth annual program of "Wizardry and Prestidigitation," while, in a more serious vein, the Forest Service is preparing its yearly "Tribute to the Thing," gathering some hundred and fifty fat cattle to be herded into the Woods of Torozar to provide a feast for whatever it is that dwells in the deepest part.

Whatever it is, animal or plant, and there is evidence on both sides, the Thing, as it is commonly called, has displayed a remarkable ability to protect its own privacy, an impressive knowledge of what is happening all over Khorlia, and an interest, sometimes violently expressed, in Khorlia's welfare. In 452, when the Huns swept into eastern Khorlia, something described by contemporaries as "a great egg with an eye, walking on four human legs," came stalking out of the Woods and took command of the battle. During the Austrian Regency, no Austrian official dared to go within a hundred miles of the Woods, and when the Duke Hans-Frederich, more brave than wise, led an expedition into the Torozarian Woods, he and his followers came crawling out a week later, reft of most of their brains and other important parts.

Thanx to Forry Ackerman, we now have a good 16 millimeter film of "Things to Come," also "Frankenstein," "War of the Worlds," and "King Kong." These will be shown in fan orgs all around Khorlia, starting here on 2 Maylun, and going in following weeks to the Boojum in Odivad, the Fantastiques in Agrille, Imperial Fandom in Aquatinum, and the Sealark in Claudesport.

Lambengard: 5-29-67: The Rikesmoot, under the urging of His Power, today voted one hundred and sixty thousand rikesbuken (about $240,000) for construction of a completely new addition to the Buchhaus, Khorlia's national library at Xofheim. Library officials estimate that the new structure, when completed, will add about one hundred sixty thousand meters of shelf space to the existing facilities, some of which date back to the eighth century. Second in size only to Odivad's Great Library, the Buchhaus at present houses abut six million books, including a growing science-fantasy collection. In addition to books and pamphlets and magazines, the Buchhaus has one of the largest collections of dust-wrappers in the world.

Originally the property of the Xof family, the Buchhaus was given to the nation in 1794, with the single limitation that the Curator must be a "member, collateral or by-blow of the Xof family." This requirement, tho viewed with some misgivings at first, has proved harmless, since not only is the group defined wide enough to include most Khorlian intellectuals, but the Xof family proper has provided suitable material every generation. As Arinius of York, the eminent tenth century historian, who visited Xoflandic Khorlia a dozen times to observe the Xofs, wrote in his monumental Ie Czofe Famillie, "Theye be not goode foulk, amanie ofe them, but they be pouwervul louvers ofe bokes, I call that ae virtue!"

His Power, warlord of Xofland, Lord-Mayor of Odivad, King Commander of the Lambenyan Fuslog, High Warder of the King's Forests, Lord Procurator of Aquatinum, Protector of the islands, Son of the Fox, Lord of the Three Battles, and Dynast of the Federated Kingdoms of Khorlia.

This string of titles, and the tasks and privileges that go with them, are the property of a forty-eight-year-old Khorlia named Stedman Xof who has ruled the Federated Kingdoms since he was installed at the Desk in late 1938, following the death of the Grand Regent Garfield Ross. Stedman Xof, or to give his complete name, Stedman Henry Gregor David Ross Xof, the fourteenth of that given name and the ninth Xof to rule Khorlia, was born on 2 Marklun, 1920, in the village of T'Komah, deep in the Frontium Forest, where his parents, Ross and Helen Xof, had lived in secret. This secrecy was made necessary by the Austrian Secret Police's policy of killing every member of the nobility they could lay their hands on, a program so successful that even two years after the victorious conclusion of the War of Liberation, the couple was advised to remain in hiding. Only a year before, the Austrians had managed to kill a young nobleman and his wife in the very grounds of the Rikesmoot building, and it was not until 1924 that Primintel, Khorlia's own secret force, was able to wipe out the last fanatical groups of Austrian terrorists.

In 1926, the young einst was formally presented to the Rikesmoot along with the einessa Grace Lamben and a rather odd old gal, the Baroness Constance Doom Way Chilwow XXXII, a woman in her late fifties who had led the men of her tiny barony against the Austrians with such success that she came out of the War of Liberation a Captain General and was awarded the Platinum Pentacross, with diamonds, only given three times before. The einessa and the baroness were both a trifle old, so that the Rikesmoot tentatively chose His Glory to succeed the Grand Regent.

Stedman and his parents moved to Lambengard, and following the traditional practice of Khorlian royalty, the boy attended the neighborhood revenue schools, Primary, Midschool, and Tertiary, his education being supplemented by special tutors from the University of Odivad and the Militechnic Institute. Outstanding among these teachers was the eminent scientist and Khorlia's first Nobel laureate, Rudolph Schnitzelfron, who infected the lad with an interest in science not shared by any other member of European royalty. It was in this period that young Stedman discovered science fiction and fantasy.

In 1935 Stedman took, as the Khorlian Law of Succession required, what is surely the world's oldest IQ test, the Kempton-Hammersligh Potential Achievement Test, passing with a high score. Devised in 1727 by two professors at Odivad, Obadiah Kempton and George Hammersligh, at the request of the Rikesmoot, this test remained, with numerous revisions, the lone example in the history of Europe of a monarchy trying to guarantee that those who rule will not be the sort of dull normals which have occupied so many thrones. On 14 Novlun, 1938, the Grand Regent Field Marshall Garfield Ross died, and young Stedman Xof was seated at the Desk. Since His Power had just entered the University of Odivad, arrangements were made for him to continue his studies, and he graduated in the Class of '41.

Meanwhile the nations around the Federated Kingdoms had become embroiled in what became the biggest war in history, and to Stedman Xof fell the unenviable task of leading his nation during this perilous time without compromise or serious involvement. This he did so well that only three times was Khorlian sovereignty violated, and Khorlian reprisal was lightning fast and crushing! Once again Khorlia's policy of Belligerent Neutrality proved its worth ten times over!

In person His Power is a tallish (about two meters) fair man, who looks rather well both in business and sportswear, and in the uniforms he is obliged to wear in his normal round of duties. His main interest in life besides his country and his family is his love of science fiction and fantasy. His collection is judged by experts in the field to rank second only to that of First Fansman Ackerman. To Her Prowess's annoyance, His Power's idea of an ideal vacation is to go over his collection or to attend a convention (as plain Mr. Fox, a device respected by the fans attending). In his capacity as Dynast Elect and Dynast, he has been able to aid Khorlian fandom in numerous ways, particularly thru Newton Ross, a fan and friend of long standing. Due to his job with Toleman-Lockheed which takes him to America at least once a week, Newton has been able to introduce the Dynast to American fandom. This friendly acquaintance with US fans has been made easier by the discovery that one of the older fans is a dead ringer for His Power, so that last fall [1966] when this fan was sick in bed with the flu, His Power was able to attend the LASFS Halloween Party, using his Khorlian con identification, and was only recognized by one person, a discreet young woman who makes a hobby of Royalty.

Managing the domestic side of Stedman's life is the handsome, vivacious, knowledgeable, extremely able, well-traveled and fortyish woman who is his wife, Her Prowess, the Dynessa. Jorymar Anna Xof is a commoner by birth, daughter of a civil engineer in the Lambengard Utilities Combine. Stedman met her at a meeting in the Wesleyan Church he has attended for many years, and they were married in the same church they met in. Besides her royal title, Lady Jorymar has inherited a few from the other women who have shared the Desk of Khorlia. She is Senior Navigator of the Realm, from a sixteenth century dynessa whose love of sailing and great kindness toward Khorlia's seamen won her this title; Chairman of the Order of Saint Vangi, which gives her the power to guide Khorlia's largest charitable organization; and Lady Councillor of the Khorlian Teacher's Guild. This last is of especial importance to Her Prowess, who was a Primary teacher when she met her future husband. Khorlians think this is very fitting, as she has the first name of that other Lady Jorymar who was Khorlia's first great teacher.

Cygnus Daemonis Haughtonia, the "Demon Swan," a bird with the body, wings, legs, and snowy plumage of a swan, but with the throat, cape, head, fangs, and disposition of a king cobra.

First studied by the eighteenth century naturalist Ronald Haughton, who observed it in its native haunts, the lakes and streams of the Woods of Torozar, and succeeding in capturing a pair. In his paper, written in 1763 and sent to the Royal Society, he described their breeding habits, commented on their tendency to become enraged at the slightest provocation, and made the significant observation, "The river folk all claim that there were none of these birds in or about the Thern River a century ago." Haughton attached little or no importance to this, but modern biologists tend to connect the appearance of this deadly bird with the known capabilities and inclination of The Thing in The Forest (Proteus Maximus Polymorph) to produce and release various mutations, some of which breed true.

This was the case with Dr. Haughton's captured pair, who produced a family of downy cygnets, each with the scaly throat, extendable hood, serpentine head, poison fangs, and vile temper of their parents. He leaves us a grisly account of their reaction to a rabbit placed in their cage — "When the beast was plac'd in the pen with the swans, it seem'd frozen with fear. At first the birds affected to ignore their prey; then, when the rabbit leap'd, the male chas'd it, wings flapping, and sank his dread fangs in the rabbit's back. It gave a single cry and expired, upon which the female and their young crowded forward to tear at poor bunny."

During the 19th and early 20th centuries there was little interest in this unusual bird, and many authorities declared it extinct, but in 1952 Dr. John Cannon, a professor of biology at Newton College, Odivad, and one of the four or five men in this country who have met The Thing in The Forest, and returned from the experience alive and sane, spent three months in the Woods of Torozar, tracking down and studying this remarkable bird. Not only did he bring back a sheaf of photographs of the birds in their natural habitat, courting, brooding, fighting, hunting, and twenty magnificent stop-action pictures of them in flight, clearly showing how the cobra-like hood is used as a stabilizer, but he returned with five females and three males which, after intensive study in the laboratory at Newton College, Odivad, were presented to the Lake Elizabeth Playground Zoo for exhibition and breeding.

Dissection of one of the swans which died of old age revealed that the structure and function of many parts of the throat and head, while snake-like in outward appearance, are far different from those in a real snake and that the creatures are true birds — warm-blooded, aerial, nest-building. However, the great fangs do secrete a highly effective poison, the "swan" has no bill, and a full set of teeth besides the poison fangs, and there are peculiarities of the feet and legs and of the internal organs possessed by no other bird.

As has been indicated, Cygnus Daemonia can be a killer and undoubtedly a sizable number of humans have lost their lives while interfering with some activities of the bird. When Dr. Cannon observed the birds, he also noted that the rather primitive folk of the area were trying to exterminate them. When he returned to Odivad, the Wild Life League was informed of this danger to a unique life form, and in 1960, the area in which Dr. Cannon had observed the "demon swans" was declared a biological reservation under the direct protection of the Desk and implemented by the Aum Die.

Khorlian Fauna, John Cannon, Lambengard, 1952, Odivad Press Habits and Nature of the Demon Swan, Ronald Haughton, Orroz, Kawicka, Brothers, 1744 Zorroman Meets the Devil-Birds, Anonymous, Lambengard, 1962, Sensation Paperbacks

Some members of our Clientele have been asking us how it is that so much of the material I put in about Khorlia concerns events with little or no connection with science fantasy — ship launchings and such, or His Power dedicating some new college building at Odivad, or even quite lengthy biographic sketches, such as the bit about Baroness Constance of Herrendume.

The answer lies in a legal term, "News of the Realm," which means any item about government activities, usually favorable, or news about Khorlian activities in general. Based on the "Canon" 1854, any loyal publisher may receive remuneration sufficient to cover all printing outgoes upon the inclusion of Khorlian news items in his outpour equal to one-twelfth of the remainder of the material. The original Fenachrone has received this subsidy for nearly forty years now, and Fenachrone Stateside* has since '65. This monthly reward has enabled Fenachrone to become of the most elegant zines in world-wide fandom and has also been used to aid the other fanzines in the Federated Kingdoms. Needless to say, His Power was the moving spirit behind this aid to needy fanzines, being an enthusiastic fan himself.

* To those unfamiliar with Khorlian slang, I should explain that "Stateside" is the standard term for an American in Khorlian popular speech, with the happy difference that, unlike "Yank" or "Yankee," it is not offensive to any section of American people, tourists, or service folk.

News of the Realm: From Belgar, Headquarters of the famed Second Amphibious Battalion comes news of the successful testing of the Stark A-T Land Battleship. This machine, well over 500 tonnes, is built to go down into and thru any lakes or rivers encountered, thus casting aside the difficulty of most armor on bridges. This monster, armed with our 160 mm cannon, plus rockets and recoilless guns, is capable of 40 km per hour velocity and a range of some 110 kms.

In the words of Robert Stark, the motor company's head of military models: "It's silly to try to design a tank light enough to cross a bridge and yet with enough armor to hold up against today's weapons." So Stark Motor Combine went the other way with a series of machines designed from the start to be able to move under water for distances up to two kilometers. Orders are now being taken from approved customers, for showings of this incredible machine.

The Christmas Carp

On the Xmas '67 outpour of Fenachrone (FEN 29), besides the conventional Best Wishes (printed in Khorlian), I further copied the cover of the Lambengard outpour by drawing what has become a standard symbol of Christmas among Protestant Khorlians, the flying carp which may be seen over houses and churches all thru the month Deklun.

Several fans have asked me, "How can a pagan Oriental symbol appear on a church or above a Christian household?" I could simply answer, "As easily as pagan Christmas trees, Easter eggs, Yule logs, etc. have crept into Christian homes and churches." However, since this is an example which occurred in modern times and may be instructive, here it is.

In the spring of 1520, a battered fleet of strange-looking ships straggled into the harbor which is now Claudesport but which then was called Zeela Bay. In some twenty-five battered junks were the Dai-Myo Koibito Kitsune, his noble wife and their seven children, and a little over a thousand of his people. Fleeing from still feudal Cipango following a military disaster, the Japanese lord and his followers, numbering then over two thousand and possessing over fifty vessels, were sailing southward when a sudden storm had blown them "right off the map," sinking nearly half the little fleet in the process. The five and score ships left had made their way from landing to landing, ever south and west, then up (as we now know) the west of Africa and into the Mediterranean, where they at last came ashore, stricken with hunger and scurvy, in Khorlia's largest harbor.

Even there, their fate might have been less than fortunate had not the Grand Baron Rahs el Faukz been visiting Zeela on affairs of state and judged them, despite their bedraggled condition, useful fighting men. Add to this the unsettled state of His Excellency's northern fiefs, and you had a chance for survival for the Dai-Myo and his little band.

So the ocean fishermen became rivermen, and the farmers went on farming in the immemorial fashion of their native Nippon, and the warriors kept their deadly skills so well that in 1618, in the Battle of Helenden, the Kitsune Battalion did so well against French Louis XIII's troops that Field Marshall Hector Renard took their leader's plain saber to Lambengard to be enshrined as the Sword of Khorlia, symbol of the nation at war.

And as the tiny colony prospered, so did ancient traditions, and a modest temple arose, and once a year every house that boasted a man-child had a scarlet carp of stout paper flying above its roof. And with this last our story is concerned, for in the summer of 1732 a poor Wesleyan minister came into Kitsunemachi, largest of the Japanese immigrant towns, looking for souls to save, and did indifferently well.

Though zealous, the Reverend Shieffer was no blind bigot, and when Boy's Day arrived and the paper fish flew so bravely over the houses, he inquired about this pretty custom. Seven months later, on Christmas morning, a great crimson carp danced and rippled in the chill breeze over his humble chapel.

The response was immediate. Shieffer's colleagues from the other Protestant missions in the area descended on him to demand what he was doing, putting a non-Christian symbol up over his church; by noon, the local Monsignor had walked by to verify the shocking news; that afternoon the highest officer in a Buddhist temple had come by to find out what a Japanese image was doing on a Christian establishment; and a week later Shieffer's superior, Bishop Edward Morgan, paid him the honor of a visit to ask the same thing.

To one and all he quoted Isaiah, "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given...", and went on to explain, humbly but firmly, that he considered the fish emblem more a custom than a religious symbol, and that he couldn't think of a better way to proclaim the birth of Christ to his parishioners. Harsh words were uttered, tempers were lost, and dire things were threatened, but Reverend Shieffer stood fast. As he recorded in his memoirs thirty years later, "I have lived to see the carp swim over Wesleyan churches, and those of many other denominations too, over all of Khorlia, Wales, and parts of Germany, telling the world that we too have a Son." (Half Century, The Life of a Wesleyan Preacher, Bishop Charles Shieffer, Aldersgate House, 1802, Lambengard)

It is a bad time for Fenachrone — no news of import from the Federated Kingdoms and no ideas of the large and interesting sort bubbling up thru the thinktank. One small item — the Los Angeles Zoo, profiting from the experience of the Zoo in Lambengard, is erecting a large shelter for its troublesome "guest," the tyrannosaurus sent as a gift from Lambengard. The shelter features unusually thick sound-insulating walls and observation galleries high enough on the inside walls so that the ravenous beast will not see its reflection in the "one-way" glass, plus arrangements on the ground floor so that attendants may clean the pen and feed the brute without danger.

The "not see its reflection" detail is important, since not only does the tyrannosaurus pounce on and devour anything moving, but the presence of another of its species, large or small, except in heat, sends it into a deadly fury. Unlike many animals, the big lizard is strongly visual-oriented, and the sight of its mirror image sends it into a killing rage, resulting in a smashed glass and a sliced reptile!

This is what nearly happened in Lambengard, when a large "window" of one-way glass was mounted at one end of an empty pen, and one of the three full-grown tyrannosaurs owned by the Zoo was led into the enclosure. The enormous beast charged, and it was only the quick use of jets of water from three pumping engines from the Lambengard Fire Squadron, and ten accurate shots of special shells containing morphine derivative, from a Stark AC23 armored car mounting a special 37mm cannon, that stopped it before it hit the glass! Fortunately, most of the other beasts brought from Maple White Land and Caspak have more pacific natures. The female triceratops at the L.A. Zoo has been getting positively affectionate with her keepers.

—January, 1969

This article, from our Marlun 28 [1966] outpour was lifted from the Sealark 'zine, MONSTRO, and is the transcription of a talk by Dr. Lyle Fellows, professor of history at Claudesport College. Dr. Fellows was inspired by reading Rudy Erbach's talk in MONSTRO (his son, Wayne, is an active fan). Dr. Fellows is a Fellow of the Khorlian Historical Society and an Honored Patron of the Buchhaus.

ROSTRUM: I have read Mr. Erbach's contribution in your publication with great interest, and I would like to make some comments on his project, and on some ideas related to it.

We all live in three temporal areas or ages simultaneously. The present, of course, is always with us, and it is a period which is daily becoming more interesting to live in — but we also live in the future — and a wild and wonderful time it would be to anyone we could call forward from even as close as fifty or seventy-five years ago, let alone someone from medieval or Roman times. Take a well-educated man of a hundred years ago, a citizen of Lambengard and an up-to-date , thoroughly progressive person. Aircraft might frighten him, TV would dazzle him, especially in color; modern medicine would amaze him; but all of these he could get used to. I believe the aesthetic things would bowl him over — modern art, popular music, architecture, and modern women! In the 1860s, no decent woman ever showed her ankles, let alone her "limbs," no lady smoked or used any makeup, while nowadays — I visited Lake Elizabeth Playground a few weeks ago, and I could hardly — but I digress.

To return to our subject, the third period we live in is the past, the dim past, that oh so distant period when men were still confined to Earth, that far heroic time when Hitler (sometimes called Kaiserbill) and Napoleon made Europe their bloody dueling ground, that time about which the men of only a few thousand years from now may know so little, and that grossly mistaken.

We are a paperwork culture, and paper is so short-lived! When a gentleman of five thousand years ago recorded something, he wrote on clay tablets, and we have collections of these tablets from which we can get a detailed picture of life in his day. When a ruler decided to glorify himself, he erected whole walls and buildings covered with pictures and writing commemorating his alleged triumphs, and in doing so giving us pictures of how warriors were equipped in that place and time. In scriptural times, men wrote on parchment or papyrus, both of which last fairly well, and again, the conquerors — Greek, Egyptian, Roman, or what have you — erected numerous monuments of marble or bronze, many of which still exist. Even poor old Ozymandias still had the head of his statue lying around when the traveler came by.

But in our culture, not only are most of our records and literary works printed on wood-pulp paper, but we're very poor monument-builders — we're more likely to put up orphanages — and when we do build a monument, instead of a historically valuable statuary group, it's liable to be some sort of abstract art, pleasing to the contemporary eye but valueless as a record of twentieth century costumes and customs. I was quite pleased a couple of years ago, when I had occasion to visit Washington, to see the Marines' Memorial in their national cemetery. Cast in bronze and enduring alloy, the statue shows a group of Marines in combat dress with their weapons slung about them, done with a wealth of detail which will make the work more and more valuable as the centuries pass.

In spite of the exception I have just cited, potentially long-lasting records of our culture are scarce. What then can the Rudy Erbachs in our midst do about it? One answer might be to obtain small replicas of contemporary sculpture, but that would be difficult — or we might locate some friendly sculptor who would donate small statues of eminent folk to us, but that is improbable.

However, there is one type of record available for a reasonably small expenditure of money and time to anyone with patience and a little skill; I refer to the photograph. Print paper is fairly durable, and on it you may record not only pictures, either taken by you or reproduced from magazines and books, but printed text, maps, diagrams, and all sorts of items which should be fascinating to the men of a thousand years from now, but which may be beyond your skill to copy by hand.

And a good sharp photo may be valuable in ways we can never realize. Let us say that you patriotically include a news shot of His Power cutting the ribbon across the new Three Kingdoms Highway Bridge. The valuable part of the picture may not be the Dynast (rulers tend to be a steeley a dozen) but the people and the equipment in the background and the buildings behind them. Of course, if you carefully date the print, describe the occasion, and mention the time of day, you increase the potential worth of the picture ten-fold.

Among the non-pictorial elements you might put in your capsules are foreign ahlzags, and particularly parallel printings where the same story is written in two different languages, each in the ahlzag of that language. The Rosetta Stone was just such an object.

At your age it is hard to realize just how quickly a brand-new, very latest model article may become out of style, then obsolete, then quaintly old-fashioned. I have a '66 Stark convertible, and I cannot quite believe that it will ever be old-fashioned, yet cold reason and much experience tells me that it will, and soon. Just so with items placed in a capsule; in fifty years, they will be nostalgically interesting, in five hundred they will be valuable museum pieces, and in five thousand they may well be "our only concrete link with the legendary pre-Interstellar Era" for men engaged in activities we can't even imagine, but still humanly curious about how their ancestors lived in the long, long ago Twentieth Century.

On March 2, 1972, the Dynast will celebrate His 52nd birthday in the Citadel, Xofheim. During the day, there will be an enormous party attended by His Power and nearly three hundred children from all over Khorlia whose birthdays fall on the same day as His Power. This comes from a rather old tradition, started by a XVIth Century Dynast (H. P. Athearn Lamben, 1486-1562), who was a lonely man, his wife having died in childbirth, and who loved children. His next three successors followed this custom all through their reigns, then the tradition was allowed to lapse, then picked up again and was practiced right up to the Austrian invasion in 1871, when the first False Regent took special steps to stamp out this frivolity. It was reinstated by Stedman Xof (1920- ) with enthusiastic support from the Rikesmoot, and has been enjoyed ever since. It is always held in the Great West Banquet Hall with its primitive splendor of arms of the Xofs and their noble henchmen all around and overhead. Very "mature" adults claim to find the room and its martial splendor depressing, but the kids love it!

The essay below is part of a talk given to the Colchester chapter of the Boadicea Anthropological Society of Colchester, England, by Dr. Lyle Fellows, professor of History at Claudesport College, who has been in these pages before (Fenachrone X, APA-L 80). It was given before an audience of some three hundred dedicated students of anthropology in July of 1969, while Dr. Fellows was on a vacation tour with his family thru England, Scotland, and Wales. For this talk the professor received the equivalent of 200 rikesbuken.

The Blessed Beast

fox (foks) 1. any of certain carnivores of the dog family (Canidae), esp. those constituting the genus Vulpes, smaller than the wolves, characterized by pointed muzzle, erect ears, and long bushy tail....4. the national emblem of the Federated Kingdoms of Khorlia, sometimes called the Blessed Beast, in this usage always a female red fox with an "organ" voice. Very common in northeast Khorlia, but may be encountered in any place in the Federated Kingdoms. (Vulpes Fulva Khorliana) American College Dictionary, edition of 1971.

As any follower of international politics must be aware, the Fox holds an honored place in Khorlia. She sits, saucy as you please, on top of the Khorlian coat of arms. She serves as the symbol of the Federated Kingdoms like the British Lion, the Russian Bear, or the American Bald Eagle, but it goes beyond that. There is hardly a Protestant church in Lambenland and southern Xofland without its Merry Beasts in the carvings around the altar, and in the Parish Hall of the great Cathedral of the city of Jorymar there hangs a centuries-old painting showing the Beast crouching before Our Savior, receiving His blessing.

In 1536, Bishop Charles, newly appointed to the diocese of Upper Lambenya, after fleeing from England with Henry the VIII's soldiers hot on his trail, ordered that "most blasphemous depicture" taken down and burned. However, sad to relate, soon after that the Bishop had the poor judgment to shoot a Fox while on a hunting excursion "to show the stupid peasants their folly in believing a beast to be immortal." To give him his credit, he was a fool but no coward or weakling, and he lasted a good half hour before some peasant pulled him off his horse with a bill-hook. As might be expected, the Church was disturbed by this, but the Khorlian peasantry and nobility stood firmly together on this, even under the interdict, and many historians consider that this whole affair was a major break for Protestantism on the Continent. The painting reappeared in its customary place soon after Bishop Charles' death and has hung there ever since.

The Fox has been a popular animal in children's books written in or about Khorlia. A Statesider friend of mine says he read "The Khorlian Twins," by Lucy Fitch Perkins, when he was about ten, and that the chief impression he got was how nice it would be to have an animal friend like the Fox in the story.

In Khorlia proper, there have been numberless stories, both for children and for adults, in prose and in verse. I can still recall the thrill of reading "Lord Stephen and the Fox," a "tale in verse" — juvenile by adult standards but high adventure for a boy of ten.

Then there are the standard folk-tales in which the Beast warns of coming disaster or prophesies greatness for some human. All these ancient tales, plus modern events where the Fox has helped people out of their troubles, have resulted in the Fox becoming a sort of supernatural figure.

Sometimes the Fox brought only consolation, as when the Holy Daev was being burnt at the stake by orders of wicked Duke Notwen Xof, and the Blessed Beast ran out from the crowd of watchers and curled herself around his feet.

And in modern times, when our War of Liberation ended, the old gallows was still standing in what had been renamed Victory Square, and someone suggested it be kept there as a memorial to Ronal Gregor who gave his life on it on 15 Feblun 1916 and so doing, sparked the revolution that freed Khorlia. The gallows was fixed up and repainted, and a handsome solid bronze plaque was made and fastened on the front of the structure. All was made ready for its dedication by the Grand Regent, Garfield Ross, and an armed Guard of Honor, selected for valor from the Fuslog, the Seaforce, the Amphibious Battalion, and Khorlia's fledgling Air Arm was posted to stand guard, ten men at a time, night and day.

On the eve of the Dedication Day, there was a curious flickering glare from that part of the park, but no one paid attention, and when the replacements marched to take over the Duty, the men they had come to replace were discovered to be all out, cold. Some were still at attention, leaning against the platform; some were lying on the sod; but all were unconscious! While the landsmen were milling about, and the ensign in command was trying to bring some order, someone yelled, "Hey, look at the plaque!", and there was really something to see, for beneath the formal words of dedication were four lines of Old Xofic deeply inscribed on the metal. The message has been translated:

Three Gregors have I served
From duty none has ever swerved
Lance or gun or dreadful rack
None of these have turned them back.

And right below this inscription was a Fox's paw-print, looking like it had been burnt into the solid metal. Then there was excitement!

The ten stricken guardsmen were taken to a hospital, where they revived in about two hours, all telling the same story — of an "organ-pure voice" that bid them slumber. Meanwhile there was much argument about what to do. An officer went to ask the Grand Regent to view the plaque and decide what to do. As he came across the park from Applecross Palace, there was a rustle from the nearby bushes, and as his escorts drew their guns, a magnificent red fox trotted out and stopped in front of the Grand Regent. "Yes, I wrote it," she said. "That is my sign manual below. Honor it as if it were your own, for he who died on that scaffold is one of my own true sons!" Then she turned and vanished, and the Regent turned and sent a colonel over to tell the men at the gallows that the plaque was to be left alone. The gallows is still there, with the bronze plaque still bearing its messages.

Two more episodes. In 1320, in Applecross Palace in the city of Lambengard, a son was born to Donal and Cleo Lamben, the young Duke and his lovely duchess, and the boy was named Claude. And in the second week, when the child was lying in his crib, a fox, surely the Blessed Beast Herself, leaped in through an open window and went straight to where the noble infant lay, cooing under the loving eyes of his mother; and ere she had time to snatch him into her arms, the Fox had laid her paw lightly for an instant on the baby's brow and spoke "organ clear", saying, "Here lies your future king. First three, then all will bow their heads, from Xofland's snows to Aquatinum's tropic shores, and all that lyeth around and in between." And with that the Fox ran across the room and vanished out the window. And it all came true! First the Triple Kingdom in 1355, then after ten years of battle and diplomacy the Federated Kingdoms!

And in modern times. Just last week (this was written in Seplun, 1967) I read an interesting account in the Xofheim Gazette: a nine-year-old boy and his five-year-old sister wandered off from Camp Cordilerra in the Amocat Mountains and were lost for five days. When the two were finally found, they were in front of a large Fox-den, a little rumpled but plump and healthy. Both were weeping because "the nice red doggy with the long bushy tail" had left them, telling them to stay by the den. Under questioning, both children stoutly maintained that there really was a friendly red animal and that it had talked to them and fed them!

So the Fox lives on in Khorlia, in pictures and in tradition, and in the pages of modern publications. It is never hunted, but it manages to keep its population down. And in homes all over Khorlia, the Blessed Beast is honored for her good deeds. And in many a family room, there are a few shelves devoted to fox images, with a picture or two above or nearby, and if an outsider should ask, they will simply reply that they respect the Fox in their family.

Addenda I (from Dr. Fellows' book The Blessed Beast, Biobooks, Lambengard, four rikesbuken)

As any thoughtful reader will realize, the information contained in my talk on the Fox is limited, to put it mildly, posing many more questions than it answers. Is the Fox really a Fox or an illusion? Is She some kind of mutation? In this line, was She made by The Thing in The Woods? Scientists have pretty well traced a number of odd beings, such as the Demon Swan, to this ever-fertile source. Is She always the same Beast, or a line of super-animals, possessing the ability to speak, etc.? Was the little Fox who died a fiery death at the feet of Holy Daev the Blessed Beast or simply an over-faithful pet? Why is it always a female, why the "organ-toned" voice? How does she manage to appear in unlikely places (palaces, conferences, homes in the center of large urban areas)?

Lizacon, the Eurofan-sponsored convention, was held this summer [1967] (2nd thru 5th Auglun) at the Lambengard Hilton, our latest and finest hostelry, a jewel set on the shore of lovely Lake Elizabeth. Honored Fan Guest was First Fansman, Forry Ackerman, who was only here one day and evening due to the press of other engagements. Honored Pro Guest was Johann Eisenbrey, a German author whose "sophisticated space operas" are just beginning to be translated. Con members numbered over 400, which boils down to about 250 Khorlian fans, 73 Germans, 40 English, 20 French, and 15 Americans, most of whom happened to be over here and dropped in for the fun. Special thanks to Wing Khorlia for bringing Forry to us and home again in record time!

Aquatinum

Where the River Justin empties into that arm of the blue Mediterranean called the Gulf of Aquatinum lies a great city. Greek traders came here centuries before Christ, liked the place and settled down, calling the town they built Hydros. In a less gentle time, the mailed fist of mighty Rome pounded at her gates — the action was bloody but brief. The city's new masters changed her name to Urbis Aquatinum and found it a handy stopping place, with its deep harbor for ships going between Rome and her western colonies. They built temples, a sumptuous library, a splendid palace for the governor, numerous stately government buildings and a big stadium, second only to the mother city's Coliseum and much more durable, as you can see even today. The colonial town became a little Rome.

When newly accepted Christianity reached out from Rome to "go unto all the world and preach the gospel," Aquatinum was unmoved, and the great temples of Jupiter and Diana and Mars and a host of other Graeco-Roman deities remained untouched by the hand of the Church Militant. A stately cathedral rose in Vulpes Circus, paid for by the donations of folk outside of Aquatinum and her province of Bilakhar, for the good fathers had wrought well in the rest of Khorlia. It was a veritable wonder of stained glass and marble statuary, and all Aquatinum flocked to see it and, having seen, came no more. Nor did the leaders of Protestantism fare much better, seven centuries later. While much of Khorlia seethed with the ferment of the new doctrines, Aquatinum stood aside. This upstart religion might tear the rest of the world apart with its schisms, but Aquatinum went its own way.

Today tourists marvel at a people who, while up to date in their business and politics, still worship a pantheon twenty centuries forgotten by the rest of the world. The pert young housewife who zips past your tour bus in her Volkswagen may be on her way to the supermarket, but just as likely she may be going to the temple of Mars to make an offering for her husband in the Air Arm, while the very reverend old gentleman in the purple robe may be a monsignor, but is more likely a high priest of Jupiter.

Meanwhile in business, education, fashions, Aquatinum is thoroughly twentieth century — with a difference. Her harbor facilities are some of the most modern in Europe, but not at the expense of the city's beauty; new buildings are strictly Roman style, carefully designed to harmonize with the architecture of twenty centuries past. Even the brand-new transurban freeway, which cuts across a major portion of the city, matches the great stone aqueducts which still supply a major part of her water. In the schools, Latin is taught as a co-existing language with English, and all of the seven colleges and junior colleges offer courses in comparative religion in which the pagan faiths are presented on a par with Christianity, Islam, etc. To loyal Aquatinines, the Dynast Himself is no more than Senior Procurator, responsible to a Roman government which, quite inexplicably, for a few centuries has neglected to communicate with her loyal colony. This will be rectified, naturally, and in the meantime Urbis Aquatinum stands ready!

Tourists Note: The time to see the City in all its ancient glory is during the Saturnalia, in the first whole week in Deklun. Everyone is in Roman costume, the temples hold special picturesque services, and much of the Old Area of the city is barred to automobiles so that the populace may more freely celebrate. We recommend the chariot races in the Stadium, the Omnium Gatherum parade, and bireme and trireme races in the harbor.

An Afternoon at the Zoologial Gardens, with sundry observations by the author about the nature and nurture of Great Lizards and Dragons and Salamanders and other like Creatures

A few Sundays ago, we three spent the afternoon at the L A Zoo, staring at and getting stared at. The place is getting prettier every year as the plant life spreads and grows, and the animal population is getting steadily larger. Naturally, one of the "musts" on our visit was the Prehistory Complex, and I am happy to say that the young tyrannosaurus is getting bigger and fiercer with every visit — and also louder! Since the Zoo officials have built a special sound-proofed, three-story "house" for him, his antics can be enjoyed without giving nervous breakdowns to half the other animals.

The Zoo has procured another triceratops, this time a male. And after a few months of butting and snorting, and whatever else passes for "getting to know you" in reptile circles, the not so inevitable in zoos has occurred, and the lady has presented the zoo with a fifty-pound clutch of coconut-sized eggs. Fortunately the Zoo folk have a copy of the notes made on the Second Challenger Expedition by Challenger himself, and some time before the actual laying, they had prepared a suitably large area of warm squooshy mud, well fitted with a winding complex of walls for the female to hide in — and everything went off just dandy. From the Professor's notes, hatching should come about three months after laying, so it should be any day now.

The pair of Khorlian Sabertoothed Tigers have had another litter (I believe this is their third), so that our zoo has a very convenient over-supply and trades are already being arranged with other zoos. We were also pleased to discover that the Demon Swans are prospering and have raised several families.

It is the latest arrivals that have the local biologists (UCLA, USC, Cal Tech) walking around shaking their heads and muttering that they just can't be! "They", in this case, refers to the Zoo's first heat-loving creatures. Living quite happily in the searing heat of a Briggs-Stratton Model T16-A Furnace are three Classical Salamanders, five baby Dragons, and about thirty metallic eggs about goose-egg size which should hatch into any of several fire-loving beasts. All these were purchased from the Palermo branch of Astuto-Volpe, the great Italian wild animal house. Only in the last decade has it become possible to ship such heat-loving creatures as far as to the United States. Now, a combination of fast air transport and easily portable kilns, specially adapted to this job, makes shipping creatures of this type possible, if not easy.

Now the main problem is how to provide a large enough heated area so that the Salamanders may roam to their hearts' content, and so the young Dragons may exercise and grow, while at the same time letting the tax-paying public get a good look at the new "critters." There are problems coming, particularly those connected with the little Dragons' fifth molt, when the metallic skin of babyhood will be replaced by the first fluoro-silicon skin, and the metabolism of the little beasts begins to shift from a heat-absorbing to a heat-generating system. With the Salamanders, it's simpler: just provide a hot dry environment with plenty of combustibles, and the little creatures are happy.

It was not until the closing years of the Nineteenth Century that much was known about the structure and body chemistry of the Dragon and related beasts. In his famous Origin of Species, Charles Darwin admits that it was lack of knowledge that caused him to delay release of his book for so many years, fearing that the existence of the Dragon, the Sphinx, the Chimaera, and the Classical Salamander, to name a few, with their seemingly alien metabolism, might be used to upset his new theory.

As we know now, thanks to the pioneer work of various investigators, including Dr. Ai Kitsune of Nagasaki's Imperial Institute for Alien Life Studies, Professor John Oakenshaw of the University of Odivad's Newton College, and Dr. David Llamben of Cardiff, Wales, all these beasts have their evolutionary niche and natural origin, unique as they may seem to be. All apparently are related to each other and descended from common ancestral lifeforms which first adapted to the conditions in the near-boiling pools of water in and around certain volcanic craters. Then, conditions worsening, the creatures managed to crawl up on the hot rocks to live, and even onto the lava itself.

This occurred millions of years ago, but there is firm evidence that it is still happening. In the January 1967 outpour of Science, Dr. Chandler Evans of the California Institute of Technology, described seventeen different species of "lava bugs" found in and around Mount Vesuvius, including several which could only be observed with an infra-red spotting scope.

In the case of Dragons and similar beasts, we have organisms which, beginning in a super-heated environment, succeeded in keeping the heat within themselves while living in comparatively frigid surroundings. In this they have done so well that only a Dragon's breath reveals the inferno inside of him, and this only when he wishes to use his flaming breath as a weapon or as an attraction. (See "Dragons: Fighting and Mating" by Stanhope Lawrence, OSU, Feblun 1971 outpour of Science.) On the average, the internal temperature of Dragons appears to be about 1000 degrees Centigrade, hot enough to melt copper and burn most organic compounds, but hardly enough to gently warm a Dragon's silicon-based structure. As will be shown, this temperature is necessary if the beast is to be able to perform its usual activities. Take an average Dragon, weighing about ten to fifteen tons, a four-legged brute with great scaly wings spreading perhaps twenty feet (some Chinese species range up to twenty-five tons). It is astonishing to realize that an animal that heavy can fly for great distances and quite rapidly. (In case my figures on weight meet with some skepticism, particularly among those who have seen Dragons and have some ideas of their size, remember that Dragon "flesh and bones" are made of denser stuff than merely warm-blooded creatures', being composed of what some researcher termed "organic asbestos", while their blood is a slurry of silicon compounds.)

Dragons breed slowly, and the period between egg-laying (in the cone of some smoldering volcano) and hatching is a full sixteen months, but Dragons are durable, and a hundred-and-fifty-year-old Dragon is hardly a rarity! Also they are hard to kill!

The tale is still told of the young WWI Austrian pursuit pilot who, bored with his dull tour of duty in northern Khorlia, took off in his Aviatik to shoot down a passing Dragon for sport and a splendid trophy. When the young lieutenant peppered the beast with machine-gun bullets, not only did they fail to kill the Dragon, but, to his terror and embarrassment, the infuriated beast first set the plane on fire with its fiery breath, making him jump out in his parachute, and then swooped down on the terrified Austrian and seized his 'chute in its foreclaws. It then carried him back to his home base and dumped him ignominiously in front of the hangars in full view of the office of Oberst Tiermann, the C.O. of the squadron. Twenty-five years later, by then a senior officer in the Luftwaffe, the poor man was still "Saint George" to a group of Germans and Austrians who had served with him in WWI.

As is indicated by the above account, ordinary guns will not kill a Dragon. When sportsmen do succeed in killing a Dragon, they run into another problem. Dragons are damned hard to cut up! Ordinary knives won't touch dragon-skin or flesh, and their bones are worse!

A noted English huntsman who managed to shoot one down with a 45 caliber magnum rifle, in the brief period after the War of Liberation when the general breakdown of Khorlian law enforcement allowed the hunting of normally protected animals, tells in his book Lions and Tigers and Everything! how he managed to lure the beast into rifle range and finally shot "with one clean sure shot to the spot just below the jaw — the poor brute never knew what hit him!" Then he recalls his attempts, with all the tools available, to remove the head and the right forepaw. I won't bore you with details, but it took four days and repeated journeys to the nearest town before the head and paw were at last removed. I must say, it made a splendid mounted head. I saw it on my trip to Europe in '65, hanging in solitary grandeur on a wall in Warwick Castle, with the monstrous magnum gun His Lordship had used hanging polished and ready below it.

It is estimated that in Khorlia today there are at least a thousand Dragons, mostly hatched in Vesuvius and Etna. This brings Europe's total to about five thousand, counting Welsh, Chinese (fleeing from Red China), Turkish, and a few beasts from Samarkand (like their Chinese cousins, fleeing from the Red government which denies their existence while trying to exterminate them).

People often wonder how such a large animal can continue to exist and even thrive in modern Europe. Part of it is that Dragons are nocturnal; another that their dens are mainly underground, preferably with veins of coal, for Dragons have learned to prize coal as a tasty energy food, while oil has an effect on them like good beer on a human. So by flying mostly by night and keeping well hidden in daytime, the species has survived.

Dragons, mostly rather gentle beasts — Smaug to the contrary — can be dangerous, as was recently proven at Toleman Air Terminal near Xofheim, when an elderly but still powerful male Dragon descended on the TWA terminal and tried to mate with a Boeing 727 trijet liner. His misplaced ardor was only cooled when he was blasted with the jet from a fire hose. By this time he had ruined the jet end of the plane and given the passengers an experience they'll never forget!

In mixing with aircraft, Dragons have had various experiences. It has been confirmed that five were shot down over Berlin in 1944 by Allied fighters who mistook them for German fighters. Over Wales, it was a different story. Members of an RAF night fighter squadron became aware that they had an unknown friend when the blackness of the night was momentarily lit up by a burst of flames, and next day the charred wreckage of a Nazi bomber was found near the town they were defending. Imagine their surprise, months later, after twenty more Heinkels had gone down, when it was discovered that their comrade in arms was a young Welsh dragon whose mate had been shot down some months ago by an HE-III.

This is by no means a definitive article on the Dragon; it merely skims the surface of a deep and complex subject. Nothing has been said about the wingless Dragons, of which an estimated 12,000 still exist, and little has been said about the Dragon's evolutionary development — or of the Dragon's several cousins, such as the Basilisk, the Wyvern, or the Salamander (not the pitiful little water lizard we mistakenly call salamander).

In conclusion we would like to think Senior Professor Stuart Hyde of Newton College Odivad for his kind assistance. Books on the subject include:

The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien. Fiction, but some unusually good descriptions. Drachne, by Carl Kranich, Munch. If you can read German, terrific! If not, the illos are worth it! The Metabolism of the Winged Dragon, by Dr. Ai Kitsune, Tokyo. Original written in Japanese, but Khorlian translation is available. The Dinosaur Book, by Edwin Colbert, American Museum of Natural History. This is a book about dinosaurs, but the third edition has an appendix — 25 photos and three lovely paintings of Dragons all over the world. There is no text, but in a slightly embarrassed Note, he explains that people in his profession are beginning to think that the still-alive Dragon rates as much attention as the extinct reptiles. The Welsh Dragon, Its Nature and History, by Dr. David Llamben, Cardiff. A rather odd book. Dr. Llamben was not only an accomplished physician for his time but an able naturalist. Among the first to discover the Dragon's fiery digestion and guess that they must be made of fire-resistant tissue, Llamben spent thirteen years on Etna, learning to identify Dragon's eggs and the little demons which hatched from them. Unfortunately, all this work was devoted to a "proof" that the only true Dragons were the ones who flew to Wales and settled there. Because of this, this monumental book was ignored by his colleagues and practically vanished till 1897 when Alfred Wallace discovered the book, realized what a treasure of Dragon-lore there was in it, and brought it to the attention of his fellow naturalists in a paper read to the Royal Society. A severely edited version of the book, plus another volume based on a study of Llamben's notes, were published a year later. From that time, Dragon-lore has been a small but important part of the biological sciences. Lately zoos all over the world have been setting up super-heated living spaces for the hatching and raising of various members of Phylum Cordata, Sub-phylum Vertebrate, Class Ignis Sanguis.

Science News: Odivad's Isaac Newton College announced this week the dedication by Her Glory, the Einessa, Issteb, of the new 100 meter diameter Continuous Operation Centrifuge, designed to permit the observation of animal and plant-life thru multiple life cycles under accelerations of 1.5, 2, 2.5, and 3 gravities. This facility, scheduled to be started on 4 Julun, will supplement the 50-meter centrifuge which has been in continuous operation since 1960, and will include larger and more numerous cages at each G-level and G-levels 0.5 G and 1.0 G higher than available than on the older facility. New features include a more durable suspension system, noise-reduction devices, basic improvements in the water and food supplying system, a completely powered Auto-Puppetry system to enable students and maintenance personnel to descend to the 3G level safely for extended periods of time, and a completely revised Specimen Isolation system to prevent a recurrence of accidents such as last year's escape from the 2G level of 7th generation monkeys, with its hilarious but potentially dangerous results when attempts were made to capture animals used to twice Earth's gravity. Funds for this development were made available by the Office of the Dynast thru the John Stark Foundation.

Rhymes of a Rover, by Andrew Martin

from Rhymes of a Rover, 100 pages, woodcuts by the author, first published in 1922 by Dikterion Press, Xofheim. This and two other books of verse (Embarcadero and Redwood) are by Andrew Martin, a freeman of Khorlia. Hounded out of the Federated Kingdoms in 1901 for anti-Austrian activities, he fled to America and went clear across the continent before he found a place to settle down. While he was living in San Francisco, he wrote the three books that would someday bring him a modest fame and fortune. After World War I, he returned to Khorlia, having served in the United States Marines and having been decorated four times for valor. To his surprise, when he submitted his poems to the publishers, they were snapped up amid demands for more. To the sorrow of his publishers, these three slim volumes marked the limit of Martin's productions, but the royalties from them were enough to keep him comfortably for the rest of his life.

In APA-L 373, John Hertz asked if I knew anything about Khorlian folk dances. I was about to answer in the negative when I suddenly remembered a very happy summer evening when I was in High School, down at the Methodist Church. Dancing was strictly forbidden, but folk games were reluctantly permitted. A kid named Roger Sawyer brought not only a book of instructions for a number of "games" we had never done before, but a nice new album of six or seven records to go with it. I looked the book over and was interested to note that it was a translation of a Khorlian book, "wordguarded" instead of copyrighted, and entitled Footsongs and Playdances of Xofland and Lambenya. I remember three we had lots of fun learning: "Molly Is a Widow," "The Green Round," and "Reach for the Lance." (The last-mentioned dance, which was so jolly to do, had a grimmer aspect in the sector that it originated in, as it is based on the rules of ritual dueling as it was practiced in Xofland centuries ago.) This is all I know about Khorlian folk dancing.

The Other M.I.T.

There's a lady in my wife's coven whose son is going to MIT, and it sure is hard! Up at 4:30 every morning for services, then an hour of Neo-Yogi exercises, then classes — White and Black Magic, Divining, Transformations (lucky the Necronomicon is out in paper now, as are De Woormis Mysteries and Die Unaussprechlichen Kulten). Just a half-hour for lunch, and anything you bring with you tends to mould or go stale. Luckily he has a friend whose father gave her his familiar as an off-to-school present, and the little devil brings her and Ammon all the lunch they need, piping hot! Right after, he has a new course, "Science and Magic," in which they read and discuss various science texts and articles as they relate to the practice of Magic.

Mrs. Lloyd told me that the class last week featured Dr. Rudolph Schnitzelfron, the noted Khorlian scientist. Ammon said that he and Lilith were lucky to get in, as permission had been given to the whole student body to cut classes and go hear the Doctor, and even though the Lovecraft Memorial Aud was used, the crowd overflowed.

I wish I could have been there to hear his talk. Ammon says that the doctor was in great form. First he talked about various gadgets useful to the modern practitioner, such as tape recorders to provide the music required for many rituals, modern techniques of purifying magical materials, the use of synthetic crystals — and then he got onto his main topic: "The Half-World — Magic-land or Hyperspace."

He mentioned, almost blushing, the trouble his organization had had when an investigating team, after successfully visiting another continuum, a world populated by a friendly non-human race (see "Land of the Bipos," a very interesting article by Francis Flagg which appeared in 1930 in one of Mr. Gernsback's educational magazines) returned to our universe, not realizing that they were being followed by something deadly from another continuum entirely.

As I mentioned in Fenachrone XXXII, it took just about the whole Amphibious Corps to send the thing back to where it came from, and it took the combined efforts of Schnitzelfron House's best hyperspace scientist, plus the aid of the Grand Arcanetarium's top exorcist to seal the area. As an amusing side note, he told how the noise of the epic battle was heard fifty miles away in Nice, alarming the French military so they recalled all troops, called for Navy help, and officially offered their help to the Khorlian Government against "les sales Boches." They were more than a little puzzled when photos taken from observation planes only showed several thousand men and their machines attacking what looked like an enormous blur, as a shoggoth would naturally appear to untrained eyes.

Ammon's afternoon classes include Biology (the College is justly proud of its unique collection of living beasties, of which the pair of Basilisks are unmatched in any zoo in the world), Comparative Religion, and a compulsory Art course. Then dinner, and compulsory study six nights a week. All this and more for eight years, and yet all this toil is as nothing beside the privilege of signing yourself Doctor of Magic Philosophy, Miskatonic Institute of Thaumaturgy!

This article appeared in Fenachrone 59. The next issue explained it had been a reprint which had "first appeared in TIME Magazine for October 25, 1951, along with a quite well-done photo of Her Grace, taken in London in the Nineties by some nameless artist."

A Noble Lady

Constance Dumeway Chillwough the Thirty-Second, a rather odd old lady with a rather odd name. Also known as Baroness Constance of Herrendume.

Herrendume, two kilometers by about eight kilometers, its largest building the Castle, its population 221, its chief peacetime business tourism: who would have imagined that its people could be so warlike?! Yet, in the spring of 1917, its hundred young men, armed with a hodgepodge of elderly hunting rifles, armored from the collection in the Castle, and led by their indomitable Baroness herself, sallied forth in rather ragged military order and captured the nearest Austrian garrison. No soft or squeamish gentle lady she, when the Austrian commander was so stupid as to laugh at her appearance in armor, she ordered him executed on the spot, and watched the whole thing in grim satisfaction.

Baroness Constance's exploit proved more important than expected, as the garrison had a large and well-stocked arsenal; and by the time the Austrians, who were somewhat occupied elsewhere, got around to taking back their stronghold, they were met by a thousand Khorlians, armed with Austrian guns and led by that same militant lady commander who had brought about the fall of the garrison. Before the end of the War of Liberation, the fifty-four-years-old Baroness commanded some forty thousand men, with the rank, confirmed by the revived Khorlian government, of Captain General. At war's end, she became the fourth person in history to be awarded the Platinum Pentacross with diamonds.

In his book, M-15 — A British Spy in Wartime Khorlia, Richard Athearn-Davies devotes a chapter to the Baroness and her followers. He wrote in part, "This was no dear, sweet old grandmother. Here was a woman of war, cast in the same hard mould as the Amazons or Jeanne d'Arc, only the voices she heard came by wireless.... I had been flown into Khorlia in a DH-4 and had parachuted down as near Castle Herrendume as possible, landing in a field bordering the moat. Before I had gotten to my feet, I was surrounded by what appeared to be a small crowd of boys, all armed and partly armored, and on second glance, nothing to fool with. I got cautiously to my feet, and a moment later Her Grace appeared on the steps, dressed in half-armor and swinging a morningstar in a highly experienced manner. As soon as I had identified myself, all was well, but I had the chill feeling that if I had failed to satisfy the Baroness and her men, I would have been taken down to the dungeons of her castle and forcibly questioned! As for my mission, that of unifying her small but potent force with the British Army, she disagreed entirely with our High Command.

"'Khorlia for Khorlians!', she explained. 'We let you people take over our Fuslog, and when this is over we'll find that you like it here and intend to stay!' And that was that. She was all for cooperation and obtaining better arms and ammunition, but not at the price of losing the autonomy of Khorlia's armed forces."

Not only did she have military ability, but she had good sense in other ways. In the late Thirties, when Grand Regent Garfield Ross was failing, there was great excitement over who'd be the next Dynast. The right-extremist Old Royalist Party was loudly for Baroness Constance, but the old lady coolly refused them, saying in part: "What we need is a fresh young person — not an old barnacle like me! Look at the blunders old folks make. Notwen Xof was over seventy when he burnt Holy Daev, and look at those old fools who said we could never beat the Austrians! Let the young fools take over!" And she stood by her decision, refusing to even discuss the matter of Succession till the Choosing was over and the young Dynast, Stedman Xof, had been installed at the Desk.

She lived thru the excitement of the Second World War, giving unsparingly of time and money to Operation Ice-Floe, the Khorlian underground that rescued more than a million people from the Nazi terror. Five years later, October 16, 1951, still a handsome old lady, she was showing her garden to a friend when she turned to her guest with a look of surprise on her face and said slowly, "Why, I believe I'm going now", and collapsed dead on the grass.

Her funeral was sumptuous (she scorned the hypocrisy of "I want just a small service") and was held in the cathedral of Our Lady of Wales in Lambengard, Cardinal Kettukes presiding. It is said that people of every religion and nationality were there, including her own people, down to the humblest plowman. The young dynast and his royal mate were there, plus various members of the government, especially the military — old men, sunk deep in old age but still sharp enough when someone mentioned a battle or a campaign. Toward the rear of the cathedral was a little group of swarthy-faced people, all dressed in black, who seemed familiar with the ritual but uneasy in the midst of such exalted company. Five men and one darkly handsome woman. One of the men was sinisterly handsome and obviously a cut above the other men: Jan Ohrlikof, King of the Gypsies. For let us not forget, that when Adolf Hitler put out his sanguinary decrees, he numbered the Gypsies along with the Jews as targets for extermination, and the Baroness Constance, when she became aware of this, directed the efforts of Ice Floe to aid them as well.

One more note: Think not that here was a homely old maid. At the very moment the funeral mass began, the oldest of her three daughters was boarding a Qantas Airways plane with her husband and children, for a flight to Lambengard Airport to come to Castle Herrendume, and cast off her own married name to become Baroness Constance Dumeway Chillwough the Thirty-Third.

12 Marklun, 1971, is the 130th anniversary of the birth of Arthur Silcock (1820-1902) — man of wealth, amateur scientist, and enthusiastic convert to the doctrine of Evolution. He is principally known for his gift to Odivad's Isaac Newton College of funds for a chair of Evolutionary Sciences, and his offer of a prize of ten thousand rikesbuken to "That person who presents a word or phrase which may conveniently and accurately be used for animals, from the lowest to the highest, as results of evolutionary development rather than 'creatures,' which would indicate an unnatural origin as creations of some superbeing." The prize still stands, tho many have tried their hand at it, even during the Austrian regency, when it was worth a man's life to be caught at anything as radical as Darwinism.

Legends and Folkways

Kurbahn Castle lies in northwest Xofland, near what is now the French border. But when it was built, in circa 700 AD, it was near nowhere, set in a desolate stretch of icy mountains and heavily forested plateaus. It is still haunted by Duke Notwen's ghost. He lived the last, bitter years of his life there, having lost both his daughters and his son, and having been rejected by the people of Xofland for his cruel treatment of Holy Daev. He died there on 23 Oklun, 1339, raving in delirium.

Soon after his death, guardsmen on night duty began complaining of a ghostly figure following them on their rounds. Then three guardsmen on three consecutive nights were found at the foot of Round Tower, the highest point of the castle, smashed by the fall, and their fellows reported hearing dreadful music and a man's voice and then the screams of the guardsmen. Holy Church was called on to exorcise the evil spirit. Not only was the exorcism a failure, but two priests were chased up the Tower stairway and off the top by a frightful figure in full armor, identified by all who saw it as old Duke Notwen himself.

Finally, after several more lives had been lost, and the whole matter had become a tragic embarrassment to the Xof family, a noble friend of the family obtained the service of a young priest who had chosen to follow the precepts of Holy Daev — such a man is still known as "a man who has sewn a green stripe in his robe." At the young man's first try, the ghost of Lord Notwen appeared, armed and dreadful, but the priest did not back up a step and went thru the rite of exorcism without a hesitation, sending Xofland's wicked lord "bak yinto Helle awhere he belonged." Since then there have been a few appearances, five of them probably genuine, but no one has been killed or badly scared.

[from a December outpour of Fenachrone Stateside] All over the Federated Kingdoms, the children are getting ready in their own little ways for Christmas, while most Wesleyan Churches and many Separatist Churches are getting ready to fly the now traditional scarlet paper carp above their buildings to proclaim to one and all their "unto us a child is born." Meanwhile, all over Khorlia, those who love the Fox are preparing little feasts to be set out on the eve of 12 Deklun "for the Blessed Beast to feast on, no matter where she may be." And it is rather amazing, for the next morning, no matter where, as the legend says, not only is the "feast" gone, but in its place is the Fox's footprint "sharp and clear" — this even in the congested areas of Khorlia's big cities, such as Lambengard, Xofheim or Claudesport.

Experiments have been made, and cruel things have been done, to prove the Fox Tradition, to no avail. For two years in a row, a man in Xofheim put the meat offering on traps and watched them personally. The first time, the next morning the man was found in a deep sleep and the meat was gone and the paw-print was imprinted on the wall of the house. The next time, the Fox got impatient, and the next morning the neighbors were awakened by the man's screams. His hands were caught firmly and agonizingly in two of his cruel traps.

The cult of the Blessed Beast goes far back, before even the arrival of the Greeks and Romans. In caves near Belgar, crude wall paintings have been found which date back at least 11,000 years, and in several of them the predominant figure is a reddish creature with a sharp nose and a bushy tail. In all these primitive murals, the Fox is aiding the humans.

In the magnificent Graeco-Roman Museum of Aquatinum are scores of delicate stone carvings of Foxes done by Greek artisans, while part of the Roman contribution is that laughable Roman invention, the portrait bust — of a Fox! In 105 AD, a Roman with some literary ambitions, a certain Carus Balo, wrote a witty essay comparing Aquatinum to Rome, using the Fox and Wolf as examples. For this he was honored at the Dies Festus.

In the Tenth Century, Holy Daev traveled up and down Khorilium, preaching the Bible and his Forest Virtues, and a little Fox was his constant companion even unto death. After this, if She had not before, the little Beast had a secure niche in the hearts of Khorlians. From then on, as I have indicated, the Blessed Beast has appeared when she is needed to give advice or comfort, always in her "organ voice," leaving unmistakable evidence that she was a real animal and not an illusion.

Lastly remember that, among other titles, His Power is Son of the Fox and that this title far outdates any of the other ones he bears.

June Moffatt's remark about the super-beast the Fox must be to be able to print her paw-print in solid bronze [see the earlier essay on the Blessed Beast] is well-taken. This and many other deeds of the Beast have been the source of much debate in Khorlia for centuries. One popular explanation is the theory that She is a creation of The Thing in The Woods, and this could be so, for the Thing has certainly produced some weird and wonderful creatures. This explanation, however, is not popular with some Khorlians who view The Thing with some repugnance, but rather prefer the account in Holy Daev's Green Testament in which after his last meeting with his followers the young prophet after preaching to his followers turned to the little beast which had followed Him through all His travels, exhorted her to be brave in the bad times to come, and (I quote from Endings, Chapter 12 of the Greenstripe Testament) "He told Her that there was nothing that She should fear for none could stand against Her, and that from then on She could talk like a man, could break bonds and open locks, could enter and leave closed places with none the wiser, could strike men dead or tranced, would someday be beloved by all Khorlians" and so on, a list of duties and capabilities which in my copy covers five full pages.

My copy is the Revised and Enriched Version, first outpoured by the University of Odivad in 1820. It includes the Odivad translation of the Old and New Testaments, plus the Forest Testament written partially by Daev Himself and partly by his followers. This edition is usually printed in green (mine is) with a green band up the spine of the book (also). As might be expected, the Austrian government, which misruled Khorlia for over forty years, immediately put the book on the forbidden list, but the Bible Society went underground, and five years before the start of the War of Liberation (1916), the R&E was being quietly distributed again.

Ahndore

Like any civilized people, most Khorlians are fond of cats, and it is a poor family indeed that hasn't a cat or two, but the citizens of Ahndore love their cats beyond all common sense. Of course there's a reason for this, and a large part of it is the fact that Ahndore is a city of magic.

Magic is their life, their sport, their way of living. Any hour of the day, walk the winding streets of Ahndore and you may see Senior Sorcerers, trim young witches fresh from their first coven, gaunt necromancers mumbling of what they've found beneath the graveyards of this very ancient city, professors from the Grand Arcanetarium still in their scarlet robes, walking one with another, gravely considering the problems of the Art, and with them all, scurrying underfoot but never stept on, greeting each other with tiny cries, are the CATS! Gray ones, white ones, tortoise shell and black. Manx kittens with their tailless behinds, elderly pussies barely able to move about. All these and many more, all sleek and all aware of their one important task, to guide and protect their human colleague, especially when he or she is engaged in the practice of magic.

What could be a better Familiar, especially when the human dream-voyages to other universes? Here is the Magician, ten thousand kilometers and four hundred years distant in space and time from twentieth century Ahndore. He has chosen to be seated comfortably when he reads the Canon, and now he is gone, his body slumps in the chair, with his grimoire lying on the floor by his feet. On his lap, a stalwart guard against any other magical beings who might wish to invade his temporarily vacated body, sits a cat, purring lazily but on guard! A few magicians prefer dogs, but for most a dog has too much of a tendency to go running off after any diversion that presents itself. Most of the magical folk of Ahndore regard the "Blessed Fox" who served Holy Daev so faithfully as merely an overgrown dog and blame the capture and execution by Stone and Flame on the Blessed Beast who, had she been a cat, would have managed the affair so that Her Master would have escaped unharmed.

"Ahndore: pop. 71,000: main products, lumber and magic": Fenachrone IV, 12-23-65, a revised outpour from APA-L 62.

Poor Magister Leonatti wept as he and his little flock were led to the stakes where they would be chained and burnt alive. "Oh, my dear friends!" he groaned, "had we but stayed in Ahndore, all would have gone well!"

Too late! the Magister had fallen for one of the most-often used tricks of the Holy Inquisition — the lure of a city claiming to be safe and in need of magic. Alas, it was but a pious fraud, secretly promoted "to seek out and lead to a well-deserved destruction those enemies of God called magicians, wizards, witches, sorcerers, etc., whose evil practices, especially in that evil blot on the fair face of Christian Khorlium, the vile ungodly city of Ahndore, constitutes an outrage to God and Man." (This is an excerpt from De Khorlium, an inflammatory pamphlet published by the Diocese of Northern Austria.)

Since the Church's first efforts to stamp out magical practices, Ahndore had been a prime target. Located in northeast Khorlia, just below Lake Bingo, on the River Tharn, Ahndore is one of the oldest cities in western Europe, dating back to 450 AD when, according to legend, a certain Liska, already known well in the lands to the east as a capable wizard, came up the river and camped on the shore of Lake Bingo and set about clearing away the timber to make room for a small town. Of course, as any Khorlian Primary student knows, at that time the area was heavily forested and was only a part of that forest belt which stretched from upper Xofland to the sea.

Liska and his followers prospered, and the word spread that here, in this green jungle, could be gotten spells and amulets and powders and other magical devices that really worked! Invisibility spells for the secretive, love potions that functioned as advertised, rituals to brace the shrunken and raise the fallen, and written magic — curses, spells, predictions, scrolls for those who wished to prosper in business; magical conveyances — shoes, carpets, winged horses, you name it! — all of which could carry their user a mile or a thousand leagues. And Ahndore did well in all this — both in the sale of magic and in the teaching of the Art to the people, young and old, all races, who flocked to the classes at the "Ecole de la Grammaire."

Then the organizers and faculty of the Ecole met in solemn conclave, and meeting with them were more than a score of beings from at least a dozen other worlds who were interested in the establishment of an area on Earth where what we call magic was not only permitted but encouraged. The sense of the meeting was that what was first needed was an adequate building, impressive in appearance and containing all the banquet halls, dormitories, lecture rooms (and laboratories with these) and temples needed. The next evening, being full moon, was deemed proper, and the sun had barely set when the work began.

Little is known, even to this day, about the laborers who made the building or their methods, for the citizens of Ahndore know how to keep a secret, even under torture, and the only other witnesses were a few of the savage Formicars who lived in the thick jungle around the city. But on the following morning, there stood, in all its glory of pink marble and stained glass, the Grand Arcanetarium, looking very much as it does today except for its surroundings. Picture a dome some three hundred and fifty feet high, with a hundred foot high squarish structure on each side, built in one night in the heart of the forest. It is estimated that erecting the dome itself and the two wings took the efforts of at least two shoggoths (and their drivers) plus the crafts of some two hundred talented vampires and other undead. At any rate, the giant structure was decorated and built in the course of one single night and has been in active use ever since. As one observer who visited Ahndore in the late 8th Century remarked, "It was like coming upon the Cathedral of San Sophia in the middle of the Schwartzwald!" Of course, by the time the writer lived, Ahndore had expanded, and all around the Arcanetarium there was a network of winding streets with "witchhouses," with their wavy roofs crowding up against the very walls of the school.

From the very beginning, the College of Magic, or the Grand Arcanetarium as it has been called for centuries, was a success. Would-be magic workers flocked in from all over the known and unknown world, and by their youth contributed much to the "lively air" of the city.

And it grew, first the Temple (as it is called by some) and its herd of little single houses, then more business-like structures — warehouses, offices, eating places, and bookstores.

Then in the spring of 712, relying on the prophecies of the so-called Frombiun Sybil, the headmasters of each college in the Grand Arcanetarium levied an extra fee from their classes, and with the aid of The Thing in The Woods, a wall was built, about thirty meters high, twenty meters thick at the base and five meters wide at the top, with three great gates, each lavishly decorated with magical symbols, to protect the three landward sides of the city. On the fourth side, fronting on the River Tharn, a smaller barricade was built, carefully arranged to avoid interfering with the river traffic. And down in the deep river, great pits were dug, using certain vast scaly monsters supplied by The Thing, and certain biomagical things were set in these riparian deeps, things armed with tentacles and teeth, and "sensitized" to the presence of priests and their paraphernalia, and also the reek of dried blood as it stained racks and ropes and other instruments of persuasion. When they sensed a boat carrying any of these items, these enormous beasts went berserk, and shortly after that the passengers and their craft disappeared beneath the surface of this broad and deep river.

Nor was this any too soon, for in Xofheim, north of the City of Magic, the Church Militant, as personified by Archbishop Amon Xof, and the secular arm, personified by Duke Dahno Xof, his brother, sometimes called the Lion of God (but no relation to Aslan!), having planned the destruction and looting of Ahndore, for personal greed as well as churchly reasons, advanced on the City on land and up the Tharn with a force of nearly ten thousand men.

To say that this attempt was a fiasco is putting it mildly! Of the three hundred river boats commandeered for this attempt, not one survived, and of the passengers, military and clerical, a scant twenty escaped the water monsters and were hauled ashore and put in chains by the Ahndorian River Guard. On the land side, the Xofist forces marched up to the city without a loss, then were stopped short at the Wall! Not only was the Wall constructed of substances harder than adamant, but when catapults were built to throw rocks over this stout barrier, for one reason or another — fire, splitting, disastrous breaking of ropes, etc. — not one ever hurled a missile into wicked Ahndore! And Duke Xof's men, admittedly a superstitious group, had their share and more of visitations by various supernatural beings. It was a lucky man who left the camp with a girl and wasn't found dead soon after. So finally, after a dozen futile attempts to break in at the great gates, the would-be conquerors had to content themselves with destroying the vast herbfields surrounding the city and unwillingly returning home.

This, of course, was only the beginning. For the next thousand years, in large ways and small, the Church waged unremitting war against Ahndore the City, the Grand Arcanetarium, individual citizens, and students, and those outside who traded with the various magical export firms based in the city — and the Ahndorians fought back!

Witness the case of Armand Whitloe, a merchant of Rahm, in western Khorlia. In March of 1523 he was arrested by the local authorities and charged with possession of magical literature (a true charge; he had a dozen copies of "The Red Grimoire" with him) and was dragged down to the dungeons of the local lord for questioning. But things didn't go as the authorities, church and state, expected. For as soon as they had arrived to witness the interrogation, the "merchant" changed into a large and unusually testy sabertoothed tiger who easily broke the chains that held him and proceeded to make breakfast, lunch, and dinner of the torturers and their audience. But, as we noted at the beginning of this article, the anti-magical forces had their successes also. The dreadful fate of Magister Leonatti and his fellows is a tragic example. Meanwhile, in 1483 Martin Luther was born in Germany, and magic, particularly witchcraft, was subjected to violence from both sides, particularly in fiercely Protestant New England. While no "witch" was burned in Salem or Boston, the toll in Arkham was tragic — over three hundred burned, including twenty-seven men and forty folk who were innocent, before saner minds prevailed.

Then public opinion began to change, and by the early 1800s the citizens of Ahndore were conducting a growing trade in magical books and instruments, first inside Khorlia, then in Western Europe, and then all over the world. In a series of trade agreements with The Thing in The Woods, the magical merchants were able to advertise and deliver high quality familiars and sacrificial animals all over the world, shipments guaranteed to arrive alive and healthy to any place on Earth.

Modern Ahndore contains much of the same mixture of fascinating ancient and useful modern found in many Khorlian cities. The great Dome is there, and the witches still cluster around it. The great wall still stands, though the gates are gone, and the city has grown right past it. The magical gardens still nearly surround the city. In the business section, the great publishing houses dominate the scene, with products ranging from magical comic books for children and some adults to the multi-volume encyclopedias and sumptuous private editions of the Necronomicon and other "forbidden" works, many printed in English Script, and grimoires — the "how-to-do-it Books" of magic.

Some will ask if that is all; is Ahndore just a twentieth century industrial complex putting out magical goods instead of tractors? First they have the Grand Arcanetarium, more than 1500 years old, busy opening up a whole new world of supernatural techniques to eager young minds. There are men there who are devoting their careers to learn more about how and why magic works the way it does. As in most large colleges, there are various fellowships to enable top students and graduates to do special research, both in Ahndore and in Arkham. When Dr. Howard Lovecraft, the eminent American anthropologist, visited Europe in the mid-Thirties, shortly before his tragic death, he was mostly impressed by Ahndore and the Arcanetarium and the attitude all over Khorlia in favor of Ahndore and magic.

Also, if the traveler, tourist or businessman has time, he or she can visit the City's Zoo, an institution justly proud of its collection of curious animals. They include twenty-five centaurs (a group that is expanding as they mate and have he-colts); a mature Medusa, fully capable of turning anyone into a stone image who looks at her directly; several Basilisks; three young Dragons; and the largest herd of unicorns in Europe. The centaurs, having human intelligence, are not kept in the Zoo by force but by generous wages, housing, and freedom to come and go as they please outside working hours. Ahndore Zoo is also famous for its collection of "extinct" animals, a full-grown tyrannosaurus, three pairs of triceratops, several sabertooth tigers (caught in Khorlia's own Amocat Mountains), and — in a giant aviary — five pterodactyls.

The Thing in the Forest

Writing about THE THING has its difficulties. For one thing, are you writing about an individual or a collection? The Thing somehow appears to be both. In appearance (in public at least), it has come a long way from "the great egg with an eye, walking about on four human legs." The recent appearances of the Thing have indicated a certain desire to conform to the dress fashions of the late XIXth century, and that involves "tailor making," the development of bodies, male and female, which look like human beings with certain unavoidable differences. Voice was a difficulty and still is, either too deep or too whining, while the words that emerged from the Thing's mouth were garbled beyond recognition.

That was fifty years ago; much has been done since then. From studies of humans and lower animals, the Thing has developed "humans" to represent it, but there are still discrepancies which give them away, particularly the third eye, usually located in the back of the being's head, though a few have been reported with a third eye in the middle of the forehead. Non-humanoid forms observed have included the Thing that saved Khorlia from the Huns (which sounds like human and non-human parts placed together to make something that would simply do the job), a dog, a youngish-looking bearlike animal which specialized in releasing animals caught in traps (the Thing is strongly pro-animal), a husky female hippopotamus, gotten in trade from a circus which visited a nearby town, and — some say — the Blessed Fox.

We know that in the past thirty years it has built a number of what look like laboratory buildings in its valley, plus a large, low building with a runway in front, which may have been built to accommodate Thing-modified dragons. The easy and only way to get any pictures of THINGSVILLE has been, up to recently, flying over it, and this has become rather difficult. Last summer (1974), a Toleman Teleview, an aircraft designed to be an ultra-fast, high altitude photo-plane, capable of well over 2500 kilometers per hour, was flown over the Valley at about seventy-two thousand meters altitude and nearly top speed. Luckily, the Ensign Photomaster had already zeroed in on target and had set the automatic cameras to take a series of overlapping pictures which would cover the whole valley, for suddenly the plane lurched, and there was a curse from the pilot.

As the pilot, Flight Leader Osmund Jones, said later: "Right there, beside us, close enough to brush our wing, was what must have been a dragon! It wasn't flapping its wings, but its mouth was open like an airscoop, and there seemed to be a jet exhaust coming from its rear. I believe it'd been converted to a ram-jet. A dragon's inside could surely take the heat and pressure involved."

At all events, Flight Leader Jones and crew escaped with their lives. Co-pilot Lieutenant Dave Gregor got some side views of the beast with his Minolta, which revealed some interesting details. It was a real dragon, greatly modified — swept-back wings, a transparent covering over its eyes, a large bulge just about where the brain usually is. To the relief of the crew of the Teleview, the dragon jet veered away from them, and was gone a minute later, but the message was plain — the Thing demands and will keep its privacy! This is the one policy the Thing has maintained thru all its contacts with man.

from The World Almanac and The Information Please Almanac

Khorlia (Limited Democracy) Federated Kingdoms of Khorlia

Area: 157,000 square miles Population: 19,620,000 (1962) Density per square mile: 125 Dynast: Stedman Xof (born 1920, seated 1938) Principal cities: (census 1962) Lambengard 4,350,000 (capitol); Xofheim 2,204,000 (leading industrial center); Claudesport 1,960,000 (largest seaport); Agrille 1,100,000 (arts & lit); Aquatinum 846,000 (seaport, tourism); Ahndore 710,000 (lumber, magic); Dondaris 600,000 (fishing, tourism, archeology); Mara 596,000 (fishing, crafts, tourism) Monetary unit: Rikesbuk (US $1.50) [1962] Religions: Wesleyan, Presbyterian, Anglican, Roman Catholic, Jewish, Mohammedan, Shinto, Animist (Brother Fox) [Roman pantheon in Aquatinum.—LG] Flag: Three horizontal bars — red-green-blue, black tailless K in center

Descriptive: Khorlia is located on the western Mediterranean, just west of Italy, east of France, and south of Germany. Its French and Swiss borders are located in the Khorlian Alps which include some of the highest peaks in Europe. Among them are the Todenhorn (16,300 feet), the Dreitochtern (15,823 feet), and La Mere de Neige (15,139 feet). Some of the towns on the Dondarisian Peninsula are of Grecian origin, while the seaport city of Aquatinum dates back to Roman times and boasts a nearly intact Roman stadium. The Amocat Mountains in Upper Lambenya offer the camera sportsman a chance to meet and "shoot" Khorlia's famed "Sabertooth," recently proved to be a survival of the Sabertooth Tiger, till now thot to be extinct. A trip up the Fox River, Khorlia's main water, is a pilgrimage from one historical shrine to another, from storied Claudesport, a modern port with one face ever turned to its legendary past, to ancient Odivad, center of a nation's learning, and on to Lambengard, city with a violent history, and on to Xofheim, a strictly Khorlian mixture of modern science and ancient architecture and customs.

MAP KEY: Historical Spots (numbers in circles on the map)

1. Manchow, Upper Xofland — an "accidental" raid by the Luftwaffe wiped out this pleasant little town in the summer of 1942. Next day the Federated Kingdoms Air Arm polished off the south German town of Grausumstadt without losing a plane.
2. The Todenhorn — Khorlia's highest peak. Duke Karl Friederich of Hapsburg fell to his death 3 Deklun, 1874.
3. Site of the Bishop's Foxhunt.
4. The Amocat Mountains — here live the world's only surviving sabertooth tigers.
5. The Woods of Torozar. The Thing in the Woods lives here too.
6. Castle Herrendume.
7. Birthplace of Lohan Delf.
8. Largest uranium mines in Europe.

The map on the next page is a compressed version of the four-page map which appeared in Fenachrone XXXI thru the courtesy of Olaf Denker Sons, a subsidiary of Rand McNally. No details have been intentionally omitted. Major cities appear in full capitals. Bodies of water appear in italics.

Map of Khorlia

Khorlian Money

Many of our readers, travel-minded, have asked for more information about the Federated Kingdoms, particularly our customs service and our money, so here is a general rundown on these topics.

Don't forget that, while most currency is decimal, Khorlia's is duodecimal, based on multiples of 12. Our basic unit is the Rikesbuk, worth at present about $2.00. [It was previously worth about $1.50, but the rate of exchange changed in late 1971.]

* These coins have been made of bronze since 1947.

The monetary units with names are the ones we have had for centuries, while the unnamed units have been added since the War of Liberation (1916-1918). Amounts of money are written like decimal currency: Rikesbuken, dot, plotnem. The Plotney also has a symbol (?), used as we use the ¢ sign for cents. Experienced travelers will be happy to learn that Khorlian paper money is all one size — no trying to stuff bills the size of typing paper into your wallet.

Khorlia welcomes tourists! Whether it be fishing in the Gulf of Aquatinum, climbing in the Khorlian Alps, visiting our historical cities, enjoying the rich cuisine of Agrille, Vonoir, or the smaller towns of the Gallic Directorate, or simply soaking in the sun along the Khorlian Riviera, we try to make your stay a memorable one! (If this reads like a travel-folder, it is; we just copied this.—PB)

Entering the Federated Kingdoms is easy. You don't even have to pay five dollars to leave, like you do in Hot Shot Charlie's Little Country next door [a reference in 1966 to France]. Both Claudesport Harbor and Lambengard Airport are free ports, so that you can load up on goodies before you leave. For more info, write to the Khorlian Tourist Office, 214 Victory Sq., Lambengard — or contact the Khorlian Consulate in your city. Or if you're a LASFS fan, see Newton Ross when he comes to a meeting.

The Strange Affair of the Man Who Invented Khorlia

Report: 17-Ark-203-Epsilon: Primintel Agent First Class Ronal Faboda, Federated Kingdoms Consul General for Southern California, USA. Copies for His Power, Dr. Schnitzelfron, David Fox 1

I was contacted by Henry Baker, one of our agents and a salesman for Stark Motor Aggregate, on Saturday 21 Maylun, twenty hundred, who reported a customer who denied the existence of the Federated Kingdoms and several allied nations, claiming that all were imaginary. Per Special Instruction Beeda-Omicron-520, I soothed the man, who had been somewhat ruffled by Agent Baker, and invited him to ride over to the Consulate with Baker, assuring him that it was still open and that he'd be welcome. Subject finally agreed and left his car, an elderly Volkswagen, in the garage behind the salesroom and rode out to the Consulate. Meanwhile, I radioed the Lord Emissary in Lambengard, advised him of the situation, and was assured that assistance would be on its way.

I was somewhat taken aback when subject arrived and introduced himself as Dave Fox — he looked and talked so much like the "real" Dave Fox (elsewhere referred to as Dave Fox 1 or Dave 1). I showed him around the Consulate and, as Baker had told me, he exclaimed at the flags and the big coat of arms behind my desk and the maps we give away. He was visibly disappointed when he opened a book on my shelf and discovered that it was printed in English, but when my secretary brought him several volumes printed in Khorlian from our quarters, he was delighted and poured over them, reading phrases aloud with delight mixed with puzzlement. A record of all this is on the tape accompanying this report.

About an hour after he arrived, I invited him to have some refreshments, and his glass of beer included 25 milligrams of Veritain 24. The following is a transcript of his remarks, starting with his answer to a question of mine:

That's right, I created Khorlia. — No, not like God creating Heaven and Earth, d'you think I'm crazy? — I created it in my mind. It's just an imaginary country, like Islandia or Grand Fenwick or Lilliput or Poictesme. Only, since I'm not a professional writer, it's not as well done. I started working on it thirty years ago. I was in high school then, and a girl I'd made a date with to go to a skating party had "gotten sick", and my friend Hal Curtis jokingly asked me if the "Foxian secret agents were going to put a poisoned bouquet in the Princess Maryanne's room." This may not sound like much of a beginning, but I'd never thought of having my own private country before, and it fascinated me.

First it was Foxia, but that seemed kind of obvious, so soon it was Khorlia. For quite awhile I used it as a sort of allegory of things happening to me and my friends, each of whom was assigned a nation with characteristics fitting their personalities or stations in life. Thus, the well-to-do Millikan girls lived (unknown to them) in Castle Millikan, a feudal setting; my Caltech student friend ruled over Ressalia, the Country of Science; and Curtis, who sparked the idea, was the young dictator of a nation chiefly notable for its fantastically advanced military equipment. I used it once in Junior College as background for a story and got an A.

By the time I was drafted, in '44, it was Dynastic Khorlia and the ruler was Ivan Xof, serving in the United States Marine Corps as plain David Fox, sort of a wanderjahr for the young dynast. All this made a good gimmick, so that every once in a while I'd get a letter headed something like "Cave Fourteen, Curtesian Intelligence," in which things happening to my friend were described in the terminology of intrigue, and I would enjoy replying similarly. By now Khorlia, when I thought of it, was located in a parallel universe, near enough to our continuum so that in ancient times groups of people had been "swept over" from ancient Europe into the heavily forested area which later became Khorlia. This gave me an explanation for the English speech and generally western European characteristics of Khorliana.

Sometime in late '64 or early '65, the idea hit me (perhaps from fanzines using certain imaginary countries) that it would be fun to locate Khorlia in real-life western Europe, mixed up in real historical affairs, an English-speaking nation of size and importance on the Continent. And this idea, plus the opportunity to write about it in the mimeographed magazine put out for a science-fiction club I belong to, gave my interest a shot in the arm that really got me going!

I had already changed its name to the Federated Kingdoms of Khorlia; now I began to work out the "historical" details of how an English-speaking nation could come to exist between France and Italy. I invented a Khorlian friend, Newton Ross, whose job with "Lockheed-Toleman" would bring him to Burbank every week or so, and a Khorlian fanzine named Fenachrone (named after the self-styled "super-race" in Smith's Skylark yarns) from which I copied items to put in my little sub-zine of the same name, and I had myself a ball working out the history and government and literature in articles "quoted from the Khorlian outpours of Fenachrone." As I've always done, I concocted many of the names of places and people from English or foreign-language versions of my family name — Fox => Xof; Orroz and Zorrovia from Zorro; Raposa, Kitsune; David => Odivad, Koibito, Daev; Lambdin => Lamben, Lambengard; Newton Fox => Lord Notwen Xof; my unpleasant Aunt Gertrude => Truda Sourmouth, and so on, and some from names or terms which simply attracted me: Oakenshaw, Militechnic; Cygnus Daemonis, etc.

All this has been great fun, but hardly real, so that when I came along Colorado this evening and saw that Stark V16 place right next to Peter Satori's, I was surprised and curious, to put it mildly. So I went in, and there were these great big magnificent cars, like I'd always thought of them, and the flag I'd worked out, and the Khorlian seal of arms like I could never do it — the red, green and blue shield, with the sly red fox on top and the sabertooth tigers rampant on each side, with the motto "Collect and Keep": underneath: everything just grand! (Incidentally, I got the red, green, and blue from model airplane kits I used to rework into Khorlian Air Arm planes; the kits usually include, red, white, and blue decals for insignia, and it was easy to color the white green.) Anyway, I stopped and went in, an', sure enough, the cars were big an' beautiful, but when I asked the guy there where they'd gotten the beautiful Khorlian gimmick, he gave me a lotta lip about bein' a citizen of Khorlia, an when I tol' him it was jus' a fig- figment of my ima-gination he started to order me outa the showroom, but then he got wise, he phoned somebody, and got real nice, and pretty soon I got invited over here, an' God, I feel sleepy.

(Faboda's report continues)

Shortly after this, the subject fell over in a deep sleep on the sofa and was taken to our sleeping quarters and put to bed. Meanwhile I and several of my staff had noted the subject's striking likeness to David Fox 1, an American of Khorlian descent who is a personal friend of His Power. When my secretary phoned Freeman Fox, both he and his Khorlian friend Newton Ross were there, and both were interested in coming over to meet this puzzling person. While this was going on, my secretary had been going through the subject's pockets and had come up with some interesting items. His driver's license seemed like a regular one till it was compared with the "real" thing, when various differences showed up. He had a Lockheed pass that was entirely different from Lockheed-Toleman's standard pass. (By this time Dave Fox 1 and Newton Ross, both L-T employees, had arrived and submitted their passes for checkup. They were allowed to view the subject, now in a deep Veritain slumber, and both exclaimed at the close resemblance of the two Davids.)

"Even to that little scar on my forehead and the two scarred fingers on my left hand that I got fiddling with my folks' Model T!" Dave 1 exclaimed. Then the phone rang, and a minute later Minsterman, my secretary, came up, looking excited.

"It's from Dr. Schnitzelfron," he told me, and when I picked up the phone, I recognized the voice immediately.

"This is Schnitzelfron. Your boss in Lambengard got ahold of me to tell me that you have what sounds like a doppleman. Give me an outline of what's happened so far." As I brought him up to date, he only interrupted me twice, though I could tell by the sound of his breathing that he was excited. Then, "Now listen well. First, don't let him go for any reason; this is a Top Relevance Hyperspace Commission affair! I am in Berkeley, and I will reach your large airport in about an hour on—" he paused, and I heard someone murmur in the background, "I'll be on PSA flight 317; please have a car waiting for me. That will be all for now. Oh yes, tell your agent Baker that he'll get a little something for having sense to report this man. Goodby, for now."

Report of Rudolph Schnitzelfron to the Dynast, 30 Maylun 71

I was in the city of Berkeley on a speaking engagement at the University of California, when I was contacted by the Primintel and notified that what appeared to be an incidence of a hyper-parallel transfer had occurred. A few minutes later, I talked with Agent Faboda, and my suspicion was fairly confirmed. Fortunately, my part of the program was over, and I was free to leave. Thanks to our representative in the San Francisco area, transportation was already ready.

When I arrived at the Southern California Consulate, the young man was already asleep, having been given Veritain 24. Fortunately our Primintel agents had been operating with their customary dispatch, and Freeman David L. Fox (from here on he will have a number 1 after his name) had arrived, giving us an excellent opportunity to compare the two dopplemen. As David I pointed out, the resemblance extended even to small scars. Dave 1 pointed to one dissimilarity: Dave 2 has a US Marine emblem tattooed on his right forearm, which David I does not have, but David 1 told me that he had often thought of having just such an emblem put on him.

Meanwhile, on my orders, Faboda's men had gone to the Stark agency in Pasadena, where Dave 2 had left his car in the garage, and stripped it of everything useful for our investigation and parked it in front of the agency. It was a rich haul, especially since Fox 2 is a mildly compulsive collector. Some of the items included a modern (Goodspeed) translation of the Bible, lots of paper-bound science-fiction novels and short stories, a paper-bound American dictionary (a real prize!), several copies of the Los Angeles Times, all of them containing news of successful landings on the Moon, several outpours of the corporate publication "Lockheed Star" (with no mention of Lockheed-Toleman), and in the front compartment there was a copy of a recent outpour of the science-fiction magazine "Amazing Stories." But the most immediately important item was a looseleaf notebook with 46 outpours of "fenachrone" in it, with articles unbelievably similar to articles in the "real" Fenachrone, from serious articles to club news and gossip items.

Newton Ross was simply stunned by these, plus the frequent references to him and other Khorlians. Your Power, I trust, realizes the importance of this to our hyperspace research, particularly in the realm of paratime. We will take the material and study it from outside to in, checking for electrical properties, crystalline structure, etc., plus the differences of design and internal meaning. The only reason that we didn't just take the VW is that an object of that mass, nearly three-quarters of a metric ton, might return to its native continuum spontaneously.

Report of the Pasadena Police Department — Abandoned Vehicle May 31, 1971. Abandoned car, Volkswagen, type SDDX, engine number 4310387, yr model and yr sold not indicated, license plates JGX 035. Vehicle picked up after complaint of Stark Motor Combine that vehicle had been parked 3 days plus in front of agency. When we investigated, doors unlocked, interior gave evidence of having been thoroughly searched. Registration slip missing. No personal items in car. No record of license number in Sacramento. In mechanical details, car is different from any VW recorded. Car held.

Addenda: July 16, 1971.l Volkswagen JGX 035, parked solid with other abandoned vehicles in police lot, missing, along with 4 other vehicles and parts of others. Officer Oakeley, checking lot this morning, 9:35 AM, noticed absences. How this car and others were taken undecided.

Continuation of Report by Rudolph Schnitzelfron

About 8:00 the next morning, David 2 awoke with that complete absence of "drugged" feeling that is so happily characteristic of Veritain, and demanded to know where he was. We had decided after some hot discussion to be perfectly and completely honest with him so, after some introductions, I informed him that somehow, as he was on his way home the night before on his own world, he had been "moved" from a continuum amazingly like ours, to "here," where the first-noted differences were the existence of nations (here, I referred to the transcript of his remarks) such as Islandia, Grand Fenwick, Lilliput, the Federated Kingdoms of Khorlia, and Poictesme, as real states, part of world history and not, as is the case in his continuum, figments of professional or amateur writers' imaginations. I must say, he took it very well, and his first concern was for his wife and daughter. I told him frankly that we had no way of finding out how his absence was affecting them, and then I called Dave 1 forward.

The reaction of both, even though Dave 1 had seen Dave 2 asleep the night before, was a sort of growing surprise and, when each was relating his life story, amazement at their close similarity. I had the Fenachrone notebook brought in, and both marveled at the way Dave 2's imaginary Khorlia matched the real country, both in the published version of it and in the background events and descriptions Dave 2 had written up to use as reference material later.

David Fox [1]'s Report: I put the question to Dave 2 that we had all decided on. If he insisted on staying here, no one could stop him, but he would have a hard time, especially in and around Burbank and Glendale, trying to explain how he came to have my fingerprints, etc. On the other hand, he would be welcome in the Federated Kingdoms, given a congenial job in Schnitzelfron House, kept up to date on any hyperspace research they would attempt, and welcome to take part in any efforts to reach his continuum. I am happy to say he accepted their offer after a short discussion. Frankly, it made me a little uncomfortable to be talking with a man who had framed the whole Federated Kingdoms, in all its might and majesty, in his mind and could dismiss it with a careless, "That's right; I created Khorlia."

Rudolph Schnitzelfron: Of course, it didn't end right there. As I write, Dave 2 is at the Foxes (1), having a farewell party. I have already taken tissue samples from both of them, plus numerous photos and x-ray shots from head to toe, and while it's not in my byllward, I have had both of them take IQ, Standard Personality, Multi-Phase, Association, and a new super-Rorschach test lately developed at Odivad. In all these, they are nearly identical. I've done all I can for this young man, scooped out of his own continuum and dropt here, but I can't help feeling that he's lucky. After all, it must be an odd, cold sort of a world with no Khorlia!

On this day, the 25th of the month of May, 19 and 75, We Stedman Xof, sometimes known as Mr. Fox, do hereby approve this outpour of articles taken from Fenachrone Stateside and named Chronicles of Khorlia.

In Our post of Senior Member of the Fenachrone Advisory Committee, We wish to thank the present staff of Fenachrone Khorlian for their cooperation in gathering and editing the material from Fenachrone'S various outpours and getting this material shipped to the Golds' editorial office. If this outpour is a success, we have suggested similar publications by LASFS's sister organization.

Acknowledgements

[received by the Golds from Dave Fox]

Now a few words of acknowledgement to the folk and organization which made Chronicles of Khorlia possible. First, Dynast Stedman Xof who helped us in myriad ways.

Thanks to mapmakers Denker Rand for graciously allowing us to use their excellent map of Khorlia for a minimal fee.

Especial appreciation to the members of LSFS, mostly students at Odivad, who toiled over the outpours of Fenachrone Khorlian, giving us at Fenachrone Stateside a rich body of fiction and fact to draw from. We also got much aid and comfort from A History of the Federated Kingdoms by Gordon and Leila Zengrite, published in 1953 and used as a textbook in the revenue schools.

We had intended to have this special outpour printed at Raposa-Speedoprint, the firm which prints Fenachrone Stateside, but they are loaded with work right now, and so we are having it done by Polysotechnic Press, the Golds' favorite company.

And speaking of Lee and Barry, their volunteering to put out an outpour of Khorliana came to me like a bolt from the blue! There I was, just a few weeks ago, when Lee came over to me, along with all the rest of her duties, and asked if I minded if she and Barry put out selected Fenachrone articles on the history of Khorlia. Would I mind? D'ye think I'm plumb daft? Of course, I agreed.