The Fifth Sally, or The Mischief of King Balerion
a mind that moves, and a rule it has to keep
EIGHT LINES
- BalerionNothing here is serious. The crown is a counter, and the world is the board.
- TrurlLook at the robe if you like, but listen to the voice.
- BalerionName anyone you like, and I will be them by supper.
- BalerionOne rule keeps me safe. I pull the horns off the old head, and I never let go.
- KlapauciusThere is no ship. An empty dock is the trap.
- TrurlEveryone goes home, except the king.
- BalerionEvery hour I announce the hour, and every hour I must announce it again.
- TrurlThe finest place to hide a thing was the king himself, and no one ever looks inside a king.
HOW IT IS MADE
The device is a split between a body and a mind. Each body is an ink figure with its own costume: the king in a purple robe and a crown, Trurl with his bag, Klapaucius in a long grey robe, the sailor in stripes, the Commissioner in a tall hat, and at the end a cuckoo clock. Each mind is a mark drawn over the head, a small emblem inside a hatched halo: a die for the king, a gear for Trurl, a star for Klapaucius, an anchor for the sailor, a badge for the Commissioner, a bird for the clock. There are no captions. When the horns strike, the two marks fly across the gap and land on each other’s heads, and the voices go with them. The picture keeps the body, and the voice keeps the mind. The first swap comes in the middle of one of Trurl’s sentences, so his voice goes on coming out of the king.
The horns are tracked the whole way through. They are drawn on a desk, in a bag, on a head, or held up beside it, and the king’s rule is to grab them after every swap, so the grab is always shown. Where a scene needs the one line that matters, the camera goes in close on the speaker and the delivery slows down. The other lines stay wide and quick.
The sound follows the same split. Each mind has its own voice and its own small filter: the king is high and thin, the Commissioner rough, the clock’s mind flat with a buzz. Every swap makes the same short two-note exchange, the first note moving from left to right and the answer from right to left. While the horns are in somebody’s hands there is a heavy low hum that carries across the cuts. Hide-and-seek is counting and footsteps. From the clock scene on, a ticking runs underneath, and in the last shot it speeds up and turns into the cuckoo.
The timing file mb.json drives picture and sound together. It holds the start time of every spoken line, every cue, and which mind is in which body at the start of each scene. The picture code reads those times, and build_sound.py makes all the non-voice sound with numpy and scipy. The voices are Kokoro.
AFTER THE OTHER FILMS
The Trap of Gargantius joins many soldiers into one by giving each of them a reference to the next. This film asks what happens when a mind is moved instead of linked. Trurl’s Prescription is about an object that keeps what it has accepted. Here the king is an object that keeps being handed to someone else, and the whole plot is about who ends up holding what.
FOR THE BENCH
Write a Body with a mind field, and a Mind with a name and a voice. Write swap(a, b) two ways. In the first, set a.mind = b.mind and then b.mind = a.mind, and look at what the two bodies hold afterward. In the second, keep the first mind in a temporary variable. Then write a version that copies the mind instead of referencing it, and ask how many Balerions exist after one swap. The horns are a third object: who holds a reference to them after a swap, and why does the king grab them every time? What would the code look like if the horns could be copied?
Narration and dialogue paraphrase Stanisław Lem, “The Fifth Sally, or The Mischief of King Balerion,” The Cyberiad. The riddles, the password and the clock lines are reworded. Download the film.
THE SCRIPT
THE COURT
Narrator. King Balerion ruled Cymberia, and he was not cruel. He just liked to play. Cards, hopscotch, leapfrog, and above all, hide-and-seek.
Narrator. Whenever a treaty needed signing, the king hid, and the court had to find him, or be punished.
The court. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Ready or not!
Narrator. Once, a war went undeclared for three days, because the king was hanging in the hall in glass drops, pretending to be a lamp.
Balerion. Nothing here is serious. The crown is a counter, and the world is the board.
Narrator. Then he took up riddles, and gave out jobs by the answers.
Balerion. Why is a comet like a long speech?
The court. Because all anyone remembers is the tail!
Narrator. Soon the whole court answered before he had finished asking, and carried encyclopedias everywhere.
THE PRIZE
Narrator. He offered a prize for the finest hiding spot anywhere: the old family diadem, locked in the vault so long that the court had forgotten it.
Narrator. Trurl and Klapaucius heard of it at an inn. The mob at the gate was too thick, so the next day they came back with coins.
Trurl. A few more coins, I think.
Klapaucius. We should write a contract first. With seals, and tassels.
Narrator. But the king would not wait. Trurl opened a box and took out a pair of horns on a headband.
Trurl. Wear these, touch foreheads with someone, and you trade minds. One horn sends yours across, and the other brings theirs in.
THE FIRST SWAP
Narrator. Trurl put the horns on his own head, to show how they worked.
Trurl. The current runs both ways at once, so that each mind is emptied at the very moment that
Balerion. Let me try!
Trurl. the other is poured in. Nothing is lost, and nothing is counted twice.
Balerion. Oh! I have your fingers. Ten of them, and every one wiggles!
Narrator. Klapaucius listened for nearly a minute before he understood. The voice was Trurl’s, and the mouth was the king’s.
Balerion. Catch me if you can!
Narrator. The king ran away wearing Trurl’s body, and Trurl, tangled in a long robe, fell on his face, holding a scepter he had never seen. The guards seized Klapaucius, and threw him out.
LOCKED UP
Trurl. Listen to me! The minds have been swapped! The king is running about in my body, and he has the horns!
Narrator. Nobody listened. The court decided that too many riddles had unhinged the king, and locked him in his bedchamber to wait for the doctors.
Trurl. Look at the robe if you like, but listen to the voice.
THE STREET
Klapaucius. If he strikes a stone with those horns, his mind goes into the stone, and stays there. And the body falls down empty.
THE HARBOR STEPS
Narrator. Trurl’s body, with the king inside, ran from the palace, tripped on the harbor steps, and hurt its leg.
Balerion. A stretcher! Feather pillows! Fetch the royal doctors!
Narrator. The people laughed. One passing sailor felt sorry for him, and bent down to help.
The sailor. Easy now, friend. Let me get you up.
The sailor. Oh. My leg. Where am I?
Balerion. Ha ha! A sailor! And what good legs!
Narrator. He grabbed the horns off the head on the ground, and danced away toward the harbor.
THE QUAY
Narrator. On the quay, a shipowner knew the man as one of his sailors, and went to scold him.
Balerion. Name anyone you like, and I will be them by supper.
Narrator. He hit the shipowner with a stick. Then the police arrived, and the Commissioner himself ordered him arrested.
The commissioner. Take him away.
The commissioner. I am the Commissioner! I am in charge of this harbor!
Balerion. Quite right! Take this troublemaker to jail, and do not be gentle.
THE POLICE STATION
Narrator. Klapaucius followed the trail to the police station. Inside stood a giant in a uniform too small for him, and the giant winked.
Balerion. I knew you the moment I saw you! I saw you at the palace. Is this not the cleverest hiding place of all?
Klapaucius. Your Majesty, please. Suppose you land in someone who is very ill, or hunted by the law.
Balerion. One rule keeps me safe. I pull the horns off the old head, and I never let go.
Narrator. Klapaucius threw an inkwell in the king’s face, jumped out of the window, and ran into the crowd.
THE TRICK
Narrator. The palace was shut, and Trurl was sedated for a whole day. So Klapaucius had himself arrested, and asked to see the Commissioner.
Klapaucius. Great Police Sir, help! Folk call me Klapaucius, but me am another! Horned man go bang, and now me in wrong head!
Narrator. Then he told a long tale: a rich foreigner, a ship full of puzzles, and a password for the ship’s mate.
Klapaucius. The password is marigold.
Narrator. The king loved puzzles. He asked where the ship was, then locked Klapaucius in, and went to look.
Klapaucius. There is no ship. An empty dock is the trap.
Balerion. Liar! Where is the ship? Where are the puzzles?
Klapaucius. Guards! Lock him up, and watch him closely.
Balerion. Swindler! Cheat! Wait until I get my hands on you!
SETTING IT RIGHT
Narrator. Klapaucius, in the Commissioner’s body, got into the palace on urgent business, and found Trurl asleep in the king’s bed. He touched the sleeper’s heel.
Trurl. Hah! Ha ha! Stop!
Klapaucius. Quiet. It is Klapaucius. I needed the uniform to get in, and I have the horns.
Narrator. Trurl got up and gave orders. Trurl’s body and the sailor’s were fetched from the hospital, and the prisoner was brought in.
Trurl. Everyone goes home, except the king.
Narrator. The horns went round twice. The Commissioner came home to his uniform, and Klapaucius to his robe. The king, now in a sailor, got a long lecture and a cell.
Narrator. Next morning they told the honest sailor everything. He seemed sensible, so they gave him the crown, and Trurl took his own body back.
The sailor. I will do what I can.
THE CLOCK
Narrator. Then Klapaucius had a big cuckoo clock carried in. The king’s mind went into its works, and the clock’s mind went into the sailor’s body.
Balerion. What have you done? Let me out!
The clock’s mind. Yes, sir. At once, sir.
Narrator. The sailor’s body went back to the docks and hauled rope perfectly well, which says something about the work.
Balerion. Every hour I announce the hour, and every hour I must announce it again.
Narrator. That was the king’s work from then on, day and night, driven by the little teeth of the gears.
THE BEST HIDING PLACE
Narrator. The friends said goodbye to the crowned sailor, and left that troublesome kingdom.
Klapaucius. Trurl. The diadem. Where did you find it?
Trurl. In the vault. Kings can open the vault, and I was one.
Trurl. The finest place to hide a thing was the king himself, and no one ever looks inside a king.
Narrator. Far behind them, in the great hall, a clock struck the hour.