The Wazir and the Witch

by Hugh Cook

  While those who deal in weird and wonderful untruths are reluctant to admit it, the truth is that all the lives of all the peoples of all of humanity are, were and always will be very much alike.

  Wherever we look, we find the same patterns repeating themselves. The gods are (and were, and will be) always distant, bad tempered and less than perfectly understood. The younger generation is always a trial to the older. Slaves are always idle and stupid, and a cause of exasperation to their masters. Chastity is everywhere preached, and the preaching is nowhere a solution to venereal disease. Youth acts in haste and age repents at leisure. Inflation prospers everywhere. Everywhere, scholarly talent starves while Chulman Puro and Greven Jing grow rich. And all cultures (regardless of what superficial differences exist between them) recognize that very special and peculiar difficulties inevitably exist between a man and his mother-in-law.

  As this is a sober history, it follows that nothing is recorded in these pages which cannot happen in your own life, or at least in your own lifetime. The Empress Justina is not the first person to struggle valiantly to secure the liberties of her kingdom against the oppressions of a foreign empire; and the fact that her best efforts ended in general disaster merely indicates a principle well known to all historians, which is that might is might and right is easily forgotten.

  One final comment.

  Great differences will be found between this history and others now extant.

  The greatest difference is that of treatment; for this is a singularly intimate history.

  It is intimate largely because of the very special advantages enjoyed by the historian. Personal experience is one of these; for the historian was actually on Untunchilamon when the events herein recorded took place. Furthermore, since the historian writes late and last, he has access to the documents of all those who have written earlier.

  But the historian’s greatest advantage is that he was for long a confidante of Shabble; and Shabble was everywhere, and saw everything, or at least learnt of it thereafter by way of confession or hearsay.

  Shabble was in the kitchen attached to the Analytical Institute when Pelagius Zozimus was preparing that platter of tolfrigdalakaptiko. Shabble was there listening to one kitchen slave telling another about the delinquencies of her grandmother’s neighbour’s daughter’s son, who had run away from home and was living on the streets as a drummer.

  Later, Chegory Guy came into the kitchen to collect that tolfrigdalakaptiko, and Shabble went with Guy to the cave where the Hermit Crab lived, and watched as that formidable monster ate its way though its meal with a pair of chopsticks which its huge claws handled with the most exquisite delicacy imaginable.

  Olivia Qasaba was present at that same meal, for she had made herself the Crab’s servant. This she had done in order to have an excuse to associate with Chegory on a regular basis.

  In truth, the Crab needed no services apart from the regular provision of its meals. The Crab was a philosopher of a singularly unambitious kind, and did very little apart from sitting still, thinking, and waiting for the inevitable onslaughts of those human beings who from time to time (for selfish reasons of their own) would try to kill it.

  However, Olivia had invented a great many jobs for herself to do. Early on in her service, she had taken to adorning the Crab with flowers. Daily, she brought fresh frangipani blooms for the Crab, and glued them to its carapace (the Crab being possessed of no human-style ears behind which such flowers might have been stuck). Later, thinking the Crab in need of some more permanent form of adornment, Olivia went to work with a stronger kind of glue, and began to cover the Crab with a mosaic of white marble, cowrie shells, chips of bloodstone, old fish-hooks, brass rings, worn-out cogs from the Analytical Engine, fragments of blue and yellow glass and rags of silk.

  Thus festooned, the Crab looked more than a little ridiculous. Olivia was taking a fearful risk, for, had the Crab resented its transformation, it might have lost its temper; and in its incontinent rage it could easily have destroyed Injiltaprajura, if not Untunchilamon as a whole.

  But Olivia Qasaba never worried her head about that, because it never occurred to her for even a moment that the Crab might not take kindly to the programme of beautification on which she had embarked. As for Chegory Guy, he never sought to restrain the hand of his beloved Olivia; though surely concern for the common good (if not for Olivia’s safety) should have led him to veto her artistic efforts.

  Chegory’s dereliction of duty - the insouciant manner in which he allowed his true love’s whim to endanger his whole world - is easy to understand when we note that he was an Ebrell Islander. The Ebrell Islanders have never been noted for caution, reason or responsibility.

  That explains Chegory’s actions; or, rather, his inaction. But how are we to account for the fact that Injiltaprajura allowed a feckless Ashdan Lass and a reckless Ebrell Islander to minister to the most powerful and most dangerous entity to be found anywhere west of Yestron and east of Argan?

  In explanation of this incongruity, the historian has a duty to explain that everyone else on Untunchilamon was far too scared of the Crab to go anywhere near the thing. And with good reason! Among other things, the Crab had perfected a method for turning people inside out; and such topological rearrangement is compatible with neither sanity nor survival.

  So Chegory and Olivia had the Crab to themselves.

  Chegory regularly brought the Crab those meals cooked for it by the master chef Pelagius Zozimus, and Chegory relayed to the kitchen any demands the Crab might have with respect to its menu.

  And Olivia adorned the Crab in the manner described above, polished the unadorned parts of the Crab’s carapace with coconut oil, and persuaded Shabble to act as a globular mirror so the Crab could admire its changed appearance.

  For her own amusement, Olivia recovered the frail shells of lesser crabs from the shore, and arranged them in niches around the cave ‘so you can pretend they’re statues of your mummy and daddy and all your brother crabs and sister crabs’. Often she sat beside the Crab, comfortably embraced by Chegory’s arms, and made up stories about those lesser crabs, telling of their loves and lusts, their griefs and sorrows, their victories and triumphs, their counters with malicious seagulls and hungry octopuses, their heroic quests and territorial disputes, and their secret love for the great Crab of the island of Jod.

  The Ashdan lass also made the Crab a set of wind-chimes out of coconut twine and cards of copper stolen from the Analytical Institute. She even got the Crab its own drum, in case it wanted to participate in the latest youth cult; and, since the Crab had no hands, Olivia got the thing its very own drumstick.

  ‘Or,’ she said, ‘you could beat it with your chopsticks.’

  This should not be taken as implicating Olivia Qasaba herself in active participation in the ‘drumming’ cult, for there is no evidence that she herself ever beat upon a drum; though it is inevitable that she was sometimes in close proximity to adolescent youths who were ‘drumming’.

  By now the reader may be getting restless, and may be wondering why the historian has chosen to adduce so many trivialities concerning the Crab and its servants.

  The answer is that these trivialities are not trivialities at all. Rather, they are important items of evidence which help explain why the Crab, this Power of Powers, played such a slight role in the politics of Injiltaprajura.

  The Crab was not one of your active Powers which daily demand homage and sacrifice; which lust for praise, and burn incense, and the flesh of virgins; which build palaces and organize empires; which like to get drunk and be jolly; which collect gold and diamonds and all things rare and precious.

  No, the Crab was not like that at all.

  The Crab was a singularly retiring person, its demands being merely that it be fed at regular intervals and otherwise left in peace. While it was prepared to permit Olivia’s ministrations, it had never demanded them, nor did it praise or encourage them. And as for homage, or gold, or virgins, or pa
laces, or other such materialistic rubbish - why, the Crab had no use whatsoever for any such frivolities.

  While this eremitic and philosophical Crab was loathe to take an active claw in Untunchilamon’s politics, it was nevertheless manipulated on occasion by the devious Justina Thrug and others - as we shall see in due course.

  You will be assisted in seeing this if you will now clear from your field of vision all those distorted images and outright hallucinations practitioners of fiction and even other ‘historians’, so-called, have brought forward to gratify a debased public taste.

  Pay no attention to the gross distortions of Greven Jing, the rambling inaccuracies of Thong Sai Stok, the pretentious pedantry of Morton Plum or the romantic mistiness of the anonymous author of Untunchilamon: An Account of the Isle of Many Splendours and the Unfortunate Contretemps which Occasioned Sundry Lapses of Public Order and Good Discipline in that Paradigm of Paradise.

  This is the true history of the final days of the rule of Justina Thrug upon the island of Untunchilamon, and it is the only such history which is worth the price of the fooskin upon which it is written.

  And remember: your historian was there!

  Your historian will not, as a rule, intrude upon this narrative. I will not mention my arthritic fingers, for instance; or the outrageous price of fooskin; nor complain about the racket from the craftshop next door, where, from the sound of it, they are trying to reinvent the skavamareen.

  But I will say this:

  I was on Untunchilamon when the great troubles beset Justina Thrug. I myself have stood upon the balcony of the pink palace atop Pokra Ridge; I myself have looked down Lak Street to the waters of the Laitemata, and across those waters to the island of Jod where the white marble of the Analytical Institute stands like a block of chalk riding atop a bank of congealed blood.

  And I have been to those places elsewhere mentioned in this history.

  I myself have been to Manamalargo; and have ventured up the River Ka to the city of Bolfrigalaskaptiko. In that city, I myself have sat within a tent of mosquito netting, enjoying a meal of roast crocodile meat while watching a professional child beater clean the blood from his whips. In that same city, I have enjoyed the delights of non-insertive ecstasy in the House Without Fleas.

  And, more to the point, I have interviewed many inhabitants of Bolfrigalaskaptiko. Their testimony justifies and supports the claim made in the first chapter of this history:

  That Jean Froissart, a man of 32 who was much worried about his heart, left Bolfrigalaskaptiko in the company of Manthandros Trasilika.

  The fat and fleshy Manthandros Trasilika planned to sail to Untunchilamon, to land at Injiltaprajura, to declare himself the rightful wazir of the place, to denounce Justina Thrug as a witch, and to order her immediate execution.

  But, as stated at the end of the first chapter, the first trouble which would befall Justina Thrug would not come from Manthandros Trasilika but from the Inland Revenue Department; and nothing written above should be taken as altering or modifying that fact.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The head of the Inland Revenue was Dui Tin Char, a man of much mana and influence. He pretended loyalty to the Family Thrug, but his true loyalties were actually quite elsewhere.

  Dui Tin Char was equipped by nature and breeding to take his place in the court of Aldarch the Third, the dreaded Mutilator of Yestron. But it was Tin Char’s misfortune to dwell far from Al’three’s sphere of influence. For, as our history opens, Aldarch the Third was busy laying waste to the continent of Yestron; whereas Tin Char was marooned upon Untunchilamon, that equatorial island which lies half an ocean away from Yestron.

  Untunchilamon.

  Island of blood!

  Island of—

  But we have been through all that. So, enough of the atmospherics. It is time for some solid facts and figures, some honest statistics, and as many of them as possible.

  Well then:

  Untunchilamon is an equatorial island which lay (and lies still) midocean between the continents of Argan and Yestron. Ships approach from the north, enter Untun-chilamon’s circumferential lagoon by the Galley Gate, then navigate through a maze of coral to the Laitemata Harbour at the island’s southern tip.

  On the Laitemata lies Injiltaprajura, Untunchilamon’s sole city, a metropolis of some 30,000 souls. Here there is life; and water; and greenery; and mosquitoes by the millions; and caterpillars with stinging legs which sometimes drop from the trees to agonize the necks of the unwary. The rest of Untunchilamon is a wasteland desert known as Zolabrik.

  To Injiltaprajura, then, come the ships; and they can only approach that city as described above because the shallows of the Green Sea lie to the south. Canoes can travel the Green Sea, and often do; but a ship would find no water deep enough to permit it a safe passage.

  With that clearly stated (your encyclopedia will doubtless supplement this account should you wish to know more) let us return to the matter of Dui Tin Char, head of the Inland Revenue, and his relationship with the Family Thrug.

  The Family Thrug had ruled Untunchilamon for seven years. Their rule had begun when civil war broke out in the Izdimir Empire, for Lonstantine Thrug seized his opportunity, overthrew the local governor and installed himself as emperor of this isolated island. In due course, the unfortunate Lonstantine became incapable of discharging the responsibilities of government, and was thereafter succeeded by Justina, the elder of his twin daughters.

  While the outcome of Yestron’s civil war remained uncertain, none disputed the right of the Family Thrug to rule. But in the seventh year of Talonsklavara (this being the name which dignified the protracted internecine conflicts of the Izdimir Empire), it became increasingly apparent that Aldarch III was likely to triumph. A coup was then launched against Justina by her Master of Law, the albinotic sorcerer Aquitaine Varazchavardan, who had no wish for personal power but who did wish to demonstrate his loyalty to Aldarch Three.

  Great was the peril which the Empress Justina then endured, but she survived-thanks to the loyalty of many of her subjects and the intervention of the Hermit Crab.

  The Hermit Crab, a being with powers at least equal to those of any wizard or sorcerer, dwelt on a small island in the harbour of Untunchilamon’s capital city.

  The Crab took exception to the violent political disputes which had disturbed the peace of its domicile; to restore the peace, the Crab commanded Justina and Varazcha-vardan to declare a truce and resolve their differences.

  This they did.

  Had they disobeyed, they would have been turned inside out by a wrathful Crab; therefore the matter of their compliance is scarcely a mystery. Furthermore, the same threat of gross physical disconcertment similarly compelled the compliance of all others on Untunchilamon, at least for the moment; some who thought the Crab could read minds (it could not) almost went mad as they endeavoured to suppress their inner yearnings for the end of the regime of Thrug and the imposition of the rule of Aldarch Three.

  However, while peace again prevailed for the moment, the crisis had served to teach Justina a salutary lesson; which was, that her power was almost at an end, and that she would most surely die if she tarried on the island for any longer than was absolutely necessary.

  At that time, Untunchilamon lay in the doldrums; for the season of Fistavlir was upon the island, and that season, also known as the Long Dry, is a time when both wind and rain are denied to this equatorial region. Lack of wind means lack of shipping, but for those canoes of the Ngati Moana which travel even during Fistavlir, riding the Coral Current which flows through the shallow and treacherous waters of the Green Sea.

  Justina considered making her escape in such a canoe, drifting with the currents through those shallow southern waters which are interdicted to ships of any size and substance. But the dangers of such a voyage were great; the Ngati Moana might well be reluctant to carry her, lest long-term repercussions deny them their favourite trading routes; and such an escape would have b
een selfish.

  Selfish?

  Yes.

  For a canoe could carry no more than a few passengers, whereas a great number of people stood in danger thanks to their association with Justina - her loyal advisers; her friends; her lovers (a category most definitely plural); her ex-lovers (a body of athletes who could certainly not have been accommodated in but a single canoe); certain of her servants; various Ashdans and Ebrell Islanders; and Aquitaine Varazchavardan himself, now tainted by the protestations of loyalty which the Crab had forced him to make to Justina.

  When Justina had made a full list of all those who stood in danger, she concluded that nothing would serve but for her to seize a bare minimum of a dozen ships to carry the endangered ones to foreign shores.

  Two problems then confronted her.

  First, there were not a dozen ships in the Laitemata Harbour. There were but three, all three imprisoned by the absence of wind. Never mind. The end of Fistavlir would bring the winds, and the winds would bring the Trade Fleet; if Justina had but patience, in time there would be a dozen ships in her net.

  However, the second problem was more serious, and was this: when the time came to seize these ships, would her soldiers be for her or against her? Most of Justina’s soldiers were not of her own people, the children of Wen Endex; instead, they were grey-skinned Janjuladoola warriors who owed her little love and less loyalty.

  The solution?

  Bribery.

  Injiltaprajura’s treasury was rich in gold. And silver. And diamonds, jade, emeralds, ultramarines, opals, japonica, turquoise, celestine, carnelian and so forth; and in coinage, for it boasted dragons and damns by the sackload, dalmoons by the bushel, and a surfeiting overflow of spings, flothens, zeals and ems. The imperial hoard reflected the wealth of Untunchilamon, and Justina was prepared to squander all of it to bribe her soldiers.