The Wazir and the Witch

by Hugh Cook

  While the Empress still intended to visit the Dromdanjerie, and soon, she first wanted to discuss the latest development with Dardanalti himself. Was there really an ‘organic rectifier’ on Untunchilamon? An immortality machine? A device which could translate Crab flesh to human? Justina thought she had better find out, and quickly.

  Unfortunately for the Empress, her time for research was going to be strictly limited. For the day had advanced while she conferred at length with her lawyer and with Juliet Idaho. Unbeknownst to Justina, Untunchilamon already had a new wazir. A heavyweight uitlander had been confirmed in that position by the High Priest of Zoz the Ancestral.

  Soldiers disloyal to the Empress had been hastily summoned by Dui Tin Char, and were even then on the way to the pink palace, seeking to arrest Justina Thrug so she could be brought before Manthandros Trasilika and summarily executed.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The disloyal soldiers summoned by Dui Tin Char marched into the pink palace and sought out the Empress Justina. The men were led by Coleslaw Styx, a ruthless guard marshal.

  The soldiers were soon at the door to Justina’s office. They knocked. Then knocked the door down. Then stormed into the office and seized the Empress.

  ‘Stop!’ cried Dardanalti. ‘You can’t do this!’

  But his protests did no good whatsoever.

  Justina Thrug was dragged out of the pink palace and hauled away down Lak Street without any ceremony whatsoever. Few of the citizens of Injiltaprajura observed her plight. As yet, few people knew that Untunchilamon had a new wazir, let alone that the Empress had been arrested and was being taken to the Temple of Torture to be executed.

  Here we long for a hero to intervene, a hero built along the lines of Vorn the Gladiator. But, to the historian’s regret, it must be recorded that no hero was on hand; and those citizens who observed the passage of the Empress were content to gawk at the spectacle like so many disinterested tourists.

  Justina did not see a single friendly face until she had been marched down Lak Street as far as its intersection with Goldhammer Rise and Skindik Way. There Justina glimpsed an Ashdan lass she remembered from the past. The girl was loitering by a group of drummers who were tub-thumping their instruments of diabolical intoxication in the shadow of the Cabal House itself. The girl’s name? That escaped the Empress. But Justina knew the young female to be the lover of a rock gardener who had the trust and confidence of the Crab.

  The Crab!

  Could the Crab help the Empress on this her day of greatest need?

  Justina had no time to speculate, no time to formulate a cunning strategy to pass a Crab-petitioning message to the Ashdan lass. For the soldiers turned down Goldhammer Rise: and the rock gardener’s girlfriend was left behind.

  Justina was possessed of a sense of unreality. She had long anticipated such a disaster, but the precipitate haste of its enactment had taken her by surprise. The world around her seemed too large. The heads of the soldiers gross, swollen. Their weapons huge, the razorblade sunlight of their armaments brighter than reality. She found it hard to pay attention to Dardanalti who was walking beside her, rattling out instructions as if they were going to an auction or a town planning hearing.

  Then she saw the Temple of Torture, which lies on the left-hand side of Goldhammer Rise as one descends from Lak Street towards Manthandorthan. She remembered once reading an autopsy report which the corpse-master Uckermark had done on a victim of that temple. She felt sick.

  With the temple in sight, the soldiers quickened the pace. Orders were shouted. The syllables jagged through the air, echoed, fractured, buckled in the heat. Dardanalti said something. Gafoblik? Choglik? Moglig? His urgent utterances floundered into unintelligibility. Justina tripped, stumbled, was caught by an iron-grip soldier. Her feet hurt. Beads of sweat swarmed between her flouncing breasts, stung her eyes, hummed in her ears. The sky was pale yellow, was grey, was black.

  Justina fell.

  Fainting.

  Down on her face she went and the boots were in, quick, quick, no chance to rape but a chance yet to hurt, bruise, break, crush. Dardanalti shouted. Threatened. A lawyer, Janjuladoola nuances on his tongue. His skin the same grey as that of the soldiers. Their anger ebbed, and two helped haul a groaning Empress to her feet.

  The soldiers marched the Empress to the door of the Temple, a door on which two artists were busy painting a much-wounded human body. Dui Tin Char had wasted no time whatsoever. The Temple of Torture was back in business. From within came persistent screaming, a horrific outcry which intensified as the doors opened. Dardanalti darted inside. Justina, shoved from behind, stumbled in after him. The air stank. The stench was that of diarrhoea tinged with curry.

  Then the Empress was hauled into the naos of the Temple, and there was Dui Tin Char, and there were two strangers, and weird sounds were being made by the mouths of these strangers, and there was a bulky man whom she recognized as an executioner, and she tried to speak but her mouth was full of vomit, and there was darkness, again there was darkness, darkness flooding her eyes as once more she fainted.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Earlier that day, the airship built by Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin had dismantled itself. The disgruntled wizard had shortly thereafter departed from the pink palace, and had made his way to the island of Jod to confer with the master chef Pelagius Zozimus, who happened to be his cousin.

  These days, Jod was assuming something of the aspect of a fortress. Earlier that year, Pelagius Zozimus had been kidnapped by persons unknown, dragged away from the Analytical Institute, stuffed full of opium and held for several days in a helpless drug stupor. Why? He knew not, but was determined that the same thing would not happen again.

  As Zozimus was the master chef who served the Crab, that dignitary was equally determined that there would be no repetition of this incident, and so had supported moves to build a defensive wall to guard the approaches of the Analytical Institute.

  Ever since, slaves and servants had been labouring to construct that wall, working under the supervision of Chegory Guy. Young Chegory was an Ebrell Islander possessed of a formidable musculature. Until recently, he had been officially employed as a rock gardener -even though ever-increasing amounts of his time had been spent in direct association with the Crab. Now, Chegory still served the Crab its meals and, with help from the delectable Olivia Qasaba, did his best to stop the poor thing from getting lonely in the evenings. However, he was discharging his new wall-supervising responsibilities admirably.

  Chegory himself had also suffered in the previous year. After Zozimus had been kidnapped, Chegory had been ordered to the pink palace and there detained by the Empress Justina for a matter of days. What unspeakable things had happened to him? And why? Chegory ever after refused to say. In particular, he refused to discuss the matter with his beloved Olivia, the love of his heart; but his refusal had been couched in terms which had made it abundantly clear to that Ashdan lass that her sledgehammer swain had endured near-unendurable tortures in that palace.

  When Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin arrived on Jod, he was soon admitted to the kitchen. The Crab’s breakfast had already been cooked and served, and Zozimus was organizing its lunch. The Crab was going to dine upon centipede soup, shark steaks marinated in a mixture of red wine and dog’s blood, fried octopus wrapped in tendrils of fresh seaweed, the meat of twenty coconuts and thrice thirty mangos, riceballs piqued with cayenne pepper, baked yams and a pie incorporating the eyeballs of five hundred fish.

  Sken-Pitilkin told his cousin of the destruction of the flying ship, and thereafter the two wizards sat long together in earnest conference. Both were gravely worried, for the airship’s destruction was the first sign that Injiltaprajura’s sorcerers might be ready to actively move against them. If that happened, the wizards would have two chances: slim and none. For they could not hope to withstand an onslaught by the combined powers of the wonder-workers of Injiltaprajura’s Cabal House.

  The two were still dialoguing
in helpless circles when a servant ventured to interrupt their conference. Someone was coming across the harbour bridge which linked Jod to the mainland. Someone in a great big hurry.

  Now, nobody runs on Untunchilamon. Not unless they absolutely have to. Climate and custom both oppose the practice. Hence a runner stands in danger of collapsing from the heat and humidity; or alternatively, being mistaken for a lunatic and hustled into the Dromdanjerie. So, while there were no psychics on Jod, those on the island were sure the hastening messenger must be bearing tidings of the utmost urgency.

  Zozimus and Sken-Pitilkin thanked the servant for the interruption and made sure they were on hand to intercept the messenger and hear the burden of his panic.

  The messenger - a her, as it happened - was none other than Olivia Qasaba. She came hammering across the harbour bridge, raced to the wall so slowly rising in front of the white marble magnificence of the Analytical Institute, and promptly collapsed at the feet of her true love, young Chegory Guy.

  The Ashdan lass was in a sorry state after her flight from the Cabal House to Jod. Her face was shining with sweat, her bosoms heaving as she gasped for air. She tried to get up. She managed to get up. Then promptly bent double and was sick, for the force of her flight had overstressed her. Chegory, the very incarnation of concern, yelled for someone to bring water, then knelt beside the distressed young woman.

  Water was brought; Olivia’s breathing eased; and, to Chegory’s relief, the Ashdan lass found herself capable of speech.

  ‘Justina,’ said Olivia.

  ‘She - she’s dead?’ said Chegory.

  Olivia shook her head wordlessly. Chegory wiped a little vomit from her lower lip and served her some water in a clean-scraped coconut shell.

  ‘Don’t drink,’ he said. ‘Just swill and spit.’

  Olivia obeyed. Then began to explain. She had been on her way to a jeweller’s shop on Lak Street to get a broken locket fixed. But she had got no further than the Cabal House when soldiers had gone past, dragging Justina with them.

  ‘Where were they taking her?’ said Chegory.

  ‘I - I don’t know,’ said Olivia. ‘But they went down Goldhammer Rise.’

  Everyone knew what lay on Goldhammer Rise. Memories of the history of the Temple of Torture had been stirred to full and vigorous life by the recent renovations. Immediately a babble of blabbermouthed speculation broke out among the bystanders.

  Even as they were speculating, another messenger came across the harbour bridge. This one was not running; instead, he was stumping along stolidly in the mounting heat of the day. He was a mechanic who worked on the Analytical Engine, and he brought grim tidings.

  This was the first pronouncement which the mechanic made once he had the attention of the denizens of Jod:

  ‘Aldarch the Third has won the war.’

  Did Chegory feel the day grow cold despite the heat of the sun? He did. Did his vision darken though the sky’s major luminary yet shone bright? It is a pity to answer in the affirmative, for such a response verges on cliche. However, his vision did thus darken. On reflection, we must acknowledge that humans demonstrate a strictly limited repertoire in the face of disaster. Upon deprivation of food, they hunger; when starved of water, they thirst; and when, after months of dread, a long-awaited disaster befalls them, they do for the most part greet such disaster with a stoic’s ataraxia, a drunkard’s braggadocio, a warrior’s defiance, a child’s hysterical panic or with a sudden descent into invalidism.

  In the face of disaster, Chegory on this occasion tended to the invalidism school of reaction. But his constitution was sound and solid; and, besides, his concern for Olivia prevented him from indulging in a faintingfit.

  So he pulled himself together and listened as the mechanic made all plain.

  The mechanic (Joy Wax by name) had been finishing off a late breakfast in his favourite speakeasy when sailors had entered. These matalots had proved to be from the good ship Oktobdoj, and soon they had been drinking up large, earning free drinks with the remarkable tale they had to tell.

  When Joy Wax had retailed that tale in turn, there was consternation all round. A new wazir on Untunchilamon! Justina arrested! Aldarch III victorious! Where would it all end?

  ‘I think, um, I think we’d better do something,’ said Chegory. ‘It’s like, Justina, she, they, they’ll chop her, that’s what I think. Unless we do something.’

  ‘Yes,’ said a much-recovered Olivia Qasaba. ‘We must rescue her.’

  While Olivia had been given to understand that Chegory had been arrested, imprisoned and tortured at Justina’s behest, Chegory was nevertheless wont to opine that the Empress was essentially good. His loyalty was understandable. For it was the Family Thrug which had halted the pogrom against Chegory’s Ebrell Island breed; and an isolated aberrant incident was pardonable when set against the racial debt. Hence Olivia’s expressed loyalty to the Empress; this loyalty being no less than an aspect of Olivia’s love for Chegory himself.

  While Olivia spoke with confidence, she failed to bend her audience to her point of view.

  ‘Rescue her?’ said Joy Wax in open derision. ‘Thrug is finished. That’s all there is to it. Al’three has won. We’ve a new wazir, the Empress already in his grip. Chegory’s right. It’s head-chopping time. Doubtless the Empress has greeted the widest grin already.’

  However, the wizards Pelagius Zozimus and Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin were not so swift to write off Justina.

  ‘We must at least try to preserve the Empress,’ said Zozimus.

  ‘Indeed we must,’ agreed his cousin.

  Their attitude owned nothing to altruism. The two wizards were sorely isolated on an island dominated by sorcerers, and hence hostile to wizards. Their allies were few. Few? Two! Keeping them company on Untunchilamon was a cut-throat by name of Thayer Levant and a barbarian called Guest Gulkan.

  This little band of foreigners had come to Untunchilamon to seize a bauble known as the wishstone, a triakisoctahedron of obscure origin which was one of the minor ornaments of Justina’s treasury. They had failed. They now wished to leave Untunchilamon with at least their lives: something far easier to arrange if Justina remained on the throne.

  ‘Yet,’ said Sken-Pitilkin, ‘we lack the strength to win in war against the wonder-workers.’

  ‘Then,’ said Zozimus, ‘Shabble must help us.’

  ‘Shabble?’

  ‘Shabble! Send for Ivan Pokrov!’

  Joy Wax was sent to fetch Pokrov, while other mechanics, servants and slaves were dispersed in other directions with different messages. Some were sent to warn selected Ebrell Islanders that a victorious Aldarch Three had sent a new wazir to Untunchilamon, and that a fresh pogrom might shortly begin. One was sent to summon a lawyer to the Temple of Torture to act for Justina (for they were ignorant of the fact that the redoubtable Dardanalti was already with the Empress). Others were sent to warn Theodora Thrug (Justina’s twin sister) and Troldot Turbothot (Theodora’s latest boyfriend) that it would be best if they went into hiding. ‘You must also go into hiding,’ said Olivia to Chegory. Reasonable advice, for Chegory was an Ebrell Islander, and hence a potential victim of pogrom. But Chegory demurred, saying he must first consult with the Crab. Hand in hand, Chegory and Olivia made their way to the cave where the eremitic dignitary dwelt that Chegory might receive orders from Jod’s true ruler.

  Meanwhile Ivan Pokrov came hastening out of the Analytical Institute, and was soon deep in urgent discussion with Zozimus and Sken-Pitilkin.

  ‘Shabble would at this stage appear to be our only hope of rescuing Justina,’ said Zozimus.

  ‘What exactly do you know of the Shabble breed?’ said Pokrov.

  ‘I know,’ said Zozimus, ‘that Shabble can throw flame sufficient to disgrace a dragon. With that power on our side, all Untunchilamon will necessarily yield to us. Furthermore, I have heard it said that you have the power to command Shabble.’

  ‘Me?’ said the olive-skinned analytical engineer, d
oing his best to appear innocent.

  But Zozimus was right.

  Ivan Pokrov knew the secret of commanding Shabble.

  There is no great mystery about Shabble or Shabble’s past. The free-floating ball which had made Injiltaprajura its playground was no more than an analytical engine left over from the days of the Golden Gulag. It drew its energies directly from a sun located in a different cosmos entirely, hence would have no trouble burning Injiltaprajura to the ground if the necessity arose. Against such a weapon, no wazir would be able to survive: not even if he had an army at his back.

  Furthermore, Ivan Pokrov was an immortal survivor of the Golden Gulag, and knew the secret of commanding Shabble. Which, again, was very simple. Shabble lived in dread of being sent to a therapist. And Shabble could always be commanded against Shabble’s will by a threat of impending therapy. All Pokrov needed to say was this:

  ‘Do what I tell you or I’ll send you to the therapist!’

  By such commands, Ivan Pokrov had long bent Shabble to his will. Thus Shabble worked in the Analytical Institute when Pokrov commanded it, designing complex machinery capable of processing algorithms. Better still, Shabble even worked out Pokrov’s income tax. Pokrov had never tried to command Shabble to kill someone. But surely Shabble would obey if commanded.

  ‘Very well,’ said Pokrov, coming to a decision. ‘I admit it. I can and will command Shabble. But first we have to find our floating bubble. Shabble has not been seen on Jod these many days. I propose that we begin by looking in the Dromdanjerie. Well, shall we be going?’

  ‘Pelagius will go with you,’ said Sken-Pitilkin. ‘Not me.’

  A wise decision, for, though the two cousins were of equal age, Pelagius Zozimus looked at least a thousand years younger and was far more athletic. Sken-Pitilkin’s wizardry could not protect him from the crushing heat and humidity of the day, and there was a danger that if he hastened up and down the steep-rising streets of Injiltaprajura he would shortly fall victim to heat-stroke.