The Wazir and the Witch

by Hugh Cook

  ‘You are the same. They had documents, and you—’’

  ‘All right,’ said Trasilika. ‘If a trial by ordeal—’

  ‘No!’ said Froissart. ‘No ordeal!’

  ‘But you are a priest,’ said Dardanalti. ‘Is not the ordeal the classic way for a priest of Zoz to prove himself true?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Froissart. ‘But, but—’

  Uckermark laughed.

  ‘Come,’ said the corpse-master. ‘We’ve played with our guest for long enough. Let’s settle to business.’

  Then Uckermark took it upon himself to explain what was truly proposed. The Empress Justina would make available resources (and Uckermark elaborated the nature of those resources) which would make it possible for Jean Froissart to come through a trial by ordeal unscathed. By surviving such a trial, Froissart would prove himself a true priest of Zoz, thus escaping the execution which would befall him were he to be thought false.

  ‘All we ask in return,’ said Uckermark, ’is that you pardon the Empress Justina and those arraigned alongside her.’

  Then he explained the imperial predicament.

  At last, Froissart said:

  ‘We would like to agree with this proposal, but Aldarch the Third gave us explicit orders. The witch must die.’

  ‘Then,’ said Dardanalti, ‘you will most certainly die with her.’

  At which point Manthandros Trasilika intervened. He wiped the sweat from his fleshy face, leaned forward and said:

  ‘Enough bickering. We agree.’

  ‘We agree?’ said Froissart, startled.

  ‘We do indeed,’ said Trasilika.

  ‘But,’ objected Froissart, ‘it would seem to me the risks of this enterprise are all mine.’

  ‘No,’ said Trasilika. ‘For if you fail your trial by ordeal then I must surely die with you. Very well. We have agreed. Now: how do I best announce myself as the incoming wazir?’

  ‘First,’ said Dardanalti, ‘I will send for the harbour master, that he may greet you as is his right and duty. The pilot, too, for there is a fee you owe him. Nor may you escape the importuning of the ladipti man, for his charge is certain though his function is but mystical at best.’

  So spoke Dardanalti; then he dispatched messengers to summon those vital personages to the stronghold of Moremo.

  Thus the political struggle for control of Injiltaprajura and the island of Untunchilamon entered its most delicate and most interesting phase, with the salvation of many lives depending on the outcome of the strategies of deceit masterminded by the corpse-master Uckermark.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Nadalastabstala Banraithanchumun Ek, High Priest of Zoz the Ancestral for the island of Untunchilamon, was not exactly enraptured by the arrival of another pair of uitlanders claiming to be wazir and priest. However, Ek concealed his anger, for he was smooth; and subtle; and all the more dangerous for that. Master Ek was as smooth as the Coral Current which flows through the Green Sea, and as subtle as the sharkskinned death which swims in those waters, and as lethal to the unwary as that fearsome combination of shallows and sharks is to the inept pilot.

  As Manthandros Trasilika declared that his priest would prove himself true by submitting to trial by ordeal, Ek had to accept Trasilika as wazir - at least on a provisional basis. Though Ek was inclined to think this new Trasilika and his Froissart to be as fraudulent as the first, he was secretly impressed by their audacity. Froissart would dare the ordeal of iron? The man must be mad. Or truly sure of his faith. For, to the best of Master Ek’s knowledge, no priest of Zoz had proved himself by this test for at least four hundred years.

  Thus Nadalastabstala Banraithanchumun Ek acknowledged Manthandros Trasilika as wazir, and (on a provisional basis) consecrated him as such. This did not stop Master Ek from protesting vehemently when Manthandros Trasilika commanded the release of Justina Thrug and those arraigned alongside her: but he had very little say in the matter.

  Very little?

  None!

  To ease his frustration, Master Ek withdrew to the sanctuary of the Temple of Torture, there to practise the rhetoric of steel upon a vampire rat. While Ek sought such solace, news of the arrival of a new wazir spread through Injiltaprajura. Till then, the new-coming ship had remained a mystery; for its crew had remained continent in the absence of Froissart and Trasilika, refusing to reveal the bark’s business. Now all was revealed.

  As the new wazir had been shocked to learn that he had earlier been executed, so Injiltaprajura was startled by the sudden resurrection of a name which they had thought consigned for ever to history’s list of losers. The arrival of Manthandros Trasilika took them unawares, like the shock of a monolithic sky-stone plunging into their lives from out of a clear blue sky.

  It is unfortunate that the arrival of a political crisis is seldom accompanied by Signs or by Portents that would warn the populace of what has befallen them. Fire signals itself with uprising smoke; and earthquake by a general destabilizing of the earth; and tsunami by the immediate overturning of ship and shore alike. But citizens are not so easily alerted to climactic conflicts in the body politic; so that some continued in ignorance of the changes long after they had taken place.

  As Nadalastabstala Banraithanchumun Ek tutored a vampire rat in the ways of pain, ice miners still worked Downstairs in total ignorance of the latest twist to the ongoing political crisis. Ox No Zan, a timorous student of Janjuladoola breed, lay in an opium stupor following yet another visit to Doctor Death, this time for the extraction of an impacted wisdom tooth. And many others were similarly afflicted by ignorance.

  How multitudinous is humanity!

  To pretend to give a full accounting of the complexities of Injiltaprajura would be fraudulent, for a thousand volumes could not contain one part in a thousandth of the intricate life of that metropolis. But we can flirt with the notion of such an accounting, touching on the life of Injiltaprajura here and there, much as if we were to sample a few grains of sand from a beach in an effort to assess the variety of the whole, each grain being unique in its own configuration even if on those rare occasions when the whole beach derives from rock of the same parental stock.

  Let us sample, then.

  Thus:

  A woman in the second day of labour. Her knowledge, interest, delight and concern in, with and of politics is precisely zero.

  Two children picking their way over a landscape of outrage, shuffling through the ashes of their family home in search for the bones of their mother and father, flame-victims consumed by the fires of wrath which have so lately devastated the city.

  A cat with a burnt tail investigating the cindered ashes of a moribund pharmacy. An athletic ephebe mourning a pederast’s passing. A finagling heiress contemplating matricide. A jeweller experimenting with a miraculous optical device lately dredged from the sea, a device with which he can see the bones in his own hand.

  Look elsewhere.

  Here a goat, raising a bleating cry just before its slaughter befalls it. A cat, preening and priding. A schoolmaster, slowly dying of cancer, lecturing bored children on the evils of ignorance, cruelty and perversity. Slanic Moldova, temporarily living in Moremo, starting work on a baroque mural in which an insurmountable mountain of bones rises from zombie shadows.

  An astrologer delves amidst the quirks and weaknesses of a fearful member of his clientele, someone seeking the psychic equivalent of soothing drugs and charmed potions.

  Shall we look elsewhere yet again?

  In one of the coolhouses of Injiltaprajura’s desert side in which market gardeners grow cold climate vegetables, an apprentice idles away his master’s time by beating on a drum. He is supposed to be boyhandling blocks of ice imported from Downstairs, but the drum has him in its thrall, and he makes no movement but for the pat - pat -slap of his hands. In a house not far away, the boy’s master makes experiments with melting ice, thinking to make a device to measure the day into fractions in accordance with how long a block of standard size
takes to melt.

  Back on port side, a marriage proceeds in the Xtokobrokotok, where Shabble is presiding over the grand nuptial ceremonies of a Janjuladoola couple. Already these two are dreaming of sweet and pungent sources of organic pleasure, of a carnal embrace which combines the flesh of the visible world with the spirit of worlds unseen . . .

  And, not very far from Marthandorthan, amidst the ruins of the Dromdanjerie, a solitary lunatic dances to the tune of instruments unheard by other ears. Living a life scored by heavenly music, this mystical corybant pays no heed to anything as mundane as politics, as the lovers and ice miners and beggars and apprentice boys pay no heed.

  This is how it is, how it was, back in the days of the testing of courage, back in the distant past when your historian could see all colours sharp and bright, and did not yet have arthritis.

  In some places it was rumoured that the new Manthandros Trasilika was not a wazir sent from overseas at all; rather, that he was a psychopathic maniac long confined in the Dromdanjerie, and who, having escaped from that now burnt-down bedlam had taken it into his head to gamble all in the company of a fellow maniac. A full half-dozen informants took that story to Injiltaprajura’s secret police, only to be sent away with kicks and curses. The secret police had gone on strike because, as a consequence of the rapid deterioration of the machinery of government, they were no longer getting paid.

  In his mansion on Hojo Street, a very uptight Aquitaine Varazchavardan received the news of the advent of a new Trasilika and a new Froissart with a combination of exhaustion and panic. He did not think he could sustain many more shocks to flesh and psyche. The recent rapid gyrations in the political order had dismayed him mightily. Varazchavardan was one of those people who longs for order. He desired to make his intelligence subservient to a mighty Power, to be regimented and controlled, to find safety through obedience to the ruling order.

  But, increasingly, Injiltaprajura offered no stable order to be obeyed.

  If only Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin would finish his airship, and quickly! Then Varazchavardan could get the hell out of Injiltaprajura. Unless he made such an escape, and soon, surely he would die in the next riot; or be executed by Master Ek on some half-lawful pretext; or be chopped to bits by one wazir or another on account of his past association with Justina Thrug; or be mugged and murdered on the increasingly lawless streets.

  Such was Varazchavardan’s plight.

  And what of Sken-Pitilkin? Why, he was still working for no more than half a day at a time. And his progress was no faster, even though he had an assistant. Nixorjapretzel Rat was that assistant.

  After converting Pelagius Zozimus to a fast-changing serial life-form, young Rat had almost been killed by a wrathful Log Jaris. Rat had escaped from the bullman, though only with difficulty; and had eventually taken refuge in the Cabal House. But the wonder-workers of the Cabal House, wishing to keep tabs on Sken-Pitilkin’s airship rebuilding programme, had ordered Rat to make his peace with the bullman Log Jaris by way of humble apology, to return to the pink palace, and to place himself at Sken-Pitilkin’s service.

  All this Rat had done, albeit reluctantly.

  Since Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin had (unlike his cousin Zozimus) some considerable capacity for suffering fools with equanimity, he had accepted Jan Rat into his service. But, unfortunately, the job of ship-building was not within the Rat’s abilities.

  Rat was designed by nature to be a fool; but, as he had never enjoyed the counsel of a properly qualified careers adviser, he had so far failed to achieve this. It had never occurred to him that he would never, never realize his grand ambitions - which were to become the most powerful sorcerer on Untunchilamon and the head of the wonder-workers’ Cabal House. But he was well aware - he had never for a moment presumed otherwise - that he was remarkably ill-equipped to be a builder of airships.

  Nixorjapretzel Rat was incontrovertibly clumsy. As his hands stuttered over sticks, bungled knots and splintered themselves on baulks of wood, the young sorcerer thought with envy of Chegory Guy’s well-knit body. While Rat was as much a racist as any other person of Janjuladoola breed, he nevertheless wished he had that Ebrell Islander’s physique, if not his other characteristics.

  But Rat’s envy was misplaced.

  Certainly Chegory Guy had the physique of a sledgehammer matched with a knifefighter’s grace. But, at that very moment, the redskinned Ebrell Islander was a prisoner of the therapist. Had the Rat known that, and had the Rat appreciated the ramifications of Chegory’s plight, then he would have envied him not at all.

  A more fitting subject for envy was Theodora, Justina’s twin sister, who had got safely away on Troldot Turbothot’s ship. Theodora was presently closeted with her gynaecologist in the ship’s Great Cabin.

  ‘What have you been doing to yourself?’ said the gynaecologist.

  Theodora told him.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t do it any more.’

  ‘But I like it!’ said Theodora.

  Then began to explain why.

  But such explanation, and the other details of Theodora’s medical consultation, have no bearing on our history, and therefore will not be recounted here. Let it merely be noted that there was no hope of help coming to Justina from her twin sister, for Theodora and her lover were intent only on maximizing their own pleasure and widening the distance between themselves and Injiltaprajura.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  For Justina Thrug, Artemis Ingalawa and Olivia Qasaba, it was all very strange. First Dardanalti made inscrutable lawyerly excuses and withdrew from the Star Chamber, leaving his apprentice to continue the defence. (Such continuation, involving as it did nothing more than occasionally calling out ‘Objection!’, did not tax the apprentice’s abilities unduly.)

  Then, later, there was a series of defections from the courtroom audience; until finally Nadalastabstala Banraithanchumun Ek, a patient spectator throughout the proceedings, was called away by one of his aides. After that, Dardanalti reappeared and craved leave to approach the bench. Such leave being granted to him, Dardanalti spoke quietly with Judge Qil, who then announced a recess.

  Which left Justina, Ingalawa and Olivia sitting on a hardwood bench in the quiet of the Star Chamber. They could hear, in the distance, lamentations from one of the temples of Hojo Street where mourners were lamenting the demise of some of the victims of Injiltaprajura’s disastrous fire. Then someone began drumming:

  Thup-thup-top!

  Thup-thup-top . . .

  Guards intervened, and there was a brief flurry of excitement as a youthful drummer was discovered, searched, bloodied then ejected from the court.

  But, after that, stasis set in.

  As the recess dragged on, some people began to drift away, quitting the pink palace for streets where the smell of ash still had dominance. The diminished audience that remained evinced no enthusiasm for the resumption of the proceedings. Some drew lime leaf and fresh betel nut from intricate silver containers and began to chew, taking advantage of Judge Qil’s absence. (For some reason - the onset of senility, perhaps? - that judge had lately developed a prejudice against people chewing and spitting in his court.) Others gnawed on sugarcane or cleansed their tongues with pandanus.

  Then Dardanalti returned to the Star Chamber.

  Judge Oil did not.

  ‘We have it,’ said Dardanalti, with a smile savage in its triumph.

  ‘Have what?’ said Justina.

  ‘This!’ said Dardanalti, waving a parchment. ‘Your pardon.’

  ‘My-my—’

  ‘Pardon, yes. It covers the Qasaba girl, too.’

  ‘Me?’ said Olivia.

  ‘You,’ said Dardanalti.

  ‘And me?’ said Ingalawa sharply.

  ‘But of course,’ said Dardanalti.

  Then he smiled again, and waited for acclamation.

  Instead:

  ‘I’m thirsty,’ said Justina.

  She was, too. Her relief of her bla
dder had lately been at the pleasure of her guards; and, bitterly resenting such humiliation, she had chosen dehydration as the most honourable course. Hence she lacked the energy for jubilation.

  ‘Are we - are we really free?’ said Olivia.

  ‘You are,’ said Dardanalti.

  Whereupon Olivia began to weep. Throughout her trial she had been a brave Ashdan, confronting her death with a pose which mimicked equanimity. But now, released from the responsibility of denying her captors, she was but a slip of a girl, exhausted by worry and fear.

  Artemis Ingalawa did not chide her niece, but comforted her as she collapsed in grief. Ingalawa could have done with some comforting herself, for she was over-tired, exhausted by the ordeal of long wanderings Downstairs followed by abrupt arrest, brusque imprisonment and the onset of an unpleasant trial. Ingalawa had long thought of Untunchilamon as her true home, but now she wished she could be gone, back to the forests of Ashmolea, land of limestone and cultivated sophistication.

  The Empress Justina also wished to be gone. To Wen Endex, land of tumbling waterfalls and swampland rivers, of dunes where the seastorm spume writhes in mists on the wintry wind, of castellated strongholds armoured in ice, of fur-coat weather and parrot-bat feasts.

  But now was not the time to indulge in nostalgia.

  She had to get a grip on herself: and on the situation.

  ‘Where is this new wazir?’ said Justina.

  ‘He chooses to reside in Moremo for the moment,’ said Dardanalti.

  ‘In Moremo!’ said the Empress, startled.

  ‘He gives you full use of his pink palace in the meantime,’ said Dardanalti. ‘You are his guest.’

  ‘His guest?’ said Justina. ‘Or his captive?’

  ‘His guest,’ said Dardanalti. ‘His most honoured guest. My lady, there is much of which we must talk.’

  ‘Must we?’ said Justina. ‘Must we really? Now? Or can it wait?’

  ‘It could wait till the morrow,’ conceded Dardanalti.