The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers coaaod-6

by Hugh Cook

  In Zazazolzodanzarzakazolabrik it was easy to die, hard to live. Or so it was said in Injiltaprajura. In Chegory’s case, things were somewhat different. Wazir Sin had launched his pogrom againt Ebrell Islanders when Chegory was but a child, resulting in the young redskin’s spending years in the wasteland. He knew how to survive there unaided. Moreover, his father dwelt there yet as stillmaster for the warlord Jal Japone, hence a welcome awaited Chegory if he had to flee Injiltaprajura.

  Chegory did not like the idea of exile.

  Life in Zazazolzodanzarzakazolabrik was hard, tough and monotonous. Jal Japone was a ruthless taskmaster who drove his men hard. Those men were dangerous killers, trained knife-fighters all. In such company in such a place death could be all too casual. In contrast, Injiltaprajura was a place of luxury. Sweet water unlimited! Green coconut cheap. Cassava, mangos, breadfruit and sugarcane sold fresh from the city’s market gardens all year round. Wealth undreamed of in the wastelands.

  But…

  He would survive.

  In Japone’s court there would be men who would recognise him, who would remember him from his childhood and would be pleased to meet him again as a man.

  One might expect Chegory to slip off to sleep once he had assured himself his survival was certain. But he did not. It was not the comfortless stone which kept him awake. He was tired enough to have slept on a bed of nails. But he was beginning to worry about the alcohol he had drunk at Firfat’s warehouse.

  He shouldn’t have.

  He shouldn’t have let Ingalawa force him to drink it.

  What would happen to him? Would he become an addict? Would he find himself crawling through the streets on the morrow craving for drink?

  Chegory shared Injiltaprajura’s full knowledge of the evils of alcohol. Furthermore, he had been heartily impressed at a tender age by the attitudes of Jal Japone. The warlord made his living by brewing rotgut booze in the wastelands, but he had placed an absolute interdict on the stuff as far as his own men were concerned. Chegory’s father had oft reinforced Japone’s ban by telling his son of the terrible damage alcohol had wrought on the Ebrells themselves.

  Tales of men who had lost ships when they were incapably drunk. Of families which had fallen to fighting because of demon rum. Of the depraved horrors of drunken ceremonies in the temple of the evil Orgy God of the Ebrells. Of [Here another of the catalogues with which the Originator of this Text was incurably beglamoured. Deleted by Order. Drax Lira, Redactor Major.]

  Thus Chegory was for long kept awake, but at last he fell asleep. Nobody bothered to wake him up when the queue moved on. There were already fifty people lined up behind him, none unhappy to leapfrog past the sleeping one, since all were innocent (at least of theft from the treasury) and most were impatient to be scrutinised by the squealer and to be gone. The guards never bothered to rouse the sleeper since it made no difference to them who was first and who last. They had in any case settled to dicing and playing at cards by the light of star lanterns.

  Chegory dreamt of Zazazolzodanzarzakazolabrik, that region of desolation known also as the Wastes, the Scorpion Desert, the Scraglands, and as Zolabrik for short. He dreamt of red rock in a red sunset. Of his father, grizzled and gnomish, muttering under his breath as he pottered around in his distillery.

  Then Chegory woke.

  Then he Woke Up!

  Because all hell was breaking loose.

  The guards were down, riot was loose, uproar ruled, and the prisoners were mobbing into the treasury. Chegory was swept along with them. Helpless to resist. He knew already that this insurrection was madness. They would never get out of here. Palace guards would seal all exits then starve them into submission. Then there would be trials indeed and punishments of unabated horror.

  He screamed in frustrated rage, then screamed no more for he needed all his strength to fight for footing in the tussling mob. In through the entrance he was swept, into the treasury. There wealth was heaped upon wealth, and there lanterns and other lights illuminated a scene of outright anarchy.

  Prisoners in their dozens were scrabbling for treasure of all description then bearing it away through a hole in the wall which led into yawning darkness. Chegory knew at a glance that this breach must issue into the undermines Downstairs.

  Man after man dared the dark, bearing away armloads of gold and silver, of opal, japonica, celestine and carnelian, of amber and pounamu. Two were flailing at each other, fighting over a trifle which had caught the fancy of both — a green globe of stone, no larger than a fist, in which the souls of fireflies glowed like frozen pinpoints of essence of rainbow. While the fighters contended, another man seized it and was off.

  ‘You crazy bastards!’ screamed Chegory.

  Nobody paid him any attention at all.

  Then there were cries of panic from the corridor in which the prisoners had so lately queued while awaiting audience with the squealer. In moments, alarm-shouts warned everyone that reinforcements from the palace guard were fighting their way towards the treasury.

  A panic flight ensued. An irresistible floodtide of bodies swept young Chegory Guy through the hole in the wall of the treasury and into the yawning darkness beyond.

  Down tunnels they went, blundering through confusions of darkness where elbow argued with chin and boot with instep. They jostled down echoing stoneways, sludged through mephitic passages ankle-deep in sewage, climbed stairs going up then found those same steps descending, and ever they sought for light, light, light, a glimmer of light to free them from the terrors of the darkness which yet oppressed them though their numbers were many.

  Intersections were many and each thinned the mob. As intersective decisions lessened the density of the crowd so its pace and urgency lessened also. It became not a mindless flux of squalling flesh but small, disparate groups of individuals who began to think, talk and argue.

  Chatter broke out.

  ‘Go north.’

  ‘North, he says! Where’s north?’

  ‘You doubt my sense of direction?’

  ‘I doubt your sense, man. There’s no way out of here!’ ‘Of course there is. Must be.’

  ‘Nay. Bones wander here for years. Become dust. No hope for them, no hope, we’re lost, lost.’

  ‘We’re dead. We’re dead, and this is hell.’

  ‘If you weren’t with us I’d disbelieve it.’

  ‘Oh! Is that you, Thagomovich?’

  ‘None other. Just my luck to end up with you. Now — what’s this? Name yourself!’

  ‘Datkinson Rowen. Tailor by trade. Born Wen Endex. What else you want to know?’

  ‘The way out of here, fool! And you — what have we here?’ So saying, a voice grabbed Chegory by the elbow. He broke away, for he did not care to identify himself. Two steps he took, and that was all. Then he stood still, very still, in the darkness.

  ‘A guard, by chance?’ said the voice. ‘Perhaps it is. Get it, boys!’

  But nobody showed any enthusiasm for games of chase and thuggery in the overbearing dark. Instead, on went the arguing voices. Thirty paces further they went, then halted at an intersection.

  ‘Stinks!’ said one.

  ‘Dikle,’ said another.

  ‘Can’t go down there,’ said Datkinson Rowen, the tailor from Wen Endex. ‘Stuff’s poison. Gets into your skin. Does for you.’

  ‘But it’s solid.’

  Sound of someone stamping. Thrice. Thonk thonk sploosh!

  ‘There! Turns to liquid, see. Goes solid when it’s cool enough but liquid when it’s walked on.’

  ‘Thixotropic,’ said a scholar.

  ‘Thixotropic! Is that what you call it? Bloody perverse, that’s what I call it. Stinks, anyway, as the man said.’

  ‘But there’s light at the end.’

  ‘Aagh, there’s light for an ending to every tunnel. Come on. Any direction will bring us to light in the end.’

  ‘Oh no. Not so. It’s ghosts down here. Ghosts and jaws. Sharks which float in the thinn
ess of air.’

  ‘Oh yes! That I’ll believe when pigs shit silver, when sun burns blue, when my mother-in-law turns sweet…’

  With that, the voices were on their way, choosing ways other than that which led down a tunnel awash with dikle. Chegory footpadded through the dark to that passage. There was indeed light at the far end, some four or five hundred paces distant if he was any judge. A cool blue light which glimmered on the dikle.

  Chegory had no fear of dikle, which he knew to be no poison. Furthermore, if he was to go on alone then the sooner he found some light the better. Vampire rats shun the light, whereas he would be easy prey for such monsters ifhe continued to wander the dark on his own. He hesitated. Run after the others? Or strive to the light?

  The others were part of the mob which had fought for treasure in the depths of the pink palace. Such criminal actions had already multiplied Chegory’s troubles beyond measure. Previously he had faced charges of brawling, of consorting with drug smugglers and (possibly) of inciting Shabble to violence. Now he was on the run, a hunted man implicated in riot, looting and civil disorder, guilty (though it was not his fault!) of escaping from lawful custody and (a crime equally as serious) of consorting with escaped prisoners.

  Chegory remembered the stern advice his father had given him before his return to Injiltaprajura.

  ‘Be honest. Obey the law. Uphold the rule of order. Choose your company with care. Keep clear of criminals. Bring no disgrace upon yourself, your family or your race.’

  That decided him.

  He set off for the light, choosing solitary dangers rather than the dubious companionship of the lawless. Ah, what a good little boy he was! Bravely forging down the tunnel despite the stench. His footsteps broke up what fraction of the dikle yet remained solid. The stuff leaked into his sun-fractured boots. But his spirits rose regardless, for ahead was a broad and pleasant corridor lit in bright blue.

  He gained the corridor.

  And was promptly menaced by bright blades held by a four-strong band of men who looked more than ready to use them.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Chegory’s quartet of captors did not declare themselves, but their names in time became well-known to history and its recorders. None was a native of Untunchilamon; instead, all hailed from lands far distant.

  [A tautology, and, I regret, but one of many. If someone has been declared to be no native of Untunchilamon then it is necessarily tautological to declare their genesis far distant, since the most cursory acquaintance with geography teaches us that Untunchilamon lies near no other land. To the north is Tameran, to the south Parengarenga, to the east Yestron and to west Argan, all a weary sea-voyage distant. Sundry minor islands are closer slightly, but none could rightly be described as ‘neighbouring’. This criticism inserted by Ventantakorum of Odrum, Seventh Grade Critic Textual.]

  Most fearsome in appearance was a burly barbarian girded in leather. This man of ugly face and jug-handle ears was a Yarglat tribesman by name of Guest Gulkan. He was pretender to the throne of Tameran, currently occupied by the Lord Emperor Khmar. He it was who spoke first.

  ‘Who are you?’ said the barbarian.

  He addressed young Chegory in the Toxteth of Wen Endex, a language curt and brutal at the best of times. Fortunately, Chegory could speak Toxteth (and Dub, Janjuladoola and Ashmarlan as well).

  Don’t get the wrong idea! Here you will find no apology for the Ebrell Islanders after the manner of the Ashdan liberals, no claims that these people are capable of intellectual endeavour or (yes, Ashdans have dreamed as much!) of scholarly achievement. Chegory Guy was just as he has been painted: a coarse and ignorant rock gardener with the most limited of capabilities imaginable.

  The juvenile redskin was certainly no linguist. This can be proved by having reference to the classical definition of ‘knowing a language’ which was framed so long ago by the scholarly Iskordan. It is (out of pity for the unwise one must often spell out these things, however ludicrous such a procedure must seem to the educated!) to be possessed of the ability to defend oneself in a court of law in that tongue, to compose poetry in the same argot, and, finally, to frame in that mode of speech a joke which is capable of eliciting laughter from a native speaker of the same.

  [True true true. Yet one might wish to supplement this definition by saying that to truly ‘know’ a language one should also have certificated proof of one’s ability to treat with that tongue in the context of educated discourse. The idea that members of the polyglot rabble which infests the streets cities such as Injiltaprajura actually ‘know’ the languages in which they garble is an offensive notion deeply subversive of the underlying concepts which support the ideology of the Higher Learning, and hence is to be deprecated whenever possible. Drax Lira, Redactor Major.]

  As Chegory Guy could not have composed poetry to save his life, he did not (to apply Iskordan’s technical test) actually ‘know’ any languages whatsoever. He was therefore a living stereotype, proof of the accuracy and validity of the world’s prejudices. That is to say, he was an inarticulate creature who dwelt in a world where the most vital communications are made by the application of brute force and mindless violence.

  Nevertheless, young Chegory could ‘speak’ some four separate tongues, after a fashion. Dub was native to his home; he absorbed it with his mother’s milk. He had mastered the complexities of Janjuladoola in the court of Jal Japone, for that was the ruling tongue in the warlord’s realm. Toxteth had held the ascendancy in Injiltaprajura ever since Chegory’s return, forcing him to acquire a certain competence in the same. As for Ashmarlan, why, that was the tongue of the Qasaba household, and also the language which Ivan Pokrov used in his daily dealings with young Chegory.

  Now — where were we?

  As yes! With the aforesaid young Chegory in a blue-lit corridor Downstairs, confronting a band of swordsmen whose number included the Yarglat barbarian Guest Gul-kan from far-distant Tameran, who had just asked him (in Toxteth) who he was.

  While Chegory was competent in Toxteth (at least as competency is understood in the slums of Lubos) he nevertheless had difficulty understanding this simple query, since the barbarian’s atrocious accent mutilated the words. However, fear sharpened the young redskin’s ability, and, while the meaning of the barbarian’s articulations existed at the far border of intelligibility, he nevertheless retrieved that meaning and framed his reply.

  ‘That’s my question!’ said Chegory, with more courage than prudence.

  His reply was nearly identical to that used by the Ashdan commander, Shanvil Angarus May, in reply to an impertinence ventured by Artemis Ingalawa. (Though, to be pedantic, May had spoken in Ashmarlan, whereas Chegory used Toxteth.) You see? Unless these Ebrell Islanders are kept under strict control they immediately begin to ape their betters, putting on airs and manners which should by rights be forbidden to the lower breeds.

  ‘Okay, Thatsmyquestion,’ said Guest Gulkan of the jug handle ears, ‘what are you doing here?’

  ‘Talking to you,’ said Chegory Guy, showing a truly amazing degree of reckless bloody-mindedness.

  His patience was at an end. His long day was growing ever longer and longer. First alarums at the Dromdanjerie, then work, then study, then attack by a kraken, then arrest, then boozing in Marthandorthan, a raid, imprisonment, a beating, argument, his deportation to the pink palace, riot, looting and much muddling around Downstairs. Now this!

  ‘Don’t dare your neck for nothing,’ said a rich-garbed greybeard in the fluent Toxteth of a native speaker of the tongue. ‘That’s lunacy!’

  ‘Who are you then?’ said Chegory Guy.

  ‘Someone older and wiser than you, young man,’ said the greybeard briskly. ‘Come, boy! Can your wit outflank weapons? We’re four, you’re one.’

  By now, Chegory’s fit of bad temper was passing, and he was reconsidering the risks. His captors could spit him at will, leaving his corpse to rot away to nothing. What’s more, they looked perfectly ready to do so
. He presumed they were up to no good. They must be criminals of some description, surely. Hence he began to tell the truth of his own recent history, thinking an account of his own villainy would help ingratiate him with these foreign-born gangsters.

  Yes, while Chegory had yet to learn the names of any of his captors, he had correctly guessed that all four were from parts far removed from Untunchilamon. As he stumbled through his story of his recent past he speculated as to who they might be.

  Chegory picked Guest Gulkan for a soldier of sorts. A fair enough guess, and an accurate one. The greybeard dressed in robes gorgeous he thought to be a wonderworker, one of the sorcerers of Yestron. Close! The tart-tongued ancient was indeed from Yestron, for he had been born in Wen Endex. However, he was no wonderworker. Rather, he was a wizard. In truth he was Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin, the notorious wizard of Drum, a renegade whose death had long been demanded by Argan’s Confederation of Wizards.

  Then there was a tall clean-shaven man of middle years who wore a strange body-conforming garment which glittered like fish scales caught by the sun. So tall was he, so lordly his bearing and so bright his armour that Chegory could only presume him to be an elven lord straight out of legend. Blue were his eyes, blue and piercing, and his sword threatened to be more piercing yet.

  Who was this personage?

  Why, this was Pelagius Zozimus, in truth a wizard of the 116 order of Xluzu, one of the eight orders of the Confederation of Wizards.

  Zozimus was a cousin of Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin, which was truly remarkable, for it is (according to all the authorities) very rare to have two wizards who are even distantly related by blood. A pair of wizards of the same generation of the same family is, therefore, an occurrence bordering on the miraculous. If this Text was to seek Verisimilitude at the expense of Truth then the relationship would not be mentioned; however, as this is a sober History it must perforce deal with the facts of the matter, even though many will find these facts incredible.