by Hugh Cook
But found' Found a remorseless upthrust of images welling into consciousness. Not the much-to-be-expected nightmares of pain, torture, privation and death to which he in his condition would naturally be prone. Not that, but totally disconnected visions. Kicking through his skull. Disordered as a wet-writhing mass of fish dumped from a net to a boatdeck. Data was whirlpooling from the depths of his memory. Fractional glimpses of people, places, events. Tastes, temperatures, smells and tactions. Sights and sounds. Nuances of weight and balance.
Mango yellow. Cassava squirt. Seasalt algae sunbaked. Albatross shadow. Crab scuttle cavecool. Coconut split. Knock-hollow coconut rock-shattered. Finger-lick of moisture. Fingers? Digits. Vestigal talons. Articulation.
His hand was working itself.
Experimenting with itself.
His left hand.
Fingers closing to a fist. Slowly. Opening again. Slowly. Thumb touching first finger, second, third. Odolo slapped his delinquent left hand with his obedient right. The left hand ceased its fidgeting.
But still the memories upswirled, rising in torrents like the blood of the dead in the legend of Pelikan Ova. Memories of ice delicious on days hot. Of nights by mosquitoes tormented. Of seadream diving near the Galley Gate deeps. Of green tea, blue gin, creamed coffee, sherbet and other potatiory delights. He tried to stop the memory-flux. But could not. He was losing sovereignty over his own mind. Was, in a word, going mad.
Worse — the very wall was moving!
Odolo stared at the wall. Then realised, to his relief, that the impression of movement came from the shuffle-shift of an overlay of cockroaches. Free protein! He realised he was hungry. Unless breakfast came soon he might murder a few of the six-legged ones for the pleasure of his belly. Then, as he watched, a waking nightmare abolished both relief and hunger entirely. A shadow amidst the shadows formed itself into a claw. It raked the wall. Knifed its talons in among the cockroaches. They fell in a scrattling rain, sklattering to the flagstones. Odolo felt first strangling fear then Silence.
As if he had become What?
A pool of clear water.
Silent. Poised. Ready. Waiting.
For what?
While Odolo waited for revelation, the cockroaches scrambled back on to their wall. Then a couple slipped from the justling shadow-hugging mass. More fell as a shadow-formed claw again raked the wall. The fallen cockroaches mucked around on the flagstones. Then, as if drawn toward Odolo by a superior Power, they perambulated toward him, onmarching steadily as if with hideous intent. They were going to — to eat him?
He shrank away from the oncoming monsters. Then the leading cockroach hesitated. Shimmered. Flickered. Softened. Dissolved. Reformed itself as a butterfly. Which took to wing, rising shadow-soft and shadow-silent to the sunlight above. Where it flashed into sudden glory, then swooped between the bars of the cell. Gliding away to freedom.
Odolo glanced back at the cockroach army. It had vanished. Something small and green had taken the place of the insects. It took to the air as he watched and began to circle just overhead. Not another butterfly, no. Not a butterfly but a dragon. A tiny little dragon, barely a fingerlength from nose to tail. It chirruped happily as it flew.
Had all those cockroaches gone to make one dragon in miniature? No. On the flagstones at Odolo’s feet were two mango-sized beasts. A lion and a unicorn. Even as he watched, the two tiny animals began to fight. They wrestled each other to the edge of the vomit hole. Slipped. Then fell. From the depths below there came a hideous squealing.
Vampire rats!
Attracted by the noise, the dragon dived from the heights and plunged into the vomit hole. Moments later, it emerged. Covered in filth. It settled on the flagstones. It flapped its wings furiously, hissing. Muck slished away from its scales. Still hissing, the dragon took to the air. It ascended. Up, up it went, climbing as it circled. As it gained the heights the sunlight caught it, sparking a flare of dragonfly iridescence from its wings. The dragon slipped between the bars, disappearing into the sunlight.
An illusion, surely.
An idle piece of dreamery adrift in the daylight.
Yet… motes of dust were still aswirl in the turbulence left by its flight. Odolo closed his eyes. Opened them. Looked upward again. Saw no trace of the turbulence. It had smoothed away to nothing.
‘It never happened,’ he said.
Perhaps not.
But other things were happening already.
In the dankest comer of the cell a miniature cloud was forming itself. A tiny self-important black cloud coruscating with impatient energy. As sparks of lightning crackled from the cloud, something began to form in the air just above it. Something smooth, oval. Glowing whitely. An egg! A luminous egg! Which hovered above the cloud for a moment. Then fell. Shattered on the flagstones. Splat! Yolk gleamed golden in the sweltering shadows of the cell. Then the cloud disintegrated into a downpour of miniature pearls.
Then the words began to spin again, jumbling swiftly and furiously as they torrented through the helpless mind of Odolo the hapless. In panic he screamed:
‘Help me! Help me!’
Then, in desperation, slammed his head against the door of the cell.
Something spoke inside his head: BE STILL!
Without thought, Odolo punched himself in the head. In tones of authority the voice said: STOP THAT!
Odolo hit himself again. It hurt. Then something hurt him far worse. Pain flooded his body. Pain? PAIN!
Then the voice again spoke inside his head:
I not you am. Not your symptom am. Thing am. Listen to me, Odolo dishonourable.
‘Hi, Thingam,’ muttered Odolo.
I am a Thing.
Thus the thing, with dignity and swift-improving control of grammar. Then grammar lapsed again as the thing — thing? — Thing! — said:
Binchinminfin is called me.
‘Binchinminfin? That’s your name?’
My name is Binchinminfin.
The Thing was learning quickly.
Odolo lay as still as total paralysis. Was he dreaming? He tested reality. He tried to manifest a naked damsel. He failed. But in his dreams he could always cause naked damsels to manifest themselves. Not just to manifest themselves, either, but to [Here a deletion. Drax Lira, Redactor Major.']
So he was not dreaming.
The undreaming Odolo lay in a sweat of terror. A Thing! A Thing in his head! What could he do? Dig it out with a mango spoon? He giggled hysterically. Then got a grip on himself. Could he negotiate with the Thing? He could try. Out loud, he said:
‘What do you want?’
The voice in his head answered: SILENCE. BE STILL! STOP THINKING.
Thus the Thing. But how could he stop thinking? As he was still thinking about it, the painting of a monster which covered the cell door came to life. Its single baleful eye winked open. Odolo screamed.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ said an unsympathetic voice.
It was surely the turnkey speaking. As artistic mischief had made the cell’s spyhole the pupil of a monster’s eye, the opening of the same momentarily brought the hideous door painting to life.
‘Help me!’ said Odolo. ‘I’m going mad!’
‘That’s syphilis then,’ said the turnkey, ‘isn’t it? It’s syphilis which makes madness.’
Then Odolo in his agony started screaming like a skavamareen.
‘Skeder erket mol,’ said the turnkey.
Then, after making several additional comments equally as obscene and unsympathetic, the turnkey departed, satisfied that his charge was in good shape. Odolo was left to his fate. Jumbling discords of random-plucked words spun through his mind. He screamed again, then thumped his head against the wall of the cell. But still the words onspun.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The quarter of istarlat did like a lotus bud complete its unfolding, as the elegant phraseology of Janjuladoola would have it. Or, to use the curt and brutal idiom of the Yudonic Knights: the morning died.
Or, in the argot of the Ebrell Islanders (ah! and how the words sweeten and soften in their translation from the free-flowing obscenity of the original Dub!) the day’s first half was rooted and wrecked.
Thus noon came to Injiltaprajura and the palace bells rang out, disturbing the echoes which dwell in the portside streets. Wandering echoes woke likewise in the city’s desert side to the north of Pokra Ridge, some reaching the conjuror Odolo sweating in his death cell in Moremo Maximum Security Prison.
Within the pink palace itself the crash of the noon bells thundered into a silken chamber where the Empress Justina was conducting an intimate interview with Troldot ‘Heavy-fist’ Turbothot, an alien from far-distant Hexagon. The interview was proving a disappointment. Why? Because, unbeknownst to Justina, Troldot Turbothot had been diligently interviewed by Theodora that very morning.
Noonday’s brazen bells were heard even on the island of Jod where Ivan Pokrov and Artemis Ingalawa were discussing young Chegory Guy. They were bitterly disappointed with him. Long had they struggled to raise the Ebrell Islander from the mire in which he had been spawned. Long had they educated, encouraged and counselled him. They had even introduced him to polite society. Yet he had failed them. At the first opportunity, he had got himself into trouble with the law. What was even more offensive was that he had taken up with the lowest kind of company imaginable — a corpse master, of all people!
How did Pokrov and Ingalawa know that? Simple. A mechanic who lived in Lubos had seen young Chegory that very morning helping the corpse master Uckermark repair his door. The mechanic had delivered himself of this intdligenee on arriving for work at the Analytical Institute.
Thus Ingalawa and Pokrov knew how far the ill-begotten red skin had fallen. Worse, he had not come to them for counseL Whatever his problems, surely they could be sorted out by educated advice and the help of a good lawryer. But the Ebrell Islander was running amok in the city, presumably hoping to solve his present difficulties with the help of lies, evasions, criminal associates and (doubtless) violence.
Thus it had to be.
For, if Chegory were innocent of criminal involvement, why would he be shunning both work and the Dromdanjerie?
'As I see it,’ said Artemis Ingalawa with grim resolve, ‘first we must find out exactly what he’s mixed up with. Maybe he joined the riot at the treasury. Maybe he made off with a handful of diamonds or somesuch. I don’t know. But I do know he has to be shaken until the truth falls out of him.’
Pokrov agreed. As Pokrov was supervising a General Oiling of the Analytical Engine, he was not free to venture to Injiltaprajura to extort the truth from Chegory Guy. But Ingalawa was, and set forth immediately. Ingalawa’s niece Olivia intercepted her on the shores of Jod, learnt her destination, and insisted on joining her on the trek across the harbour bridge to the mainland.
In Untunchilamon’s capital (and only) city, in the clutter of hovels and scramble-walks known as Lubos, in the corpse shop of the ill-famed Uckermark, Chegory Guy was dozing despite the stifling heat, despite the stench of maggot-wTithing meat and blocked drains, despite the pestilential flies which clung in clouds of blackness to the gauze which prevented their ingression, despite the strenuous snoring of the corpse master himself and the bull-smell of Log Jaris.
The only person awake in the corpse shop was Yilda. She was in the kitchen, bottling maggots. Not to eat herself, but to sell. Corpse maggots are a delicacy highly regarded by those born and bred in Obooloo. Many such people dwell on Untunchilamon, hence maggots were a profitable sideline for the shop. Yilda enjoyed cookery, but was at last distracted from her work by a hammering without. She went to wake the three sleepers. First, using her boot with the panache of an expert, she roused Uckermark.
‘What is it, sweet minikin?’ said Uckermark, stirring himself from dreams of sugarcane and toothache. ‘Someone’s at the door,’ said Yilda.
They were indeed. They were not only at the door — they were pounding on it.
‘Doing renovations by the sound of it,’ said Uckermark, as reverberations echoed through his corpse shop. Then he bawled at the top of his lungs: ‘Stop that!’ But the strenuous wood-thumping continued. ‘That’s the problem,’ grumbled Uckermark. ‘Nobody respects the dignity of the dead.’ Then he woke Chegory and Log Jaris, and all three men armed themselves with edged weapons. Chegory had a long-handled corpse hook, Uckermark had a dragon cleaver, and Log Jaris had a massive kraken club.
[Kraken club: a kitchen implement used on Untunchilamon to tenderise cephalopods. Despite the name they are seldom used on krakens either whole or fragmented but are more commonly involved in the preparation of squid or octopus for cooking. Oris Baumgage, Fact Checker Minor. The men positioned themselves in the shadows near the door. Then Uckermark said:
‘Open it.’
Even as he spoke, the hammering intensified.
‘Blood and bodkins!’ bawled Yilda. ‘I’m coming, I’m coming!’ So shouting, she hustled smoke pots to the door. ‘Wait on! I’ll be with you in just a moment! Don’t break it down!’ She drew back the bolts and opened the door, discovering a parcel of armed guards without. Said she: ‘What do you want?’
‘Balls of a bullock!’ said the soldiers’ captain, stepping back from the outswirling smoke. ‘Is the place on fire?’
‘They’re bloody smoke pots,’ said Yilda. ‘Can’t you see? Are you blind or something? Of course you are! Too much autology, that’s what it is! Makes you deaf as well. Didn’t you hear what I said? I said: what do you want?’
‘I’ll give you three guesses,’ said the captain.
‘Don’t come the raw prawn with me!’ said Yilda.
As her phraseology will no doubt be inscrutable to all auditors from civilised parts, let it be known thatr-she was telling him, in the gutter argot of Injiltaprajura, to put a polite tongue in his head and not to presume that he had a welcome to Yilda’s particular parlour. Yet the captain was incapable of taking a hint. -
‘Put out the smoke, darling,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll light your fire.’
‘The smoke’s to keep out the bloody flies, isn’t it?’ said Yilda. ‘Blowflies especially. Bloody blowflies about your height.’
Since Yilda was so patently unfriendly, and since she had a poker clenched in her fist, the captain did not continue with his lighthearted banter but got down to business instantly.
‘We’re looking for the corpse rapist Uckermark and his bum boy Chegory Guy,’ said he.
That is a sanitised version of what he said. However, as no application of censorial expertise could produce a socially acceptable version of what Yilda said in reply, it is doubtless best that her retort be omitted entirely. Let it merely be recorded that by the time she had said her piece, Uckermark had laid down his weapon and had emerged from the shadows. Chegory thought it best to follow suit, and did so.
‘I’m Uckermark,’ said Uckermark.
‘I’m Chegory,’ said Chegory.
‘And if you want either of us,’ said Uckermark, ‘you’d better have a warrant.’
‘We have got a warrant!’ said the captain.
A warrant for what? For the arrest of Chegory Guy? Or for his instant execution?
‘What kind of warrant?’ said Uckermark.
‘This kind!’ said the captain.
With that he thrust the warrant toward Uckermark, thinking the corpse master illiterate, and therefore to be intimidated by this ornate parchment. Truly it was an impressive document, done in kaleidoscopic colours bright and gay. An ominous sign indeed! For in the Izdimir Empire the grimmest orders are so bedecked and adorned. But Uckermark took the warrant, read it at the skim, then handed it back with a sneer.
‘This but tells you to hand us a summons to compel our appearance in court. Give it! Then get out!’
The captain was disappointed. By documentary intimidation he had hoped to extort a bribe from a fool illiterate, but found himself up against a legal expert of sorts. Reluctantly, the captain handed over the summons
, which was but a grubby piece of ricepaper ordering Chegory and Uckermark to appear at a depositions hearing at the palace that same afternoon. The conjuror Odolo was going on trial, and the authorities wanted these two to evidence against him.
The captain turned to go.
‘Um, ah, wait a moment!’ said Chegory. ‘How did you know to find me here?’
The captain did not deign to answer. Instead he marched his soldiers away.
‘He knows because the whole palace knows you’re here,’ said Uckermark. ‘I told you so before. Now do you believe me? Since Justina’s favoured you with her attentions you’re famous, at least in the palace.’
‘Oh,’ said Chegory. ‘I thought I was, uh, safe. From soldiers. From Varazchavardan.’
‘Relax!’ said Uckermark. ‘Don’t worry! If Varazchavardan wanted you he’d have claimed your head already.’ Then, as Yilda made as if to remove the smoke pots, he said to her: ‘Leave the pots. We’ll have the door open for a bit.’
‘These are dangerous times,’ said Log Jaris, emerging from the shadows. ‘Today’s no day for open doors.’
‘The way you speak you’d think we were knee-deep in snow,’ said Uckermark. ‘Don’t you feel the heat or what? I’m close to death as it is. The hell with the danger. We’ll leave the door open. If we get but nine tenths of a miracle we might get a litde breeze. Some ventilation. Lest I die!’
‘If you’re worried about death then start worrying about this depositions hearing,’ said Log Jaris. ‘And quickly! This is dangerous!’
‘Odolo knows nothing of us,’ said Uckermark as he retreated back inside leaving the smoke pots to guard the open doorway against flies. ‘He knows nothing of the wishstone or the thieving of such, and nothing of the Calligrapher’s Union or our hand in the organisation of the same.’
‘So far, so far,’ said Log Jaris. ‘But his lawyers will start digging for dirt as soon as we’re known to be witnessing against him. We’ve much to fear from such investigation.’
‘Shall we run?’ said Chegory.
But even as he said it he knew running was no answer. After all, where could they go? He had thought through all the options plenty of times. Hide Downstairs? Or flee the city? If they fled now, they could not depart by sea. Not in the season of Fistavlir. So they would have to go inland.
