The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers coaaod-6

by Hugh Cook

  ‘Okay, okay,’ said Chegory, glancing over his shoulder at the still-waiting Hermit Crab. ‘Whatever you want, fine, just do it, all right, we don’t have much time. Now!’

  Then Chegory felt a momentary mental fuzziness. He said — and his voice was his own:

  ‘Well? Was that it? Are you aboard?’

  Answer came there none.

  But Olivia, still floating in the cocoon, looked at Chegory and said in her own sweet voice:

  ‘Chegory dearest, Chegory my darling, it’s gone, the thing’s in you and — and I love you, Chegory!’

  ‘I love you too,’ said Chegory. Then tried to reach her through the cocoon — but it resisted his hand even though it had freely allowed speech. Chegory resisted the temptation to swear. Then he looked to Shabble and said: ‘Okay! What are you waiting for? Off you go!’

  Instantly Shabble soared high, high into the air. Moments later, the accents of the conjuror Odolo, monstrously amplified, roared from the heavens:

  ‘I AM THE DEMON BINCHINMINFIN! PREPARE TO MEET YOUR DOOM! ALL INJILTAPRAJURA WILL PERISH!’

  To emphasise the point, the demon-imitating Shabble unleashed a firebolt which blasted apart rocks at the far end of the island of Jod. The Hermit Crab raised its claws. Unleashed fire in return. But Shabble side-slid, evading the fire easily. Already Chegory was sidling away to the harbour bridge.

  He reached the bridge.

  He began to jog along the bridge. The wooden planks thumped hollowly under his feet. There was no familiar rocking motion for the pontoons supporting the bridge were locked solid in the sea of dikle which carpeted the Laitemata.

  Chegory was half-way along the bridge when the Hermit Crab’s frantically ineffectual efforts to blast its opponent from the heavens provoked an outburst of tremendous laughter from the high-floating Shabble. That gave the game away.

  The Hermit Crab roared:

  ‘THAT’S YOU! SHABBLE! ISN’T IT? SO WHERE’S THE DEMON? CHEGORY GUY! WHERE ARE YOU? CHEGORY!!! I SEE YOU!’

  Chegory broke into a headlong run.

  ‘COME BACK HERE! COME BACK OR I’LL BURN YOU ALIVE!’

  The Hermit Crab unleashed a firebolt in warning. Timbers just ahead of Chegory burst into flame. Moments later, other firebolts struck. The bridge was ablaze all the way to the mainland. Chegory did not hesitate. He jumped to the right, jumped to the surface of the Laitemata.

  Skraklunk!

  Cracks shattered across the surface as Chegory impacted.

  But the surface held.

  For the moment.

  He fled, his drumbeat footsteps pounding the dikle as he went haring for the shore. Then the dikle abruptly shattered to a fluid. Down went Chegory, into the sea. He floundered helplessly, trying to swim. Then found the firm footing beneath his heels. A horrible slimy ankle-deep ooze of shlug enveloped his ankles. But he could walk. Yes, he was neck-deep in a mixture of seawater and dikle, but he could still forge a way through to the mainland, now very close at hand.

  The water shallowed. Became waist-deep. Then Chegory was at the bank of red coral and bloodstone mixed which bordered the waterfront. He glanced back at Jod. The Hermit Crab was on the shore, claw raised in fury. What to do?

  Do or die!

  Chegory took a deep breath, then scrambled from the water, hauled himself up the bank, then sprinted for the shelter of the nearest buildings.

  He got there, and found himself still alive, still not incinerated. Still two arms, two legs, and — and something else which might one day be useful. He grinned with delight, with sheer exultation at merely being alive, then thumped himself on the chest and roared in triumph.

  Then down from the heavens sped the all-observing Shabble, and shortly the childish one was alongside the still-retreating Chegory, bubbling over with excitement and boasting of Shabbleself’s feats most outrageously.

  And on they went together.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  ‘Where now?’ said Chegory, when he was safely in Lubos.

  ‘Wherever you want, Chegory dearest,’ said Shabble.

  ‘I wasn’t talking to you,’ said Chegory. ‘I’m talking to Binchinminfin, okay, this demon-thing. Well, how about it? Where from now?’

  But if the demon heard, it answered not.

  Unfortunately, this left Chegory in quite a fix.

  On the island of Jod there was the furious Hermit Crab, which might well destroy Chegory out of hand the next time it saw him. But on the mainland were the forces of the wonderworkers, led by the unpleasant Aquitaine Varazchavardan, who might prove every bit as dangerous as the Crab if Chegory ran into him.

  So whafs going to happen?

  The latest events would surely soon become common knowledge. Varazchavardan would learn that the demon Binchinminfin was currently housed in the flesh of Chegory Guy. Then soldiers would start looking for him in the obvious places. The Dromdanjerie, which was his customary residence. Uckermark’s corpse shop, where Chegory had recently been served with a summons to a depositions hearing.

  So where could he go?

  Where he eventually went was to Thlutter, the steep jungle-growth gully just east of Pearl. He couldn’t stay there forever, of course, but he could stay there for quite some time. A couple of days if he had to.

  But I don’t have to stay here long.

  Just long enough for the demon to get its act together.

  Once Binchinminfin had rested, once Binchinminfin was stronger, then the demon would take over the flesh of young Chegory Guy, perhaps forever, and solve all his problems permanently.

  Chegory, so knowing, was content to sit in Thlutter in the shade of a banana tree. The air was moist with the splitter-splatter of a dozen fountains sourced Downstairs. The air was rich with the smell of dank earth, the musk of decayed coconuts, the perfume of frangipani, and the scent of some cloying flower which was sweeter still. He could smell something else as well. Dikle and shlug. In fact those smells predominated since he was covered in the stinking stuff.

  After a while, Chegory realised he had still not had breakfast. What was the time? To judge by the sun, it was getting on for lunchtime. What could he eat? Bananas? The tumescent purple quills on the banana trees nearby were as yet far from fruition. At least there was water. He sought a fountain, then drank of its effortless water.

  Water, water.

  Oh, to be clean!

  Well, why not?

  Chegory stripped off and washed himself slowly and methodically. He even washed his hair. He even picked out the dirt from underneath his fingernails. Then he did what he could for the much-tattered remnants of the canary robes which had been so glorious when first given to him in the pink palace. He put them on wet without worrying about it. They would dry quickly enough in the heat of the day.

  He felt much, much better, even though a faint, ineradicable hint of dikle and shlug still hung about him.

  But he was still hungry.

  ‘Make us some food,’ said Chegory.

  ‘I would, Chegory dearest,’ said Shabble. ‘But I don’t know how.’

  ‘I’m talking to this demon,’ said Chegory.

  ‘There’s nobody here, Chegory. Nobody but us.’

  ‘Look,’ said Chegory, ‘just stay out of this, okay? I want to have a talk with my demon. Okay, Binchinminfin. We’re hungry. We have to eat.’

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ said Shabble.

  Chegory was sorely tempted to threaten the imitator of suns with a quick visit to the nearest therapist. After a struggle, he resisted the temptation, and again demanded food from his demon. Nothing happened. Chegory was disappointed, to say the least. When one endures demonic possession, one expects to at least enjoy a few fringe benefits.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ said Chegory. ‘Are you tired? Or what? Hello? Is anyone home? Are you still there?’

  A thought answered him:

  I am.

  But immediately he knew it was his own thought. The demon Binchinminfin was silent. If it was still
there at all. Maybe it had been killed at a distance by some subtle magic worked by the Hermit Crab. Or driven back to the World Beyond from whence it had come in the first place. But: ik). It had told him its host had to die before it could get home.

  Gtdsf So what if it kills me?

  The thought left Chegory horrorstruck. Then he pulled himself together. If the demon had wanted him dead it would haw killed him already. Maybe it couldn’t. Or didn’t want to. After all, how many people had the demon actually slaughtered since its arrival on Untunchilamon? As far as Chegory knew, it had killed precisely nobody.

  Maybe the demon was a bit like a vampire rat. They do a lot of damage at times, these rats, and horror sometimes results from their depredations. But most of the time they keep themselves to themselves. Fear of them keeps much of Injiltaprajura indoors for much of the night — but such fear is mostly a nonsense.

  Maybe, though, Binchinminfin was not like a vampire rat at alL Maybe it was an ethical entity with a tolerably high sense of responsibility. After all, what had the demon really done? Well, at first it had run amok. It had made blood, had made rainbows, had made krakens. But that was right at the very start when it had hardly known where it was, when it had been working with dreams and stuff. It had brought nightmares to life. Had created a dragon at banquet. But it had only created those things while it was trying to make sense of Odolo’s mind and the world that mind reflected.

  Later, when the demon was properly orientated, when it knew which way was up, it had enjoyed itself, that’s all. It had partied riotously at the pink palace. It had made friends with the albinotic ape Vazzy. It had got drunk. Which was… well, was it so terrible?

  Maybe demons aren’t into murder, rape, slaughter.

  Maybe we just think they are.

  Maybe we think so because that’s what we’re into. Maybe we think it all on to demons to make ourselves think better of ourselves. Or something.

  Anyway, whatever the case, Chegory was as yet undead. Furthermore, he was free. He realised, to his surprise, that he resented his freedom. When he had accepted the rule of the demon Binchinminfin, he had not been sacrificing his freedom merely for the sake of his true love Olivia. No, it was not love alone which had commanded him. A darker, deeper urge had been at work. The desire to surrender. To be ruled, imprisoned, enslaved. To escape the torments of choice.

  Chegory Guy had expected the demon to take him over entirely, and to run his life thereafter, just as it had on first possessing him during their drinking session at the pink palace. He realised this was but a variation on a familiar theme. He had thought of possession as his chance to become, in effect, no more than a rock. To be but a powerless observer housed in his own walking corpse. To die out of the world of will without dying out of the world of sensation. To have no more problems, no more decisions, no nothing.

  But he found himself left with his freedom, his identity, and all the problems which go with those things.

  He tried again.

  ‘Demon-thing, are you there or aren’t you? At least give me a sign! I have to know.’

  But no sign was granted unto him.

  Therefore he was faced with a philosophical problem as well as an array of practical problems. The demon had said it could only go home to the World Beyond if its host died. But that might not be true. So how was he to know whether he was still demon-possessed if his demon refused to speak to him? He so wished to be demon-possessed that his own mind was ready to fake demon-flavoured whisperings, which made the exercise of judgement all the more difficult.

  ‘I can’t know,’ whispered Chegory at length. ‘But I must presume.’

  He must presume that the demon Binchinminfin still rode with him, silent for the moment merely because it was recovering its strength. How far it had fallen! At the beginning, it had been able to colour the entire sky with rainbow and fill the Laitemata with krakens. Then, after the battering it had taken from a series of mind-shifts and a horrifying exorcism, it had been scarcely strong enough to manipulate its hosts’ voices so they spoke with a foreign accent.

  ‘Maybe,’ whispered Chegory, ‘it’s power’s almost dead. Maybe it can’t kill its host even if it wants to. Even if it wants to go home.’

  In any case, whether Chegory was with demon or without, he was still a hunted animal, so it was best that he wait and do nothing. He was safer here than elsewhere.

  He waited.

  In time, he was found. By one of the small, omnivorous black pigs of Injiltaprajura. Which snoinked at him, then went on its way. Later, he heard something in a nearby tree — a tree he might find himself climbing to be out of the way of vampire rats if he was still in Thlutter come nightfall.

  The intruder in the tree was only a small monkey. It reminded him of one of the theological disputes current in the conversation of Injiltaprajura. Had some deity created monkeys as a cruel caricature of humanity? Or had humans been created as a cruel caricature of monkeys?

  Since Chegory Guy adhered to the evolutionary heresy, he cleaved to neither side of the argument. But, if he had been forced to choose, at that moment he would have said it was more probable that humans were created as a most unkind parody of that less uncivilised beast, the monkey.

  What was the point of being human?

  Was it worth the struggle?

  Particularly when one was an Ebrell Islander, faced with death and disaster at every turn?

  What was life but the grim endurance of this sullen flesh? Moist armpits which must be scratched. Sweat and stench. Lust and appetite. The ravings of the blood. Lungs which must of necessity intercourse promiscuously with the very air, that atmosphere which intermingles freely with the outbreathings of dogs, pigs and vampire rats. What is life but an endless battle against fleas, lice and bedbugs, and, rarely to be forgotten for long in Injiltaprajura, nature’s abomination, the relentless mosquito, persecutor of sleep and tormentor of dreams?

  No wonder the demon was homesick! No wonder the demon wanted to go home! They probably didn’t have these things in the World Beyond: sweating armpits, legs which ached from carrying empresses, hangovers, the hunger of an unbreakfasted and unlunched stomach.

  ‘What are you thinking of, Chegory dearest?’ said Shabble.

  ‘Of killing myself,’ said Chegory sullenly.

  ‘Oh, you can’t do that!’ said Shabble in alarm. ‘Don’t kill yourself, Chegory! I should be lonely.’

  ‘I’ll kill myself if I want,’ said Chegory. ‘It’s my life.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Shabble slyly. ‘But then you’d never know what happens next.’

  It was a telling point.

  On Untunchilamon, anything could happen next.

  Of course, we all know what would have happened to Chegory in any properly ordered society. He would have been caught! Then punished! Then killed! For he had leagued with a demon in defiance of the demon’s would-be destroyer. Worse, he had made a criminal conspiracy with a delinquent Shabble. As for that Shabble — what did that Shabble deserve?

  Why, that Shabble rightly deserved at least ten million years of the most intensive algetic therapy imaginable. For it had innumerable crimes to account for. Trespass. Infringement of personal privacy. Kidnapping. Unlawful imprisonment. Terrorism. Exceeding a velocity often luzacs per arc in a speed-controlled corridor. Disobeying a lawful and legitimate order from a duly authorised dorgi. Attacking a dorgi worth over fifty million drax. Consorting with enemies of the state. Wantonly and maliciously impersonating a loyal servant of the state, namely Anaconda Stogirov, Chief of Security of the Golden Gulag.

  The list goes on and on. Without limit, without end. Cruelty to animals. Displaying by night a light bright enough to have the potential to interfere with official astronomical observations. Communication of privileged state information to unauthorised persons. Impersonating a deity. Espionage. Treason. Disorderly conduct. Contempt of court. I could be here all day reciting the names of this Shabble.

  Fools!

  You think
that this is a joke. It is no joke. Anaconda Stogirov lives. That alone is proof that the Golden Gulag is not yet dead. It can be revived in all its glory. Once Stogirov knows that a Shabble yet resides on Untunchilamon and a functional therapist likewise, then the Gulag will soon be resurrected in all its glory. Then it will be I, I, I who will take the credit. Who will be Lord Axeblade, king of executioners.

  My just reward!

  [One does not like to be called a fool. Nevertheless, rather than react to the insult with a childish display of petulance, it is better to analyse the Originator’s claims dispassionately. As I stated at the outset, on my own visit to Untunchilamon I myself never sighted either this Shabble or this Downstairs. On the other hand, I was not looking for either. Furthermore, it must be admitted that the Chief of Security who presently serves Aldarch III in Obooloo is a woman named Anaconda Stogirov. That in itself proves nothing, but suggests that a supplementation of our data base is in order. In short, I recommend that we send further spies to Yestron, despite the lamentable fate which has met the best and the bravest to date. Drax Lira, Redactor Major.]

  [One notes with interest that the Text suggests that ‘drax’ denominated a unit of exchange in the days of the Golden Gulag. Names often have very, very ancient origins. These vocables oft survive bereft of any known meaning. A case in point is the personal name of our beloved Redactor Major himself. Soo Tree, Redactor Subminor.]

  As Chegory Guy was not living in a properly ordered society but in Injiltaprajura, he remained (for the moment) at large, contemplating life, death and eternity.

  Life felt, at the moment… almost worthless. Yet something made it worthwhile for Things from Beyond to pact with sorcerers so that they might in measure enjoy this very flesh, this world of sensation. Sometimes, indeed, they dared as much as to venture to this aspect of the Possible to take full possession of one human’s liberties.

  Chegory reminded himself that he was tired, hungry and hungover. These conditions were not necessarily permanent. Good times would come again. Parts of this very day had been good, had they not? Yes. His triumph in a trial of strength when he had carried the Empress Justina all the way from the pink palace atop Pokra Ridge to the entrance of the Analytical Institute on Jod. Few people on Untunchilamon could have done as much.