by Foul-ball
‘Yes,’ said the Sibyl. ‘Unfortunate really. Rather frying pan into fire for you, isn’t it?’
‘Quite,’ said Cormack.
‘As I said before, I’ve lodged a recommendation with the Throat to see if he can’t liven it up a bit for future Candidates but he’s reminded me that the volcano really is a lot of the reason for our being located here so things are unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.’
‘I see. It’s really not a bother,’ said Cormack and the Sibyl smiled back weakly.
The hoist and winch were already in position and it was a small matter to attach the cage.
‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ said Bernard to Cormack, indicating the entrance to the cage.
By now, Cormack was confident enough in Stanton Bosch’s amazing ability to extricate him from the Ordeals that he only offered token resistance as a matter of form and so as not to arouse suspicions.
Proton in turn reciprocated by fingering his laser gun half-heartedly and, formalities having thus been observed, they were ready to go.
The cage was shut with a clang, padlocked, and then attached to a chain that led over the winch and through a pulley. With an enormous effort from the Sibyl – Proton’s offers of help were refused as bad form – the cage was raised and locked in position.
The Sibyl stood back, breathless, and gave the final instructions.
‘Candidate,’ he said. ‘This is the Final Ordeal. Ordeal by Fire. As I say, this is a first for us. No one has ever completed the Second Ordeal before, so we are a little unpractised as to the mechanics of the thing.
But the Throat and I do take an enormous amount of pride in our ability to work these things through and we think everything is thoroughly in order according to all the Ancient Texts. So there really should be nothing to worry about at all. Unless you’re not the Negus of course. Then you would have to be very worried indeed…’
‘Yes, yes,’ interrupted Proton. ‘Get on with it, Bernard.’
The Sibyl continued a little louder. ‘As I was saying, the cage will be lowered on my command of,
“Lower!” When it hits the pool, the Throat has specified a submersion of no less than five seconds. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, I do,’ said Cormack.
‘Very good,’ said the Sibyl, pleased to have had a response. ‘I think you’re getting the hang of these things now.’
He resumed his position by the winch, commanded himself, ‘Lower!’ in an authoritative voice, and began to turn the wheel that would lower the cage down the volcano. The pulley was geared so the cage was dropping very slowly, and Cormack was able to move to one side and look through the bars.
Proton, watching from the diving board could, after the cage had been lowered some ten feet, see nothing except its hard metal top and the Sibyl too, hard at work with the winch, soon lost sight of him.
Chapter Forty-Five
‘Pssst! Pssst!’
Cormack looked up to see where the sound was coming from.
It was Stanton Bosch, leering from a hole in the roof. Somehow he had managed to secrete himself in a hidden chamber he must have engineered when he had stolen the cage.
‘Get me down from here,’ he whispered horribly. ‘It’s frigging tight.’
It did look very uncomfortable.
Stanton Bosch moved himself around in his compartment to free himself, and first one leg came down and then another, all accompanied by hideous grunts and wheezes. It was echoes of the cow’s eruption into the belly of the Prison Whale, thought Cormack.
At last he dropped down, the cage rocked a bit, and he was standing on the floor. He was a strange sight, like a geriatric frogman, because he was wearing one of the Guards’ thermal suits. He had another in his hand.
‘Here, put this on, skinny man,’ he said. Cormack complied immediately, standing in the centre of the cage as he got in it so that he couldn’t be seen.
‘Now, we got to get you up there in the roof before we hits the lava,’ said Stanton Bosch.
He crouched down and indicated that Cormack was to get on his shoulders.
With some reluctance, Cormack moved himself onto Stanton Bosch and was raised upwards. The Bosch seemed quite recovered from the horrors of the Fractious Jub-Jub tree. His body was back to its normal lithe shape and held firm under Cormack’s weight. He was able to guide him into the compartment from where Cormack arranged himself flat against the roof.
‘You’ll be all right in there,’ said Stanton Bosch. ‘Just hold tight to the sides. It will surely get damned hot.’
‘What about you?’ said Cormack. ‘What is going to happen to you?’
‘Now, don’t you worries about me, skinny man. I is going to be just fine…’
Stanton Bosch couldn’t finish the sentence because the cage was so low to the pool now that little flares of flame were firing into it, hitting him around his legs, and he was hopping back and forth, and all Cormack could hear above the bubbling of the lava was, ‘Holy crap! Holy crap!’
He still had enough presence of mind, however, to jump up and slam the compartment shut. Cormack was in darkness, the heat around him incredible and only the muffled ‘Holy craps!’ coming from below to keep him company. Then it got unbelievably hot and he couldn’t breathe properly. The air around him closed tight on his throat, suffocating him, and he must have passed out, because when he came to, the cage was moving upwards. There was a series of bangs from below, the trapdoor beneath him was pulled open, and he squeezed himself out, dropping to the floor. He looked around, dazed and breathless, but Stanton Bosch was nowhere to be seen.
The cage was getting higher now. He took off the thermal suit, and pushed it through the bars of the cage so that it fell down to the lava pool below, and then he sat on the floor of the cage, perfectly still, feeling very sick, as it rose under the Sibyl’s exertions.
Eventually, by craning his neck upwards, he could make out Proton’s face. He was lying flat on the diving board, peering down below, so that Cormack could just see a head, a little way above, sticking out from the rock like a gargoyle on a buttress.
He seemed to be having an extremely animated conversation with the Sibyl. Then he shouted down a few desperate ‘Cormacks!’ and then muttered some more at Bernard.
Cormack could just make out what they were saying. It seemed that the Sibyl, not the strongest of individuals, had suffered a cramp as the cage had reached the lava pool at the bottom of the drop, and he had been unable pull it up for a while and it had rested beneath the lava far longer than the five seconds the Shamanic Throat had prescribed. Proton was beside himself.
‘My beautiful boy has been burned to a crisp, Bernard! There’s no bloody way he could have survived that! No bloody way!’
‘I do apologize,’ said Bernard. ‘It was most unfortunate. I did keep telling you how unpractised I am at this particular Ordeal.’
‘You might be unpractised, Bernard, but your real problem is you’re so damned weak.’
‘I’m two hundred years old, Captain. And the winch is unexpectedly stiff.’
‘They’ll be a court case, Bernard. I’m warning you now.’
The Sibyl rolled his eyes and concentrated on the raising of the cage, which was proceeding apace now he had sufficient adrenaline flowing through him.
Proton turned back down the pit and cried pitifully, ‘Cormack, mate! Cormack!’
‘Proton!’ Cormack called back, more to stop him arguing with Bernard, whom he quite liked and thought had done a reasonably professional job in trying circumstances, than because he wanted to reassure Proton.
‘Cormack!’ cried Proton, ‘Cormack. Is it you?’
‘Proton!’ cried Cormack back.
‘Cormack, mate! Cormack! You’re alive! Are you alive?’
‘Yes, Proton!’
‘And what the hell do you look like?’
‘I’m OK, Proton.’
‘OK! OK! Cormack, mate! It’s Cormack, Bernard! He’s alive!’
The cage was high enough now for Proton to see him.
‘Get him out of there, Bernard, right now!’ he said. But it was to be a full five minutes of Bernard’s cack-handed fumbling, as he swung the cage wildly back and forth and fiddled endlessly with keys, with Proton all the while standing by impatiently, anxious to help, but being assured by the Sibyl it was quite unnecessary to do so and may indeed, if he went ahead, be considered by the Throat to be a violation of the rules of the Ordeal, before it was finally secured on solid ground and opened up and Cormack was released. Once he was on the diving board and Proton had finished manfully hugging him, Cormack looked down into the void for signs of Stanton Bosch, but could see nothing except the smoky-red glow of the lava, bubbling noisily below.
Chapter Forty-Six
The referee called for penalties and, as usual, Bellingham had a plan.
She would be taking the first, Frantic the second, and then it would be up to the regular forwards, more accustomed to firing on goal, to finish the job off.
The Zargons were completely unprepared and looked to the Emperor for guidance. He was back on his pony, with the inert hive-mind box strapped once again to his head, but he was still dribbling blood, and had a kind of fruity expression on his face as though he were laying a turd, and wouldn’t respond when they asked him what to do. They didn’t want to decide anything without him but they had to form a plan, so they started mouthing to each other, ‘You first,’ and so on, when they thought he wasn’t looking. At last some kind of order was agreed upon and it was understood that the Emperor would go first.
The Emperor’s pony, when no instruction came and it could see what was to be done, led him slowly towards the penalty area. The crowd was quiet. The pony stopped by the spandrill, tied to the penalty spot.
Everything was just red now. Like it was washed with blood. Rusts and cardinals and fuchsias and persimmons and chestnuts and cerise. Tones of red, so many it made a world. The reds moving, all over each other. The static like an ocean. And in the ocean, something screaming. One of the reds, ochre.
Down there. By his feet. He could hear it quite clearly. He must get down.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Proton was ecstatic, the Sibyl less so, as it meant the end of his time with the Shamanic Throat who had announced his retirement now that the Negus had been found, Cormack, concerned, especially when Proton tried to get him to wear a crown of thorns that he had fashioned from brambles plucked from a hedgerow on their way back to camp, and the cow, amused.
‘Ooh, Cormack! Well done!’ she said and gave him a little wink. ‘Just think of it! You a Negus!’
‘The standing army is ready,’ said Bernard to Proton mostly, although everyone could hear him because they were all huddled together around the campfire. ‘They’re really rather a rag-bag of hardcore fanatics and might not be much use, but it’s a start, and a start is better than nothing. They’re in Kabbal, one day’s journey from here. I’ll be showing you the way; then the rest is up to you. And the Candidate, of course. He’s still the Candidate until the Throat announces him as the Negus tomorrow.’
‘Excellent, Bernard! Cormack, my boy! Negus! You hear that! The Throat is ready to endorse you.’
‘Now, the small matter of the refundable deposit,’ said Bernard.
‘Yes, Bernard,’ said Proton slowly.
‘I’m afraid that, given that we’re shutting up shop here and the whole shebang is winding down after one hundred and eighty years of difficult and painstaking work, it’s not going to be possible to follow through on that particular matter. There’s going to be all kinds of unexpected expenses. I have to find a new home for the Shamanic Throat for one thing. And legally speaking the organization that took the deposit was dissolved when the Final Ordeal was successfully completed…’
A flash of anger crossed Proton’s face, and then he looked at Bernard, who was, in fact, close to tears, and his anger melted instantly, and he opened his arms out to him and Bernard, at first hesitant, moved towards Proton and they fell into a manly embrace.
‘I’m terribly sorry,’ the Sibyl sobbed, ‘but you’ve caused rather a sensation round here with your Candidate. It’s all been quite overwhelming. And very disruptive. I didn’t think he would cut the mustard at all, when I saw him that first day, but he’s proven me quite wrong…’
‘Enough of the tears, Bernard. You should be happy. Your mission has been fulfilled.’
‘One is always so resistant to change. I’ll get over it soon enough, I expect,’ said Bernard and Proton took the elderly Sibyl’s head in his hands and let him rest it on his lap.
‘So, Cormack, young fella-me-lad - phase two,’ said Proton, turning to Cormack, who was toasting a muffin on the opposite side of the fire.
‘What exactly is phase two, Proton?’ said Cormack.
‘Well, you heard Bernard. You’re to be endorsed as the Negus, having passed the Three Ordeals of the Shamanic Throat, and your army awaits you a day’s march away.’
‘My army?’
‘Don’t be too upset when you meet them, Cormack. Like Bernard says, it’s just a start. They’re the real die-hards. Most of them are quite mad. They’ve been waiting for your return, without any real hope, for years and years now, so you must excuse them. They mean well, though. But once the Throat has announced you, things are really going to start happening. We’re launching a media offensive. Once word gets out on the uniSwarm, this thing is really going to take off. I promise you.’
Later, Cormack managed to have a quiet word with the cow.
‘So what’s the plan, then?’ said Cormack. ‘I think Proton wants to kill me.’
‘He don’t want to kill you, Cormack. He wants to use you. For his own evil purposes. You are right to be wary,’ said the cow.
‘So what are we to do?’
‘For now, play along with the Captain. We got you covered. We’ll go to Kabbal.’
‘Is that what Stanton Bosch said to do?’
‘You know, now you mention it, I haven’t seen me Stanton Bosch, since the Final Ordeal…’
Chapter Forty-Eight
The Emperor was lying on the pitch. He had the spandrill out of its strap. It had bitten him once. He had felt the pain as sharp crimson, bleeding from a central point, like iodine on filter paper.
It was quiet now in his hand, scared beyond belief.
The crowd, seeing the Emperor drop to the floor, had dropped with him, but he had been down so long now a low murmur was buzzing round the ground as people strained upwards to look to see what he was doing. He had turned on his back, and had rested the spandrill on his little belly, and had cupped his hands around it so that it couldn’t escape, and he held it there tightly, not letting it move.
The referee didn’t know what to do. The Emperor would not take his shot and the shoot-out could not continue. The match would have to be abandoned.
Mrs. Bellingham was in the Cramptonian half, bewildered. She needed to get to the Emperor to blow him up. She had wanted to do it at the presentation ceremony, or when he was about to cut her head off, but if the match were abandoned and he lay on the pitch playing with the spandrill any longer, she would not have her opportunity. The situation called for decisive action.
She mounted her pony and set off to where the Emperor lay.
‘Emperor,’ she said when she reached him. ‘Sad, mad Emperor. I’m talking to you.’
The Emperor looked up, towards the red, where the voice came from.
‘Emperor,’ she said again. ‘I have come here to kill you.’
He saw her as mauve, flat and matt amongst the vibrancies, a dullness, without sheen. Standing still too long - an oppression.
She threw herself on him, as though she were belly flopping to a mattress, and smothered him and the spandrill too. Then when she had him covered, she began a frantic scrambling with her fingers on the handle of the mallet, trying to get the hidden compartment open so she could smash the phial. As she had dived, th
e crowd had risen, and the referee, panicked into action and blowing his whistle furiously, was racing down the pitch, the teams in pursuit. It would have to be done quickly. She could feel the spandrill beneath her, feebly making efforts to burrow its way out, and the Emperor roaring and trying to throw her off, and she couldn’t get the compartment open.
At last, her thumb connected with the right place, and she pressed against the phial, pushing it hard. It crushed beneath her finger, shards of glass stuck her, and she felt a heat as the balm mixed with the air.
She braced for the explosion. But nothing came.
She washed it about some more, and took it to her lips to blow on it, and there was a pop and spark from the casing, and then, milliseconds later, an explosion that cracked through the stadium with a shower of flame and a great shaft of smoke, and bits of Mrs. Bellingham and bits of the Emperor and bits of the tiny spandrill sprayed up into the air in a bloody arc, as though they were fired from a wood-chipper, raining down gore on the crowd closest to the goal.
Chapter Forty-Nine
The Shamanic Throat was still at camp, preparations for his removal not yet having been completed, and nothing could be packed up and put away, but there was an end of term feeling in Shambalah all the same.
The cow was frolicking carelessly in the long grass to the west of the glade, near to the tent that contained the Throat himself.
He had issued his pronouncement that morning in a small ceremony that was attended only by Bernard and Proton. The cow had seen them emerge together, hand in hand, but Proton had been looking puzzled, and they were muttering to each other.
