The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers coaaod-6 Read online

  Chegory, far more concerned with mere survival than with his rights, found Ingalawa’s attitudes alien, to say the least. He was not nearly so sanguine. If truth be told, he was near frantic with worry. He was under arrest on a drugs charge. What worse could happen?

  ‘Shabble!’ said Pokrov. ‘Turn down your light! You’re pulling in every bug in creation!’

  But Shabble made no reply. Instead, the imitator of suns sang sweet madrigals, quite lost in a musical fugue. So the humans ignored the lord of chaos, tried (less successfully) to ignore the swarms of insects lured by the light of the singing one, and endeavoured to compose themselves for sleep.

  Olivia produced an ivory comb and began to stroke it through her long, silky black hair. Chegory watched her out of the corner of his eye. Shortly he had to carefully compose his limbs so no evidence of his uprising passion would be visible. He was not at all embarrassed at this; it was such a common occurrence that he indulged in the necessary manoeuvres without thinking.

  ‘Shall we tell our dreams?’ said Ingalawa.

  The telling of dreams is an Ashdan custom followed in Ashmolea South and Ashmolea North alike. One does not tell the dreams one has endured already; instead, one tells the dreams one wishes to have.

  ‘You first,’ said Olivia.

  ‘I wish to dream myself… living in the usual,’ said Ingalawa. ‘No alarums in the streets, no prison walls, no soldiers. Instead, the Dromdanjerie as always. My own room, my own bed, the peace within my own mosquito net.’

  Ingalawa was a skilled dreamer with years of training and experience behind her. Since that was her chosen dream that was surely what would grace her sleep that night.

  ‘I wish,’ said Olivia, still soothing the comb through the free-flowing fantasy of her hair, ‘I wish… I wish the same.’

  But the way in which she said it hinting of things unspoken, of visions altogether different, of dreams intended yet unvoiced.

  ‘You now,’ she said, glancing at Chegory.

  Then glancing away. Too quickly, too casually. His dream? He saw Pokrov watching him, saw the smile on Pokrov’s lips. Knew Pokrov knew. But he denied all, and said stolidly:

  ‘I wish to be a rock. That’s all. That’s what I’ll be tonight. A rock, nothing else.’

  ‘Oh, Chegory!’ said Ingalawa. ‘What will happen to you if you can’t dream more than that?’

  ‘It’s only dreams,’ said Chegory.

  ‘But dreams shape life,’ answered Ingalawa.

  Reason was with her. The shaping of aspirations is never a matter to be taken lightly. In part, the Ashdan discipline of dream-telling is such a shaping. It is also a sharing, and, indeed, a profoundly effective method of socialisation. By declaring that he would be a rock, Chegory was rejecting the aspirations which Ingalawa wished to foist upon him; he was shutting himself off from the elite intellectual society which she wanted him to enter; he was declaring his life hopeless even though he was her pet project. He was being, in a word, offensive.

  ‘They do shape life, you know,’ persisted Ingalawa. ‘Chegory, Chegory, what will become of you if you don’t try?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Chegory, in scarcely more than a mumble. He was too tired for this. Debate, rhetoric, ideology — Ingalawa had an endless appetite for such. But Chegory was exhausted, and longed for sleep. To avoid further argument he said: ‘I have to excuse myself for a moment.’

  Then he stumped off to find the toilet, which he located at the rear of the temple. It was nothing fancy. Just a shaft bored straight down into the ground until it debouched into one of the tunnels Downstairs. In this case, the tunnel in question was lit with unearthly green light, some of which filtered up the bog-hole. By that light Chegory saw a heavyweight metal grille halfway down, a focus for filth which prevented anyone escaping down this makeshift sewer, and also stopped any occult horror creeping up into the temple from Downstairs.

  By the toilet was the customary bowl of water, but smell alone told Chegory it was foul with the filth of dozens of people. He was disgusted, and found himself immediately constipated. Nevertheless, he took a piss, then mooched back to his companions, hoping to find them seriously attempting to sleep. But instead he found them arguing with soldiers. By the time Chegory realised his danger, he had been spotted.

  ‘Zounds!’ cried one. ‘It’s him!’

  He turned to run, but they were too quick for him.

  Scorched uniforms, singed hair, angry sunburn and patches of blisters told him who they were. These were the soldiers Shabble had burnt. They were exceedingly sore, very angry and definitely in a mood for murder.

  ‘Ebby!’ said one, punching him.

  ‘Stop that!’ shouted Ingalawa, grabbing the bully.

  ‘You stay out of this,’ said the soldier, shaking her off.

  Then the soldiers began to shove Chegory around, pushing him so he went reeling from one to the other.

  ‘What next?’ yelled one.

  ‘Skin him alive,’ growled one dragon-bitten veteran.

  ‘Eat him alive,’ shouted another.

  ‘No, no. Stake him out in Lak Street for the rats to eat.’

  ‘Oh, too easy, too easy. The lagoon, boys. Tomorrow. Blood in the water. Sharks.’

  All the while Chegory stumbled helplessly from one shove to the next, knowing he would be pulped if he fought back. Swiftly, a consensus formed. The soldiers would prove their own virility and the inferiority of members of lesser races by castrating the Ebrell Islander.

  ‘You can’t!’ screamed Olivia.

  ‘Ebby lover!’ said a soldier, administering a slap along with the insult.

  There followed loud noises from Qasaba, Ingalawa and Pokrov with reference to lawyers and lawsuits. All the while Shabble bobbed about in the air, making music that got steadily louder and louder. This the soldiers ignored until the torturer of harmonies began to imitate a skava-mareen.

  [i Skavamareen: despite hints made below by the Originator to the effect that this is a species of mechanical device, it is actually a type of demon rumoured to scourge the lands west of the Great Ocean. In those benighted lands, a fearful populace propitiates these demons with human sacrifices to obtain their silence, for to endure the wail of a skavamareen is agony undiluted. Ritha, Annotator Minor.]

  [Ritha’s note on the skavamareen is in error. The great lexicographer Zero Twink has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the word ‘skavamareen’ denotes a rabid wildcat. Sot Dawbler, School of Commentary.]

  To the skavamareen the demented Shabble then added ghoul-drums, a two-tone gong, a set of babble-tongs, the sound of a dragon with a bad case of flatulence, the cry of a cockerel and the bray of an ass.

  The guards took exception to Shabble’s musical taste, particularly when the genius loci of Injiltaprajura added a second skavamareen to this makeshift orchestra. By now you will be asking the obvious question. What, you ask, is a skavamareen? Ask away! The device will not be described here, lest some reckless spirit be tempted to build one from description. Ignorance is bliss!

  Let it merely be recorded that the soldiers were truly justified in attacking Shabble with shovels. This they did, battering at the imitator of suns in a truly terrible fashion. But it is almost (not entirely — the therapists of the Golden Gulag knew how!) impossible to hurt or kill Shabble, just as it is impossible to damage a rainbow.

  Such was the fury of these men at arms that they quite abandoned Chegory Guy as they onslaughted Shabble. Chegory promptly collapsed. Sick, dizzy and disorientated. Olivia and Ingalawa comforted him as best they could while Ivan Pokrov made notes by Shabblelight for the trial (of certain members of Justina’s brutal and licentious soldiery) which would surely result from this night of outrage.

  The noise grew even louder as Shabble competed in volume with swearing soldiers, the incessant screaming of sundry babies and the groans, moans and assorted abuse of disinterested parties who merely wished to sleep.

  These proceedings were interrupt
ed by the advent of a senior officer whose stentorian voice nearly shattered eardrums as he roared:

  ‘What the hell is going on here?’

  This officer was the commander of the detention centre, a lean Ashdan whose every word and gesture bespoke the habit of command. Nevertheless, neither his impressive appearance nor his thunderblast query won him reply. His men were in too much of a fighting frenzy to be distracted by anything less than a bucket of cold water.

  The commander promptly found such a bucket and tossed it over Shabble’s assailants who sobered up with amazing alacrity.

  ‘Shut that thing in the shit pot!’ said the commander.

  Men scurried to obey.

  Shabble of the many musics was too intoxicated by melodic raptures to resist this indignity. Thus the potential incinerator of soldiers was bundled into the shit pot. The lid was put on, muting the cacophony emanating from within. Some twine was produced and used to tie tight the lid.

  ‘Throw it into the well!’ said the officer.

  Again he was obeyed.

  The shit pot tumbled away into the darkness and hit the water below with a muted splash. For the time being the troublesome one was lost to eye and ear alike and something close to silence reigned. Naturally Shabble would burn Shabbleself free once the musical fit was over, but for the moment the innovative one had no thoughts for anything but creative ecstasy.

  The officer then ordered one of his subordinates to march away all idle soldiers and put them to work.

  ‘Wait a moment,’ said Ivan Pokrov. ‘I want the names of these people. I want them brought to justice.’

  ‘Take them away,’ said the commander.

  His subordinate marched the soldiers away. Some cast dour glances at Chegory Guy as they filed past his recumbent body, and one or two muttered unveiled threats against his person. Once they were gone, Ingalawa abandoned Chegory to Olivia’s exclusive care, and got to her feet to confront the commander.

  ‘Who are you?’ said Ingalawa.

  ‘That should have been my question,’ said the commander with something of a sneer. ‘But I know enough about you without a name.’

  Why was this said with a sneer?

  Because he was addressing a woman who was also a child of the effete culture of Ashmolea South. The commander was from the north, where they breed ferocious fighters who vaiue physical supremacy above all else. Ingalawa did not like his attitude at all. He was dismissing her as if she were of no account, which was intolerable. Ingalawa was a scion of one of the few fighting cfans of Ashmolea’s south, and when her temper was roused the liberal Ashdan intellectual soon gave way to the homicidal berserker.

  So she said:

  ‘Have you a name?’

  In Ashmolea, this is fighting call, and always compels a response. For to be silent is to accept dishonour to oneself and to one’s family.

  ‘A name? Shanvil Angarus May! Is that name enough for you? May of Rest Acular! Is that genesis sufficient?’ ‘That’s all we need to sue you,’ said Ivan Pokrov. ‘We’ll have a summons drawn up as soon as we get out of here.’ ‘You’re crazy,’ said Shanvil May, speaking to Pokrov with a contempt equal to that which he had displayed when addressing Ingalawa.

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Pokrov. ‘Our good friend Chegory Guy has been beaten nearly to death by your soldiers. I hold you responsible. Doubtless the courts will take a similar view of your culpability. Either you ordered it or else through gross negligence you failed to prevent it.’

  ‘You’re the one who’s in trouble, not me,’ said Shanvil May, totally unimpressed by this fancy little speech. ‘You’re being held on charges of the utmost gravity.’

  ‘Trumped-up charges!’ protested Pokrov.

  ‘That’s as may be,’ said May, ‘but the law is the law and the law will be obeyed because it is the law. You will stay in detention until you have answered the charges.’

  ‘What are we charged with?’ said Ingalawa.

  ‘Consorting with drug dealers to start with,’ said Shanvil May. ‘Do you deny it?’

  ‘I’ll answer that question in court,’ said Ingalawa.

  So she said, though her plan was still to resolve her difficulties by petitioning the Empress Justina. If she had to fight the matter out in court she must necessarily lose, since she was as guilty as hell, because she had indeed been consorting with drug dealers. She had even drunk of the dreaded alcohol, and the taint of the same drug was still on her breath.

  ‘I,’ said Shanvil May, ‘will enjoy watching you try to wriggle out of this one in a court of law.’

  With that said, he turned to leave.

  ‘You can’t just walk off like that!’ said Ingalawa. ‘We need protection. Your soldiers have already tried to murder us. I’ll hold you responsible if one of us gets murdered. Look — this Ebrell boy is so badly beaten he can’t even stand.’ ‘Not a problem,’ said Shanvil May briskly. ‘I’ll send your Ebby friend to the palace to be Tested.’

  ‘Tested?’ said Olivia. ‘By what?’

  ‘By the squealer in the treasury, of course,’ said May. ‘What else?’

  Upon which Chegory, who was not nearly as badly hurt as Ingalawa had made out, thought:

  Thanks, Ingalawa! You’ve really done it this time!

  He did not want to go to the palace. He wanted nothing to do with any Test. Also he did not want to be removed from Olivia who was so sweetly treasuring his bruises.

  ‘How will taking him away to the palace help?’ said Olivia. ‘He’ll still get beaten up.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Shanvil May, in a voice which was two parts of soothing balm to nine parts of lordly condescension. ‘The Test of the squealer will take all night. By the time your boyfriend gets back here those soldiers sharking after him will have gone off shift. It’ll be a new day.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ said Pokrov decisively. ‘I know all about that thing you call a squealer. It gives judgement in less than a heartbeat. How can that take all night?’

  ‘There’ll be a queue,’ said May.

  Then set about organising Chegory’s journey.

  So it came to pass that Chegory Guy was very shortly marched out of the Temple of Torture, up Goldhammer Rise and then up Lak Street. Through the night went Chegory and his escorting soldiers, sweating as they laboured through the coffin-close heat of the tropical night. Past the ship-sized chunk of bone known as Pearl they went. So cool it looked, but nevertheless the night was stifling. Past the grand houses glimmering with the blue-green light of moon paint. Cool these looked also, but heat was still breathing out from the sun-tormented slabs of bloodstone over which Chegory and his escorts walked. Then at last there bulked ahead the pink palace of the Empress Justina, jewel of Injiltaprajura.

  [Here an ambiguity. Was the palace that jewel, or the Empress? Whichever way this ambiguity is resolved one must find the Originator guilty of bad taste, for the Empress was a pandornabriloothoprata, as they so neatly put it in Janjuladoola, whereas the palace itself was a monument to kitsch of the worst possible kind. Oris Baumgage, Fact Checker Minor.]

  Chegory was marched up the steps to the portico. Between the huge carven pillars he was led. Into the foyer he was taken. There he was handed over to the palace guards.

  ‘Another one for the squealer,’ said a soldier. ‘To go back to the detention centre when finished with.’

  Chegory was paperworked then taken into the deep-delved interstices of the palace underlevels, there to await the Test. Shanvil May was correct in thinking the Test would not take place in a hurry. In the corridor leading to the treasury there was a long, long queue of Ebrell Islanders and similar undesirables waiting to be tested by the squealer.

  Suspects were taken into the treasury one by one. The squealer (an antique device of uncertain origin) would wail long and loud if anyone presented to it had been in its presence in the last ten years.

  Chegory was content inasmuch as he knew himself to be innocent. At least here in the palace no disaster could befall h
im. There was nobody here who wanted to kill him; Ingalawa was far away and hence unable to bully him further; he need not worry for the moment about petitions, publicity and the dire punishments which would surely fall upon him as an inevitable consequence of the crime of being an Ebrell Islander.

  The queue moved but slowly.

  The suspects emerging from the treasury after clearance by the squealer had bloody noses and worse, suggesting that the guards within were amusing themselves at the expense of the captives. Chegory scarcely reacted to this. He had sunk into a fatalistic mood. A beating? What mattered a beating in the face of the absolute disaster which had befallen him?

  He started worst-casing his predicament.

  What worried him most was the prospect of the agonising embarrassment of public exposure, the shame he would suffer when he had to face his straightbacked uncle Dunash Labrat, and the prospect of exile.

  Apart from that, he did not think anything too terrible would happen, as long as he could evade the murderous vigilantism of the soldiers whom Shabble had burnt. The standard punishments of the Izdimir Empire had largely fallen into disuse after Wazir Sin had been overthrown. Such crimes as treason still attracted heavy penalties, but minor malefactors were no longer thrown to pits full of vampire rats. Nor were they [Here a loving account of the seven hundred Standard Punishments of the Izdimir Empire has been deleted in the interests of concision. Those interested in the details will find them admirably explicated in an encyclopaedic work by Boz Reebok entitled The Compleat Manual of Mercy. Drax Lira, Redactor Major.]

  Thus Chegory could count on keeping possession of his limbs, senses and sanity. Nevertheless, exile was a definite possibility. Injiltaprajura would think itself well rid of an Ebrell Islander who brawled in the streets, consorted with drug dealers and indulged in the dreaded alcohol.

  Exile to Zazazolzodanzarzakazolabrik!

  To many, such a prospect would have been nightmarish, for those wastelands to the north of Injiltaprajura were fearsome indeed. A desert of rotten rock undermined by sea-flooded tunnels where dwelt huge sea scorpions and sea centipedes. Ancient ruins haunted by evil metal which hunted and killed. The encampments of the aboriginal people of Untunchilamon, a hunted race feared and despised by those who dwelt in the city.