The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers coaaod-6 Page 18

  Chegory had seen a few dead bodies in his time but the corpse shop was something else again for it was crowded with the unkempt dead. Flies in their thousands buzzed in manic frustration on the outer side of the gauze which sealed the windows against their intrusion. Everywhere there were limbs, bones, buckets of blood, assorted organs spilling out of sacks, heads bereft of connection, unidentifiable torsos and worse.

  As for the smell!

  The slaughterhouse stench was worse than the gut-wrenching odour which arose from the helpless dements locked into Crawlspace Seven in the Dromdanjerie. It made Chegory nauseous. Uckermark displayed no discomfort, which was understandable; the corpse master had no sense of smell whatsoever, since that sense had been utterly destroyed when his face was ravaged by fire.

  ‘Sit!’ said Uckermark curtly, pointing to a stool.

  Chegory sat, averted his eyes from a pile of unmentionable oddments in a tray near his feet.

  ‘Thank you… thank you for saving me,’ said Chegory awkwardly.

  ‘I didn’t save you,’ said Uckermark. ‘I saved this.’ He meant the knife. A pretty thing: its handle azure, its blade celadon. ‘This,’ he continued, ‘must not win unwanted attention, else the Calligrapher’s Union will have to seek a new recognition sign.’

  ‘The… the Calligrapher’s Union?’ said Chegory.

  ‘You don’t know!?’ said Uckermark, startled.

  ‘Know what?’ said Chegory.

  ‘So you don’t! Gods, I wished I’d — bugger! The banquet. I have to take you to banquet.’

  ‘Why’s that so terrible?’ said Chegory.

  ‘Because it means I can’t just cut your thieving throat and dump your corpse down a sewer!’ said Uckermark.

  ‘I’m no thief!’ protested Chegory.

  ‘Then how did you get this knife?’

  ‘I found it, didn’t I?’

  ‘Found it!’

  ‘It’s true! What’s with the knife, anyway? That’s — what, something for that union, calligraphy, that’s letterwriting, isn’t it? You’ve got a union for that? Look, I’m not in competition, I can’t hardly write excepting for Ashmarlan, who uses Ashmarlan anyway, I mean a few Ashdans but but-’

  ‘Shut up!’ said Uckermark. ‘Stop babbling! Just answer questions. You’ll learn all in due course — if you live. If you do want to live pray tell how you came by this knife.’

  ‘Oh, it’s a long story, a long story,’ said Chegory. ‘A terrible story, you wouldn’t believe, but it’s the truth, I’ll truth it all out to you. There were some shark jaws, you see, down below. That’s after I met the Malud marauders, or was it, no, I met the elf first, he’s a chef at the moment or pretending to be but Downstairs he was all in armour, nice as a fish-skin it fitted, like a, an elven lord from legend. You see-’

  Thus Chegory, in a rush, began to vomit up his life’s secrets. Uckermark raised a hand, halting his incontinent blatter.

  ‘Let’s take this bit by bit,’ said Uckermark. ‘Where did you first lay hands on the knife?’

  ‘In the dark,’ said Chegory.

  Which was true, but was less than informative.

  ‘Talk sense!’ said Uckermark.

  ‘I’m trying, I’m trying! But you — you — this stink, those flies, the — what do you think I-’

  Uckermark sighed.

  ‘Ease up,’ said the corpse master. ‘Easy, now! We’ll try a little medicine, maybe that will make you settle.’

  So saying, the corpse master took a small cup of eggshell porcelain, filled it with clear fluid then passed it to Chegory. Who drank without caution. He coughed and spluttered. It felt as if liquid fire had been poured down his throat. He looked at the half-full cup with horror.

  This was alcohol!

  A righteous, law-abiding young man would have flung the filthy stuff in the corpse master’s face. But Chegory Guy was an Ebrell Islander. Therefore, after a pause to collect his breath, he downed the rest of the bub in a single swallow.

  Whereupon he began to feel… better.

  ‘Good medicine, isn’t it just?’ said Uckermark, with something of a chuckle.

  ‘It does the job,’ admitted Chegory, finding his nerves much steadier.

  ‘Slowly, then,’ said Uckermark. ‘Let’s take these questions slowly. You found the knife in the dark, did you? Pray tell — where found you this particular dark?’

  Soon, Uckermark knew the bare essentials of Chegory’s adventurings Downstairs.

  ‘I’ll send for Log Jaris,’ said the corpse master.

  ‘Log Jaris?’

  ‘The bullman.’

  ‘Does he… is he… is it his knife?’

  ‘Never you mind about that,’ said Uckermark. Then he gave vent to an ear-shattering shout: ‘Yilda!’

  From upstairs there came a hard-bitten woman aged somewhere between forty and sixty.

  ‘Chegory,’ shouted Uckermark, pointing at Chegory.

  She nodded.

  ‘Go fetch Log Jaris!’ shouted Uckermark.

  Yilda nodded again, then departed.

  ‘She’s deaf?’ said Chegory.

  ‘And mute,’ said Uckermark. ‘The deafness is a problem, but the muteness — ah, many a man would kill to be so privileged.’

  Then he chuckled.

  It might as well be noted at this juncture that he was making a misogynistical joke. Yilda was deaf — though the degree of her deafness is not known precisely, since she was one of those people who often choose not to hear what is said unless it suits their convenience — but she was not by any means mute.

  Since the corpse master was (at least temporarily) once more in good humour, Chegory risked another query about Log Jaris, but his attempts to elicit further information were rebuffed.

  The truth of the matter is that both Uckermark and Log Jaris were members of the Calligrapher’s Union, a secret society formed on Untunchilamon during the days of Wazir Sin, whose rigorous enforcement of the laws of the Izdimir Empire had made life very difficult for people who could not properly document their existence. Hence the Calligrapher’s Union specialised in forgery. It was, in effect, a self-defence league for people whose legality was at best marginal.

  A knife with an azure handle and a celadon blade was the recognition sign of the Union. When Uckermark had seen soldiers snatch such a blade from Chegory Guy in the pink palace the deluded corpse master had thought Chegory to be a member of the Union, or to at least be in possession of the Union’s secrets. This misapprehension was what had inspired the corpse master to heroic endeavour in the fight before the throne of the Empress Justina.

  ‘May I… have you got anywhere…’

  ‘The toilet?’ said Uckermark. ‘It’s in the courtyard. That’s out the back. Don’t let in the flies! There’s three screen doors, my own invention, a flylock. If you can’t make sense of it, come and tell me.’

  ‘Yes, but, um… what I really wanted… if I could…’ ‘Out with it, boy!’

  ‘Well actually, if you’ve got anywhere I could sleep, I wouldn’t mind putting my head down.’

  ‘Oh, sleep,’ said Uckermark. ‘Upstairs, if that’s what you want to do. But there’s bars on the windows, so don’t think you can run away or anything like that.’

  ‘You’re keeping me prisoner?’

  ‘What else can I do? The Empress demands you! I’ve got to keep you safe till the banquet at the very least.’ ‘Banquet?’ said Chegory blankly.

  ‘The Empress Justina invited you to dine with her.’

  ‘But that — that was a joke. Surely!’

  ‘The Empress,’ said Uckermark severely, ‘does not joke. Certainly not about matters so near and dear to her heart.’ ‘I’m not near and dear to her heart!’

  ‘But you will be,’ said Uckermark. ‘To her heart, liver, kidney, spleen. And something equally wet and warm.’ Then he winked in a truly obscene and insinuating fashion. Did he mean…? No, surely not!

  ‘Are you sure… are you sure she wasn’t making a jok
e?’

  ‘I’m positive!’ said Uckermark. ‘Justina’s her father’s daughter. She knows what she wants. Oh, she fancied for sure when she clapped eyes on you. So enjoy your sleep while you’ve got the opportunity!’

  Chegory hoped he misunderstood the implications of Uckermark’s comments. Nevertheless, whether Uckermark was truthing or joking, the young Ebrell Islander could certainly use all the shuteye he could get. So, after a quick visit to the courtyard, he got himself upstairs and laid himself down on the bed he found there, and was near instantly asleep.

  Young Chegory Guy was still asleep when Log Jaris arrived at the corpse shop. Long did the bullman and the corpse master confer and most serious were the matters which they discussed.

  Several members of the Calligrapher’s Union had been arrested as troops swept and reswept the city in their search for the wishstone. The solution was obvious. The Calligrapher’s Union must itself catch the thieves who stole the wishstone. Before things got out of hand.

  Thanks to information Uckermark had received from Chegory Guy, they knew the wishstone was Downstairs with three Malud marauders. Log Jaris and Uckermark both knew the depths intimately. One of their legal sidelines was bounty hunting, and they had many times in the past ventured Downstairs to run down escaped slaves, rapists, murderers and eloping young lovers.

  ‘How many men can we muster?’ said Uckermark.

  ‘Twenty at short, more at long,’ said Log Jaris.

  ‘What about dogs?’

  ‘A dozen hunters, no problem. We’ll backtrack from my cellar. Follow the boy’s trail till the dogs pick up something else.’

  ‘Will that work? Will the scent be fresh enough?’

  ‘We can but try,’ said Log Jaris. ‘If that fails, we’ll quarter the underworld by sectors. Track any scent we find. Might take us a few days, but they can’t hide forever. Got the map?’

  Uckermark pulled out a map, one copy of many of the plans of the underworld which the Calligrapher’s Union had assembled over the years. Then the two began to discuss tactics in detail.

  ‘What if we catch them?’ said Log Jaris. ‘Interrogate them ourselves, or what?’

  ‘No, straight to the palace,’ said Uckermark. ‘The sooner this State of Emergency comes to an end the better.’ ‘What about this thief in the palace? The man the boy thinks to be an elf?’

  ‘The Zozimus fellow?’ said Uckermark. ‘Leave him. He’s doing us no harm, is he? Might be blackmail money there. I’ll keep close hold of the boy, he’s our witness against Zozimus.’

  ‘What if Zozimus sees the boy at the banquet?’

  ‘What if he does? I’ll be with him, won’t I? No, don’t you worry about that. Get the dogs together, get the men.’ ‘Just one thing,’ said Log Jaris. ‘What if our quarry’s gone to ground in here?’

  So saying, he pointed at the plan of the underworld. The section he indicated had been mapped more by guesswork than anything else. It was a region of doom. Of hideous things from which nightmare itself would have fled.

  ‘Turn loose the dogs, that’s what I’d do,’ said Uckermark. ‘Let the dogs hunt free. They might flush something out. But if the dogs fail — forget it. You wouldn’t catch me going in there!’

  ‘Okay,’ said Log Jaris.

  ‘You’d already decided, hadn’t you?’ said Uckermark. ‘You’re not fool enough to hunt to the horrors!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Log Jaris, ‘but I wanted to hear you say the same for yourself.’

  Then the bullman and the corpse master both laughed, and settled down to share a drink or three before Log Jaris took himself off to organise a hunt of the underworld for the wishstone and the Malud marauders from far-off Asral who had stolen it.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Young Chegory Guy slept on through much of sala-hanthara till Uckermark woke him and escorted him uphill toward the pink palace.

  ‘When’s the banquet, then?’ said Chegory.

  ‘Not yet, not yet,’ said Uckermark. ‘Don’t be in such a hurry! You’ll be close enough to her ladyship soon enough.’ ‘Oh, brender menoth,’ said Chegory, who was bad-tempered from lack of proper sleep.

  [Brender menoth: chop away. Toxteth phrase. The implication is that the one addressed is guilty of unwelcome use of a wit too blunt to be amusing. Oris Baumgage, Fact Checker Minor.]

  They were hiking up Lak Street before Chegory was struck by a question, which would have immediately occurred to a woman.

  ‘What about clothes?’ said he.

  ‘Clothes?’ said Uckermark.

  ‘Yes, look, if we’re going to, like, a banquet, okay, I can hardly go like this, can I? I mean, look at me!’

  Chegory was still wearing the trousers, shirt and boots in which he had been dressed when he had left the island of Jod late in the afternoon on the previous day. Since then, he had been fighting with a kraken and brawling with soldiers, had slept in his clothes on a number of occasions and had gone on all kinds of adventures in a variety of unhygienic places.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about clothes,’ said Uckermark. ‘The Empress will love you just as you are.’

  ‘That settles it!’ said Chegory. ‘We’re not going to a banquet at all, are we? So where are we going? Where are you taking me?’

  ‘You’ll find out,’ said Uckermark, his voice becoming stem and grim. ‘Oh, you’ll find out in time, young Chegory! No — don’t try to run. You can’t get away. You can’t escape! You’re doomed!’

  But Chegory made a break for freedom regardless. Uckermark grabbed him before he had taken as many as three steps, and, after a brief tussle, the Ebrell Islander was subdued then marched up to the palace.

  ‘What’ve we got here?’ said a guard, when Uckermark and Chegory entered the foyer of the palace.

  ‘Meat for the kitchen,’ said Uckermark. ‘Human meat. To be cooked up in the kitchen.’

  ‘Oh, meat!’ said the soldier cheerfully. ‘For the Empress, is it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Uckermark. ‘Her master chef Zozimus will cook it up especially.’

  ‘Oh, capital, capital!’ said the guard. ‘Fresh meat, yes, that’s the thing. If I recall right, she ate bits of three when she banqueted last. The heart of a fisherman’s boy, the liver of a young blacksmith and the kidneys of a — what was it?’ ‘That tender young singer from far-off Ashmolea,’ said Uckermark.

  ‘Oh, the singing boy, yes, that was it!’ said the guard. ‘Well, my lad, are you pleased with your privilege?’

  ‘You can’t do this!’ wailed Chegory fearfully.

  So this was what it was all about! He was appalled by the monstrous conspiracy which had been revealed to him. So that was what Justina had meant about having him to a banquet! Now he understood Uckermark’s joke about Chegory getting close to the imperial gut. He tried to run — but Uckermark and the soldier both grabbed him. This time he struggled with such violence that it took the strength of both to control him.

  As the pair were wrestling the hapless Ebrell Islander to the ground, a harassed official came bustling up to them. It was Justina’s major domo.

  ‘What’s this, what’s this?’ said the major domo. ‘What’s all this fighting then? Stop it immediately!’

  ‘This,’ said Uckermark, panting and laughing at the same time, ‘is meat from the imperial kitchen. This is young Chegory Guy. The Empress Justina wants him slaughtered for her banquet tonight.’

  ‘Guy!’ he said. ‘We’ve been waiting for him! You’re late, you’re late, oh we’ll never get him ready in time.’

  ‘It takes but a moment to gut him and clean him,’ said Uckermark. ‘Then the chef can quick-fry him in moments.’ But the major domo was not amused.

  ‘Let the boy go,’ he said. ‘Stand up, boy. Look! He’s shaking all over! Worse, you’ve bloodied his nose! Stand still, boy! Nobody’s going to eat you.’

  ‘You mean they were — they — they — a joke, they were joking?’

  ‘Boy, you really think Justina a cannibal? Gods! Only a — ne
ver mind. Come this way! We’ve barely time for the necessary preparations.’

  ‘Preparations?’ said Chegory.

  ‘Come! Come on! Look, nobody’s going to eat you, really, don’t be so childish. This way, quick, quick.’

  With that, the major domo led Chegory from the palace foyer, and they had soon left the laughter of Uckermark and his friend far, far behind.

  ‘But,’ said Chegory, both frightened and bewildered by the foreboding mysteries of the palace and his complete loss of control of his own life, ‘but what’s this about preparations?’

  ‘Come this way, this way,’ said the major domo, hustling him along. ‘Fastest begun, fastest finished.’

  ‘What about Uckermark, Uckermark, you know, the corpse master, where’s he., what’s he-’

  ‘Don’t worry about him,’ said the major domo. ‘You’ll meet him again before the banquet. Gods! What a witless joke! Him and that soldier! I’d have the both beaten if there was one chance in ten of knocking some sense into either.’ With that, the major domo showed Chegory into an imposing bathroom where half a dozen perfumed young women were waiting for him. Immediately they fell on him and, giggling and squealing, began to tear off his clothes.

  ‘Help!’ wailed Chegory. ‘Help! Stop it, stop them, someone, help, no, that’s, gods-’

  But all his protests were to no avail. The imperial ladies in waiting stripped him naked, threw him into a huge bath then jumped in afterwards. Then he was washed, sponged and scrubbed without mercy. To his intense embarrassment (in his anguish he thought he would faint) the young women missed nothing in their quest for cleanliness. Scenes equivalent he had oft enjoyed in fantasy — the uninhibited ministrations of nubile sylphs, of unmaidenly beauty by the roomful — but the reality proved shrivelling rather than arousing.

  And what Was that a mouth at his…?!

  While Chegory at one stage feared he would be raped by these giggling female ravagers, he was still in possession of his virginity when he was hauled from the bath to be towelled and combed then hastened to a table where he was hammered and pounded by a masseur who must have trained in one of the more vigorous schools of all-in wrestling. After that he was rushed to the office of Koskini Reni, her ladyship’s personal physician.