The Garden of Unearthly Delights (18 page)

Silence.

Maxwell
gave the pouch another violent shake.

‘Good
night, Maxwell,’ said Rushmear. ‘Sleep well.’

At dawn the sun came up
like a big red Coca-Cola sign without the logo. Or a vast flat tomato. Or any
one of a dozen other oversized bright red objects, none of which springs
immediately to mind.

The air
was crisp, there were no clouds. There seemed all the makings of another day
that was just like the one that had gone before.

Maxwell
awoke to the sounds of cock-crow and profanity.

He
yawned, stretched, picked up the pouch. ‘Good morning, Rushmear,’ he said. ‘And
how are you today?’

‘I need
a shit,’ said Rushmear.

‘If I
let you out of the bag to have one, do you promise to get straight back inside
afterwards?’

‘With
all my heart,’ said Rushmear.

‘Yeah,
right.’ Maxwell retightened the drawstring and tucked the pouch back into his
pocket, further muffling the torrent of abuse that poured from it.

Maxwell
climbed over the parapet and shinned back down the convenient vine. He dropped
silently onto the balcony of the Governor’s bedroom, crept across it and tried
the handle of the french windows. Unlocked.

On the
tippiest of tippy-toes Maxwell crossed the room to the Governor’s bed, glared
at the sleeping figure, picked up a weighty earthenware jug that stood on the
bedside table and brought this down with immoderate force upon the Governor’s
head.

A brief
period of activity followed, the activity being all of Maxwell’s making.

A bucket of water struck
the Governor full in the face. He jerked into consciousness. Eyes wide, mouth
ready to cry out. It did not cry out. The Governor’s teeth chewed upon a gag.

His
head jerked about. He tried to rise. He could not. He was bound to a chair by
lengths of shredded bed sheet.

The
wide eyes grew wider as the Governor took in the figure seated upon his bed.
This figure wore the Governor’s white suit and panama hat. He was gently
flicking the Governor’s fly whisk.

‘Morning,
Blenkinsop,’ said Maxwell, gently flicking away. ‘Been having a spot of
shut-eye, what? Dashed sorry to waken you, old chap, but there’s been a bit of
a
coup d’état.
Town now under new management, doncha know.’

The
Governor’s eyes were quite round now, like polo mints with blue smarties stuck
in the holes. He wriggled and squirmed but Maxwell had taken great care with
the knot-tying.

‘Now
the thing is,’ said Maxwell, adjusting the panama to a rakish angle, ‘I need a
bit of the old transportation. Have a pressing appointment with the Sultan.
Send him your regards, naturally. Posthumous regards if needs be. If you catch
my drift, old chap.’

The
Governor no doubt did, because he hung his head. In doing so he caught sight of
the clothes he now wore: Maxwell’s clothes. He renewed his struggle with
vigour.

‘Don’t
like the suit?’ Maxwell asked. ‘S’pose you recall mentioning to me that one
white man looks just like another to the natives. By the by, I came across your
phrase book. Been committing a few lines to memory. Care to hear them?’

The
Governor shook his head fiercely from side to side.

‘Still,
I’ll tell you anyway, what?’ Maxwell recited the mouth load of Skaven gibberish
he’d been rehearsing. His enunciation was far from perfect but the Governor was
able to get the gist, which was, ‘Chaps of Kakkarta. Behold, another gift from
MacGuffin which fell from the sky in the night and I, the Governor, captured
for you. He’s a violent one, so don’t release his gag. Just cook him at once.

The
Governor hung his shaking head once more. Maxwell got up from the bed, went
over and released his gag. ‘So,’ said he. ‘Let us discuss matters in a sensible
fashion. I require maps, provisions and transportation. You will furnish me
with these. Should you show any signs of hesitation or duplicity, I will have
no compunction about dragging you into the town square and performing my
recitation. Do I make myself quite clear?’

‘Quite
clear,’ said Governor Blenkinsop.

‘Right,’
said Maxwell. ‘Now, as Governor, I am quite sure the Sultan has supplied you
with some marvellous means of transportation. What would this be? Seven-league
boots, perhaps, or a magic carpet?’

Governor
Blenkinsop shook his head. ‘Such wonders are not issued to a humble servant of
the Sultan. I have an old ox cart I would be prepared to lend you.’

Maxwell
shook
his
head. ‘That is sad news. You are being absolutely truthful
with me, aren’t you?’

‘Oh
yes,’ said the Governor. ‘Absolutely. Now look, I do have a raging stonker of a
headache. Do-you think you might untie me? There’s a good fellow.’

‘Shortly
perhaps,’ Maxwell raised a calming hand. ‘But before this, let us test out a
proposition. It might just be that the blow upon the head has caused some
short-term memory loss and that you do, in fact, possess another means of
transportation. What say I take a stroll down to the square and call out in the
Skaven tongue, “I the Governor require my fastest means of transportation,
bring it to me at once”? How do you feel about that?’

‘I feel
somewhat sick,’ said the Governor. ‘Might I have a glass of water?’

‘Indeed,’
Maxwell turned his back upon the Governor, went over to a dresser near the
window, decanted water from a glass ewer into a pottery mug. He returned with
this, held the Governor’s nose up and tipped the contents of the mug straight
down his throat.

Blenkinsop
coughed, gagged and swallowed.

‘Better
now?’ Maxwell asked.

Blenkinsop
spat. ‘The water is vile,’ said he.

‘Your
town is vile,’ said Maxwell. ‘You are vile. Now I have no further time to waste,
accede to my demands at once, or it’s gag back on and down to the square for
you.

‘You’d
never get away with it, old chap. These creatures are not complete oafs, they’d
see through you in a moment. They might well kill me, but they’ll kill you
also.’

‘All
right,’ said Maxwell. ‘Enough is enough. I have been far more reasonable with
you than you deserve. Extreme measures are now called for.’

Maxwell
pulled the magic pouch from his pocket and gave it a little shake. ‘Rushmear,’
he called, ‘I have the Governor here.’

Rushmear
released a scream of invective.

‘My
friend Rushmear,’ Maxwell explained. ‘The big fierce man you captured the day
before yesterday. Constrained by magic and eager for release. He has plans for
your future. Rushmear,’ Maxwell said to the pouch, ‘tell the Governor what you
wish to do to him.’

Maxwell
held the pouch close by the Governor’s ear. Rushmear offered explicit details.

‘All
right,’ cried the Governor. ‘All right. Enough of such hideousness. By the
happiest of coincidences my memory has just now returned to me. I recall that I
have a divan, given to me by the Sultan, which moves upon the air when the
correct commands are given.

‘And
these commands are?’

‘They
wouldn’t work for you,’ said the Governor. ‘I must speak them.’

‘What
are these commands?’ Maxwell shook the magic pouch before the Governor’s face.
‘I will give them a try. Should they fail for me, you can have ago.’

‘All
right. All right. Just shout from the balcony these words,
“Baluda Baluda kocheck
camara poo bah hock”.’

‘Thank
you,’ Maxwell strode over to the french windows. Then he paused and returned to
the bed, where he picked up the phrase book and leafed through it. ‘Oh dear,’
said he. ‘By a curious coincidence these commands also mean, “Attention,
attention, I am the escaped prisoner, come and get me, you scumbags”.’

The
Governor ground his teeth. Maxwell leaned down and kneed him viciously between
the legs. The Governor doubled up in pain.

‘That
is it,’ said Maxwell. ‘All niceties are at an end. When you have regained your
breath tell me the commands. In the meantime—’

Maxwell
rampaged about the room, tearing open drawers, and cupboards, flinging the
contents wither and thus. Maps and provisions, of course, are rarely to be
found in bedrooms, but as happy chance would have it
[2]
, the Governor just happened to
have a case of maps he’d been going through the night before and a packed
picnic in a hamper. Maxwell availed himself of these.

‘Now,’
said he. ‘No more time-wasting. I am a desperate man. The commands at once or I
release Rushmear upon you, and when he has done his worst, I fling you from the
balcony.’

‘Shout,
Horse and Hattock, Blenkinsop’s divan,’ mumbled Blenkinsop.

‘And
that’s it?’

‘Tell
it where to go and it will take you.’

‘It
will respond to
my
voice?’ Maxwell tweaked the Governor’s ear.

‘The
natives don’t speak our tongue, there was no need for such securative measures.
Up until
now,
that is.’

Maxwell
kicked the Governor in the ankle. The red rage he had been struggling to hold
in check, was all but consuming him once more. ‘You really had better be
telling me the truth.’

‘I am,
I really am.’

‘Right
then.’ Maxwell thrust the magic pouch into the trouser pocket of the Governor’s
white suit, took up the case of maps and the picnic hamper and strode to the
french windows, flung them wide, stepped onto the balcony and yelled, ‘Horse
and Hattock, Blenkinsop’s divan.’

Nothing
happened. The town lay still all around. The sun, now somewhat higher, cast
down its sombre light. Maxwell turned upon the Governor. ‘What of this?’ he
asked.

‘Shout
louder. Shout
come
also.’

‘If
you’re lying—’

‘Just
shout it.’

Maxwell
turned. ‘Horse and Hattock, Blenkinsop’s divan,
come!’

And
then a number of things happened. The Governor, who had been worming his hands
free for some time, finally broke out of his bonds. And his bed, which he had
thoughtlessly neglected to mention to Maxwell was the divan in question, rose
from the floor with a rush.

It
passed through the french windows at considerable speed, struck Maxwell from
behind and tipped him over the balcony rail. The Governor, with the look of one
far gone in dementia, leapt onto the divan as it passed him by, yelping in
triumph.

‘Halt,
divan,’ he cried, when the bed was some ten yards beyond the balcony. ‘Hold
still do.’ The bed came to rest and hovered in the air.

Scrambling
to the edge, the Governor peeped down, hoping to view Maxwell’s broken body on
the ground beneath and have a good gloat over it. No body, however, was to be
seen.

‘Come
about, divan,’ commanded the Governor. The magical bed drifted back towards the
balcony.

The
Governor peered at the convenient vine. Had Maxwell managed to grab it as he
fell? ‘Where’s the bastard gone?’ asked the Governor.

‘Horse
and Hattock and divan turn upside down.’ The cry came from below. The cry came
from Maxwell, who was clinging to one of the legs of the bed.

The
divan turned smartly upside down. Maxwell, now on top, cried out in triumph. A
voice from below screamed, ‘Up the other way again.’

The
divan, now uncertain quite what to do, turned upon its end. Maxwell clung to
one side and Blenkinsop, the other.

‘Out of
town,’ shouted Maxwell. ‘Away to Rameer.’

‘Stay
where you are,’ shouted Blenkinsop. ‘Stay where you are.

The
divan began to turn in circles. Maxwell clambered onto the upright end. Governor
Blenkinsop grabbed hold of his ankle.

‘Get
off,’ bawled Maxwell, lashing out with a substantial boot.

The
aerial commotion was now beginning to draw the attention of the townsfolk.
Shuttered windows were opening. Nasty black shapes issued into the streets.
Voices other than those of Maxwell and Blenkinsop were being raised. The
watchman in the tower set to clamouring his bells.

‘Get
off!’ Maxwell kicked with a will, but the Governor held him fast by the ankle.
He evidently had considerable strength about him, for now he was climbing up.
Maxwell tried to buffet him down, but clinging for that dear life of his to the
violently rotating bed left him somewhat at a disadvantage.

The
Governor hauled himself onto the upright end of the spinning bed. He saddled
himself firmly and dug in his heels.

‘You
are a man of considerable enterprise,’ he told Maxwell. ‘Escaping from the
hole, capturing me. But all is in vain.
Down, bed!’

‘Up,
bed!’
shouted Maxwell.

The bed
continued to spin. And now took to lurching also.

‘We
seem to have confused the divan,’ said the Governor. ‘It will return to its
senses once one of us is gone.’ He drove forward and grabbed Maxwell by the
white lapels. ‘Off you go, old chap.’