The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers (46 page)

‘We dare nothing,’ said Uckermark. ‘It’s Shabble who dares.’

‘But, sirrah,’ said Pelagius Zozimus to Uckermark, ‘is not this ill-mannered goblin your servant?’

‘Silence!’ said Shabble, who knew not what a goblin was, but presumed the designation to be insulting.

‘Because if it is,’ continued Zozimus, ‘then I—’

‘Silence!’ said Shabble again, this time in female accents terrifying to hear. Yes, Shabble had again borrowed the voice of Anaconda Stogirov, Chief of Security for the Golden Gulag. A voice which had always commanded both fear and respect.

Anaconda Stogirov! What do we know of her? That she—

[Here some thirty thousand words of elaborate fantasy have been deleted. I must repeat facts already made clear in my Editorial Note. The ‘Golden Gulag’ is mythical entirely, the Originator is in many respects an irresponsible fantasist, and this Text in its entirety is to be treated with the greatest of caution.
Drax Lira, Redactor Major
.]

—thus we see that Stogirov was a woman worse than the Iron Lady of the Death Cycle legends.

Anyway, to return to our history.

You will remember that (some 30,000 words ago) we left Shabble in the courtyard of the corpse shop with Shabble’s prisoners. Zozimus was angrily protesting against imprisonment, and though 30,000 words have passed we find him angry still. Anyway, to return to our narrative tense (the past) let us discover him saying:

‘I am Justina’s master chef! An imperial servant! My mistress will have you fried alive unless you release me now!’

The bluff was senseless, since Uckermark already knew Zozimus to be but a foreign thief, and Zozimus knew that he knew. Even so, the bluff was a brave feat of rhetoric considering that poor Zozimus was so tired he felt drunk.

‘Maybe there will be some frying alive,’ said Uckermark, with a grin. ‘And quickly! Shabble will fry you on the spot if I ask as much.’ It was then that he saw the wishstone in Arnaut’s hands. He removed it with a polite ‘thank you’.

Then said to Shabble: ‘Why have you brought these people here, litde friend?’

‘They are criminals guilty of crimes against the State,’ said Stogirov’s voice. ‘They will suffer sundry peripheral ablations before they endure execution most bloody. They—’

‘That’s enough!’ said Ivan Pokrov, who, unlike Uckermark, was not enjoying this at all. ‘Shabble! Come to order! Or I’ll take you to a therapist! Right now!’

Shabble squeaked in terror. The light of the shining one faded till the dim-glowing globe was scarcely visible in the dark. This eclipsed sun drifted toward Chegory Guy, who took pity on poor Shabble and bundled the sad and sorry demon into the most capacious pocket of his canary robes.

‘Thank you for reining in your goblin,’ said Zozimus. ‘Now, as an imperial servant—’

‘The Empress Justina is a captive, and possibly dead,’ said Ivan Pokrov. interrupting without apology. ‘We have a crisis situation here. You have to help us kill a demon.’ ‘A demon?’ said Zozimus. momentarily taken aback. Then he shuddered as if emerging from very cold water, pressed his fingers to his temples as if attempting to expel fatigue by an exercise of brute force, then said, crisply: ‘Explanations! ’

Pokrov proceeded to explain in Ashmarlan. Tolon listened impassively (perhaps understanding, perhaps not) but Arnaut clamoured for a translation into Malud which Al-ran Lars provided. Meanwhile, Pelagius Zozimus put Pokrov’s dialogue into Toxteth for the benefit of Guest Gulkan. who then rendered the translation into another tongue entirely at the request of Thayer Levant. Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin, who was temporarily non
-compos mentis,
followed the conversation not at all.

‘Duggerlop,’ muttered Thayer Levant, when the translation of a translation had enlightened him as to their situation.

The precise meaning of this is unclear, but it can reasonably be presumed to be a statement of extreme discontent. Levant then exchanged further words with Guest Gulkan in a tongue foreign to all our informing witnesses. Whereupon Guest Gulkan addressed the others in tolerably good Toxteth:

‘My good friend Thayer Levant notes that we’ve got nothing personal against Varazchavardan. If you want us to help kill him, we will - but only if we get a suitable reward.’

‘We’ll give you the wishstone,’ said Pokrov grandly.

Uckermark and Log Jaris looked at each other. How could the crazy analytical engineer say something so stupid? The wishstone was of incalculable value. Still, the words could not be unsaid. They sparked a clamour from the Malud marauders and from Guest Gulkan’s faction. Both sides wanted the wishstone.

In a moment, there were weapons alive in the night, and the two factions were squared off for combat.

‘Shabble!’ said Pokrov, thinking to restore order with the help of his ‘goblin’.

Shabble lay inert in Chegory’s pocket. But Chegory fumbled the now unshining one out of the pocket and tossed this fearer of therapists into the air. Shabble dropped like a stone. The long-surviving plaything of many millennia was playing dead.

‘Enough of this!’ roared Log Jaris.

Toxteth is a great language for roaring so that is what he roared in. Even those who did not understand his vocables paused nevertheless.

Log Jaris confronted the would-be combatants. This was a very ticklish situation. Shabble had never thought to disarm the prisoners, who were well-equipped for slaughter. If the prisoners thought to combine - as they shortly surely would - they could easily overwhelm Log Jaris and his friends.

‘The demon Binchinminfin haunts Varazchavardan’s flesh,’ said Log Jaris. ‘Varazchavardan so possessed will prove our doom unless we doom him first. There’s no escape from Untunchilamon till Fistavlir ends and the winds renew once more. Oh, we could escape from mortal men in a shallow canoe - but from a demon?’

‘I’ll take my chances in a canoe,’ said Guest Gulkan. ‘Give me the wishstone and I’ll be gone.’

‘What do you want with the wishstone?’ said Log Jaris. ‘To rule the world,’ said Guest Gulkan.

The bullman laughed heartily.

‘This thing,’ said Logjaris, taking the glittering triakisoctahedron from Uckermark’s hands, ‘rules nothing. Wishstone it is called but it grants no wishes. It is but a toy. A bauble. Opal and diamond in one, hence treasured much - but useless for the exercise of power.’

‘Wrong!’ said Guest Gulkan. ‘It is a power among powers for those who know how to use it.’

‘Then suppose we hand it to you?’ said Log Jaris. ‘Can you abolish Varazchavardan? Can you defeat Binchinminfin? Can you turn Injiltaprajura upside down and inside out?’

‘Yes!’ said Guest Gulkan, his voice shaking with untrammelled emotions. ‘Give it to me! It’s mine!’

He reached for it.

Tolon growled with displeasure.

Swords leapt to the ready.

All were poised for slaughter.

Then Shabble in a single moment evolved from stone to firefly, from firefly to candle, from candle to sun. So evolving, the shining one leapt skywards. Swordsmen flinched from the glare. Then Shabble spake in a cooing female voice most melodious and most beautiful to hear, saying sweedy:

‘Don’t fight, dear friends. For I, dear friends, must fry you to cinders if you do.’

This beautifully voiced death-threat brought order to Uckermark’s courtyard and set the stage for long and involved tripartite negotiations to begin. It would be tedious to recount these convoluted negotiations in detail but the gist of the matter can be given in moments.

Of the three parties present, only guest Gulkan’s faction wanted the wishstone for its own sake. The Malud marauders sought the precious bauble only because they knew it could be exchanged elsewhere for fabulous wealth. If Uckermark and his friends lusted for the thing, they likewise did so only because they could use it to get rich.

‘So there’s no problem,’ said Logjaris, when all parties had made their positions clear. ‘If we kill Varazchavardan, we’ll be heroes. If we secure the rule of Untunchilamon for the Empress Justina, her gratitude will let us rape the treasury entire. There’ll be riches and honours for the least of us. We’ll sleep on pearls and swim in liquid gold. If our friend Guest Gulkan will consent to settle for the wishstone then the rest of us will surely settle for treasure.’

‘But,’ said Chegory, objecting, ‘what if, um, this Gulkan guy uses the wishstone to, well, to chop off our heads or something? He says it’s a power-thing, doesn’t he?’

‘Come now!’ said Pelagius Zozimus. ‘You don’t believe everything you’re told, do you?’

‘Your Gulkan man said the wishstone’s a power-thing,’ said Chegory stubbornly. ‘I want to know what it is. What it does.’

Zozimus sighed.

‘It’s a long story,’ said he, ‘and we’ve shortened the night too much already. If you must know, the wishstone is actually the x-x-zix of the Iltong Legends, of which you’ve never heard. It was made by the Dissidents, of whom you know nothing, to control the breathings of the Cold West, a place stranger than anything you could possibly imagine. Once we have the x-x-zix in the Cold West we can fight for control of Chi’ash-lan, a city you’ve never been to and never will. Success will give us the rule of a Door. Then we can strive for control of the Circle. That leaves you none the wiser - but still you’re as wise as you ever will be. We’ve got a deal. Let’s waste our time no longer. To the palace! To face this demon! To kill it where it stands!’

All this was said in the most ferocious quick-fire rattle imaginable, for even in fatigue the formidable Zozimus remained a brilliant wizard with little patience for the foolish or the ignorant. Chegory insisted that he still didn’t understand, and wanted to, and would. But he was overruled.

‘We’ve talked too much already,’ said Uckermark, pulling on his second-best pair of boots. ‘Friend Zozimus is right. Let’s be on our way. But first—’

‘First what?’ said Zozimus impatiently.

‘I had a botde I meant to trade to the wonderworkers, but they weren’t in the mood for trade. So...’

So the rebooted Uckermark gathered together a gim-crack collection of cups, bowls and tankards. Then, with utter contempt for the laws of Injiltaprajura, he cracked open his bottle of Dragonfire and poured a tot for everyone present (with the sole exception of Shabble).

‘A toast.’ said Uckermark.

This thing called a ‘toast’ is one of the rituals of these alcohol-abusing drug-takers. It is a very important ceremony which lies right at the heart of the drug-taking cult. Indeed, students of such aberrations believe that, for many addicts, such rituals are almost as important as the actual alchemical effect of these toxic substances.

‘A toast.’ said Uckermark. ‘To... to Justina Thrug!’

All raised their death-containers then drank. The mumbling-muttering Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin was so shaky in the hands that he spilt half his drink, but he managed to down the rest. Only Chegory Guy left his cup untouched.

‘You’re not drinking with us, boy,’ said Uckermark, in tones of sev ere disapproval.

‘I have an upset stomach,’ said Chegory lamely.

Actually, he was thinking of Olivia. She who was (at least in his imagination) so pure and spotless. He was ashamed of the number of times he had been tainted by alcohol in the recent past. Now he was decided. Hereafter he would keep himself pure for her, abjure the horror of drugs and remain staunchly teetotal.

‘Ah well,’ said Uckermark philosophically, ‘if you’re sick, you’re sick.’

Then he downed Chegory’s share of the Dragonfire.

‘Okay!’ said Uckermark. ‘Let’s be going! Shabble, you lead the way!’

But Shabble had closely followed all the negotiations and explanations which had taken place in the corpse shop. The imitator of suns wanted nothing to do with demon-killing, particularly as this Binchinminfin sounded easily dangerous enough to kill a poor defenceless Shabble.

So the childlike one again played dead.

‘Shabble!’ said Pokrov, giving the dead-dull sphere a kick. ‘Wake up! Or I’ll get a therapist! I will, you know!’

But Shabble woke not. So Chegory pocketed Shabble once more, and the heroes (now ten in number) set off for the palace, leaving Yilda in sole possession of the corpse shop. As none of the three factions entirely trusted the others, Uckermark brought the wishstone along lest one faction abandon the others in battle and race back to the corpse shop to seize it.

[The Originator errs. There were not ten. There were actually eleven of them. Guest Gulkan, Thayer Levant, Pelagius Zozimus, Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin, Al-ran Lars, Arnaut, Tolon, Chegory Guy, Uckermark, Logjaris and Ivan Pokrov. Twelve, if one counts the goblin Shabble.
Prill, Pedant Minor.]

CHAPTER THIRTY

Closely did the manly dark embrace the heroes, holding them in its virile grip as they hastened toward the pink palace with an enthusiasm for battle which was made all the greater by the Dragonfire they had consumed. Booze had put fire in their bellies indeed. Even Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin advanced with a will, albeit at a muttering stagger.

Up Skindik Way they went, past the slaughterhouse, past Ganthorgruk and the Dromdanjerie, to Lak Street. As they passed the Cabal House of the wonderworkers they heard the party within still raging strong. On they went, past the ship-sized bone chunk known as Pearl, then past the houses of the great and the grand aglimmer with the blue-green light of moon paint.