The Wazir and the Witch

by Hugh Cook

  Is it tedious to have this twice remarked upon? If so, then spare a thought for poor Varazchavardan, who remarked upon this calamity not twice a day but fifty times at least. As the advent of the Trade Fleet had drawn nearer, his apprehension had steadily increased; hence his nightmares, his angers, and his waking visions of drenching blood.

  There was a pause; and this time it was Odolo’s turn to maintain a disconcerting silence.

  ‘Well,’ said Varazchavardan at length, ‘so the flying thing is dead.’

  He said it blandly, as if this were a matter of no importance; whereas in fact he had hoped to escape from Untunchilamon by air, paying for his passage with a small quantity of the considerable treasure he had amassed during his stay on that island. While the blow was a heavy one, Varazchavardan had endured many dreadful blows in his life (the death of his much-beloved friend Wazir Sin, for example) and so had experience in absorbing shocks and sorrows.

  ‘Yes,’ said Odolo. ‘We have no hope of escape by air. Furthermore, Justina says the destruction of the airship proves that Master Ek is ready to move against us. She declares that we must attack Ek first. Today. Lest we be arrested by Ek. He has the support of the Cabal House.

  He could do it. He will do it. Unless we move. First. Attack, you know, is the best means of defence.’

  Varazchavardan received this extraordinary declaration in complete silence. Then he thought about it. The scheme was lunacy, of course. Flight was possible. Difficult, dangerous and uncertain. But at least possible. They had possessed a hope of getting away by air. They might yet leave the island by sea. But to dare an armed confrontation with Master Ek? No. That was lunacy.

  Ek had no Powers.

  Ek was but a priest, albeit the High Priest of Zoz the Ancestral on the island of Untunchilamon.

  However, Nadalastabstala Banraithanchumun Ek had the support of most of the wonder-workers of Injiltapra-jura’s Cabal House, for most of those worthies were worshippers of Zoz the Ancestral. Justina’s soldiers were largely disloyal and untrustworthy, and far more likely to fight for the Janjuladoola-skinned Ek than for a child of Wen Endex like the female Thrug. As for the populace, at least half would support Ek rather than the empress.

  Varazchavardan clawed more ice from his amphora. He rubbed it between his hands. Ice-melt lubricated the palms of his hands. Then, abruptly, Varazchavardan crammed the ice into his mouth and smashed it with his teeth. His jaws bit, savaged, crunched. The ice broke, splintered, shattered. Varazchavardan swallowed convulsively. Then smiled sweetly upon the disconcerted Odolo and said:

  ‘This is not Justina’s plan. Justina is not a lunatic.’

  Odolo said nothing.

  So Varazchavardan went on:

  ‘A plan such as this, a jejune and bloodthirsty plan based on senseless, hopeless violence, could only have been hatched by Juliet Idaho.’

  Odolo did not deny it.

  ‘However,’ said Varazchavardan, ‘even Idaho would never come up with something so witless unless he was truly desperate. Which means things are as I have long feared. The Crab is no longer prepared to support Justina Thrug against her enemies.’

  ‘You are correct insomuch as the plan originates with Juliet Idaho,’ said the conjuror Odolo, choosing his words with great care. ‘I must admit that I am his messenger. That, as you have doubtless suspected, Justina knows nothing of this plan. However, as for your surmisals about the Crab, of this I know nothing, for I am not privy to any information so sensitive.’

  ‘I should hope not,’ said Varazchavardan. ‘You’re not fit to be trusted, not if you let a mad Yudonic Knight entangle you in schemes so witless.’

  ‘Juliet Idaho,’ said Odolo, ‘threatened to remove my head from my shoulders if I failed to bear you this message.’

  ‘Extravagant,’ said Varazchavardan, ‘but in character. Very well. Tell that madman of a Yudonic Knight I wish to see him.’

  ‘Why?’ said Odolo.

  ‘That,’ said Varazchavardan, ‘is for me to know and for you to wonder about. Go!’

  So Odolo went.

  Leaving Varazchavardan to ponder the strategy he would pursue when he met with Juliet Odaho. It was difficult, difficult. As he laboured with the problem, his hands began working in an insidious rhythm, thrap-patting against his thighs, thus:

  Thrap - thrap - thrup!

  Thrap - thrap - thrup!

  Abruptly, Varazchavardan realized what he was doing.

  He was drumming!

  ‘Stop that,’ he said to himself.

  Then went back to work on his problem.

  It was possible, just possible, that Idaho might have devised a scheme which would give them some slim hope of overwhelming Ek and his allies by an act of force majeure. If so, then Varazchavardan wanted to know about it. Might even go along with it. For . . . such a possibility would be very, very tempting.

  Suppose all those loyal to Aldarch Three were slaughtered. Then Untunchilamon would be safe from the Mutilator for ever. The island was far from Yestron, the seas dangerous, the approaches narrow and easily defended. A resolute population loyal to its leaders could make any conquest of the island impossibly expensive. All nightmare would be at an end.

  ‘Idaho may have a scheme,’ muttered Varazchavardan. ‘And if not, for my own protection I should at least know what madness is on his mind.’

  Thus muttered Aquitaine Varazchavardan as he analysed the conversational gambits he would use to extract the truth from the ferocious Yudonic Knight he planned to interview.

  Varazchavardan, who was born to plot and scheme, soon began to take pleasure in this planning. His pleasure was enhanced by the fact that he was totally ignorant of the crucial meeting which was taking place elsewhere in Injiltaprajura. This meeting was between Master Ek and two newcomers from the good ship Oktobdoj. The newcomers had just identified themselves as Jean Froissart (a priest of Zoz) and Manthandros Trasilika (the new wazir of Untunchilamon).

  Even as Varazchavardan was crunching the twenty-fourth piece of ice in which he had that day indulged, Trasilika was saying:

  ‘It was Aldarch the Third who appointed me. And, as I am sure you will be glad to hear, he gave me a death warrant for Justina Thrug. And this is that death warrant.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Temple of Torture, as such, had ceased to operate shortly after the death of Wazir Sin. In the seven years which had followed, the Temple had usually stood empty. Sometimes it had been used as a quarantine station, and sometimes as a detention centre; apart from that it had been untenanted. More recently, the Inland Revenue had taken over the premises; and, thanks to the patronage of that organization, the torture chambers of the Temple had been restored to their former glory.

  Shortly before dawn, Master Ek was carried to the Temple of Torture in a litter; he could have walked, but such was his decrepitude that any such exercise would have taken him the better part of the day. Once in the Temple, Ek began his morning by watching the final stages of the torture of a vampire rat. His old friend Dui Tin Char (now head of the Inland Revenue) had begun the torture five days earlier. The exercise was a demonstration of the art of the Temple of Torture: a hint of delights yet to come should the temple be once again legalized.

  When the vampire rat finally expired, Ek had to admit that he was impressed. He had not known that such a small animal possessed such a capacity for suffering.

  ‘With humans,’ said Dui Tin Char, ‘the experience is immensely more rewarding.’

  Dui Tin Char was a trained Exponent of the Grand Method of the Temple of Torture. He had participated in the Temple’s daily Rites of Revelation for five years during the reign of the late and much-lamented Wazir Sin. Then Lonstantine Thrug had murdered Sin and had closed down the Temple. Since then, Tin Char had derived a considerable degree of satisfaction for his work in the field of tax collection; but, somehow, it was not quite the same.

  ‘I must say,’ said Ek, ‘I find it hard to see where the extra reward can come from. Ne
ver have I seen anything suffer as this creature suffered before its death. Any elaboration or exaggeration of such pain is hard to imagine.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Tin Char softly. ‘It is not pain which provides the pleasure. It is fear. Oh yes, fear. And humiliation. A vampire rat, you see, cannot be humiliated. Its psyche is not sufficiently developed. But humans are an altogether different proposition. You must always remember that Justina Thrug is the daughter of a Yudonic Knight. These people have considerable reserves of pride, hence their destruction upon the torture table is all the more pleasurable.’

  ‘And Ashdans?’ said Ek.

  ‘I ... I have never destroyed an Ashdan,’ said Tin Char. He considered his lack of experience in this field then smiled cheerfully. ‘But I am most certainly ready to make the experiment.’

  Master Ek and Dui Tin Char had intended to devote their morning to the destruction of another rat, this time using the comparatively rapid quick-shock-bone-smash method. However, they were interrupted by a servant bearing slightly alarming news: a party of officials was on its way to the Temple of Torture.

  ‘For what purpose?’ said Dui Tin Char.

  ‘To see Master Ek.’

  ‘How,’ said Ek, ‘do these officials know that I am here?’

  ‘One is the ladipti man,’ said the servant, as if that explained all.

  It did explain all, for the ladipti man was another of Ek’s old and trusted friends, and had in Ek’s company observed a part of the five-day death of the vampire rat which had so recently expired.

  ‘Who else is coming here?’ said Ek.

  ‘That I know not,’ said the servant.

  ‘Then,’ said Dui Tin Char softly, ‘find out. Quickly!’ The servant hastened away, but the officials had reached the Temple of Torture before any fresh intelligence could be supplied to Master Ek and Tin Char. So they were none the wiser when their visitors were shown in.

  Ek and Tin Char recognized the officials at once. Plague inspector, pilot, ladipti man, harbour master and a representative of the Combined Religious Guild. All, to a man, were of the Janjuladoola people. But with them were two children of Wen Endex, one a heavyweight in his forties, the other a slender and nervously blinking individual in his thirties.

  ‘Greetings,’ said the harbour master, making reverence to both Master Ek and Tin Char.

  Ek observed the appropriate silence, emphasizing his own superiority and the harbour master’s comparative inferiority. Then he said:

  ‘And to you, greetings.’

  Other formalities followed, then the harbour master got down to business:

  ‘Behold, Master Ek. I bring you two most welcome newcomers. They are from one of the new ships.’

  ‘These new ships which I hold in my lap,’ said Ek, spreading apart his gnarled, arthritic hands as if he was measuring an invisible fish.

  The harbour master was thrown into confusion. Not because he had any difficulty understanding Ek’s idiom (he understood it perfectly) but because he realized he had made a social gaffe. He had assumed Ek knew all about the recently arrived ships, but obviously he had assumed in error. Now the harbour master would have to instruct Ek. And, in the Janjuladoola culture, a social inferior does not lightly undertake to instruct a superior in the presence of strangers.

  At this point one of those strangers, the heavyweight with the cauliflower ear, broke into grammatically imperfect and badly-accented Janjuladoola.

  ‘We be the ship Oktobdoj. I be Trasilika. Fresh arrived we be and are from Yestron.’

  ‘Yestron, yes,’ said Master Ek acidly, switching from Janjuladoola to Toxteth as he did so. ‘Yestron, in whose northern reaches they speak an argot different from that of Ang, do they not?’

  ‘Indeed, Master Ek,’ said the heavyweight gratefully, pleased to be able to converse in his native Toxteth.

  ‘So you come from Yestron,’ said Ek. ‘What news?’ ‘Talonsklavara is at an end. Aldarch the Third has triumphed. I am Manthandros Trasilika, one whom Aldarch Three has sent to Injiltaprajura to do his bidding. I am—’

  Ek gestured for silence then pointed at the heavyweight’s slender companion.

  ‘You?’said Ek.

  ‘Jean Froissart, that’s who I am, Froissart,’ said the quick-blinking man, who was so nervous one might believe him to be on the edge of a nervous breakdown, or a heart attack, or both.

  Ek hawked, then spat.

  ‘So,’ said Ek. ‘Talonsklavara is at an end. Aldarch Three has won. Excellent. Excellent.’

  Yet, even as he said it, Master Ek found himself curiously unelated, strangely unexcited. Depressed, almost. True, he was a loyal servant of Aldarch Three. He longed to see the family Thrug overthrown and the rule of the True Law restored to Untunchilamon. But . . .

  ‘One presumes,’ ventured Dui Tin Char, ‘that Aldarch the Third will shortly appoint a new wazir to rule on Untunchilamon.’

  ‘He has already,’ said the heavyweight blandly. ‘For I am that wazir.’

  ‘And I,’ said his nervous companion, ‘am the priest of Zoz sent to accompany him.’

  Master Ek and Tin Char positively goggled. Two children of Wen Endex, yet they claimed to be wazir and priest? This was unheard of! It was almost - not quite, but almost - impossible.

  ‘Trasilika,’ said Ek, ‘I understand you to declare yourself to be the new wazir of Untunchilamon.’

  ‘Yes. It was Aldarch the Third who appointed me. And, as I am sure you will be glad to hear, he gave me a death warrant for Justina Thrug. And this is that death warrant.’

  Ek opened the warrant with difficulty, inwardly cursing the pains that shot through his fingers as he grappled with the parchment. Strange. His hands had been free of pain all morning till now. He studied the death warrant. Genuine? Probably. He passed it to Tin Char, then, to conceal his inward turmoil, took out his black tobacco pouch and began rolling a cigarette.

  A long and most embarrassing silence then began, for Ek said nothing as he smoked his way through a cigarette then rolled himself another. That was his privilege. In the Janjuladoola system, the High Priest of Zoz the Ancestral was superior to everyone else on Untunchilamon except the wazir.

  And, as yet, Untunchilamon did not have a wazir.

  For, though Manthandros Trasilika claimed to have been appointed to that position, he needed to be ceremoniously installed by Master Ek himself. Until then, Trasilika’s appointment had no legal force. Until then, he was wazir in name only, and not in fact.

  As Ek sat smoking, he looked for all the world like a smoke-shriveiled corpse. Only his eyes betrayed the bright life of his intellect. But even the eyes failed to hint at the confusion which currently reigned in that intellect.

  The source of Ek’s confusion was the scrap of ricepaper hidden in his tobacco pouch, the tantalizing fragment of purple-scripted manuscript which said just this:

  ‘ . . . to become immortal. Immortality is easily achieved if one has possession of an organic rectifier. On Untunchilamon . . .’

  On Untunchilamon?

  Maybe there was such an ‘organic rectifier’ on Untunchilamon. Maybe Ek had a chance of immortality.

  So thinking, Master Ek had sent Nixorjapretzel Rat in search of the rest of this purple passage. But Ek had yet to profit from the Rat’s pursuit of this Secret History. And, now, it was too late. For, if one of these ‘organic rectifiers’ was to be somehow uncovered, the new wazir would doubtless claim it on behalf of Aldarch Three.

  Was that a problem? An outsider would probably have answered ‘no’. For Aldarch the Third was a worshipper of Zoz the Ancestral. Why then should the Mutilator deny immortality to the priesthood of Zoz? Ek, who was an insider’s insider, knew the answer to that all too well. An immortal Mutilator would doubtless prefer a mortal priesthood, fearing political threats from priests who had all of eternity in which to indulge in political manoeuvring.

  ‘Is there a problem?’ said the heavyweight at last, intruding on Ek’s silence.

  ‘Yes,’ sai
d Ek.

  ‘May we . . . may we know the nature of this problem?’ said the slender man in his thirties who had identified himself as Jean Froissart.

  Ek coughed, hawked, spat, ground out his cigarette then said:

  ‘I am old. I am seventy years old and I will never again set eyes on Obooloo. My bones bite, my spine twists, my bowels cramp, and my flesh lacks the appetite for the fourth major pleasure.’

  The High Priest of Zoz the Ancestral indulged yet again in the first minor pleasure, then continued:

  ‘So there is a problem. There are several problems. But they are mine, not thine. Let us proceed with the consecration. I will install you as wazir here and now.’

  ‘What?’ said Tin Char, startled.

  This was unheard of. The consecration of a new wazir was a very formal ceremony rightly carried out in public after the appropriate sacrificies and preliminaries.

  ‘You heard me,’ said Master Ek.

  He knew he was offending against protocol and tradition; he knew Obooloo would take umbrage at his actions; ultimately, he might be reprimanded, or chastised, or recalled to Ang to be removed from the priesthood and executed. But he no longer cared. He was sick at heart and a great bitterness was upon him. His recent days had been brightened by the chance of life eternal; but now that chance had been taken from him, and all was blighted.

  Therefore the ceremony of consecration was carried out in the Temple of Torture. It was a rushed, squalid affair which offended all those who participated in it. But, for legal purposes, it sufficed. By the end of the ceremony, the heavyweight had been installed as the new wazir of Untunchilamon, and his lightweight companion had been confirmed as the wazir’s personal priest.