by Hugh Cook
Over a (very) late lunch they discussed the probable fate of Olivia Qasaba and Artemis Ingalawa.
‘I wouldn’t worry about them,’ said Ivan Pokrov blithely. ‘Varazchavardan’s got nothing against them. Doubdess they’ll be back at the Dromdanjerie right now, cleaning up.’
Chegory shuddered.
‘You didn’t see what we saw,’ said he.
After lunch, Chegory quit the Analytical Institute and stood on Jod’s burning shore, where the wealth fountains were still pouring out streams of dikle and shlug as if they would never stop. The longest fountain flow on record had lasted for three years and had killed out all the lagoon life to a distance of five leagues from the disaster. Judging by the quantities of dead fish afloat in the harbour, this latest outburst might prove equally as disastrous.
Still, who could complain? Without such poisons, there would have been no wealth on Untunchilamon. It was dikle, shlug and other alien substances equally as miraculous which had made the island a wealthy and desirable part of the Izdimir Empire and had financed the construction of the fair city of Injiltaprajura.
Young Chegory Guy looked across the Laitemata Harbour to the streets of that city. All looked quiet. Dead. Normal, in a word. For in the usual course of events nothing would move in Injiltaprajura in the late afternoon of a day so hot.
Chegory watched the distant pink palace.
WTiat the hell had happened back there? He had seen a contest of Power between Varazchavardan and Odolo. The pink-eyed albino had almost broken Odolo’s neck. Then the conjuror had somehow rendered the wonderworker unconscious. Then, before Uckermark and Chegory could kill the odious Master of Law, Nixorjapretzel Rat had intervened.
‘So what do I know?’ said Chegory. ‘I know Varazchavardan wants to win Injiltaprajura for Aldarch Three. That he wants Justina dead. And me dead. And Olivia dead. And Ingalawa dead. And Uckermark dead, come to think of it.’
Yet Ivan Pokrov would have it that there was nothing to worry about!
The more Chegory thought about it, the more he was sure the Analytical Engineer was being wildly optimistic. Pokrov was so bland, so sure, so confident. So detached from reality! This was a life or death situation. Very shortly, Chegory was going to be dead. Unless Varazchavardan died first.
‘He’s got the soldiers on his side,’ muttered Chegory.
Then, after some thought: ‘But all it takes is a knife. One man with a knife.’
There was not much question about who that man was going to have to be. Yet Chegory did not rush back to the palace then and there to do or die in the manner of heroes for he had been taught to think his problems through before he acted. Think he did. But little good it did him! The process of thought made his head hurt and his tongue go dry, but apart from that it had no demonstrable effect whatsoever.
Yet, even when Chegory realised thought was useless, he did not rush into action. Instead, he procrastinated, pretending he was thinking still. In truth, he was afraid. The world had become larger and its stones had become heavier and harder — while Chegory himself had become smaller and softer and more vulnerable to pain. At last, all pretence of thought wearied away to nothing. He sat on a rock and concentrated on sweating.
Thanks to dehydration, Chegory was wearier yet by the time salahanthara came to an end. A malevolent sun sank through skies of butchery to seas incarnadine. Then the day died in a spectacular display of exsanguination as the colours of bloody death drained from the sunset sky. The sunset bells — drowned by blood, no doubt — failed to ring. The redskinned Ebrell Islander, his own colours darkening to death in the worldshadows of evening, sat on the shores of Jod watching the bloodstone buildings of Injiltaprajura clotting into the black congealment of night. Still the dikle and shlug poured endlessly from the wealth fountains, and still the oppressive heat suffocated all of Untunchilamon. Then, in the dark, Jod’s slabender frogs began to chorus: Gork-mork-gork-mork. Gork-mork-gork-mork…
The night was hot. Breathless. Stars conjured themselves in the heavens in the livery of phoenix and firedrake. Chegory sat there staring across the black waters of the Laitemata until he had come to a decision. He would- ‘Chegory!’
It was Ivan Pokrov, calling him.
‘What is it?’ said Chegory in a voice of charred wood and cracked leather.
He was thirsty, thirsty, he had not realised he was so thirsty.
‘It’s Odolo. He’s roused himself. He’s got something to tell us.’
So Chegory roused himself from his rocks and accompanied Ivan Pokrov inside. Pain pulsed in his skull: a headache brought on by heat and lack of water.
When Chegory entered Odolo’s sickroom, the first thing he saw was the ugly Uckermark. The corpse master, who still smelt faintly of the dead, was trimming the wick of an oil lantern. How hideous he was! A grotesque mess of scars and tattoos. He grunted as Pokrov came in behind Chegory, then said:
‘Our friend’s excited.’
He spoke truly. The conjuror Odolo was sitting up in bed. He was alarmingly feverish, his eyes over-excited, his hands conjuring rhetoric from the air, his knees jog-jolting beneath a thin mosquito sheet. He reminded Chegory of the way some of the more manic patients in the Dromdanjerie looked just before they gave themselves to violence.
‘Excited indeed!’ said Pokrov, observing Odolo’s agitation. ‘Has he told you why?’
‘He’ll tell you himself,’ said Uckermark.
Then, having trimmed the oil lamp, the corpse master left the room. Odolo began his explanations instanter.
‘I,’ said the conjuror, speaking clearly despite the bruises disfiguring his throat, ‘have been possessed by the demon Binchinminfin. ’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Chegory, imitating Jon Qasaba’s most soothing voice to perfection. ‘Yes, um, that’s okay, all right? Just sit back, nice now, nice and easy, and we’ll, ah, we’ll take care of things, okay?’
‘You’d better believe this,’ warned Odolo. ‘Lives are at stake. Don’t think me mad. Can madness by itself conjure dragons or make a man the match of a wonderworker in battle?’
Chegory made no answer. What could he say? He had made yet another social gaffe! Everything he did or said or thought was wrong, and got him in trouble with someone. He was too tired to cope. He just wanted to vanish.
‘Well,’ said Odolo. ‘Can it? Can madness conjure the powers of magic?’
‘I must apologise on behalf of young Chegory Guy,’ said Ivan Pokrov. ‘He’s boarded at the Dromdanjerie for so long that he probably expects everyone he meets to be at least half-way insane.’
Chegory was too tired to be grateful.
At that point Uckermark returned with a couple of servants bearing wickerwork chairs, jugs of cool water and beakers for the drinking of the same. Chairs were distributed, water was poured, the servants departed, then Chegory, Uckermark and Ivan Pokrov sat back and listened in silence as the conjuror Odolo told his story. Told how: the demon Binchinminfin had taken residence in his skull; the demon Binchinminfin had then brought Odolo’s dreams, fears and nightmares to life. Water to blood at his bedside. Scorpions in his breakfast bowl. The sky made rainbow. Krakens in the Laitemata. All this the work of the demon, as it toyed with concepts itfound in Odolo’s head before it properly understood what they were. ‘So it understands now?’ said Chegory.
‘It’s grown less extravagant,’ said Odolo. ‘If that means understanding, well — maybe. That dragon at the banquet, that dragon was the last thing it made as if from a whim. It’s as if — as if it’s outgrown the playing stage. It’s got serious. It’s got down to business.’
Then Odolo told how the demon Binchinminfin: had ransacked Odolo’s brain for knowledge of the languages of Untunchilamon while Odolo was incarcerated in a cell in Moremo Maximum Security Prison; had practised its powers by fabricating life-forms in miniature in the same cell; and had sat back waiting and watching until Varazchavardan tried to kill Odolo.
‘So it refused to help you till then?’ said Ch
egory.
‘You — you don’t understand,’ said Odolo. ‘When you’ve got a demon aboard, you don’t — you don’t exactly ask it for things. When it wants to exert itself it does. Then it takes control entirely and there’s nothing you can do about it. But the rest of the time — well, it just rides about with you, invisible and weightless.’
‘But help,’ insisted Chegory. ‘You could have asked it for help, surely.’
‘You’re forgetting something,’ said Uckermark. ‘Terror, that’s what you’re forgetting.’
‘Yes.’ said Odolo gratefully. ‘That’s how it was. It was terrifying. So-so there’s things you think of afterwards which you don’t think of at the time.’
‘Afterwards?’ said Pokrov, trying to understand. ‘Are you telling us you’re no longer possessed? Are you telling us the demon’s gone back where it came from?’
‘Not at all!’ said Odolo. ‘I’m trying to tell you. If you wouldn’t mind listening, maybe I could get through this a little quicker.’ Pokrov promised silence, then Odolo continued. ‘This Binchinminfin demon behaved itself. All day. Till Varazchavardan tried to chop off my head. Then Binchinminfin took me over entirely to do battle with Varazchavardan. Long they fought, till Varazchavardan
'But that’s — that’s crazy!' said Chegory. ‘These demons, aren’t they, you know, all powerful? I mean, how does Varazchavardan smash up a demon when he’s only a wonderworker?’
‘You underestimate our wonderworkers,’ said Odolo. They obtain their powers by permitting demons to partially possess them. In extremis, a sorcerer will permit possession complete. This must be what Varazchavardan did. Thus did the Master of Law find the strength to meet and defeat Binchinminfin.’
Chegory, angry because he had erred yet again in public, could not help challenging this.
‘Well, that’s what you say. But what do you know?
You’re a conjuror, aren’t you? So what do you know about sorcery and stuff?’
‘I know,’ said Odolo, ‘because I have communed with a demon direct. Binchinminfin is the source of my knowledge.’ ‘Well,’ persisted Chegory, still reluctant to be wrong, ‘if a demon can just take someone over like that, how come we haven’t all been taken over by demons?’
‘Because the demons themselves forbid it,’ said Odolo. ‘Our world is fragile, its substance thin. Our world is like a sheet of ice. If demons in great number were to commit their full weight to our world, it would shatter. Thus to enjoy the world’s pleasures they must commit but a fraction of the weight of a few. This they arrange according to their own laws.’
The conjuror sipped at his water. Chegory did likewise, then refilled his own beaker. His headache had eased away to nothing and he was feeling stronger and more alert now that he was rehydrated. He listened as Odolo continued: ‘It was the demons who sought out the first sorcerers. Who taught those sorcerers the disciplines whereby a man supports at least some of the weight of a demon without wrecking the world. Thus says Binchinminfin. Who is himself a renegade, a demon working in our world in defiance of the laws of his own.’
Thus said Odolo.
But everything he said must be treated with caution. After all, the sole source of his knowledge was the self-confessed renegade, Binchinminfin. Even supposing that demon meant to speak true, little knowledge of the World Beyond can properly be conveyed in the language of the World of Events. To attempt to express theological truths in the language of barter and commerce is ultimately futile. Or, at the least, grossly unsatisfactory. It is like trying to build a model of Time out of fishbones. Like endeavouring to express the satisfactions of the organism in an accountant’s arithmetic. Like trying to build a house from a perfume’s aroma, or shape fire out of ice.
‘So now,’ said Chegory, ‘this Binchinminfin’s dead.’
‘Wrong!’ said Odolo.
‘But,’ protested Chegory, ‘you said Varazchavardan got the better of Binchinminfin.’
‘In combat, yes,’ said Odolo. ‘Varazchavardan won the battle of transformations. But Binchinminfin defeated him nevertheless. For, when Varazchavardan tried to destroy my body with his claw of iron, Binchinminfin leapt from my body to Varazchavardan’s.’
‘But you said a demon was already in possession of Varazchavardan,’ objected Pokrov.
‘A demon has neither weight nor extent nor substance,’ said Odolo. ‘An infinite number can therefore dance on the head of a pin. Or contend for dominance within a single mind.’
‘So that’s why Varazchavardan collapsed,’ said Uckermark, who had been notably silent till then. ‘Because two demons were at war in his head.’
‘No,’ said Odolo. ‘It is the mere act of possession which causes unconsciousness. The demon’s presence disorders the mind, which takes time to recover itself.’
‘So which demon now rules Varazchavardan?’ said Chegory. ‘His own, or this Binchinminfin?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ said Odolo. ‘When Varazchavardan recovers consciousness, either he will be himself, or Binchinminfin will be in possession.’
Odolo fell silent.
Chegory, Uckermark and Pokrov watched him, waiting for further revelation.
‘It’s no good looking at me,’ said Odolo. ‘I’ve said my piece. You know as much as I do. What we do now — well, that’s not for me to say.’
‘What we do now is simple,’ said Chegory. ‘We kill Varazchavardan. Whether he’s possessed by a demon or not, he’s our enemy mortal.’
Ivan Pokrov cleared his throat.
‘I think,’ said Pokrov, ‘that rather than rushing off to kill someone, we’d better think this through. While we think, we might as well eat.’
Then Pokrov clapped his hands, calling in his servants. He gave them orders, and soon they returned with food, which was served in bowls decorated with floral patterns of the lightest blue. Each bowl had rice-shaped pieces of white porcelain incorporated into its thin sides.
Usually, Chegory would have worried in case his thick and hefty hands broke something. But tonight he didn’t give it a thought. He was hungry, and there was excellent provender in the bowls. Olives. Pieces of smoked snake meat. Fresh fried octopus. Roast crickets. Giant chameleons stuffed with bacon. Pickled cockroaches. Mangos. Chunks of coconut. Thin-sliced disks of pineapple golden.
Thus, though his true love Olivia languished in a demon’s grasp, Chegory ate greedily. His earlier loss of appetite had passed entirely. He was, after all, an Ebrell Islander, and it takes more than a coup, a kidnapping and a national disaster to upset an Ebby’s appetite permanently.
While Chegory ate, the others thought, but at meal’s end they were none the wiser.
‘We lack sufficient data for precise analysis,’ said Ivan Pokrov. ‘We must send a mission to the mainland, if only to gather additional data.’
‘No,’ said Chegory flatly. ‘We’ll go to the city to kill V arazchavardan. ’
Everyone looked at him. A declaration of intent to murder had been Chegory’s first reaction to the situation. Now, after enjoying a good meal and thinking about it, his intent was exactly the same. Just what one would expect from an Ebrell Islander! No attempt to dialogue the situation. No thoughts of compromise or negotiation. No suggestion of sending an embassy of sorts to talk things through with their enemy. No, none of that. Just an immediate vote for murder.
This is hardly surprising, for on the Ebrells the typical instruments of conflict resolution tend to be edged weapons. Though Chegory had been born and raised on Untunchilamon, he had nevertheless been raised in the cultural tradition of the Ebrells.
What is surprising is that after some discussion, all agreed Chegory’s plan to be sound, reasonable and rational. Odolo, graced with intimate acquaintance with Binchinminfin, thought it an excellent idea. Uckermark, for his part, could certainly think of nothing better. Even Ivan Pokrov, that determined student of the rational, could devise no scheme more sophisticated.
‘But,’ said Ivan Pokrov, ‘let’s not
risk our own lives in the attempt.’
‘Nobody else is likely to help us,’ said Uckermark.
‘Oh, I beg to differ,’ said Pokrov. ‘I can think of one group of people who might be very willing to help.’
He explained.
‘That’s too dangerous!’ said Odolo. ‘They might prove enemies rather than friends!’
‘You don’t have to come if you don’t want to,’ said Uckermark.
‘I don’t want to,’ said Odolo.
He was in no state for heroics. He was bruised, battered and exhausted in both body and psyche.
‘Then stay here,’ said Pokrov, ‘and the rest of us will go.’ ‘You?’ said Chegory. ‘You’ll come with us?’
‘To help negotiate with our intended friends,’ said Pokrov. ‘And… and perhaps to see this demon-thing. My curiosity, you see, is excited.’
Thus it was decided. Uckermark, Ivan Pokrov and Chegory Guy would venture to Injiltaprajura to seek help for a war against Varazchavardan. Soon, suitably equipped with weapons, they were on their way.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Jod’s heroes sweated through the hot night to Uckermark’s corpse shop where Yilda and Log Jaris greeted them with urgent demands for information. After hearing lengthy explanations, all voiced at something close to a shout as a concession to Yilda’s deafness, Log Jaris declared that he would join the expedition to the pink palace. ‘And I!’ said Yilda. But her mate forbade it, thus precipitating a row. Thanks to the support of all the males present, Uckermark triumphed over his woman in argument — a rare occurrence indeed.
Then the corpse master extracted a bottle of a queer purple fluid from a secret cabinet. It glowed in the candlelight with an evil, eldritch phosphorescence. It was Dragonfire, a form of that carcinogenic poison known as alcohol, and it was surpassed in potency only by the firewater of the Ebrell Islands. Rough stuff indeed!
‘This should sweeten the temper of our demon-dealing friends,’ said Uckermark.
As gifts go, this one was truly extravagant, for the glass bottle alone was worth more than most people earnt in a month. But they had to do everything possible to win the wonderworkers as allies in their war against Varazchavardan. The sorcerers must be persuaded that, the Master of Law was indeed possessed by the demon Binchinminfin, and must therefore be destroyed to force the delinquent demon back to the World Beyond.