by Hugh Cook
‘What’s the matter?’ said Shanvil Angarus May.
‘Nothing,’ said Chegory, resisting the temptation to say that he was overworked and overstressed, found it hard to sleep and had nightmares when he did, lived in fear of pregnancy and venereal diseases, saw assassins in shadows, and daily awaited the arrival of Aldarch the Third in person.
Then Chegory wiped his forehead again — something of a nervous tic, this — and strode uphill with an appearance of confidence which belied his inward state.
As bright-dawning istarlat gave way to the longueurs of salahanthara, the party of people from the island of Jod entered the shadows of the pink palace in company with Shanvil May.
‘Remember,’ said Ingalawa, ‘if there’s any bargaining done today, I want to have a say.’
‘I remember,’ said Pokrov meekly.
As the Analytical Institute drew its wealth from the sale of dikle and shlug, on which substances it had a monopoly, it needed no income from those feats of computation performed by its Engine. Hence Pokrov, whose pride and joy that Engine was, had in the past indulged himself by casually signing contracts promising great labours of analysis in return for the most paltry of financial rewards; a procedure which Ingalawa was determined must cease, for she felt the perceived value of algorithmical procedures to have been lessened by the terms of outright charity on which they had been made available to the world.
Ingalawa, then, still had hopes for the Institute’s future, despite the current political uncertainties. It had occurred to her that the Engine might prove of value to the wonder-workers of the Cabal House in their pursuit of a method whereby to transmute lead to gold (or coral, bloodstone, dogshit, mangos or old iron to gold — the sorcerers were not fussy, merely greedy). A linkage between Science and Magic might be the key to a golden age; and, were the virtues of such linkage to be amply demonstrated in short order, the Analytical Institute and its adherents might pursue happy-ever-afters even were Aldarch Three to arrive on Untunchilamon in person to supervise a wrathstorm.
These then arrived in the Star Chamber:
Chegory Guy
Olivia Qasaba
Ivan Pokrov
Artemis Ingalawa and
Shanvil Angarus May
And there to meet them were:
Justina Thrug
Juliet Idaho
Shanvil Angarus May
Dardanalti (Justina’s legal counsel)
Pelagius Zozimus (wizard and master chef to the Crab)
Molly (Justina’s new chef)
Log Jaris (Molly’s life companion)
Nixorjapretzel Rat (a prisoner)
Aquitaine Varazchavardan and the conjuror Odolo
Where then was Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin? A good question, but one to which none there gathered had the answer. Even Pelagius Zozimus had no knowledge of his cousin’s whereabouts; for Sken-Pitilkin, after doing a little poolside work on his airship, had dropped out of sight.
Regardless of the absence of Sken-Pitilkin, most of those who were of a certainty allied to the Empress Justina were gathered in the Star Chamber. Her sister Theodora was missing, and with good reason; for Theodora was enjoying the shipboard hospitality of Troldot Turbothot. Also aboard Turbothot’s ship were certain erstwhile allies of Pelagius Zozimus: the Yarglat barbarian Guest Gulkan and a cut-throat from Chi’ash-lan named Thayer Levant.
Justina darkly suspected that her twin sister was caballing with Turbothot and his crew (and perhaps with a certain shipload of Malud marauders also anchored in the Laitemata) in an effort to seize something (the contents of the treasury of Injiltaprajura, perhaps) from the final wreckage of the reign of the Family Thrug.
When Ivan Pokrov was brought before the Empress Justina, she began their session with a little speech:
‘Look around you. There are but fifteen of us in this room, and one of these a prisoner.’
‘Which one?’ said Pokrov.
‘Not you, Ivan dearest,’ said Justina. ‘It is young Rat’s misfortune that we have been forced to set bounds upon his liberties, for reasons on which I will soon enlarge. But first, reflect. Ultimately, we few alone stand against Aldarch Three and all his allies.’
‘Us and the Crab,’ said Chegory, staunchly perpetuating the life of the Big Lie.
‘Yes, the Crab,’ said Justina, with a sidelong glance at Varazchavardan. ‘But we know we can expect much more from the Crab if we provide it with the means to secure its dearest wish. That being, of course, to have human form.’
Here a pause.
‘I, too,’ rumbled Log Jaris, ‘would not be averse to such change.’
Molly’s life companion had the head and horns of a bull, for he had once dared the jaws of a transmogrification machine located Downstairs. The metamorphosis which he had then endured had succeeded in preserving his life, for it had concealed his identity at a time when many sought to kill him. However, Log Jaris was not exactly happy at the prospect of living out his days thus guised; and his dearest Molly, whose hands were formed like the paws of a cat, would have welcomed some cosmetic alteration herself.
‘By now,’ said Justina, ‘many of you will have heard rumours of an organic rectifier, a device said to have the power to change form and grant the gift of immortality. As I have said, there are but few of us here, and, we are by a multitude opposed.’
She paused.
Then fixed Ivan Pokrov with a steely gaze; or a gaze which, if it could not be described as steely, might justly be compared to the lethal onslaught of the eye-beams of the basilisk.
‘Pokrov,’ she said, in tones far different from those which had so sweetly crooned ‘Ivan dearest’.
‘My Empress knows me to be the most loyal of subjects,’ said the olive-skinned Pokrov.
‘Loyal in his inertia, perhaps,’ said Justina, ‘for no active opposition can be attributed to him. But when it comes to initiatives, loyalty is lacking. For Pokrov, himself immortal thanks to the graces of an organic rectifier, has long known of the presence of such a mechanism in the depths Downstairs, those depths beneath our very feet.’
‘I do not deny it,’ said Pokrov, seeing that his secret of centuries was betrayed, and that nothing was to be gained from mistruth or bluff. ‘But it does you no good to know as much. There are places Downstairs where nobody dare venture.’
‘Log Jaris would tell you differently,’ said Justina.
‘It pains me to have to contradict my Empress,’ said the bullman, ‘but Pokrov does not speak idly.’
There then began a heated debate on the merits of venturing to the more terrifying parts of the underfoot underworld. Chegory Guy had much to say on this subject, for the redskinned Ebrell Islander had wandered much in the realms of mystery, and had once been poisoned with zen in a catacomb below decks. Aquitaine Varazchavardan opined that he would not care to venture the greater depths himself. And as for Pelagius Zozimus, why, he had the most terrifying tales to recount, for he had twice or thrice come near to disaster Downstairs.
Had it been given the luxury of infinite time, doubtless this gathering would in time have reached reasonable, rational conclusions; and would have developed a sound scheme for exploring the depths Downstairs by finger-lengths or by proxy. But, unbeknownst to the members of this conclave, time was fast running out.
Why?
Because the Empress Justina, manoeuvring to prevent riot, had brought upon herself that which she had sought to avoid.
To be precise:
Hostages had been taken to compel the cooperation of the Narapatorpabarta Bank. Then, once the blackmailing Nixorjapretzel Rat had been lured into a trap by a carefully engineered run on the N’barta, Justina had automatically released those hostages. But by then the bank had been effectively ruined, so that, on his release, the manager of the N’barta had found himself compelled to close the doors to all customers and declare the bank bankrupt.
A mob had then gathered.
The mob had consisted (initially) of some 371 depositors who
had found themselves precipitately ruined by such bankruptcy; and their initial intention had been to wrest the bank manager’s head from his shoulders. But he, to save his life, had told the truth: that it was all Justina’s doing.
Then one of the depositors had harangued the crowd to such effect that they had begun to Inarch on the pink palace, seeking in their anger to rend the Empress from limb to limb; and if any of them remembered that Justina was said to be under the personal protection of the Crab, still, none of them allowed such belief to moderate their impetuous fury.
As Nadalastabstala Banraithanchumun Ek had laboured so mightily on his own account to stir up a palace-sacking mob, is it any wonder that the mob swelled to a full six hundred people as it neared the pink palace?
Six hundred people.
A bare two per cent of Injiltaprajura’s population.
But it sufficed.
Justina’s soldiers (disloyal almost to a man) abandoned their posts and fled, leaving the palace portals open to the mob. Several dozen members of that mob were drummers. And here — while we have strenuously resisted the claims of those alarmists who see in ‘drumming’ a threat to civilization itself — we must admit that the beating of drums did take place as the mob surged toward the palace. Yet we contend that the idle young would have joined such a rabble even had no instruments of rhythmical production been in their possession; and hold, too, that the relationship between ‘drumming’ and rioting is, even in this context, purely accidental.
As the assemblage of the faex populi approached, a servant intruded on Justina’s Star Chamber meeting with the dire news, throwing all into confusion.
‘My study,’ said Justina to Odolo. ‘My forgeries. They’re on my desk. Five pages. Ricepaper. Purple. I need them. Now. Go!’
Odolo fled, returning promptly with five much-besmirched sheets of paper. Sprawled black ink still wet upon them. They were ruined, wrecked.
‘What’s happened to them?’ said Justina in bewilderment.
‘I’ll tell you what’s happened to them,’ said Idaho in wrath. ‘A dragon’s run amok in an inkwell, that’s what’s happened. Look! Here! Dragon tracks!’
‘Ah,’ said Justina, unhappily.
‘Don’t take it so hard,’ said Artemis Ingalawa consolingly. ‘You can’t disarm a mob with documents, no matter what their content.’
‘We can’t disarm the mob at all,’ said Log Jaris. ‘We must run. If we can get to the desert side, I know a bolt hole.’
‘Then follow me,’ said Juliet Idaho.
At which young Nixorjapretzel Rat decided it was time for him to split. But Pelagius Zozimus grabbed him by the collar and hauled him along with the rest of them.
Juliet Idaho led them to a sally port. He opened it.
Already they could hear shouts, screams, hammering footsteps. The hoi polloi were almost upon them. So out into the hot sunlight of Injiltaprajura’s desert side they fled.
From the heights of Pokra Ridge, they could see across the market gardens, barracks, quarries and so forth of desert side Injiltaprajura, and then across league after league of desert. The only strategic impediment to unbroken vistas were the shoreside heights, upthrusts of rock fringing the borders of Untunchilamon to such effect that they masked the approach of all shipping until the vessels in question were on the point of entering the Laitemata.
But the attention they gave to the view was zero.
‘Follow me,’ said Log Jaris.
Then the bullman bounded downhill, followed by a raggedy sweating-panting bustle of people. A hundred paces downhill, they reached the ornate tombs of past wazirs of Injiltaprajura. Log Jaris threw open the door to one mausoleum. Within, a stone coffin and another door.
The second door the bullman opened.
A draught breathed out.
A cool draught of air from deep underground.
‘They’ve seen us!’ cried Chegory. ‘The enemy has seen us!’
He was right. A great gang of the great unwashed was spewing out of the sally port.
‘Then take to the depths,’ said Log Jaris. ‘The Empress with you.’
And then a swift division of fates was decided. The Empress Justina must be saved, for Injiltaprajura’s fate depended on her rule. Chegory Guy must also be preserved; for, by a cruel twist of fate, it happened that the sole person to have the confidence of the Crab was this ill-educated rock gardener. Olivia Qasaba would not be parted from her true love. And Ivan Pokrov must go, for, if it happened that the fugitives found an organic rectifier below, how would they recognize it but by his expertise? Artemis Ingalawa went also, insisting that Olivia needed a chaperone. A chaperone? It was far too late for that! But Ingalawa was unaware of the stage things had reached in relations between Chegory and his true love. Hence her concern.
Meanwhile, Shanvil Angarus May and Juliet Idaho declared that they would die together at the gates of the mausoleum, chopping down as many of the mob as they could before they too fell in turn.
Justina’s remaining supporters would flee in the direction of Moremo Maximum Security Prison, hoping to confuse the many-headed monster of the multitude.
‘Goodbye, sweet world!’ said Justina.
Then she was gone, descending to the underworld with Chegory, Olivia, Pokrov and Ingalawa close behind her.
‘It is a good day to die,’ said Juliet Idaho, spitting on his hands; scarcely an original remark, as it was the line with which he greeted each new day even before he rose from his bed.
‘Or to live,’ said May, equally ready to die but more optimistic in his outlook.
‘Or to run,’ said Log Jaris, and suited action to words, with Molly sprinting at his shoulder.
Odolo, Dardanalti and Aquitaine Varazchavardan ran with him, as did Pelagius Zozimus and Nixorjapretzel Rat.
All this was done quite properly, for it is correctly written in The Tactics of Escape (which manual originates with the Combat School of Odrum) that ‘when the few seek to escape from the many, the chances of the few will be amplified by division of direction; the visible escape of some of the few will serve to enhance the chances of those who flee by ways invisible; and should it happen that a narrow way can be defended by one or two of the few, then the survival of the remainder will be further enhanced by such sacrifice.’
Whether they knew it or not, Justina and her allies acted precisely in accordance with that doctrine. They divided their directions. Log Jaris and other expendable individuals fled through the sunlight, seeking to draw the mob toward Moremo. Justina and her chosen companions headed Downstairs, fleeing by a way invisible to the mob. And two heroes — Juliet Idaho and Shanvil May — prepared to die to delay the pursuit.
Let us consider now the fate of Log Jaris and his party.
When these could run no more, they stopped: and looked back to see how close the mob might be.
Here it would be pleasing (and profitable) to give this history more narrative appeal than it possesses by inventing some glamorous incident of unparalleled heroism. Such things have favour with a great many readers. Take, for example, the popularity of those gross and simplistic tales which are told about Vorn the Gladiator.
Vorn has a pass he must hold against the hundreds of the Dreaded Hordes of the Cruel Beaked Things from the Nethermost of the Nether Depths. He is alone, for all have abandoned the pass saving for himself alone. On come the Cruel Beaked Things, and their very giggling is itself a horror to hear.
‘It is a good day to die,’ says Vorn the Gladiator, and kisses the bright blade Zaftig.
Then the first of the Cruel Beaked Things is upon him.
Not only is it beaked, it is taloned as well. It stands thrice as tall as a horse and has breath four times as bad as that of the legendary Skork, she who was the Great Whore of the island of Chay. But it will take more than a Cruel Beaked Thing to overcome a hero.
‘Die!’ screams Vorn.
Zaftig slices the air with a scream like that a baby gives when a professional child beater
brands the squalling thing with hot iron.
The first of the Cruel Beaked Things flops away, mortally wounded, its intestines sprawling in the dust as it jerks this way and that in its agony.
On come the rest of the Cruel Beaked Things, but Vorn treats them likewise, to the great delight of his many fans. Before the day is done, all the Cruel Beaked Things are dead; and the greatest danger to Vorn’s health and safety is the danger that he may slip on the greasy blood which so liberally layers the snows.
However, such things lie in the realms of fantasy; and a historian is confined within the strict boundaries of reality, and may not deviate from them, however hard his bank manager happens to be pressing them.
The truth is this:
When Dardanalti and his friends stopped and looked back, they saw no battle, no crisis, no conflict. Instead, the scene which lay before them was very much a still life, for the mob was nowhere in sight.
‘They’ve vanished!’ said Nixorjapretzel Rat in astonishment. ‘How did they do that?’
Pelagius Zozimus, wise in the ways of wizardry and of other exerci ses of Power, studied the scene which confronted him then gave an expe rt’s appraisal: ‘Probably, Jan Rat, the mob went back through the door out of which they came in the first place.’
‘But why?’ said Rat. ‘Why would they do that?’
‘The sun was too hot, perhaps,’ said Zozimus. ‘Or it could be the view was not to their liking.’
In truth, the matter was a mystery to Dardanalti and Co., for they had thought this mob to be Ek’s mob, a religious mob intent on the murder of enemies of Zoz the Ancestral. Accordingly, they were unable to understand why the mob had so lightly abandoned the pursuit of their quarry.
Once we know the facts of the matter, the mystery disappears. The facts are simple. This was not a mob animated by religious mania, for the heart of this rabble was provided by those driven by economic motive; and they, once realizing they had the palace at their mercy, were more than happy to retreat from the sun and content themselves with plunder.
Therefore Juliet Idaho and Shanvil Angarus May waited in vain at the gates of the mausoleum, their homicidal desires temporarily thwarted; and Log Jaris and his companions had no pursuers to outrun.