The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers (35 page)

At dawn the rays of the rising sun ignited the colours of the glitter dome atop the pink palace of the Empress Justina. The sun bells rang out. Bardardornootha had ended; istarlat had just begun. Yet although it was so early in the day it was still muggy, for though the air had grown less hot overnight it most certainly had not cooled.

The conjuror Odolo, Official Keeper of the Imperial Sceptre, felt the enclosing and unwelcome warmth of the day when, he awoke in the profound shadows of a cell in Moremo Maximum Security Prison. He woke on a single niggardly blanket which was grey with lice. He sat up, coughed, stretched, scratched, stretched again to try to ease the aches in his limbs, then tried to figure out where the hell he was.

Already Odolo was bewildered, disorientated and confused. He tried to concentrate, comprehend and cogitate, but this was next to impossible because of the words madly scrambling through his mind.

Words?

Words in Dub, Toxteth and Janjuladoola. Obscenities, profundities, absurdities and inanities. The banal and the quotidian buttock to buttock with the visionary and the esoteric. The words jostled each other senselessly in a mad tumbling disorder, thus:

Yam sot-pot in aspic flaring

black dragon red farmer does dung to be art

gum blue dreamfish prinked lissome their giblets of prophecy

to lithe the blue supply said the rainbow of scorpions

sexed cats sang the sorceress sibyl

taupe baklava shim-sham-shimmying gluttoned its appetites, ravaged its seas

bamboo the ebony, cassava the ivory cotton coin candles persistent in welfare snakeskinned the sunlight sheds pain Odolo pressed his head against the dank, unyielding stone of his jail cell. The stone at least was cool even though the air was over-warm. He closed his eyes. He concentrated. On ice. A big block of ice. Blue-white. In sunlight. A glory of diamonds. Cool ice. Frozen. Silent. Frozen ...

Slowly, the words silenced. Odolo centred himself in his cell’s shadow-stock in the position known as Celestial Lotus. He was in control of himself. At least for the moment. He started doing a Personal Status Assessment as he had learnt to when he was an acolyte studying under Mantua Hull of the Combat Wing of the School of Strategy on the island of Odrum.

[Here a manifest error. A Records Search shows no student by name of Odolo and no instructor by name of Mantua Hull anywhere on our island in living memory. The Originator lies, or has failed to detect lies told to him by his nameless informant - Odolo himself? This error I verify-.
Threndil Falcon, Keeper of the Census
.]

The results of the Personal Status Assessment were reassuring. Momentarily reassuring. He was adequately hydrated. Not particularly hungry. Had slept sufficiently. Was combat-functional. Senses and reflexes intact.

Then all sense of reassurance disappeared as Odolo consulted his memories. He remembered! The banquet, of course. Those amazing walnuts spilling from his helpless hands. Then the Thing upchoking from his throat. His helpless efforts to restrain It. The outrush of acrid smoke. Then - then the dragon. The monster forming itself amidst the smoke.

Mother of turtles! They think me guilty!

If indeed the Powers That Be were blaming Odolo for manifesting a dragon in the banqueting hall then he was in trouble dire, trouble deep, trouble blue and bloody.

■Jit!’ said Odolo.

In response to this obscenity the shadows skittered and scraped. Something dwelt within the cell. He was not alone! What was it? Claws, tentacles, teeth?

‘Nothing!’ said Odolo defiantly.

Then wished he had not spoken so loudly.

There was a monster in the cell with him! He was sure of it!

So thought Odolo — but only for a few moments. For the briefest scrutiny of the shadows showed him that nothing of any consequence could possibly be hiding there. He must have been imagining those strange skittering sounds. He put them out of mind and turned his thoughts to a more important subject: escape. Could he escape?

First, where was he? Surely he was in Moremo Maximum Security Prison on the northern side of Pokra Ridge. Okay. Could he get out? Through the floor? Through the walls? All were of the bloodstone of Untunchilamon. A rock far softer than granite. So he could surely tunnel out of his cell if allowed to work undisturbed for six or seven years. However, he fully expected his case to be resolved for better or worse (worse being torture, dismemberment and death) within six or seven days at the most.

The oppressive red of the bloodstone was already getting to him. Its blood-heavy ominousness was not at all the sort of colour to inspire optimistic thoughts. Six or seven years to get out through the walls, then. What about the door?

The cell’s massive operculum had been painted to resemble a monster with mouth wide open, slavering jaws gaping to receive Odolo into its maw. Artistic ingenuity had made the turnkey’s spyhole the pupil of the monster’s single eye. Odolo ignored the artwork. He kicked the door. It was solid. Nobody was going to use that exit but by invitation.

Odolo kicked the door once more, for luck. Then stood stock still. Listening. He could hear something! Strange skittering sounds. Yes, he could really hear them. He was not imagining them. So what was to blame? Some kind of animal? Perhaps. But there was nowhere in the cell where anything of any size could hide. Unless it was hanging from the roof.

Odolo looked up.

Moremo’s architects had placed a small window at twice manheight from the floor. Light from the eastern sun showed that nothing hung from the roof but a few cobwebs; the same light, shining on the wall opposite the window, stirred the blood of the bloodstone to life and cast shadows of heavyweight bars which prevented egress and ingress by prisoners and marauding animals alike.

Nothing is here but me and nothing can get in to get me.

So thought a relieved Odolo, then relieved himself into the magnanimous dark of the cell’s vomit hole, stirring claws in the dark below to a boiling frenzing. An unearthly high-pitched screaming arose from below. Was there a captive skavamareen down there? No! Worse! Vampire rats! The grille guarding the vomit hole was not to stop prisoners climbing Downstairs, for the sewer pipe was far too small to facilitate escape. The grille was to stop vampire rats sallying forth from the sewers to eat prisoners alive.

At this stage a stranger to Injiltaprajura might have relaxed and enjoyed his good fortune, for the grille was a heavyweight affair most certainly rat-proof. Such a stranger would have told himself he was in a cell both pleasant and capacious (as prison cells go). He had privacy. He had light. He had a bed. He had blankets, and company in plenty in the form of friendly lice most urgently desirous of intimacy. Sheer luxury!

However, the conjuror Odolo did not relax at all, for he knew all too well that this was an execution cell. Worse, it was not any old death cell. This was the horror house, the place reserved for those miscreants attainted of the crime of
lese-majeste.
When found guilty (and who would be accused of something so serious if they were not guilty?) then they suffered a particularly horrible death.

Odolo knew his fate. After he was convicted of treason his executioners would remove that grille then leave him alone in the cell. In the bowels of the night, in the depths of bardardornootha, there would be a snickering squeal. Then up would come the vampire rats in their legions. Then he would die most hideously, losing first his fingers in the defence of his eyes and then—

In panic, Odolo wondered if he was doomed already. What if he had been tried while unconscious? Tried and sentenced? Sentenced and doomed? It was all too horribly possible. Yet - the grille was still in place. So surely he had a chance yet.

Aldarch the Third!

A chance of life! His slim, sole and virtually nonexistent chance. He would be saved only if Aldarch III conquered Untunchilamon in time to stop the execution. Saved? Rewarded, even! For it would seem to the public that Odolo had by sorcery attempted to kill the Empress Justina, bitch-spawn of the rebellious Lonstantine Thrug and sworn enemy of Aldarch III.

But it is Fistavlir.

Indeed. It was the season of Fistavlir, the Long Dry, when Untunchilamon lay becalmed in the doldrums. No wind stirred. Hence no ships. No minion of Aldarch III could approach Injiltaprajura until the next wind season came.

In any case, Talonsklavara could drag on for years yet.

True. The civil war in Yestron, which was in its seventh year, had plenty of history-making potential left. Aldarch the Third was rumoured to be winning, but what trust could Odolo put in rumour?

My life I must save myself.

The grille was still in place. Still guarding the vomit hole to protect him from vampire rats. So as yet he had not been tried and sentenced. He was safe, for the moment. Unless he let hysteria run him amok. He must guard against panic. Must rest. Relax. Conserve his strength.

He closed his eyes.

Tried to rest, to relax.

To embalm himself in sleep.

But found'—

Found a remorseless upthrust of images welling into consciousness. Not the much-to-be-expected nightmares of pain, torture, privation and death to which he in his condition would naturally be prone. Not that, but totally disconnected visions. Kicking through his skull. Disordered as a wet-writhing mass of fish dumped from a net to a boatdeck. Data was whirlpooling from the depths of his memory. Fractional glimpses of people, places, events. Tastes, temperatures, smells and tactions. Sights and sounds. Nuances of weight and balance.

Mango yellow. Cassava squirt. Seasalt algae sunbaked. Albatross shadow. Crab scuttle cavecool. Coconut split. Knock-hollow coconut rock-shattered. Finger-lick of moisture. Fingers? Digits. Vestigal talons. Articulation.

His hand was working itself.

Experimenting with itself.

His left hand.

Fingers closing to a fist. Slowly. Opening again. Slowly. Thumb touching first finger, second, third. Odolo slapped his delinquent left hand with his obedient right. The left hand ceased its fidgeting.

But still the memories upswirled, rising in torrents like the blood of the dead in the legend of Pelikan Ova. Memories of ice delicious on days hot. Of nights by mosquitoes tormented. Of seadream diving near the Galley Gate deeps. Of green tea, blue gin, creamed coffee, sherbet and other potatiory delights. He tried to stop the memory-flux. But could not. He was losing sovereignty over his own mind. Was, in a word, going mad.

Worse — the very wall was moving!

Odolo stared at the wall. Then realised, to his relief, that the impression of movement came from the shuffle-shift of an overlay of cockroaches. Free protein! He realised he was hungry. Unless breakfast came soon he might murder a few of the six-legged ones for the pleasure of his belly. Then, as he watched, a waking nightmare abolished both relief and hunger entirely. A shadow amidst the shadows formed itself into a claw. It raked the wall. Knifed its talons in among the cockroaches. They fell in a scrattling rain, sklattering to the flagstones. Odolo felt first strangling fear then—

Silence.

As if he had become—

What?

A pool of clear water.

Silent. Poised. Ready. Waiting.

For what?

While Odolo waited for revelation, the cockroaches scrambled back on to their wall. Then a couple slipped from the justling shadow-hugging mass. More fell as a shadow-formed claw again raked the wall. The fallen cockroaches mucked around on the flagstones. Then, as if drawn toward Odolo by a superior Power, they perambulated toward him, onmarching steadily as if with hideous intent. They were going to - to eat him?

He shrank away from the oncoming monsters. Then the leading cockroach hesitated. Shimmered. Flickered. Softened. Dissolved. Reformed itself as a butterfly. Which took to wing, rising shadow-soft and shadow-silent to the sunlight above. Where it flashed into sudden glory, then swooped between the bars of the cell. Gliding away to freedom.

Odolo glanced back at the cockroach army. It had vanished. Something small and green had taken the place of the insects. It took to the air as he watched and began to circle just overhead. Not another butterfly, no. Not a butterfly but a dragon. A tiny little dragon, barely a fingerlength from nose to tail. It chirruped happily as it flew.

Had all those cockroaches gone to make one dragon in miniature? No. On the flagstones at Odolo’s feet were two mango-sized beasts. A lion and a unicorn. Even as he watched, the two tiny animals began to fight. They wrestled each other to the edge of the vomit hole. Slipped. Then fell. From the depths below there came a hideous squealing.

Vampire rats!

Attracted by the noise, the dragon dived from the heights and plunged into the vomit hole. Moments later, it emerged. Covered in filth. It settled on the flagstones. It flapped its wings furiously, hissing. Muck slished away from its scales. Still hissing, the dragon took to the air. It ascended. Up, up it went, climbing as it circled. As it gained the heights the sunlight caught it, sparking a flare of dragonfly iridescence from its wings. The dragon slipped between the bars, disappearing into the sunlight.