The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers (49 page)

‘Shabble!’ said Ivan Pokrov. ‘Light!’

Shabble flared. Then the men turned on the rats with savage intent, glad to have something to kick and kill. But the vampire rats sensed what they were up against, and fled screaming.

On went the terrorisers of rats, past the slaughterhouse where phlegmatic butchers were working late by lamplight, anatomising the corpse of a kraken which had recently met its death in the polluted waters of the Laitemata.

Chegory stopped to warn them.

‘Hey!’ said Chegory. ‘Hey, there’s a demon on the loose in the palace.’

‘Oh?’ said a butcher.

Down came the cleaver. Then the man swayed slightly, and burped. Chegory realised he was drunk. Everyone in the slaughterhouse was drunk! They were working in an alcoholic haze. Working by rite and ritual, by habit and force of routine. For a moment longer he stood watching, then, realising he could do nothing useful here, ran after his comrades.

On downhill they went till they came to the hovels and scramble-walks of Lubos. Without warning, the sky above was briefly illuminated by a flash of weird blue light which could have been - anything. It gave them a brief glimpse of their own shocked and frightened faces. Then night claimed dominion once again.

‘Shabble!’ said Pokrov. ‘Where are you? Where’s your light?’

‘Here I am,’ said Shabble, brightening as Shabbleself recovered from the fear brought out by the inexplicable skyflash.

Then there came a cry of utter agony. From where? They could not place the source. After it died away, they were silent. Listening. Hearing - nothing. Nothing but dripping sewage, heavy snoring from an attic window, and the steady downfall of a nearby fountain.

‘Come on,’ said Uckermark.

Then led the way to his corpse shop, where Yilda greeted them with relief and with half a thousand questions.

‘I should have kept a diary,’ grumbled Uckermark, for he knew Yilda would not be satisfied till she knew everything.

As Uckermark did his best to answer some of Yilda’s questions, Chegory made them all some hot coffee. He knew his way round the place fairly well by then. He scarcely noticed the corpse stench, and, rather than thinking of the shop as a house of horrors, found the place rather homely.

A measure of how he had fallen! How far! Indeed - and how fast!

Once Yilda’s omnivorous curiosity had been placated, and coffee had been served, it was time to face the question. The logical, obvious, necessary question, which Chegory nevertheless articulated:

‘What now?’

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

What would you have done, my hero? What would you have done if you had found yourself sitting there in Uckermark’s corpse shop with a mad demon on the loose in Injiltaprajura? To the corpse master himself, the next move was crystal clear.

‘I vote that we get drunk,’ said Uckermark.

But Log Jaris demured.

‘Friend Uckermark,’ he said, ‘the game is not yet played out. We’re not dead yet. We can yet escape - at least with our lives. I vote we flee to the Ngati Moana. Tonight. Between us we own enough in gold and silver to bribe them to give us passage.’

‘Impossible!’ said Guest Gulkan. ‘I came for the wishstone. I’m not leaving without it!’

‘Besides,’ said Chegory, ‘what about, um, Olivia, okay? She’s still with the demon! So’s Ingalawa - and the Empress! We can’t just, well, run off and leave them, can we? Some of them, maybe, okay, but what about Justina?’ ‘What about Justina?’ said Uckermark. ‘She’s a big girl. She can look after herself.’

‘But Olivia, then!’ said Chegory.

‘You’re the one who loves her,’ said Uckermark. ‘You look after her.’

‘Who said I love her?’ said Chegory, blushing. ‘I said nothing about love. It’s - it’s responsibility, that’s what it is. We have to go back for her.’

‘We’ve gone,’ said Uckermark. ‘We’ve been. We’ve tried. We’ve dared. What we could do we did do.’

‘Oh yes!’ said Guest Gulkan. ‘And you lost us the wishstone doing it! I wish I’d killed you the first time I’d set eyes on you.’

Tempers then threatened to get out of hand but Pelagius Zozimus managed to settle the temper of the Yarglat barbarian while the bullman Log Jaris counselled Uckermark against violence.

Then:

‘Jod,’ said Ivan Pokrov. ‘That’s where we should go. That’s where we left Odolo. Mayhap the conjuror can help us plan. After all, he’s the one who knows the demon best.’

Debate ensued. Pokrov’s will prevailed. Yilda was left to guard the corpse shop while the members of the anti-Binchinminfin league made their way to the waterfront and skulked across the harbour bridge toward the dark uprising of Jod. From the fishgut gloom of the Laitemata there arose the overpowering smell of dikle and shlug. The stuff was still pouring from the wealth fountains, forcing the heroes to make the last part of the journey on stilts.

Once they were in the Analytical Institute, Ivan Pokrov led them to his private quarters where they found the conjuror Odolo sleeping sweedy.

‘Let’s wake
him
up,’ said Chegory, still hoping for advice which would help them wage war against Binchinminfin and win Olivia’s freedom.

But Pokrov had other ideas.

‘Let the poor man sleep,’ said Ivan Pokrov. ‘He’ll know as much at dawn as he knows at the moment, no more and no less. Meantime, come through to my office. I’ve got something to show you.’

All followed Pokrov into his private office where, with solemn ceremony, he produced a large flask.

‘I’ve been doing some alchemical research in my spare time,’ said Ivan Pokrov. ‘This is the end result of my labours.’

Then he took some small china cups and poured them each a dose of a subtle fluid the colour of a virgin’s inner flesh. Uckermark sniffed. Then sipped. Then rolled his eyes in delight.

‘Beautiful,’ he murmured. ‘Beautiful!’

Logjaris tried it.

‘Not bad,’ he admitted.

‘Not bad?’ protested Uckermark. ‘It - it’s magnificent!’

A duckling raised on such stuff would have grown into a dragon. A kitten which lapped on such would have matured to a tiger. So at least thought Uckermark. But Chegory thought otherwise. For a single sip sufficed to tell him that this was alcohol. Chegory, who knew the true evil of this filthy poison, spat it out, then turned on the analytical engineer.

‘You made this?’ said Chegory.

‘Truly,’ said Pokrov, with pride.

Chegory was appalled. Was there not one person of integrity in all of Injiltaprajura? He had thought Pokrov every bit the solemn scientist, dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge and learning, yet here he was revealed as a bootlegger dealing in drugs most foul - drugs which corrupt the sOul, rot the liver, maim the unborn in the womb, savage the brain and leave the victim a helpless imbecile shuddering from one waking nightmare to the next.

At least Injiltaprajura still owned one upright citizen. Chegory Guy himself had not wilfully broken the law. (So he thought - conveniently forgetting incidents such as his vigorous attempt to vandalise the door to the Cabal House.) He had tried to serve, honour and obey the established order. (Was there any merit in this when the alternative was almost certain to be execution?) He had tried to be an obedient slave to the law, to be a dutiful cog in the system like one of the thousands of little titanium cogs that clicked around in the heart of the analytical engine. (So he told himself, forgetting that one of his daily dedications was to knifefighting practice - hardly a hobby indicative of meek submission to the ruling order.)

Face to face with temptation, Chegory vowed that he would try to remain a strictly honest and upright citizen, direct and truthful in all his dealings with his fellows, sober for life, an unspotted virgin till the day of his marriage. He would show them! They would see that an Ebrell Islander could be as moral as the next person! Or more so! Despite the bloody stain which tainted his flesh he would prove himself pure!

As Chegory was so thinking, he heard someone sniggering. With murder in his heart he searched all faces, ready to kill when he discovered the mind-reader who was laughing at him. But it was only Shabble, chortling at some private joke.

‘Come, Chegory,’ said Ivan Pokrov. ‘Aren’t you going to drink with us?’

‘No!’ said Chegory.

He waited for the men to be done with their drinks and to settle down to the business of planning war against Binchinminfin. But other drinks followed the first. When the flask of liquor was drained, Ivan Pokrov produced a second. Then a third.

The party began to get lively. Logjaris and Uckermark broke into song. A very strange song with a chorus in which they imitated dog, cock, cat and seal. Much to the bemusement of Chegory Guy, who had never seen a seal in his life, nor heard of one either.

In the end, most of the men had consumed so much of this toxic substance known as alcohol that they had reached the vomiting stage. It is very strange, but people who should know far better will often spend good money - excellent money, the best that work can buy - to go through this experience of overloading their systems with potent poisons. They will do this not once but repeatedly - which supports the theories of the eminent philosopher Stupa, who holds that to exist is to suffer, and that human beings are constructed in such a way that they value suffering above all else.

At last Chegory could stand the company of these drunks no longer. He left them, and Ivan Pokrov found him much later sitting alone on the rocks outside.

‘What’s the matter?’ said Pokrov.

‘What isn’t?’ said Chegory. ‘You - this is craziness! A demon in the palace and all you - all you do is get drunk!’

‘I’m not drunk,’ said Pokrov. ‘The others are, but I’m not.’

‘But you’ve been drinking that, that alcohol stuff, haven’t you?’

‘What"of it?’ said Pokrov.

‘It’s against the law!’ said Chegory.

Pokrov laughed. Softly.

‘It is!’ insisted Chegory. ‘And for good reason! It rots you, doesn’t it? It kills you, right? Isn’t that so?’

There was a pause while Pokrov thought his way around the problem. Then the analytical engineer said:

‘You want to be perfect?’

‘Well,’ said Chegory, ‘I don’t want to kill myself, that’s for sure!’

‘We are mortal, you know,’ said Pokrov.

By using this inclusive ‘we’, Pokrov was perpetrating a half-truth, for technically Pokrov was immortal. He would never die of old age. Yet he could be killed.

‘We’re mortal?’ said Chegory. ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

Ivan Pokrov responded by giving him the first and most annoying of the Seven Unsatisfactory Explanations:

‘When you’re older you’ll understand.’

‘No,’ said Chegory, ‘that’s not good enough. You can’t get out of it just like that. What the hell are you on about? Drinking, that’s drugs and stuff. What the hell’s that got to do with mortality? Hey? Come on, man, what is this crap?’

‘When I say we’re mortal,’ said Pokrov, ‘I mean we can’t live free of risk.’ That was true. It was as true of himself as it was of Chegory. ‘So your - your obsession with health is - not exactly misplaced, I wouldn’t say that. But - let’s say it’s, well, overstated. You’re in danger of becoming a fanatic.’

‘Oh, that’s all crap/ said Chegory. ‘You’re trying to tell me we should - what? Take poison? Because — because what? Because everyone dies? Is that any reason to hurry along to get killed?’

‘You are a bit fanatical about this,’ said Pokrov.

‘Fanatical!’ said Chegory. ‘Is that what you call it? I’ll tell you what I call it! I call it serious! And why? Because when you’re a stinking Ebby, man, you better be serious, because people are out to kill you, that’s why, you can’t fuck up because then you’ve had it, man, just one mistake and that’s it, wham! You never lived with, with people hunting you, you walk in the street and you hear, well, things, people say things, that’s it, then you want to smash them smash them smash - bones, you could smash, blood, I could smash - I could kill some bugger! That’s serious, man! Then now, okay, now there’s a demon, there’s all hell running loose, and you, you’re, it’s like - I mean, what’s going down here, man? You think this is some kind of joke? Lives on the line and you, you crazy shits, you just sit around, you just get smashed, and me - serious, why not? There’s people I - well, care for, okay? But, oh, I’m an Ebby, right? So it’s not serious for you, oh no, suddenly you’re this great big adult, I’m a kid or something, mortality, all that crap, what’s that supposed to prove?’

Thus Chegory Guy.

In brief.

In truth, he soliloquised long, so full of hate, rage and frustration that at first he never noticed Ivan Pokrov’s departure. When he realised the analytical engineer had walked off, abandoning him without apology, he was so full of fury that he was ready to kill someone.

There was only one thing to do.

Chegory did it.

He hunted out his favourite sledgehammer and expended his rage by smashing some much-hated boulders to pieces, sweating in his violence until his body and emotions were exhausted entirely, and, reeling with fatigue, he sought some place to sleep.