The Garden of Unearthly Delights (17 page)

‘Hasty?’
The burly horse trader rocked to and fro upon his heels. ‘Hasty? Allow that
thought to perish. Slow and steady and one bone at a time.

‘Rushmear,
you’re making a big mistake.’

‘Oh,
pardon me,’ said Rushmear, in an evil whisper. ‘For a moment there I thought
you were none other than Max Carrion, Imagineer.’

Maxwell
gave a foolish titter. ‘Who?’

‘Max
Carrion, who tricked me from my horses, made a laughing-stock of my lovely
daughter and was party to the riot that ended with my town being burned to the
ground. The same Max Carrion whom I swore to track down and whilst so doing
fell into the clutches of a mad magician who stole my soul and cast me halfway
across the world that I might grace the table for a hoard of Skaven rat ogres.’

‘Easy
mistake to make,’ said Maxwell. ‘I’ve been told I do bear a passing resemblance
to the man you speak about.’

‘Even
down to the big substantial boots. You are that man. And now you die.’

‘Can’t
we talk about this?’ Maxwell cowered and flinched.

‘My
brain bums,’ said Rushmear. ‘It may cool a little once I have disposed of you.’
He swayed forwards, crooking the fingers of his mighty hands. ‘Recommend
yourself to your maker, for in minutes you will meet Him face to face.’

Maxwell
sought invisibility. And in the seeking thereof, and what with death definitely
now being only moments away, a thought entered his head, which was swiftly
joined by another and yet another. Until, and all this occurred in but a single
nanosecond, these thoughts melted themselves into one mighty thought.

Rushmear
lunged forward, grasped Maxwell by the throat and hauled him up the stinking
wall.

‘Let me
go,’ gagged Maxwell. ‘I know you hate me, but you hate MacGuffin more.
Croak-gag-cough.’

‘I hate
all,’ said Rushmear, tightening his hold.

‘I can
get you out of here,’ choked Maxwell. ‘I know of a way. You could revenge
yourself on MacGuffin, reclaim your soul.
Gag-choke.’

‘There
is no way out of here, the grille is beyond reach.’

‘You
could revenge yourself on the Governor too.
Gasp-gag.’

‘I’ll
pluck out his eyes and—’

‘If you
kill me now you’ll never know how.’ Maxwell’s senses were departing him fast.
‘What have you got to lose?’

The
grip slackened. Not a lot, but sufficient to allow a modicum of air to pass
down Maxwell’s windpipe.

‘Speak,’
said Rushmear. ‘Speak quickly and clearly. And precisely.’

Maxwell
opened his mouth and began to speak.

It was nearly ten of the
morning clock before breakfast arrived. And when it did, it looked far from
appetizing. A pail-load of vegetables, emptied without ceremony down through
the grille.

Rushmear
held Maxwell back with one big hand whilst sorting through the tumbled veggies
with the other.

‘Let me
eat,’ implored Maxwell. ‘If I die of starvation, you will never get free.’

‘Of
this I am aware. But if you eat without care you’ll suffer for your folly.’

‘How
so?’

‘There
are little seeds amongst the vegetables. Seeds of the blow-gut bush. They look
harmless and wholesome, but when eaten they swell in your belly, puff you out.

‘How do
you know that?’

‘I am
Rushmear the horse dealer. I know how to fatten cattle. Here, chew on this.’
Rushmear handed Maxwell a parsnip.

The day then passed without
a happy interlude to call its own. Maxwell explained the more subtle details of
his scheme to Rushmear. Rushmear chewed upon them and spat faults from each, so
that Maxwell was put to the further effort of consoling the truculent horse
dealer, who seemed at every moment on the point of losing all control, and
simply splaying him there and then.

It was
a long day and made singularly hideous by Rushmear’s not infrequent visits to
the latrine corner.

By
sunset Maxwell’s nerves were in the final phase of decomposition and he felt
certain that his nose would never function properly again.

The sun
vanished away, and the moon, the one with the new improved twenty-three-day
cycle, rose into the sky. It flung a sheet of whiteness into the black hole of
Kakkarta.

‘Hand
me the string,’ said Maxwell. Rushmear, who had been unravelling his woollen
smock all day and knotting the lengths of yarn together, handed the coil to
Maxwell.

‘Now,’
said the imagineer, ‘I knot a turnip to this end and throw it up through the
grille, it loops over one of the bars and I gently lower the turnip down
again.’

‘Go on
then.

Maxwell
had a crack at it. His first throw fell short, and his second. At the third,
the turnip dropped off the end.

‘Give
me the line, fool,’ ordered Rushmear. ‘I was roping horses when I was four
years old.’

‘You
might have said.’

Rushmear
gave a surly snort, re-knotted the turnip, twirled it with surprising dexterity
for such a huge man, flung up the line… And missed.

Maxwell
opened his mouth.

‘Don’t
you dare,’ cautioned Rushmear.

Twelve
throws later, the line passed through the grille, the turnip passed over a bar
and Rushmear carefully lowered it down.

‘Now,’
said he, ‘perform your party piece.’

‘Certainly.’
Maxwell took MacGuffin’s magic pouch from his pocket, placed it on the awful
floor and put one leg into it. He sank down with a terrible thud, striking
certain tender parts of his anatomy upon the aforementioned awfulness. Rushmear
clamped a hand over Maxwell’s mouth. ‘Get in, fool.
No,
hold up.’

Maxwell
with one leg in and the rest of him out, managed a ‘What?’

‘I
don’t care for this,’ said Rushmear. ‘The plan as you explained it is that you
climb into this magic pouch, I tie the pouch to the turnip end of the line then
pull on the other. The pouch goes up through the grille, you climb out, release
the bolt and open the grille.’

‘Yes?’
said Maxwell. ‘And a fine plan it is too.’

‘But
how do
I
get out?’

‘I
lower the pouch back down to you. You climb inside and I haul you up. I don’t
even need to release the bolt and open the grille.’

‘I am
not happy with this,’ said Rushmear. ‘I will climb into the pouch and you will
pull me up first.’

‘No,’
said Maxwell, ‘I won’t.’

‘You
will, or I wring your neck.’

Maxwell
shook his head. ‘A degree of trust must exist between us. I thought up this
plan, so I go first. If you refuse to abide by my rules, step into the pouch
and see what happens next.

‘What
will
happen next?’

‘I will
stamp on the pouch,’ said Maxwell. ‘And escape by another means I have just
thought of.’

Rushmear
set free a low growl. ‘And what if I abide by your rules, and pull you up
first? You climb free and run off, leaving me here.’

‘Then
shout at the top of your voice. No doubt I will soon be recaptured.’

 Rushmear
made more low grumbling sounds.

‘Look,’
said Maxwell, ‘escaping from this cell is the relatively easy bit. Seeking out
Ewavett and wresting her from the Sultan Rameer, then returning to MacGuffin
to reclaim our souls will prove far more tricky. I have no wish to form an
alliance with you, but together we may succeed. And we may snuff out the
egregious MacGuffin. Singly our chances are not too good. Already I am down to
twenty-two days. You are down to twenty-one, I believe.’

‘Climb
into the pouch,’ said Rushmear. ‘I will pull you up.’

Maxwell
stepped smartly into the magic pouch, pulled himself through the opening and
crouched down inside the nothingness within. Rushmear attached the pouch to the
turnip end of the knotted yam and pulled upon the other. The pouch travelled
up, plopped over the grille bar and would certainly have fallen back into the
cell, had not Maxwell hastily thrust out his arm.

He
climbed from the magic pouch, onto the grille, drew in great drafts of clean
night air, and then he looked furtively about. All seemed quiet and still. The
Skaven rat ogres were evidently early bedders. Maxwell lowered the empty pouch
back down into the foul hole beneath.

Rushmear
climbed hastily inside. Maxwell hauled him up.

Drawing
the pouch through the grille, Maxwell held it at arm’s length and smiled a
wicked smile.

‘Let me
out,’ called a little voice from within.

‘Silence.’
Maxwell gave the pouch a shake. ‘A slight change of plan.’

‘Let me
out.’

Maxwell
drew the draw-string tight. ‘Certain doubts assail me,’ he explained. ‘Certain
fears that, should I release you, you might choose to play me false. Possibly
even murder me where I stand.’

‘I
would never think of such a thing!’ called the little voice. ‘We are as
brothers in our quest to reclaim our souls.’

‘Nevertheless,’
whispered Maxwell, ‘I feel it better that you remain in the pouch for now.

‘Traitor!
Bastard! Whore son! Wait until I ‘That’s quite enough from you.’ Maxwell tucked
the pouch into his trouser pocket. Rushmear was no doubt kicking away like a
mad man, but Maxwell could feel nothing of it. The magic pouch negated the
gravity of anything within and nothing of it could be felt without.

Giving
his pocket a little pat for luck, Maxwell slipped quietly from the town of
Kakkarta
and ran off into the night.

12

Maxwell didn’t run far
from Kakkarta. He sorely needed to sleep and the prospect of a mad dash into
yet another wilderness, with the probability of recapture, when he fell down
from exhaustion, was not to his liking.

Maxwell
had other ideas. Other thoughts.

Thoughts
of an imagineering nature.

The
moon was high and by its unromantic light he spied what he was looking for: a
little stream that danced along beside the road. Maxwell stamped down the bank,
being careful to leave nice big footprints and jumped into the stream. Then he
waded back towards Kakkarta.

At a
bridge close to the outskirts of the town he removed his boots, knotted the
laces together, hung them about his neck and came ashore.

Maxwell
sought the Governor’s house. It was not hard to find, being substantially
larger than all the rest and sporting a flag pole in its garden. With a wary
eye out for watchdogs or guards, Maxwell tiptoed across the garden and searched
for the convenient vine.

The
convenient vine, as everyone who has ever watched an adventure film will
recall, is a sturdy affair that clings to the wall of the villain’s abode. It
offers a series of strong footholds which afford the hero easy access to either
a balcony (where the villain can be spied out pacing the floor or shaking a
fist at the heroine, who sits defiantly upon a bed with her clothes in
disarray) or the roof.

Of
course, the convenient vine must not be treated disrespectfully. Somewhere,
high up in its branches, is ‘the loose bit’, which comes away in the hero’s
hand and nearly has him tumbling to his doom.

Maxwell
found the convenient vine at the back of the Governor’s house. He put on his
substantial boots and shinned up it.

Halfway
up he happened upon a balcony, peeping over he spied a lighted bedroom. Within,
the Governor paced up and down.

Maxwell
climbed on up. He almost came to grief near the top, when a loose bit came away
in his hand and threatened to send him tumbling to his doom. But Maxwell clung
on by his fingertips and hauled himself onto the flat roof above.

Here he
ducked down beneath the parapet, caught his breath and pulled the magic pouch
from his trouser pocket.

‘Rushmear,’
he whispered, ‘are you still awake?’

‘Awake?’
roared Rushmear, though his voice came as from a
great distance away. ‘I’ll not sleep until I’ve put my hand down your throat
and torn out your spleen.’

‘Spot
on,’ said Maxwell. ‘Now listen, I am going to release the draw-string of the
pouch by just a smidgen. When the first ray of sunlight touches you, set up a
shout and awaken me, OK?’

There
was silence in the pouch department.

Maxwell
gave the pouch a violent shake, which evoked bitter wails and curses. ‘Should
you fail to awaken me and I over-sleep, then most surely will I grind my heel
upon you.

Maxwell
loosened the draw-string a weeny bit, not sufficient for Rushmear to worm a
finger through, of course. And set down the pouch upon the roof. ‘Good night,
Rushmear,’ said Maxwell.