The Garden of Unearthly Delights (19 page)

Maxwell
clung on. The Governor held him fast with one hand, raised the other, put out
two fingers and drove them towards Maxwell’s eyes. Maxwell tried to turn his
head away, but could not.

‘Time
to die,’ said the Governor.

The
fingers moved closer and closer, filled all of Maxwell’s vision.

Maxwell
closed his eyes. Gritted his teeth.

The
probing fingers pressed against his eyelids.

Maxwell
prepared himself for the latest in a line of horrible ends.

He
really should just have run off into the night. Coming back had not been all
that clever.

‘Goodbye,
cruel world,’ said Maxwell. ‘Hail Rock ‘n’ Roll and praise the Goddess.’

The
fingers pushed forwards.

Then
stopped.

Drew
back.

Maxwell
opened his eyes.

The
Governor was clutching at his stomach. His eyes were rolling. As Maxwell looked
on, the shoulders of the zoot suit burst asunder. The arms ripped apart.
Buttons popped from the bowling shirt.

The
Governor groaned and moaned. ‘What is happening?’ he burbled.

That
evil grin which Maxwell had worn as he drew tight the drawstring on the pouch
containing Rushmear appeared once more upon his face. ‘I think you’re putting
on a bit of weight,’ he told the Governor. ‘While you were unconscious I took
the liberty of adding a handful of those blow-gut seeds you feed your prisoners
to the ewer of water and giving it a good old stir. Remember how you thought
the taste vile?’

‘No,’
croaked the Governor, swelling like a blimp.

‘Yes,’
shouted Maxwell. ‘Vile bastard that you are. A taste of your own medicine.
What,
old chap!’

The
Governor thrashed about, bloating hideously. Maxwell leaned forward and managed
to let fly one really decent smack in the teeth. The Governor fell from the
rotating bed. Down and down. As sheer chance would have it the bed was gyrating
directly above the mountain of broken chairs as he fell. The Governor smashed
down onto it, tumbled and bowled, rolled over and over and finally smacked to
the ground, an ungodly naked swollen mass of flesh.

The
Skaven rat ogres swarming through the gates fell upon him with relish.

Maxwell
turned his face away from the horror. ‘Horse and Hattock,’ he told the divan,
‘on at once to Rameer and no more farting around.’

Horror
below, red sky above, Maxwell somewhere in between once more. The bed righted
itself, Maxwell settled down upon it.

And the
last Kakkarta heard of Maxwell was his voice, crying dismally, the words, ‘My
beautiful zoot suit.’

And
then he was gone.

13

The divan flew off towards
the north.

It
moved at a sedate pace, some thirty feet above the ground, and stubbornly
ignored Maxwell’s demands for a greater turn of speed and a slight increase in
altitude.

The
divan simply dawdled along.

Maxwell
lay back upon it, hands behind his head, staring bitterly towards the sky. He
was
not
in a jubilant mood.

Certainly
he had dealt out just deserts to Blenkinsop and escaped from Kakkarta with an
enchanted bed to call his own. But. Well. Bloody Hell! He was still on this
suicide mission.
And
he was hungry again.
And
be had lost his
zoot suit.
And
he couldn’t actually be certain that the bed was carrying
him in the right direction. Maxwell thought it all too likely that some sneaky
spell had been preprogrammed into the divan, that might dump the potential
bedknapper into a watery grave or propel him to the heart of the ailing sun.
And so it was for this reason that he had not ordered the bed to fly at once to
the outskirts of MacGuffin’s village, where, Maxwell felt confident, he could
conceive a scheme to grab back his soul and punish the murky magician.

So
Maxwell stewed, hungry, nervous and not a nice man to know. The red fug of
anger and his hatred for MacGuffin gnawed away at his senses like rats at a
leper’s foot. Urgh!

He
would just have to get himself organized: set down somewhere safe, seek out
some breakfast, ask directions, learn whatever might be learned about the city of
Rameer
and the Sultan who dwelt
within.

And he
would have to do something about the man in the magic pouch. Maxwell felt that
now might well be the time to dissolve his uneasy partnership with the volatile
horse trader.

The
chances of this partnership ever becoming one of those now-legendary Cisco Kid
and the Pancho jobbies, or a Lone Ranger and Tonto, or even an Abbott and
Costello or a Sooty and Sweep, seemed somewhat remote. Rushmear and Maxwell did
not seem destined to become soul buddies.

Soul-less
buddies.

Soul-less
adversaries.

But
soul buddies? Nah!

Maxwell
was going to have to ‘let Rushmear go’.

Open
the pouch and shake it out over the side of the flying bed was probably the
best idea. A tad callous perhaps. But there you go. Or rather, there Rushmear
went.

But
strangely Maxwell felt disinclined to do it. Even though he now lacked for soul
and conscience, he did not actually
hate
Rushmear. And although he knew
that the horse trader would most certainly try to kill him the moment he was
released, Maxwell also knew that it was hardly Rushmear’s fault. Rushmear was,
like himself, an innocent victim of circumstance.

Troubled
times for Maxwell, but decisions had to be made.

And
now.

Maxwell
pulled the pouch from his trouser pocket. ‘Rushmear, my good friend,’ he
called. ‘Are you well?’

‘I am
hungry,’ replied Rushmear in a voice of no small fury. ‘And I am also in
imminent danger of crapping myself.’

‘But
otherwise unscathed?’

‘Unscathed?
I have been shaken to buggeration.’

‘No
more so than I. But you will no doubt be overjoyed to learn that I have once
again saved your life. We are free of Kakkarta and flying speedily towards
Rameer upon a magic bed that
I
alone am able to command.’

‘You
are a living saint,’ growled Rushmear. ‘Please release me, that I may prostrate
myself at your feet and offer thanks.’

‘Yeah,
right. But listen, Rushmear, I am locked in the horns of a terrible dilemma.
And I would be grateful to hear your views, as they would colour my thinking in
regard to the matter of your release.’

‘Speak
on,’ muttered Rushmear. ‘It is always a joy to hear your words.’

‘OK. As
I have said to you before, the chances of one man alone succeeding in the
mission to acquire Ewavett and return to MacGuffin are less than zero. Two men,
acting in harmony, sharing the same goal of regaining their souls before their
time ticks away, might well achieve this. If one of them is you and the other,
me.’

‘So
where lies your dilemma?’ Rushmear asked in a greasy tone. ‘Release me and let
us set to the task without further delay.’

‘My
thinking entirely. But the dilemma lies in the matter of your release. I am
haunted by the fear, no doubt unfounded, that you might choose to spring from
the pouch and kill me, thereby throwing away
your
chances of success and
sealing
your
own fate.’

‘Ahem,’
went Rushmear, greasier yet. ‘Put aside your fear, friend Maxwell. I am a bluff
fellow, I know, given to the occasional immoderate outburst. I most fervently
apologize if I have fostered the erroneous belief that I might seek to cause
you harm.’

‘Yet I
recall you vowing to ram my head up my bottom.’

‘In
jest, I assure you.’

‘Then,
if I release you now, I have your promise to let bygones be bygones, at least
until we have completed our mission, destroyed MacGuffin and reclaimed our
souls? Specific aims, which, and I cannot stress this too strongly, could never
possibly
be achieved if we do not work
together.’

‘Let me
out of the pouch,’ crooned Rushmear, ‘and I will demonstrate the quality of my
friendship.’

The
ambiguity of that remark was not lost on Maxwell. The trouble was that he, at
least, had (for the most part) been telling the truth — the chances of success
were
far greater if the two of them worked together.

Troubled
times.

‘All
right,’ said Maxwell. ‘I will release you from the pouch.’

‘You
won’t live to regret it,’ called Rushmear. ‘Not for one minute.’

Maxwell
sighed and put his thumbnail to the drawstring knot. ‘Climb out very carefully
and slowly,’ he said. ‘Make no sudden moves, or the bed will upend and spill us
both to our deaths.’

Maxwell
tugged upon the knot.

And
then.

SMASH!

Maxwell
flew back on the bed. Head over heels. Heels in the air. The bed slewed to one
side, turned in a circle, moved forward with a rush and went
SMASH!
once
again.

‘What
the … Hey!’ Maxwell floundered about, pouch in one hand, fistful of
mattress in the other.

‘What
are you doing?’ Rushmear shouted. ‘Open the pouch. Set me free.’

‘Something’s
happening to the bed.’ Maxwell clung on. The bed took another dash forward,
struck something, bounced off, struck again.

‘Stop!’
shouted Maxwell. ‘Blenkinsop’s divan, stop! Go down, rest upon the ground.’

The bed
dropped down, clumped onto grass beneath.

It came
to rest in a bit of green and pleasantness. A veritable Arcadian glade, all
bulbous trees like giant broccoli, feathered ferns and drowsing dabbled blooms.
Very nice.

Very very
nice.

‘Let me
out now,’ cried Rushmear.

‘In a
moment.’ Maxwell tucked the pouch back into his pocket, and jumped from the
bed. ‘What is your trouble?’ he asked
it.
‘Are you broken, or is this
some trick?’ He took a step backwards, struck something himself and was
catapulted from his feet.

Maxwell
tumbled in a heap on the grass.

He rose
angrily. ‘Who did
that?’
he demanded to be told.

‘Have a
care now. Have a care.’

Maxwell
turned. A little man in a great big coat came hurrying up. He was a very little
man and his coat, numerous sizes too large, dragged along the ground behind
him. He had a big candyfloss of pink hair and a jolly red round face made grave
by a look of concern.

‘Please
don’t touch the grid again, sir,’ he implored. ‘You will come to harm.’

‘What?’
asked Maxwell. ‘Eh?’

‘The
grid.’ The little man gestured towards nothing that could be seen. ‘The grid
encircles the city of
Rameer
.
It rejects magic. The Sultan does not allow unauthorized magic to enter his
garden.’

‘His
garden?
Then the city is not far away?’ Maxwell rubbed at a grazed shin.

‘A
day’s march. Less if you were to run. Somewhat more if you were to hop upon one
leg, of course.’

‘And
who might you be?’ Maxwell asked.

‘I am
Phlegster the gridster, southern area 801. And who might you be, sir?’

‘Do you
know the town of
Kakkarta
?’

‘Well,
I’ve never been there myself, but I’ve heard it’s a very nice place.’

‘Quite
charming,’ said Maxwell. ‘And I am its new Governor.’

‘I’m
very pleased to meet you, sir.’ The little man put out a hand and Maxwell shook
it.

‘Also,’
said Maxwell, ‘I am one most highly skilled in the magical arts and prepared to
blast, upon a whim, any who delay my journey. I command the use of a magical bed,
as you can see. And also,’ he drew the pouch from his pocket, ‘a bag containing
a demon, which I must deliver to the Sultan.’ Maxwell shook the pouch. Rushmear
raised curses. Phlegster stepped back smartly.

‘So,’
continued Maxwell, ‘be a good fellow and disarm the grid so I can pass on my
way.’

The
little man shook his head. ‘I wish I could,’ he sighed, ‘but it would be more
than-my job’s worth.’

Maxwell
sighed also. ‘I too have a job to do. Namely, the delivery of this pouch.’
Maxwell shook it once again, raised an eyebrow to Rushmear’s outcries and
returned the pouch to his pocket. ‘The Sultan will not be best pleased when I
tell him you delayed me.’

‘I’m in
no doubt,’ said Phlegster. ‘So, if you will kindly show me your official travel
documents, letters of recommendation, pilot’s licence, proof of bed-ownership,
signatured authority for the inter state transportation of a registered demonic
entity, I will stamp these and cause you no further delay.’