The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers (15 page)

Chegory was marched up the steps to the portico. Between the huge carven pillars he was led. Into the foyer he was taken. There he was handed over to the palace guards.

‘Another one for the squealer,’ said a soldier. ‘To go back to the detention centre when finished with.’

Chegory was paperworked then taken into the deep-delved interstices of the palace underlevels, there to await the Test. Shanvil May was correct in thinking the Test would not take place in a hurry. In the corridor leading to the treasury there was a long, long queue of Ebrell Islanders and similar undesirables waiting to be tested by the squealer.

Suspects were taken into the treasury one by one. The squealer (an antique device of uncertain origin) would wail long and loud if anyone presented to it had been in its presence in the last ten years.

Chegory was content inasmuch as he knew himself to be innocent. At least here in the palace no disaster could befall him. There was nobody here who wanted to kill him; Ingalawa was far away and hence unable to bully him further; he need not worry for the moment about petitions, publicity and the dire punishments which would surely fall upon him as an inevitable consequence of the crime of being an Ebrell Islander.

The queue moved but slowly.

The suspects emerging from the treasury after clearance by the squealer had bloody noses and worse, suggesting that the guards within were amusing themselves at the expense of the captives. Chegory scarcely reacted to this. He had sunk into a fatalistic mood. A beating? What mattered a beating in the face of the absolute disaster which had befallen him?

He started worst-casing his predicament.

What worried him most was the prospect of the agonising embarrassment of public exposure, the shame he would suffer when he had to face his straightbacked uncle Dunash Labrat, and the prospect of exile.

Apart from that, he did not think anything too terrible would happen, as long as he could evade the murderous vigilantism of the soldiers whom Shabble had burnt. The standard punishments of the Izdimir Empire had largely fallen into disuse after Wazir Sin had been overthrown. Such crimes as treason still attracted heavy penalties, but minor malefactors were no longer thrown to pits full of vampire rats. Nor were they—

[Here a loving account of the seven hundred Standard Punishments of the Izdimir Empire has been deleted in the interests of concision. Those interested in the details will find them admirably explicated in an encyclopaedic work by Boz Reebok entitled
The Compleat Manual of Mercy. Drax Lira, Redactor Major.]

Thus Chegory could count on keeping possession of his limbs, senses and sanity. Nevertheless, exile was a definite possibility. Injiltaprajura would think itself well rid of an Ebrell Islander who brawled in the streets, consorted with drug dealers and indulged in the dreaded alcohol.

Exile to Zazazolzodanzarzakazolabrik!

To many, such a prospect would have been nightmarish, for those wastelands to the north of Injiltaprajura were fearsome indeed. A desert of rotten rock undermined by sea-flooded tunnels where dwelt huge sea scorpions and sea centipedes. Ancient ruins haunted by evil metal which hunted and killed. The encampments of the aboriginal people of Untunchilamon, a hunted race feared and despised by those who dwelt in the city.

In Zazazolzodanzarzakazolabrik it was easy to die, hard to live. Or so it was said in Injiltaprajura. In Chegory’s case, things were somewhat different. Wazir Sin had launched his pogrom againt Ebrell Islanders when Chegory was but a child, resulting in the young redskin’s spending years in the wasteland. He knew how to survive there unaided. Moreover, his father dwelt there yet as stillmaster for the warlord Jal Japone, hence a welcome awaited Chegory if he had to flee Injiltaprajura.

Chegory did not like the idea of exile.

Life in Zazazolzodanzarzakazolabrik was hard, tough and monotonous. Jal Japone was a ruthless taskmaster who drove his men hard. Those men were dangerous killers, trained knife-fighters all. In such company in such a place death could be all too casual. In contrast, Injiltaprajura was a place of luxury. Sweet water unlimited! Green coconut cheap. Cassava, mangos, breadfruit and sugarcane sold fresh from the city’s market gardens all year round. Wealth undreamed of in the wastelands.

But. . .

He would survive.

In Japone’s court there would be men who would recognise him, who would remember him from his childhood and would be pleased to meet him again as a man.

One might expect Chegory to slip off to sleep once he had assured himself his survival was certain. But he did not. It was not the comfortless stone which kept him awake. He was tired enough to have slept on a bed of nails. But he was beginning to worry about the alcohol he had drunk at Firfat’s warehouse.

He shouldn’t have.

He shouldn’t have let Ingalawa force him to drink it.

What would happen to him? Would he become an addict? Would he find himself crawling through the streets on the morrow craving for drink?

Chegory shared Injiltaprajura’s full knowledge of the evils of alcohol. Furthermore, he had been heartily impressed at a tender age by the attitudes of Jal Japone. The warlord made his living by brewing rotgut booze in the wastelands, but he had placed an absolute interdict on the stuff as far as his own men were concerned. Chegory’s father had oft reinforced Japone’s ban by telling his son of the terrible damage alcohol had wrought on the Ebrells themselves.

Tales of men who had lost ships when they were incapably drunk. Of families which had fallen to fighting because of demon rum. Of the depraved horrors of drunken ceremonies in the temple of the evil Orgy God of the Ebrells. Of—

[Here another of the catalogues with which the Originator of this Text was incurably beglamoured. Deleted by Order.
Drax Lira, Redactor Major
.]

Thus Chegory was for long kept awake, but at last he fell asleep. Nobody bothered to wake him up when the queue moved on. There were already fifty people lined up behind him, none unhappy to leapfrog past the sleeping one, since all were innocent (at least of theft from the treasury) and most were impatient to be scrutinised by the squealer and to be gone. The guards never bothered to rouse the sleeper since it made no difference to them who was first and who last. They had in any case settled to dicing and playing at cards by the light of star lanterns.

Chegory dreamt of Zazazolzodanzarzakazolabrik, that region of desolation known also as the Wastes, the Scorpion Desert, the Scraglands, and as Zolabrik for short. He dreamt of red rock in a red sunset. Of his father, grizzled and gnomish, muttering under his breath as he pottered around in his distillery.

Then Chegory woke.

Then he
Woke Up!

Because all hell was breaking loose.

The guards were down, riot was loose, uproar ruled, and the prisoners were mobbing into the treasury. Chegory was swept along with them. Helpless to resist. He knew already that this insurrection was madness. They would never get out of here. Palace guards would seal all exits then starve them into submission. Then there would be trials indeed and punishments of unabated horror.

He screamed in frustrated rage, then screamed no more for he needed all his strength to fight for footing in the tussling mob. In through the entrance he was swept, into the treasury. There wealth was heaped upon wealth, and there lanterns and other lights illuminated a scene of outright anarchy.

Prisoners in their dozens were scrabbling for treasure of all description then bearing it away through a hole in the wall which led into yawning darkness. Chegory knew at a glance that this breach must issue into the undermines Downstairs.

Man after man dared the dark, bearing away armloads of gold and silver, of opal, japonica, celestine and carnelian, of amber and pounamu. Two were flailing at each other, fighting over a trifle which had caught the fancy of both -a green globe of stone, no larger than a fist, in which the souls of fireflies glowed like frozen pinpoints of essence of rainbow. While the fighters contended, another man seized it and was off.

‘You crazy bastards!’ screamed Chegory.

Nobody paid him any attention at all.

Then there were cries of panic from the corridor in which the prisoners had so lately queued while awaiting audience with the squealer. In moments, alarm-shouts warned everyone that reinforcements from the palace guard were fighting their way towards the treasury.

A panic flight ensued. An irresistible floodtide of bodies swept young Chegory Guy through the hole in the wall of the treasury and into the yawning darkness beyond.

Down tunnels they went, blundering through confusions of darkness where elbow argued with chin and boot with instep. They jostled down echoing stoneways, sludged through mephitic passages ankle-deep in sewage, climbed stairs going up then found those same steps descending, and ever they sought for light, light, light, a glimmer of light to free them from the terrors of the darkness which yet oppressed them though their numbers were many.

Intersections were many and each thinned the mob. As intersective decisions lessened the density of the crowd so its pace and urgency lessened also. It became not a mindless flux of squalling flesh but small, disparate groups of individuals who began to think, talk and argue.

Chatter broke out.

‘Go north.’

‘North, he says! Where’s north?’

‘You doubt my sense of direction?’

‘I doubt your sense, man. There’s no way out of here!’ ‘Of course there is. Must be.’

‘Nay. Bones wander here for years. Become dust. No hope for them, no hope, we’re lost, lost.’

‘We’re dead. We’re dead, and this is hell.’

‘If you weren’t with us I’d disbelieve it.’

‘Oh! Is that you, Thagomovich?’

‘None other. Just my luck to end up with you. Now -what’s this? Name yourself!’

‘Datkinson Rowen. Tailor by trade. Born Wen Endex. What else you want to know?’

‘The way out of here, fool! And you - what have we here?’ So saying, a voice grabbed Chegory by the elbow. He broke away, for he did not care to identify himself. Two steps he took, and that was all. Then he stood still, very still, in the darkness.

‘A guard, by chance?’ said the voice. ‘Perhaps it is. Get it, boys!’

But nobody showed any enthusiasm for games of chase and thuggery in the overbearing dark. Instead, on went the arguing voices. Thirty paces further they went, then halted at an intersection.

‘Stinks!’ said one.

‘Dikle,’ said another.

‘Can’t go down there,’ said Datkinson Rowen, the tailor from Wen Endex. ‘Stuff’s poison. Gets into your skin. Does for you.’

‘But it’s solid.’

Sound of someone stamping. Thrice. Thonk thonk sploosh!

‘There! Turns to liquid, see. Goes solid when it’s cool enough but liquid when it’s walked on.’

‘Thixotropic,’ said a scholar.

‘Thixotropic! Is that what you call it? Bloody perverse, that’s what I call it. Stinks, anyway, as the man said.’

‘But there’s light at the end.’

‘Aagh, there’s light for an ending to every tunnel. Come on. Any direction will bring us to light in the end.’

‘Oh no. Not so. It’s ghosts down here. Ghosts and jaws. Sharks which float in the thinness of air.’

‘Oh yes! That I’ll believe when pigs shit silver, when sun burns blue, when my mother-in-law turns sweet...’

With that, the voices were on their way, choosing ways other than that which led down a tunnel awash with dikle. Chegory footpadded through the dark to that passage. There was indeed light at the far end, some four or five hundred paces distant if he was any judge. A cool blue light which glimmered on the dikle.

Chegory had no fear of dikle, which he knew to be no poison. Furthermore, if he was to go on alone then the sooner he found some light the better. Vampire rats shun the light, whereas he would be easy prey for such monsters ifhe continued to wander the dark on his own. He hesitated. Run after the others? Or strive to the light?

The others were part of the mob which had fought for treasure in the depths of the pink palace. Such criminal actions had already multiplied Chegory’s troubles beyond measure. Previously he had faced charges of brawling, of consorting with drug smugglers and (possibly) of inciting Shabble to violence. Now he was on the run, a hunted man implicated in riot, looting and civil disorder, guilty (though it was not his fault!) of escaping from lawful custody and (a crime equally as serious) of consorting with escaped prisoners.

Chegory remembered the stern advice his father had given him before his return to Injiltaprajura.

‘Be honest. Obey the law. Uphold the rule of order. Choose your company with care. Keep clear of criminals. Bring no disgrace upon yourself, your family or your race.’

That decided him.

He set off for the light, choosing solitary dangers rather than the dubious companionship of the lawless. Ah, what a good little boy he was! Bravely forging down the tunnel despite the stench. His footsteps broke up what fraction of the dikle yet remained solid. The stuff leaked into his sun-fractured boots. But his spirits rose regardless, for ahead was a broad and pleasant corridor lit in bright blue.