Hugh Cook - The Wazir and the Witch

However, at least Justina once again had her money.

At least she could still hope to bribe her soldiers when the time came to seize her dozen ships.

But, for the moment, there were not a dozen ships to seize. There were only the same three, the three which had sat in the Laitemata throughout Fistavlir. And, as the days went by and no new ships manifested themselves, Justina began to consider a dreadful possibility: what if, this year of all years, the Trade Fleet never came?

The Empress Justina was not the only one considering dreadful possibilities. The Hermit Crab had dislocated Tin Char’s shoulders. It indicated that the Crab was not pleased with him. That he could live with. But… what if the Crab was seriously angry with him? Tin Char brooded about the possible consequences of such anger as he lay awake at nights listening to the disconsolate drumming of a group of adolescents, the drums of their cult singing thus:

Tok — tok — tuk. Tok — tok — tuk. Tok — tok — tukata tok. Tok — tok — tuk. Tok — tok — tuk. Tok — tok — tukata tok.

Ah yes.

I remember.

Night.

Night, hot night, with the bloodstone of Untunchilamon clotted to absolute black. The shimmering stars reflected by the sharktooth silence of the black lagoon. The hulking shadow of a ship looming dark against the doom-black waters of the Laitemata. A brief burst of hubbub as the heavy soundproof door of a speakeasy swings open. That noise abruptly silenced. No noise now but the drums. The drums throbbing through the heat.

The heat!

The heat of Injiltaprajura, a moist enfolding heat, a sweating embrace, smelling of armpits and coconut musk, of woodsmoke and rotting drains. A positively vaginal heat. Heat, yes, and the mosquitoes whining through deliriums of dark, and the relentless punctuation of the drums speaking of the oppressions of the present, the past and the future…

To know of the Crab, and to know of the Crab’s crucial role in the affairs of Injiltaprajura, is to know much. The historian believes that the ruling dynamic of those affairs has now been explicated: while Justina’s enemies believed the Crab to be on her side, they would obey her; but, once they realized that she had in fact been deprived of such protection, they would fall upon her and overwhelm her.

Justina’s problem, then, was threefold:

First, to maintain the illusion that she was still supported by the Crab;

Second, to avoid death at the hands of assassins and such until the arrival of the Trade Fleet;

Third, to seize the ships of that Fleet and thus make her escape.

All this is very easily stated.

Bu of course the realities are somewhat more complex, because there did not in fact exist a clear-cut division between ‘Justina Thrug and her allies’ and ‘Justina’s enemies’.

Rather, there were many shades of political affiliation and intention within Injiltaprajura; and to explain fully the political complexities of the last days of the reign of the Empress Justina, it would be necessary for the historian to analyse the thoughts and actions of all 30,000 of the inhabitants of Injiltaprajura. Some mention might also have to be made of the interactions between those individuals and the animals which then inhabited Untun-chilamon’s capital, the said animals consisting of 1,946 monkeys, 3,101 pigs, 6,429 dogs, 10,111 snakes, 17,942 cats, 30,000 people, 246,995 vampire rats, 456,831,887 mosquitoes, and numbers of billipedes, millipedes, centipedes, scorpions and other creatures.

When one considers the difficulties attendant upon the exercise thus suggested, one must surely allow the historian the right to generalize upon occasion. On occasion? It is more reasonable to say that generalization must be the rule, and particularization the exception; else the creation of this account will become impossible for logistic reasons alone, the historian being a mortal creature with strictly limited supplies of ink, pens and fooskin at his disposal.

A generalization, then:

It was a quiet, peaceful day on Untunchilamon, where Frangoni was having intercourse with Dub, and Dub with Janjuladoola, and Janjuladoola with Toxteth, and Toxteth with Ashmarlan, and Ashmarlan with Slando-lin, without any sign of riot or civil disturbance.

Even so, it was not, of course, quiet and peaceful for everyone.

It was not, for example, peaceful for the conjuror Odolo, who was having yet another painfully frank interview with his bank manager. Nor was it quiet and peaceful for Threp Sodakik, a hapless fisherman, who was being torn to pieces by sharks in the lagoon waters just south of Island Scimitar. Others embroiled in turmoil, strife and barrat include Yilda, the mate of the corpse-master Uckermark, for Yilda was busy driving a group of teenaged drummers from her doorstep with the help of a gutting knife and a kraken club.

As for the Princess Sabitha, why, she had been kidnapped — snatched in the streets by a group of adolescent drummers from Marthandorthan — and was being held in a captivity which she bitterly resented.

(Do not worry. The princess will escape, even though this history will not chronicle the event; and we will meet her later in these pages, and find her aristocratic beauty unmarred and her matchless hauteur as imposing as ever.)

Furthermore, if we were to attempt an exhaustive catalogue of those currently unquiet and unpeaceful, we would have to mention the bullman Log Jaris, who was arguing with the drug dealer Firfat Labrat about the question of alleged non-payment of certain beer-buying debts; and Ox No Zan, who was thrashing and screaming in his sleep as he endured nightmares in which Doctor Death the dentist played a prominent role; and Dolglin Chin Xter, who was struggling to stay alive as hepatitis and malaria did their best to overwhelm him; and the market gardener Pa Po Pep who was staring at a chancre on his shaft and wondering if it was syphilis (it was, and in due course he would die of it); and Dunash Labrat, who was berating his son Ham for misplacing his favourite bee-smoking pot.

And other individuals could be mentioned, for the above list is far from complete.

However, if the historian can be allowed a generalization:

It was a quiet, peaceful day on Untunchilamon. It was quietest and most peaceful of all in those parts of Untunchilamon which were uninhabited; but even the most populous region of the island was tranquil and unagitated. That most populous region was of course Injiltaprajura, the city to be found (then and now) on the Laitemata Harbour at the southern end of the island.

It was a quiet, peaceful day on Untunchilamon, and it was also hot.

It was a hot day?

It was a day on Untunchilamon, so what else could it have been if not hot?

It was a hot day, and Master Ek was in a bad mood.

But it was not the sweating humidity which had put Master Ek in a bad mood, nor the restless night occasioned by the repeated onslaughts of vampiric insects which had taken advantage of a tear in his mosquito net.

Nor was it the drumming, the relentless drumming of the discontented adolescents of Injiltaprajura.

Ah, the drums! The drums!

Tok-tok-thuk! Tok-tok-thuk…!

The drums!

Tok-tok-thuk! Tok-tok-thuk…!

Mesmeric pulse of monomania and menace.

Tok-tok-thuk! Tok-tok-thuk…!

The horror! The horror!

Dui Tin Char, head of the Inland Revenue, felt the pulse of those infernal instruments in the marrow of his bones as he tried to sleep by day after a sleepless night. The bullman Log Jaris heard those drums as he (having finished his argument with the drug dealer Firfat Labrat) quit the Xtokobrokotok and stumped away through the streets of Marthandorthan. The inimitable Yilda heard those drums as she looked for blood on the kraken club she had used to such good effect; for, though she had driven a pack of drummers from her doorstep, they had not gone far, and were drumming again just around the corner.