Hugh Cook - The Wazir and the Witch

Nixorjapretzel Rat began to contemplate a quick expedition down to the garden so he could piss upon the needle-rose, or hide himself in among the banana trees and relieve himself in their comparative privacy. While he vacillated, the opportunity was lost, for Master Ek at last put in an appearance.

‘Jan Rat,’ said Ek. ‘How nice that you could put in an appearance.’

At that, Master Ek smiled. His smile was not a pretty one, for his teeth were blackened by the mercury treatment used in Obooloo to cure syphilis. To cure? In a manner of speaking. Statistically, the outcome is that one-third are cured, one-third are killed and one-third are left half-dead from mercury poisoning but with the vibrant life of their affliction unaffected.

‘I came as soon as I could,’ said Rat.

‘I’m sure you did, Jan Rat.’

Young Nixorjapretzel was already intensely irritated by Ek’s use of the slighting ‘Jan’, a Janjuladoola title properly applied only to children. But he durst not complain, for he was in the presence of the most powerful and most dangerous man on Untunchilamon. So he said:

‘My Master knows I am ever at his service.’

‘You claim to read my mind, do you?’ said Ek. ‘Are you always so free in taking liberties with your superiors?’

‘I meant no offence,’ said Rat, taking a backward step.

He bumped against an amphora seated upon a rickety tri-table just behind him. The amphora fell, shattered, scattering a mix of pulped paw-paw and mashed banana across the verandah. With many protestations of innocence and apology, a grovelling Rat began to clean up the soft and slushy mess, or at least to try to.

‘Stop that,’ said Master Ek impatiently. ‘Sit! There, in that chair! Sit, and do nothing.’

Nixorjapretzel Rat immediately precipitated himself into the cane chair indicated by Ek. Who wasted no further time, but flourished a sheet of paper in front of his incontinent victim.

‘What is this?’ said Ek.

‘Ricepaper,’ said Rat. ‘Ricepaper washed with purple.’

‘It’s writing, fool. Is it not? What says this writing?’ ‘Somethin g, something,’ gabbled Rat. ‘Something in, oh, Toxteth maybe. Dub? Ash marlan?’

‘Slandolin,’ said Ek coldly. ‘I am reliably informed that you read that language. Am I in error?’

‘I… I…’

‘I knew your father,’ said Ek. ‘He was a translator, was he not? A man of great scholarship. He was very fond of you, too. It is fortunate that the Great Enfolding claimed him before you grew to the estate of manhood, for surely the sight of your quivering flesh and incompetent tongue would give him the greatest displeasure. The language is Slandolin, and what it says is known to me, for I have had it translated into the Superior Tongue for my own enlightenment. Read!’

Nixorjapretzel Rat obeyed. With every appearance of the greatest care imaginable, he studied the single sheet of ricepaper which Ek had given him, a piece of paper so clogged with miniscule purple-penned letters that at a glance it looked as if it had been washed with ink.

‘Tell me now,’ said Ek, treasuring the words on his tongue as if they were portentous in the extreme, ‘what says this text?’

‘It is a madman’s garbling of a fragment of recent history,’ said Rat.

‘A madman wrote this?’ said Ek. ‘An interesting hypothosis. What brings you to believe as much?’

‘Because none of this is true,’ cried Rat. ‘It’s libels, that’s all. It has me dealing with Varazchavardan, running for him, walking for him, doing his errands, bringing him news. Whereas I repudiate the man.’

Ek looked upon the babbling Rat with disgust.

‘Save your lies for the courts of law,’ said Ek. ‘You’re not on trial yet, least of all for treason. So we’ve no need for pretence. Your association with Varazchavardan is long, and my informants tell me that it continues yet. You’ve no need to dissemble, least of all with me. As yet, the time for punishment lies in the future. Some as yet may hope to avoid their just desserts.’

‘Just desserts?’ said the quivering Rat.

‘Torture,’ said Ek. ‘Torture to the point of death and then to the place beyond. This is the fate which will befall those who have leagued with traitors, with the enemies of the State, the enemies of our dearly beloved Aldarch Three. All such will suffer their doom unless they can earn themselves a pardon.’

‘Oh, earning,’ said Rat. ‘I’ll work, I’ll work, anything, I’ll do anything for pardon.’

‘So you admit it,’ said Ek. ‘You admit yourself a traitor or the associate of traitors, which amounts to the same thing.’

Rat gaped in dismay.

‘But — but you said-’

‘Fool!’ said Ek. ‘No! Stay in the chair. This is no time for grovelling, least of all at my feet.’

In the years of his increasing age, Ek no longer took pleasure in the grovellings of underlings, for his feet had lost the strength to kick them effectively.

‘What is it time for, then?’ said Rat, emboldened by the fact that Ek had spared him a kicking.

‘For work,’ said Ek. ‘Hard work for one who wishes to earn himself a pardon. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to seek ou t the rest of this manuscript.’ ‘The rest?’ said Rat.

‘This piece of ricepaper is but a fraction of what I suspect to be a much greater whole. A Secret History of Untunchilamon. I suspect this Secret History has been written by one whose motives as yet remain a mystery, but who nevertheless appears to have sources of information which have disclosed to him at least something of the extent of the treason which pervades the ranks of high and low alike on Untunchilamon. Your mission, then, is to find the rest of this text and the person who wrote it, and bring both of them to me.’

‘And if I don’t accept?’ said Rat. ‘Don’t accept the mission, I mean?’

‘A treason trial this very day and your. execution on the morrow,’ said Ek.

‘Oh, I accept, I accept!’

‘Then go!’ said Ek.

Rat went.

In his haste, young Nixorjapretzel slipped on the still-spreading ooze of mushed banana and pa\y-paw and sprawled flat on his face. Provoked beyond endurance, Ek kicked him, albeit ineffectually. Rat scuttled away on all fours, found the stairs, precipitated himself down them then fled.

Once the Rat had gone, old master Ek stumped away to his favourite smoking chair where he rolled himself a cigarette and endeavoured to relax. But relaxation did not come easily, for Ek was in the grip of a great excitement.

What had roused this old and arthritic man to such a passion? Why, it was the manuscript which he had discussed with Nixorjapretzel Rat. But why should this in itself prove a source of such stimulation? Because of what was written on one fragment of that manuscript, a short and incomplete fragment which Ek had not shown to Rat.

Now that Rat had gone, Nadalastabstala Banraithan-chumun Ek once again pulled that secret fragment of ricepaper from his tobacco pouch. He unfolded it slowly, for his arthritic fingers felt as if splinters of bone were floating loose in the joints, and this condition did not encourage speed.

Ek read it greedily for the thousandth time, his eyes of green-flecked orange deciphering the miniscule script with ease. Ek had once been a translator, and his decreptitude had as yet left him with his mastery of a dozen languages still intact. As a matter of strategy, he kept this mastery secret, which encouraged the unwary to betray themselves in his hearing as they discoursed in foreign tongues; one such language was Slandolin, which Ek could read with ease, though he pretended complete ignorance of this argot.

This was what was written on that piece of paper: *… to become immortal. Immortality is easily achieved if one has possession of an organic rectifier. On Untunchilamon…’