Hugh Cook - The Wazir and the Witch

As Justina savoured her papaya, munched down her pineapple and anatomized the flesh which lay beneath the freckled skin of her flying fish, spies loyal to her regime (or as loyal as anyone could be expected to be in those chancy times) were already making their way toward her palace with ambiguous intelligence.

In shouted conversations with shipboard crews, the spies had been told that Talonsklavara had still been in progress when the two vessels departed from Yestron. The civil war might have ended by now, for a major battle (perhaps a decisive battle) had been taking place even as the ships set sail from the continent. However, for the time being the status quo prevailed.

One of the ships had declared itself to be a general trader, here to exchange tea, opium and iron for dikle, shlug and slaves. Prices for the last commodity were high in Yestron. In particular demand were male slaves who could be sold as soldiers to the rival armies contending for possession of the Izdimir Empire; and Untunchilamon, blessed with peace for the last seven years, was a reliable source of such.

The other ship had announced itself as the Oktobdoj, brothel ship extraordinaire. A claim which had provoked the following dialogue between inquisitive water rats and decktop sailors:

‘What does a brothel ship so far from Manamalargo?’ ‘Why, sailing for profit, of course.’

‘Then you’ve come to the wrong place. We’ve whores aplenty ashore, aye, and poxes too. We’ve no need of yours.’

‘There you’re wrong. For we have aboard sophisticated delights unknown to these the provinces.’

This and other such advertising propaganda had aroused a tepid enthusiasm among the water rats, an enthusiasm which had dissipated rapidly when they had been told there was a two-dragon fee merely to climb aboard to inspect the merchandise.

Justina’s spies had taken this brothel-ship claim at face value, and none had been inclined to spend two dragons to confirm it. Which was unfortunate, for officials had now climbed aboard that very ship, and were being told a very different tale.

The officials were the plague inspector (who was due a fee for giving the ship its health clearance); the pilot (who must by regulation be paid for guiding the ship into harbour, for all that he had been in his bed when it put into port); the ladipti man (a sinecurist of obscure function but certain charge); the harbour master (who was due a fee of his own, besides receiving a tithe of the emoluments disbursed to the other officials) and a representative of the Combined Religious Guild who was there to extract what was owing to the gods.

When these officials were assembled upon the deck of the good ship Oktobdoj, two children of Wen Endex came forth to meet them. One was a heavyweight in his forties, a confident brute with a cauliflower ear. The other was younger (in his early thirties), lighter in build (indeed, he was positively slender) and less confident (much less, for his watering eyes blinked nervously at the too-bright sunlight).

Had these two men been of Janjuladoola breed, their dealings with the officials might have been delicate and protracted. But, as they were children of Wen Endex, their approach was blunt, direct and unsubtle. It was the heavyweight who did most of the talking.

‘I am Manthandros Trasilika,’ said he. ‘I am here for a reason.’

‘So am I,’ said his slender companion. ‘I am Jean Froissart, a priest of Zoz the Ancestral.’

‘A priest of Zoz?’ said the Janjuladoola-skinned harbourmaster. ‘You a child of Wen Endex yet you claim yourself for Zoz?’

‘He is,’ said the heavyweight, answering before his companion had time to hesitate. ‘For a wazir needs a priest, and I stand before you as your new wazir.’

This pronouncement was so abrupt and unexpected that it was greeted with total silence among the ranks of the officials. The heavyweight betrayed a momentary and uncharacteristic nervousness by tugging at his cauliflower ear. Then his ever-confident voice rolled on:

‘Aldarch the Third has triumphed in Talonsklavara. All dispute in the Izdimir Empire is at an end. To celebrate his victory, Aldarch Three has sent me to Injiltaprajura to assume command of Untunchilamon and to punish those who have usurped rightful authority during the years of civil war.’

‘Then,’ said the representative of the Combined Religious Guild, the first of the officals to adapt to this startling intelligence, ‘you should by rights report to Master Ek immediately.’

So said the worthy Guild representative, then waited. This was the first test. If the newcomers did not know who Master Ek was, then they could hardly be the wazir and priest they claimed to be.

‘Nadalastabstala Banraithanchumun Ek has long been in my thoughts,’ said the heavyweight. He pulled a miniature from his pocket and tossed it to the Guild representative. ‘That’s him, isn’t it?’

The Guild representative fielded the miniature. It hurt him to do so, for such an abrupt athletic gesture was not consonant with dignity; nevertheless, he caught the portrait adroitly, moving with an agility which betrayed his secret and shameful addiction to the outlawed sport of ping-pong. The Guild representative studied the miniature. There was no mistaking that face. Gnarled, wizened features. Black teeth. Eyes of pale orange flecked with green. It was without a doubt Master Ek himself. The newcomers had passed the first test.

‘Manthandros Trasilika,’ said the Guild representative. ‘I am Hoboken Ik Tau. In the name of the Combined Religious Guild, I bid you welcome. Welcome to the Laitemata. Welcome to Injiltaprajura. To the shores of Untunchilamon, welcome. Thrice welcome you are. And to you also, Jean Froissart, to you, welcome.’

That was the start of the speech made by Ik Tau, a long speech which it would be tedious to relate in full. But the upshot is that in due course the newcomers were conducted to the presence of Master Ek himself. They took with them a present for that formidable dignitary: a death warrant commanding the immediate execution of Justina Thrug.

Aquitaine Varazchavardan, wonder-worker of Injiltaprajura, woke late after bad dreams. He had slept beneath a mosquito net without so much as a sheet across his naked body; nevertheless, his skin was greased with sweat as if he had laboured all night at the oars of a galley. He had dreamt that his leucodermic flesh had become tainted with the bloodstone red of Untunchilamon’s native rock. Why? Because he had been hanging suspended from a million spider-threads, each attached to a microscopic fish-hook. While he dangled in agony, a torturer ‘Enough!’ said Varazchavardan, dismissing the memories of nightmare as he slid out of bed.

Varazchavardan stood upright. A mistake, for the blood escaped from his head. As all colours swooned toward ebony, Varazchavardan sank to a crouch, his right knee protesting with an ominous grikle-grakle-gruk. He squatted like a foetus in the womb. Perfume-padded heat enfolded him. A choking, sweating heat which made him claustrophobic, which made him want to shout and hit out, to rip the air and claw his way to freedom. He felt as if he had been swallowed by a carnivorous flower which was even now crushing the last remnants of sanity from his psyche.

The crisis ebbed, receded.

His moment of near-blindness passed.

Cautiously, he stood.

Then, barefoot and naked, padded across his bedroom’s rough coconut matting to the smooth and slightly slippery wooden slats of the bathroom. Even though the day was so advanced, the bathroom was nevertheless pleasantly cool. Its moist shadows had found favour with a mosquito, an insect swollen by vampiric night-feeding; it clung to dank wooden panelling with a stillness which mimicked paralysis. Varazchavardan, resentful of the Janjuladoola grey of its skin, that grey which had been denied to him by his unfortunate albinism, crushed it with the heel of his hand. Such was the delicacy with which Varazchavardan approached this exquisite task that he actually felt the momentary, slightly rubbery resistance of the mosquito’s tumid flesh. Then the carbon-charcoal of its integument gave way and its body burst asunder, flesh becoming corpse as Varazchavardan smeared a miniscule bloating of someone else’s blood across the panelling.