Hugh Cook - The Wazir and the Witch

‘You are correct insomuch as the plan originates with Juliet Idaho,’ said the conjuror Odolo, choosing his words with great care. ‘I must admit that I am his messenger. That, as you have doubtless suspected, Justina knows nothing of this plan. However, as for your surmisals about the Crab, of this I know nothing, for I am not privy to any information so sensitive.’

‘I should hope not,’ said Varazchavardan. ‘You’re not fit to be trusted, not if you let a mad Yudonic Knight entangle you in schemes so witless.’

‘Juliet Idaho,’ said Odolo, ‘threatened to remove my head from my shoulders if I failed to bear you this message.’

‘Extravagant,’ said Varazchavardan, ‘but in character. Very well. Tell that madman of a Yudonic Knight I wish to see him.’

‘Why?’ said Odolo.

‘That,’ said Varazchavardan, ‘is for me to know and for you to wonder about. Go!’

So Odolo went.

Leaving Varazchavardan to ponder the strategy he would pursue when he met with Juliet Odaho. It was difficult, difficult. As he laboured with the problem, his hands began working in an insidious rhythm, thrap-patting against his thighs, thus:

Thrap — thrap — thrup!

Thrap — thrap — thrup!

Abruptly, Varazchavardan realized what he was doing.

He was drumming!

‘Stop that,’ he said to himself.

Then went back to work on his problem.

It was possible, just possible, that Idaho might have devised a scheme which would give them some slim hope of overwhelming Ek and his allies by an act of force majeure. If so, then Varazchavardan wanted to know about it. Might even go along with it. For… such a possibility would be very, very tempting.

Suppose all those loyal to Aldarch Three were slaughtered. Then Untunchilamon would be safe from the Mutilator for ever. The island was far from Yestron, the seas dangerous, the approaches narrow and easily defended. A resolute population loyal to its leaders could make any conquest of the island impossibly expensive. All nightmare would be at an end.

‘Idaho may have a scheme,’ muttered Varazchavardan. ‘And if not, for my own protection I should at least know what madness is on his mind.’

Thus muttered Aquitaine Varazchavardan as he analysed the conversational gambits he would use to extract the truth from the ferocious Yudonic Knight he planned to interview.

Varazchavardan, who was born to plot and scheme, soon began to take pleasure in this planning. His pleasure was enhanced by the fact that he was totally ignorant of the crucial meeting which was taking place elsewhere in Injiltaprajura. This meeting was between Master Ek and two newcomers from the good ship Oktobdoj. The newcomers had just identified themselves as Jean Froissart (a priest of Zoz) and Manthandros Trasilika (the new wazir of Untunchilamon).

Even as Varazchavardan was crunching the twenty-fourth piece of ice in which he had that day indulged, Trasilika was saying:

‘It was Aldarch the Third who appointed me. And, as I am sure you will be glad to hear, he gave me a death warrant for Justina Thrug. And this is that death warrant.’

The Temple of Torture, as such, had ceased to operate shortly after the death of Wazir Sin. In the seven years which had followed, the Temple had usually stood empty. Sometimes it had been used as a quarantine station, and sometimes as a detention centre; apart from that it had been untenanted. More recently, the Inland Revenue had taken over the premises; and, thanks to the patronage of that organization, the torture chambers of the Temple had been restored to their former glory.

Shortly before dawn, Master Ek was carried to the Temple of Torture in a litter; he could have walked, but such was his decrepitude that any such exercise would have taken him the better part of the day. Once in the Temple, Ek began his morning by watching the final stages of the torture of a vampire rat. His old friend Dui Tin Char (now head of the Inland Revenue) had begun the torture five days earlier. The exercise was a demonstration of the art of the Temple of Torture: a hint of delights yet to come should the temple be once again legalized.

When the vampire rat finally expired, Ek had to admit that he was impressed. He had not known that such a small animal possessed such a capacity for suffering.

‘With humans,’ said Dui Tin Char, ‘the experience is immensely more rewarding.’

Dui Tin Char was a trained Exponent of the Grand Method of the Temple of Torture. He had participated in the Temple’s daily Rites of Revelation for five years during the reign of the late and much-lamented Wazir Sin. Then Lonstantine Thrug had murdered Sin and had closed down the Temple. Since then, Tin Char had derived a considerable degree of satisfaction for his work in the field of tax collection; but, somehow, it was not quite the same.

‘I must say,’ said Ek, ‘I find it hard to see where the extra reward can come from. Never have I seen anything suffer as this creature suffered before its death. Any elaboration or exaggeration of such pain is hard to imagine.’

‘Ah,’ said Tin Char softly. ‘It is not pain which provides the pleasure. It is fear. Oh yes, fear. And humiliation. A vampire rat, you see, cannot be humiliated. Its psyche is not sufficiently developed. But humans are an altogether different proposition. You must always remember that Justina Thrug is the daughter of a Yudonic Knight. These people have considerable reserves of pride, hence their destruction upon the torture table is all the more pleasurable.’

‘And Ashdans?’ said Ek.

‘I… I have never destroyed an Ashdan,’ said Tin Char. He considered his lack of experience in this field then smiled cheerfully. ‘But I am most certainly ready to make the experiment.’

Master Ek and Dui Tin Char had intended to devote their morning to the destruction of another rat, this time using the comparatively rapid quick-shock-bone-smash method. However, they were interrupted by a servant bearing slightly alarming news: a party of officials was on its way to the Temple of Torture.

‘For what purpose?’ said Dui Tin Char.

‘To see Master Ek.’

‘How,’ said Ek, ‘do these officials know that I am here?’

‘One is the ladipti man,’ said the servant, as if that explained all.

It did explain all, for the ladipti man was another of Ek’s old and trusted friends, and had in Ek’s company observed a part of the five-day death of the vampire rat which had so recently expired.

‘Who else is coming here?’ said Ek.

‘That I know not,’ said the servant.

‘Then,’ said Dui Tin Char softly, ‘find out. Quickly!’ The servant hastened away, but the officials had reached the Temple of Torture before any fresh intelligence could be supplied to Master Ek and Tin Char. So they were none the wiser when their visitors were shown in.

Ek and Tin Char recognized the officials at once. Plague inspector, pilot, ladipti man, harbour master and a representative of the Combined Religious Guild. All, to a man, were of the Janjuladoola people. But with them were two children of Wen Endex, one a heavyweight in his forties, the other a slender and nervously blinking individual in his thirties.

‘Greetings,’ said the harbour master, making reverence to both Master Ek and Tin Char.

Ek observed the appropriate silence, emphasizing his own superiority and the harbour master’s comparative inferiority. Then he said:

‘And to you, greetings.’

Other formalities followed, then the harbour master got down to business:

‘Behold, Master Ek. I bring you two most welcome newcomers. They are from one of the new ships.’

‘These new ships which I hold in my lap,’ said Ek, spreading apart his gnarled, arthritic hands as if he was measuring an invisible fish.