Hugh Cook - The Wazir and the Witch

Those oh-so-elegant finishing touches which so delight the torturer.

Bro Drumel looked out of the window of his office in Moremo. He closed his right eye experimentally. And, as he had expected, the view dimmed.

Year by year, the colours perceived by his left eye had slowly been growing darker and dimmer. He supposed that in the fullness of titne he would go blind in that eye. He could live with that. He could face the thought of such idiosyncratic failures of the flesh, and the inevitable generalized degeneration of old age which must one day follow.

But the horror that would befall him if he became a victim of the rage of Aldarch Three…

Bro Drumel squeezed both eyes tight, trying to close out light, thought and vision together.

If he did yield to blackmail, his persecutor would hand certain documentation to Master Ek, High Priest of Zoz the Ancestral. Then certain doom would in due course befall him. So what should he do?

Bro Drumel fought with panic.

And, finally, decided to go and see the Empress Justina.

The Empress had been restored to the pink palace five days earlier, after her release had been ordered in the name of the Crab. Since she had the Crab’s favour, perhaps — just possibly — she could give Bro Drumel some help. Or reassurance at least.

But, first, he should shave.

Soon Bro Drumel was at work, soothing the steel across his skin. He paused in his work. Slid two fingers to the carotid artery which lay beside his windpipe. The skin was hot. Hot and slightly sweaty. The pulse beat beneath his fingers. A rhythm strong and slow. He made his resolution. Both jugular veins and both carotids and the windpipe too. A single sweep. A grin.

That’s all it takes.

He would do it.

Yes, if torture threatened, he would do it.

And, now that he knew he would never be taken alive, Bro Drumel felt stronger, calmer and more confident. The game was not over yet. And, while the game yet ran, life was still sweet, and had many, many satisfactions.

Shortly, a clean-shaven Bro Drumel was at the pink palace and deep in conference with the Empress Justina and Juliet Idaho. Both the Empress and her untame Yudonic Knight examined the blackmail documents with interest.

What particularly attracted their attention was the page from the Injiltaprajuradariski which had been sent to Bro Drumel. The page was a sheet of ricepaper covered with scorpioned Ashdan orthography scripted in purple ink. The words were in Slandolin, the literary language of Ashmolea South. While neither Justina nor Idaho could read this tongue, both by now could recognize a text written in that argot.

‘You’ve had it translated, I take it,’ said Justina.

‘I have,’ said Bro Drumel.

‘What does it say?’said Idaho.

‘It… well…’

‘Out with it!’ said Idaho, harshening his voice.

‘Peace, Julie,’ said Justina, laying one heavy and sweaty hand upon Idaho’s wrist.

‘But we must know what it says,’ growled Idaho. ‘Or must we call in our own translator?’

‘It… it tells of a… a relationship between myself and our Empress,’ said Bro Drumel. ‘My blackmailer threatens to send a duplicate copy to Nadalastabstala Banraithanchumun Ek.’

‘And what if he does?’ said Justina.

‘It… this would damn me in the eyes of Aldarch Three,’ said Bro Drumel.

The Empress snorted.

‘You’re damned already if that’s all it takes for damnation,’ said she. ‘Your close connection with me is no secret. Come! You helped Varazchavardan when he sought to coup against me. If I remember correctly, your help was so strenuous I had need to hit you with my handbag.’

‘Yes,’ said Drumel, remembering the shattering impact of that blow.

‘So this blackmailing is no more than a nonsense,’ said Justina briskly. ‘But I would dearly like to catch the blackmailer, for capture might give us a clue to the source of the Injiltaprajuradariski, The Secret History of Injiltaprajura. You know it, I take it.’

‘Well…’

‘You must have heard rumours,’ said Justina.

‘A few,’ said Bro Drumel cautiously.

‘Come, let’s not be so close-mouthed,’ said Justina. ‘It’s no secret. Untunchilamon’s a place too small for that. Someone has written a Secret History. We know not who. What we do know is that pieces of it are scattered all over Injiltaprajura. The Cabal House had a piece.’

‘How do you know that?’ said Bro Drumel.

‘The knowledge came to me by powers which are mine to possess but not to discuss,’ said Justina.

Of course, she knew because a thief in her pay had stolen the purple-scripted document in question, thieving it from the Cabal House under the noses of the resident wonder-workers.

‘Also,’ said Idaho, ‘Masker Ek has a piece of that document.’

‘You read his mind also?’ said Drumel to Justina.

‘I have my methods,’ said Justina severely.

She had recently debriefed young Nixorjapretzel Rat, her liaison officer, and it was in the course of this debriefing that she had learnt something of Master Ek’s interest in the Secret History.

‘So you see our interest,’ said Idaho. ‘We must find this Secret History.’

‘Actually, I don’t,’ said Drumel, now puzzled. ‘You tell me no document matters since nothing is secret. If nothing is secret, what matters this history? First you tell me not to worry about it, that blackmailing makes things no worse. Then you say we have to find the blackmailer.’

Justina Thrug and Juliet Idaho glanced at each other.

‘Either you trust me or you don’t,’ said Bro Drumel.

‘We don’t,’ said Idaho.

‘But we could,’ said Justina. ‘Oaths solemn enough might bind you.’

Bro Drumel realized he had to make a choice. Swear binding oaths of loyalty to the Empress and throw in his lot with hers. Or trust to the justice of the Izdimir Empire.

Drumel had no faith in justice.

Justina was not of the Janjuladoola race. She was a hated foreigner from Wen Endex. But seven years of close association with the family Thrug had taught Bro Drumel that the word of a Thrug could be trusted. If he made a common cause with Justina, the alliance would last till the point of death; the Empress would not betray him.

‘I will swear myself to your service,’ said he.

Then did, a process which took some time, as no solemn oath can be sworn in Janjuladoola without the expenditure of at least a thousand words.

Once Bro Drumel had pledged his fealty to the Thrug, Justina revealed the truth.

‘There is more to this Secret History than a recital of common fact,’ said she.

‘Much more,’ said Juliet Idaho.

‘Julie,’ said Justina, again laying her hand on Idaho’s wrist. ‘This is my story.’

‘My lady,’ said Idaho, acknowledging the rebuke.

And Justina continued:

‘The Secret History also speaks of something truly exceptional. An immortality machine. An organic rectifier, so called. We have seen fragments which tell us something of this organic rectifier. That it exists. That it can grant humans the gift of immortal life. That it can change female form to male. Or vice versa. That it could make a human of a Crab.’

Justina paused.

‘And… and where is this machine?’ said Bro Drumel. ‘It must be Downstairs, surely.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Justina. ‘But where are we to look? And what would we be looking for? That we know not. We suspect that the Secret History has much, much more to say about this organic rectifier. What it looks like, where it hides, how to use it. We know your blackmailer came into possession of a fragment of the Secret History. The blackmailer may have the whole. So let us catch the blackmailer.’

‘You… you say the organic rectifier could change Crab to human,’ said Bro Drumel. ‘Is this something the Crab would desire?’