Hugh Cook - The Wazir and the Witch

Had it been given the luxury of infinite time, doubtless this gathering would in time have reached reasonable, rational conclusions; and would have developed a sound scheme for exploring the depths Downstairs by finger-lengths or by proxy. But, unbeknownst to the members of this conclave, time was fast running out.

Why?

Because the Empress Justina, manoeuvring to prevent riot, had brought upon herself that which she had sought to avoid.

To be precise:

Hostages had been taken to compel the cooperation of the Narapatorpabarta Bank. Then, once the blackmailing Nixorjapretzel Rat had been lured into a trap by a carefully engineered run on the N’barta, Justina had automatically released those hostages. But by then the bank had been effectively ruined, so that, on his release, the manager of the N’barta had found himself compelled to close the doors to all customers and declare the bank bankrupt.

A mob had then gathered.

The mob had consisted (initially) of some 371 depositors who had found themselves precipitately ruined by such bankruptcy; and their initial intention had been to wrest the bank manager’s head from his shoulders. But he, to save his life, had told the truth: that it was all Justina’s doing.

Then one of the depositors had harangued the crowd to such effect that they had begun to Inarch on the pink palace, seeking in their anger to rend the Empress from limb to limb; and if any of them remembered that Justina was said to be under the personal protection of the Crab, still, none of them allowed such belief to moderate their impetuous fury.

As Nadalastabstala Banraithanchumun Ek had laboured so mightily on his own account to stir up a palace-sacking mob, is it any wonder that the mob swelled to a full six hundred people as it neared the pink palace?

Six hundred people.

A bare two per cent of Injiltaprajura’s population.

But it sufficed.

Justina’s soldiers (disloyal almost to a man) abandoned their posts and fled, leaving the palace portals open to the mob. Several dozen members of that mob were drummers. And here — while we have strenuously resisted the claims of those alarmists who see in ‘drumming’ a threat to civilization itself — we must admit that the beating of drums did take place as the mob surged toward the palace. Yet we contend that the idle young would have joined such a rabble even had no instruments of rhythmical production been in their possession; and hold, too, that the relationship between ‘drumming’ and rioting is, even in this context, purely accidental.

As the assemblage of the faex populi approached, a servant intruded on Justina’s Star Chamber meeting with the dire news, throwing all into confusion.

‘My study,’ said Justina to Odolo. ‘My forgeries. They’re on my desk. Five pages. Ricepaper. Purple. I need them. Now. Go!’

Odolo fled, returning promptly with five much-besmirched sheets of paper. Sprawled black ink still wet upon them. They were ruined, wrecked.

‘What’s happened to them?’ said Justina in bewilderment.

‘I’ll tell you what’s happened to them,’ said Idaho in wrath. ‘A dragon’s run amok in an inkwell, that’s what’s happened. Look! Here! Dragon tracks!’

‘Ah,’ said Justina, unhappily.

‘Don’t take it so hard,’ said Artemis Ingalawa consolingly. ‘You can’t disarm a mob with documents, no matter what their content.’

‘We can’t disarm the mob at all,’ said Log Jaris. ‘We must run. If we can get to the desert side, I know a bolt hole.’

‘Then follow me,’ said Juliet Idaho.

At which young Nixorjapretzel Rat decided it was time for him to split. But Pelagius Zozimus grabbed him by the collar and hauled him along with the rest of them.

Juliet Idaho led them to a sally port. He opened it.

Already they could hear shouts, screams, hammering footsteps. The hoi polloi were almost upon them. So out into the hot sunlight of Injiltaprajura’s desert side they fled.

From the heights of Pokra Ridge, they could see across the market gardens, barracks, quarries and so forth of desert side Injiltaprajura, and then across league after league of desert. The only strategic impediment to unbroken vistas were the shoreside heights, upthrusts of rock fringing the borders of Untunchilamon to such effect that they masked the approach of all shipping until the vessels in question were on the point of entering the Laitemata.

But the attention they gave to the view was zero.

‘Follow me,’ said Log Jaris.

Then the bullman bounded downhill, followed by a raggedy sweating-panting bustle of people. A hundred paces downhill, they reached the ornate tombs of past wazirs of Injiltaprajura. Log Jaris threw open the door to one mausoleum. Within, a stone coffin and another door.

The second door the bullman opened.

A draught breathed out.

A cool draught of air from deep underground.

‘They’ve seen us!’ cried Chegory. ‘The enemy has seen us!’

He was right. A great gang of the great unwashed was spewing out of the sally port.

‘Then take to the depths,’ said Log Jaris. ‘The Empress with you.’

And then a swift division of fates was decided. The Empress Justina must be saved, for Injiltaprajura’s fate depended on her rule. Chegory Guy must also be preserved; for, by a cruel twist of fate, it happened that the sole person to have the confidence of the Crab was this ill-educated rock gardener. Olivia Qasaba would not be parted from her true love. And Ivan Pokrov must go, for, if it happened that the fugitives found an organic rectifier below, how would they recognize it but by his expertise? Artemis Ingalawa went also, insisting that Olivia needed a chaperone. A chaperone? It was far too late for that! But Ingalawa was unaware of the stage things had reached in relations between Chegory and his true love. Hence her concern.

Meanwhile, Shanvil Angarus May and Juliet Idaho declared that they would die together at the gates of the mausoleum, chopping down as many of the mob as they could before they too fell in turn.

Justina’s remaining supporters would flee in the direction of Moremo Maximum Security Prison, hoping to confuse the many-headed monster of the multitude.

‘Goodbye, sweet world!’ said Justina.

Then she was gone, descending to the underworld with Chegory, Olivia, Pokrov and Ingalawa close behind her.

‘It is a good day to die,’ said Juliet Idaho, spitting on his hands; scarcely an original remark, as it was the line with which he greeted each new day even before he rose from his bed.

‘Or to live,’ said May, equally ready to die but more optimistic in his outlook.

‘Or to run,’ said Log Jaris, and suited action to words, with Molly sprinting at his shoulder.

Odolo, Dardanalti and Aquitaine Varazchavardan ran with him, as did Pelagius Zozimus and Nixorjapretzel Rat.

All this was done quite properly, for it is correctly written in The Tactics of Escape (which manual originates with the Combat School of Odrum) that ‘when the few seek to escape from the many, the chances of the few will be amplified by division of direction; the visible escape of some of the few will serve to enhance the chances of those who flee by ways invisible; and should it happen that a narrow way can be defended by one or two of the few, then the survival of the remainder will be further enhanced by such sacrifice.’

Whether they knew it or not, Justina and her allies acted precisely in accordance with that doctrine. They divided their directions. Log Jaris and other expendable individuals fled through the sunlight, seeking to draw the mob toward Moremo. Justina and her chosen companions headed Downstairs, fleeing by a way invisible to the mob. And two heroes — Juliet Idaho and Shanvil May — prepared to die to delay the pursuit.