Hugh Cook - The Wazir and the Witch

‘I’m sorry,’ said Froissart; though in truth he felt he owed no such duty of apology to his kidnapper. ‘I was dragon-chasing.’

The idiom he used may not be universally familiar. Therefore, let it be known that, when Jean Froissart declared himself a chaser of dragons, he meant that he had been feeding on rainbow and fishing for clouds; that his feet had been chancing as wings and his fingers as fins; that he had swum in the desert as the dolphin’s escort and danced upon fire with a statue of ice.

Uckermark, who understood his mode of expression perfectly, warned him thus:

‘Less salt and more flour lest your ginger curdle.’

Jean Froissart, who was of course familiar with this classical admonition, accepted the rebuke, and said, as a child says:

‘I have ears.’

‘Good,’ said Uckermark. ‘What I said, when you were away dancing your phoenix and tickling your basilisk, was that you must watch your footing. Here the floor has certan studs, like this one.’

So saying, Uckermark pointed to a red, slightly raised, coruscating button on the floor. The floor itself was now a slightly convex stretch of what looked like sea-blue stone.

‘If you step on that, or anything like it,’ said the corpse-master, ‘we’ll vanish from sight, as others before us have.’

‘Vanish?’ said Froissart in bewilderment. ‘To what? To where?’

‘To the afterworld, for all I know,’ said Uckermark.

Manthandros Trasilika coughed, hawked, spat. His phlegm splattered against the floor. Hissed. And was gone.

‘Don’t touch the floor, either,’ said Uckermark, as an afterthought. Then: ‘Make your choices. If you want to die, run on ahead of us and die in your own time. There’s plenty of death in a place like this. I won’t grudge you your share if it’s what you really want.’

Uckermark spoke the truth. This was indeed a hazardous realm. While most of the mazeways Downstairs were innocuous, their greatest dangers being vampire rats or disorientation, Uckermark was daring his guests through a frequently fatal part of the labyrinth.

Jean Froissart, having decided that Uckermark’s warning was sincere, started paying more attention to where he was going and where he was placing his feet. Though he was half-certain that this netherworld would claim his bones whatever he did. Half-certain? He grew a full three-quarters-certain when a huge and angry monster started roaring in the distance.

Uckermark halted abruptly. Froissart and Trasilika did likewise.

‘What is it?’ said Froissart anxiously, meaning the roaring thing.

‘I’m not sure,’ said Uckermark truthfully.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Shabble gaily. ‘It’s only a dorgi.’

‘What’s that?’ said Froissart.

‘A killer of men,’ said Shabble.

‘And you tell us not to worry,’ said Trasilika.

‘I was telling myself not to worry,’ said Shabble. ‘It eats only men, not shabbies.’

Then Shabble sniggered.

In truth, Shabble feared dorgis greatly; but the bubble of light guessed the revenant from the Golden Gulag to be fully occupied by the delights of hunting refugees.

‘What’s it saying?’ said Uckermark.

‘It’s saying it’s angry, that’s all,’ said Shabble.

This was a guess, for the dorgi’s uproar was so distorted by echoes that its clamour was completely unintelligible.

‘Here,’ said Uckermark. ‘This way.’

And he led them up more stairs.

‘The pink palace,’ said Manthandros Trasilika. ‘That’s where we’re going, isn’t it?’

‘Guess again,’ said Uckermark.

‘We’re going up, at any rate,’ said Trasilika. ‘Up towards Pokra Ridge.’

‘And we’re near the surface,’ said Froissart.

‘You think,’ said Uckermark.

‘I’m sure,’ said Froissart. ‘I can smell sewage. It flows no depth at all into the underworld, or so say my guidebooks.’

‘Trust less to books,’ said Uckermark. Then: ‘Stop.’

They halted.

‘Shabble,’ said the corpse-master. ‘Take a look ahead.’

The imitator of suns emitted a low hum, spun thrice, then floated round the corner up ahead.

The humans waited.

For some considerable time.

Froissart took stock. The floor underfoot was a fine-meshed brown. He scuffed at it with his boots. It distorted, then reformed itself as before. Strange. Overhead, a dull grey ceiling of puddled roughwork plaster, or something which looked strangely like it. The walls were a sunset orange mottled with growths which looked like lichens and slit with jagged cracks like the crazed knifework of a manic murderer. From those wounds there slowly oozed gross globs of green and grey.

As Froissart speculated on the nature of that flux, he laid two fingers alongside his windpipe. Felt the skin hot, sweaty. Pushed in. Felt his pulse heavy-thumping. Slow, slow. Slow again. A pause. Lengthening. Had his heart stopped? No, for there it was again.

Slow-thump, slow-thump… pause… slow-thump.

He lived.

For the moment.

And that slow and steady rhythm spoke of strength and health, did it not? For he had paced long through the underworld, ascending stairs and up-tilted tunnels; yet his heart spoke more of sedentary peace. But then, that organ had been allowed plenty of recovery time by now, for the free-floating sun which was exploring ahead had been gone for an unconscionable time.

Froissart reached out and touched the slow outbirth of strangeness, finding the globs of green and grey to be gelid and slightly tacky. He brought his fingers to his nose. Smelt no odour. If the oozing stuff had a scent, it was not strong enough to defeat that of sewage.

At last, the floating bubble returned.

‘It’s all right,’ said Shabble. ‘The pergot’s elsewhere.’

‘Pergot?’ said Trasilika. ‘What’s a pergot?’

‘A thing which drinks blood,’ said Uckermark.

‘It would seem you risk much to bring us this way,’ said Froissart, wondering at Uckermark’s motives.

‘Much I may dare when Shabble is with me,’ said Uckermark. ‘Otherwise, there’s many tunnels down here that I’d not chance on my own.’

As for Uckermark’s motives, these were scarcely mysterious. The advent of a new wazir (or someone claiming to be a wazir) was sure to change the history of Untunchilamon. Given first access to such a dignitary, Justina Thrug and her minions could alter events in their own favour. And Uckermark, while his future was bound to that of the Cult of the Holy Cockroach, was nevertheless prepared to grant Justina her chance on account of certain residual loyalties and acknowledged debts.

Besides which, Uckermark both feared and disliked Master Ek. It was Nadalastabstala Banraithanchumun Ek who had granted the Cockroach Cult its present status as a Protected Religion. As legal counsel for the High Priest of a religion of such status, Uckermark was safe from the wrath of Aldarch Three. However, what Master Ek had given he could take away; and Uckermark grimly suspected that any absolute triumph for Master Ek might lead that dignitary to take freely and without hesitation.

Thus Uckermark sought to prolong the life and liberties of the Empress Justina for at least a little longer; for, in his present role as Shabble’s advocate, the corpse-master was doing very nicely for himself, a full three per cent of all Shabble’s monies finding their way into Uckermark’s pockets.

As Uckermark and his guests continued on their way, the bright-bobbing Shabble, confident that they were past those dangers which truly demanded vigilance, began to indulge Shabbleself in the preaching of holy doctrine.

‘Worship the cockroach,’ said Shabble, ‘and you will be reborn as cockroach. Such is the bliss! Never to know hunger, never to pay rent, never to endure the multitudinous pangs and pains of the human form. Holy is the cockroach and hallowed is His name. Happy is the cockroach and happy are we who will become cockroach.’