Hugh Cook - The Wazir and the Witch

All this said Shabble, and more; but the newcomers had yet to be converted to the Cult by the time they reached the Moremo Maximum Security Prison, where guards intercepted them as they ascended from the lower dungeons. Uckermark knew these warders, and held them to silence with a gesture; seeing that Shabble was with him, they obeyed without question, falling in behind the corpse-master as an honour guard.

As Uckermark led the way onward and upward, Manthandros Trasilika asked no questions, thinking that what was left of his dignity would best be preserved by a decorous silence. But his priest was not so continent.

‘Where are we now?’ said Jean Froissart, catching a glimpse of a moody sky through a slit window.

‘In prison,’ said Uckermark. ‘Moremo Maximum Security Prison.’

‘I have to go now,’ said Shabble, who had spied that same window.

‘Go?’ said Uckermark. ‘Where?’

‘We’re sacrificing,’ said Shabble in great excitement. ‘Had you forgotten? We’re sacrificing a Sacred Moth to the Holy Cockroach. Today. Remember?’

‘Oh,’ said Uckermark. ‘I remember. Off you go then.’ Whereupon Sha bble, imitating a teenage cultist, drum-rumbled thrice then slipped ou t into the open air.

Uckermark was disappointed to see the imitator of suns flirt away through the window, for there were responsibilities (the carriage of messages and such) which he would liked to have placed upon that jaunting bubble. But the corpse-master knew he would lose Shabble’s services entirely if he tried to compel the eternal child with disciplines alien to its nature. Shabble would do much if persuaded that the doing was fun. But, as Ivan Pokrov had ultimately discovered, Shabble was not prepared to be a slave.

‘You mean to hold us here as prisoners?’ said Froissart, once Shabble had departed.

‘No,’ said Uckermark. ‘Merely to provide you with… with private conference facilities.’

And he refused to say more until he had introduced his guests to Bro Drumel. This most anxious of warriors, the semi-suicidal career soldier whom Nixorjapretzel Rat had earlier tried to blackmail, still had control of Moremo, for Master Ek had not yet seen fit to remove him from the post of Governor. Indeed, why should Ek interfere? The management of a squabbling brood of prisoners meant nothing to him; and, if Drumel was ultimately to be judged as a traitor, there would be plenty enough time later for his arrest, trial and execution.

Despite his many worries, Bro Drumel laughed out loud when Manthandros Trasilika declared himself warrior. That disconcerted Jean Froissart more than anything else which had happened to date.

‘So,’ said Drumel, when he had recovered himself. ‘You are wazir, are you? What next, then? Mutilator of Yestron?’

‘Humour ill becomes either you or the occasion,’ said Trasilika, who was very close to losing his temper. ‘Aldarch the Third has pulled fingernails for less.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Bro Drumel, sobering somewhat. ‘But we have killed one Manthandros Trasilika already, and one Jean Froissart. If there is a penalty for killing members of such breeds, then we are damned already. And if we kill them not — why, then our island risks overpopulation. For-’

That did it.

Manthandros Trasilika lost his temper.

An impressive sight he made in his rage; and many were the spectres of doom which he invoked as he cursed Bro Drumel. All to virtually nil effect. For Drumel was convinced that this Trasilika was as much of an imposter as the first.

‘Very well,’ said Uckermark, once Trasilika had said his piece. ‘Now we know who he is, or who he pretends to be. Where can we stash him for the moment?’

‘It’ll have to be in my personal quarters,’ said Bro Drumel. ‘Unless you want him clamped in fetters below.’

Uckermark thought about it.

‘Your quarters,’ said he at last. ‘At least for the moment.’

Bro Drumel rang for guards and had the two children of Wen Endex taken away.

‘Well,’ said Drumel, when that had been done. ‘What do you want to do with them? Sell them to Master Ek as sacrifices? Or what?’

‘I thought we could use them,’ said Uckermark.

‘Use them! They’re patent frauds.’

‘That may be so,’ said Uckermark. ‘But let’s see what Dardanalti has to say before we write them off entirely.’ After some persuading, Bro Drumel sent word to the pink palace: a message to tell Dardanalti he was wanted in Moremo. Then, Uckermark joined the new Manthandros Trasilika and the new Jean Froissart in Drumel’s quarters.

Uckermark, a veteran of many long sea journeys himself, had the wit to have fresh food served to those quarters simultaneously with his own arrival, a move calculated to soften the temper of the obstreperous Trasilika.

‘Well,’ said Trasilika, when Uckermark entered his presence, ‘what now?’

‘We wait,’ said Uckermark.

‘For what?’

‘I’ve sent for someone.’

‘Who?’

Uckermark merely smiled.

‘Are you a torturer?’ said Froissart, studying Uckermark’s scars and tattoos.

‘I’ve introduced myself already,’ said Uckermark. ‘I’m a lawyer. Legal counsel for the Cult of the Holy Cockroach. Come. Will you not eat?’

Uckermark’s guests succumbed to temptation and proceeded to glut themselves. After so many days of shipboard privation, a banana itself was an instrument of delight. Thus it happened that both Froissart and Trasilika were in a much better temper when Dardanalti arrived.

‘This,’ said Uckermark, ‘is a man well worth talking to.’

‘You do the talking,’ said Trasilika to Froissart. ‘I’ve no patience for argument.’

As has been earlier remarked, Dardanalti was a dapper individual remarkable for looking crisp and fresh at all times, a truly remarkable achievement in the wilting climate of Untunchilamon. Dardanalti’s appearance made Trasilika acutely conscious of his own overfleshed, sweat-saturated body; and of his fatigue, which owed as much to unacknowledged fear as it did to the long trek underground.

Froissart resented Trasilika’s abandonment of responsibility; and, opening the negotiations with less formality than politeness strictly required, said (in Toxteth):

‘Hi.’

‘Are you addressing my presence?’ said Dardanalti.

To understand the scorn of these words, you must understand that they were phrased in Janjuladoola; and, furthermore, that Dardanalti took advantage of the social nuances of that tongue by adopting the forms that one of highest class or caste uses when speaking to an underman.

‘We crave acknowledgement,’ said Froissart, switching to Janjuladoola.

‘Speak,’ said Dardanalti. ‘Tell me your excuses.’

This formal phrase, often heard in the courts of Obooloo, invites a guilty person to confess all.

‘We have no excuses to make,’ said Froissart, thus declaring his conscience to be clear. ‘We come to these shores on legitimate business. Aldarch the Third has charged us with the responsibility of proclaiming his rule in Injiltaprajura.’

‘Your pretensions ill become you,’ said Dardanalti. ‘We have executed one false wazir and priest already. The destruction of another such pair will be but the work of a moment.’

‘We… we are not… we… I’m telling you the truth,’ said Froissart. ‘Aldarch Three really did make us wazir and priest. We have, we have warrants.’

‘Such had the last false wazir,’ said Dardanalti. ‘We of Injiltaprajura are not strangers to the arts of forgery. No piece of parchment can give a fraud the rule of Untunchilamon, for we trust not to parchment alone. Rather, we rely on logic, precedent and interrogation.’ ‘Interrogate, then!’ said Manthandros Trasilika, unable to restrain himself any longer. ‘We’ve a shipload of sailors who will swear to the truth of our tale.’