Hugh Cook - The Wazir and the Witch

In his mansion on Hojo Street, a very uptight Aquitaine Varazchavardan received the news of the advent of a new Trasilika and a new Froissart with a combination of exhaustion and panic. He did not think he could sustain many more shocks to flesh and psyche. The recent rapid gyrations in the political order had dismayed him mightily. Varazchavardan was one of those people who longs for order. He desired to make his intelligence subservient to a mighty Power, to be regimented and controlled, to find safety through obedience to the ruling order.

But, increasingly, Injiltaprajura offered no stable order to be obeyed.

If only Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin would finish his airship, and quickly! Then Varazchavardan could get the hell out of Injiltaprajura. Unless he made such an escape, and soon, surely he would die in the next riot; or be executed by Master Ek on some half-lawful pretext; or be chopped to bits by one wazir or another on account of his past association with Justina Thrug; or be mugged and murdered on the increasingly lawless streets.

Such was Varazchavardan’s plight.

And what of Sken-Pitilkin? Why, he was still working for no more than half a day at a time. And his progress was no faster, even though he had an assistant. Nixorjapretzel Rat was that assistant.

After converting Pelagius Zozimus to a fast-changing serial life-form, young Rat had almost been killed by a wrathful Log Jaris. Rat had escaped from the bullman, though only with difficulty; and had eventually taken refuge in the Cabal House. But the wonder-workers of the Cabal House, wishing to keep tabs on Sken-Pitilkin’s airship rebuilding programme, had ordered Rat to make his peace with the bullman Log Jaris by way of humble apology, to return to the pink palace, and to place himself at Sken-Pitilkin’s service.

All this Rat had done, albeit reluctantly.

Since Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin had (unlike his cousin Zozimus) some considerable capacity for suffering fools with equanimity, he had accepted Jan Rat into his service. But, unfortunately, the job of ship-building was not within the Rat’s abilities.

Rat was designed by nature to be a fool; but, as he had never enjoyed the counsel of a properly qualified careers adviser, he had so far failed to achieve this. It had never occurred to him that he would never, never realize his grand ambitions — which were to become the most powerful sorcerer on Untunchilamon and the head of the wonder-workers’ Cabal House. But he was well aware — he had never for a moment presumed otherwise — that he was remarkably ill-equipped to be a builder of airships.

Nixorjapretzel Rat was incontrovertibly clumsy. As his hands stuttered over sticks, bungled knots and splintered themselves on baulks of wood, the young sorcerer thought with envy of Chegory Guy’s well-knit body. While Rat was as much a racist as any other person of Janjuladoola breed, he nevertheless wished he had that Ebrell Islander’s physique, if not his other characteristics.

But Rat’s envy was misplaced.

Certainly Chegory Guy had the physique of a sledgehammer matched with a knifefighter’s grace. But, at that very moment, the redskinned Ebrell Islander was a prisoner of the therapist. Had the Rat known that, and had the Rat appreciated the ramifications of Chegory’s plight, then he would have envied him not at all.

A more fitting subject for envy was Theodora, Justina’s twin sister, who had got safely away on Troldot Turbothot’s ship. Theodora was presently closeted with her gynaecologist in the ship’s Great Cabin.

‘What have you been doing to yourself?’ said the gynaecologist.

Theodora told him.

‘That’s what I thought,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t do it any more.’

‘But I like it!’ said Theodora.

Then began to explain why.

But such explanation, and the other details of Theodora’s medical consultation, have no bearing on our history, and therefore will not be recounted here. Let it merely be noted that there was no hope of help coming to Justina from her twin sister, for Theodora and her lover were intent only on maximizing their own pleasure and widening the distance between themselves and Injiltaprajura.

For Justina Thrug, Artemis Ingalawa and Olivia Qasaba, it was all very strange. First Dardanalti made inscrutable lawyerly excuses and withdrew from the Star Chamber, leaving his apprentice to continue the defence. (Such continuation, involving as it did nothing more than occasionally calling out ‘Objection!’, did not tax the apprentice’s abilities unduly.)

Then, later, there was a series of defections from the courtroom audience; until finally Nadalastabstala Banraithanchumun Ek, a patient spectator throughout the proceedings, was called away by one of his aides. After that, Dardanalti reappeared and craved leave to approach the bench. Such leave being granted to him, Dardanalti spoke quietly with Judge Qil, who then announced a recess.

Which left Justina, Ingalawa and Olivia sitting on a hardwood bench in the quiet of the Star Chamber. They could hear, in the distance, lamentations from one of the temples of Hojo Street where mourners were lamenting the demise of some of the victims of Injiltaprajura’s disastrous fire. Then someone began drumming:

Thup-thup-top!

Thup-thup-top…

Guards intervened, and there was a brief flurry of excitement as a youthful drummer was discovered, searched, bloodied then ejected from the court.

But, after that, stasis set in.

As the recess dragged on, some people began to drift away, quitting the pink palace for streets where the smell of ash still had dominance. The diminished audience that remained evinced no enthusiasm for the resumption of the proceedings. Some drew lime leaf and fresh betel nut from intricate silver containers and began to chew, taking advantage of Judge Qil’s absence. (For some reason — the onset of senility, perhaps? — that judge had lately developed a prejudice against people chewing and spitting in his court.) Others gnawed on sugarcane or cleansed their tongues with pandanus.

Then Dardanalti returned to the Star Chamber.

Judge Oil did not.

‘We have it,’ said Dardanalti, with a smile savage in its triumph.

‘Have what?’ said Justina.

‘This!’ said Dardanalti, waving a parchment. ‘Your pardon.’

‘My-my-’

‘Pardon, yes. It covers the Qasaba girl, too.’

‘Me?’ said Olivia.

‘You,’ said Dardanalti.

‘And me?’ said Ingalawa sharply.

‘But of course,’ said Dardanalti.

Then he smiled again, and waited for acclamation.

Instead:

‘I’m thirsty,’ said Justina.

She was, too. Her relief of her bladder had lately been at the pleasure of her guards; and, bitterly resenting such humiliation, she had chosen dehydration as the most honourable course. Hence she lacked the energy for jubilation.

‘Are we — are we really free?’ said Olivia.

‘You are,’ said Dardanalti.

Whereupon Olivia began to weep. Throughout her trial she had been a brave Ashdan, confronting her death with a pose which mimicked equanimity. But now, released from the responsibility of denying her captors, she was but a slip of a girl, exhausted by worry and fear.

Artemis Ingalawa did not chide her niece, but comforted her as she collapsed in grief. Ingalawa could have done with some comforting herself, for she was over-tired, exhausted by the ordeal of long wanderings Downstairs followed by abrupt arrest, brusque imprisonment and the onset of an unpleasant trial. Ingalawa had long thought of Untunchilamon as her true home, but now she wished she could be gone, back to the forests of Ashmolea, land of limestone and cultivated sophistication.

The Empress Justina also wished to be gone. To Wen Endex, land of tumbling waterfalls and swampland rivers, of dunes where the seastorm spume writhes in mists on the wintry wind, of castellated strongholds armoured in ice, of fur-coat weather and parrot-bat feasts.