Hugh Cook - The Wazir and the Witch

No response came from the hulking shadows of the Crab. And Olivia, suddenly furious, thumped on the thing with all her strength, pounding its carapace with her fists.

‘Hey! Hey!’ she shouted. ‘Wake up!’

‘Please,’ said the Crab huffily. ‘I am not a percussion instrument. Besides, even if I was, you are not a drummer, are you?’

‘Is that supposed to be a joke?’ said Olivia fiercely.

‘I do not make jokes,’ said the Crab.

‘That’s just as well,’ said Olivia. ‘Because I’m not in a mood for any jokes.’

‘No,’ said the Crab. ‘By the sound of it, you are in a very bad mood. I recommend a nice soothing walk. Four times round the island should do it.’

‘I’m not here for my health,’ said Olivia.

‘What are you here for, then?’

‘To beat some sense into your thick ugly head.’

‘I am a crab,’ said the Crab. ‘I do not have a head.’ ‘No!’ yelled

Olivia, giving the thing an almighty thump. ‘You don’t have any sense, either. You want to be human? Or don’t you?’

The Crab sighed.

‘I know what you’re on about,’ said the Crab. ‘You want me to get the organic rectifier. It’s in the Temple of Torture, right?’

‘Right!’ said Olivia. ‘So you know all about it! So why don’t you get on with it?’

‘As I told Log Jaris-’

‘I’m not Log Jaris, I’m Olivia Qasaba,’ said Olivia. ‘I don’t care what you told the bullman, I’m telling you now, you have to get the organic rectifier, right now.’

‘If it’s really there to be got,’ said the Crab.

‘Of course it is!’ said Olivia. ‘Otherwise I wouldn’t be here tell ing you all this.’

‘You might be,’ said the Crab. ‘Humans are incredibly duplicitous creatures, as I’ve learnt to my cost.’ ‘Duplicitous?’ said Olivia.

She was so sick with fear, rage, hate and fatigue that she had quite forgotten whether she did or did not know that word.

‘Yes, yes, duplicitous, that’s what they are,’ said the Crab. ‘Che ats, liars and lords of deceit.’

‘Oh, you don’t understand anything!’ said Olivia. Then, abruptly, her animating rage left her. Olivia, deserted by her fury, sat down in a wet, hot, saggy heap. She wept.

After a time, Olivia calmed herself.

It was quiet.

The Crab was saying nothing. Maybe it had gone back to sleep. Some where, a slabender frog was talking to the night. Then, across the wat er, someone screamed.

‘You hear that?’ said Olivia to the Crab. ‘Someone’s getting hurt. That’s Master Ek, that’s what, he’s doing it, hurting people. You could stop him, you know.’

The Crab said nothing.

It remained stolidly silent.

Olivia closed her eyes, and waves of black despair swept over her.

‘Remember,’ she said, ‘you are an Ashdan.’

‘No,’ said the Crab. ‘I am a Crab.’

‘And a big, stupid, silly Crab at that,’ said Olivia, getting to her feet. She bit her lip. Then: ‘Open your claw. This one. Come on! Do what I say! Open it! Come on, silly, we haven’t got all night.’

The Crab’s left claw opened with a slight creaking sound. Olivia held up her right hand.

‘You see this?’ she said. ‘You see this hand? The organic rectifier can make it better. If there really is a rectifier. If I’m not lying. If I’m telling the truth. You grant me that?’

‘If you can choose the axioms, you can win any argument,’ said the Crab.

‘Well what’s that supposed to mean?’ said Olivia. ‘What I say makes sense, doesn’t it? If there really is an organic rectifier, you can get it for me, can’t you? So you can fix my hand. If my hand gets hurt, I mean.’

There was a pause. Then: ‘Yes,’ said the Crab, albeit grudgingly.

‘Well then,’said Olivia.‘Here…’

No.

She could not say it.

But she must!

She bit her lip again. Hard.

She tasted blood.

Her blood.

Blood running from her lip.

Blood of her blood, blood from her lips, and Chegory gasping, and later…

‘I am an Ashdan,’ said Olivia, all expression crushed from her voice while terror fought with discipline. ‘So.’

She put her hand between the chomp-chopper-chuk edges of the Crab’s claw. It was a huge claw, its knobbly biting bits swelling out like globular teeth. Its surfaces were strangely cool against the fever of her flesh.

‘So,’ said Olivia.

She wanted to wrench her hand away.

But she could not.

She must not!

‘So,’ said Olivia. ‘You can crunch my wrist. You can crunch it right off. Do it. If that’s what you have to, then do it. Then you’ll believe.’

So said Olivia.

Then she closed her eyes and waited for the Crab to decide.

It happened halfway between midnight and dawn: midway through the darks of bardardornootha. By then, the moon had sunk from sight. By then, the entire city had fallen to silence, but for a single dog intermittently barking, a single rooster voicing an occasional challenge, several hundred slabender frogs celebrating life and generation, the pulsing rub-drub-thump which issued from a group of half a dozen insomniac drummers who had installed themselves atop the heights of Pearl, the groans of those many sleepers who endured tormented dreams of the Mutilator of Yestron, and the high-pitched assault-hum of several hundred million mosquitoes.

It happened.

The buildings of portside Injiltaprajura abruptly brightened as if the moon had risen anew. But there was no moon. The buildings themselves were glowing. Atop the pink palace, the glitter-dome burnt beacon-bright. The Cabal House glowed a phosphorescent blue. The warehouses of Marthandorthan — Xtokobrokotok among them — shone first pink then gold.

Along Goldhammer Rise, buildings brightened to an intolerable white. In among these buildings lay the Temple of Torture. That was brightest, glowing as if the sun itself had come to life within. All inside the Temple’s walls threw themselves flat and shielded their eyes.

Abruptly, the roof of the Temple shattered. A rockfall of splintered masonry blattered downwards — but dissolved to dust before it could do any damage.

The Temple was roofless.

The naos of the Temple lay open to the sky, and there lay the organic rectifier.

Slowly, a cocoon of purple light began to weave itself around the organic rectifier. Soon the antique device was entirely surrounded by a seamless integument of purple light. Then, smoothly, without making any fuss at all, the organic rectifier rose into the air and slid swiftly toward the island of Jod.

Shortly afterwards, the lights which lit Injiltaprajura were snuffed out. In the renewed dark, dogs and monkeys howled in fear, rage and anguish. Within the Temple of Torture itself, guards, initiates and acolytes picked themselves up from the ground, and began to inspect the damage. When they realized the ‘skavamareen’ was missing, messengers went hotfoot in search of Master Ek, who had taken himself off to his villa on Hojo Street just after midnight.

Shortly, Nadalastabstala Banraithanchumun Ek was issuing furious orders. The hell with caution! He was going to act, and now. He was going to kill out all opposition on Untunchilamon. Manthandros Trasilika, Justina Thrug, Aquitaine Varazchavardan, the lawyer Dardanalti — he would make a clean sweep. And if by chance Aldarch the Third failed to approve, well, Ek would deal with the consequences of such displeasure when the time arose.

Ek decided thus because he was sure a crisis was on hand. Had the Crab removed the ‘skavamareen’ from the Temple of Torture? Or had Varazchavardan stolen the thing by exercise of sorcery? Or did the Thrug command some monstrous power of which the world was as yet ignorant? Or had the very Cabal House itself joined Justina in conspiracy? Ek had no firm answers to any of these questions. But he presumed that the Temple of Torture had been destroyed because, one way or another, his enemies were on the point of staging a final confrontation. He was sure that his best chance of survival lay in acting immediately, seizing the initiative, and putting a permanent end to as much of the actual and potential opposition as he possibly could.