Hugh Cook - The Wazir and the Witch

By daybreak, Ek had seized Nixorjapretzel Rat, Aquitaine Varazchavardan, the Empress Justina, Jean Froissart and Manthandros Trasilika. And, of coarse, he already held the formidable Juliet Idaho as a prisoner.

Many notorious and dangerous accomplices of the Thrug had escaped, among them the bullman Log Jaris, who had fled downstairs with his woman Molly. Of Shanvil Angarus May there was no sign; and the wizard Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin was another notable who was nowhere to be found. Sken-Pitilkin’s cousin, Pelagius Zozimus, had been sighted briefly in Marthandorthan. But before he could be arrested, he had turned into a carpet snake, and then into an eagle — and had flown away.

‘Never mind,’ said Ek. ‘This is enough to be going on with. We will begin sacrificing our captives to Zoz the Ancestral. Immediately!’

‘But,’ said one of his acolytes — Aath Nau Das, as it happens — ‘this is hardly regular.’

‘What are you talking about?’ said Master Ek.

‘I mean,’ said his acolyte boldly, ‘that there are prescribed forms for sacrifices and such.’

‘Yes,’ said Ek, ‘and prescribed forms of politeness for acolytes to use when addressing their masters!’

‘A thousand apologies,’ said Nau Das, without sounding very apologetic. ‘But, master of the many decades, there is such a thing as legality. These people haven’t had a trial as yet.’

Ek smiled grimly, showing his blackened teeth.

‘The hell with legality,’ said Ek. ‘We’ll start killing them here and now.’

‘What?’ said Ch’ha Saat, the youngest of his acolytes. ‘Without even torturing them?’

Ek considered. Arranging for torture would mean delay. On the other hand… he had endured a great deal over the years, and it would be a shame to send the Thrug out of the world without saying goodbye in the appropriate fashion.

‘Very well,’ said Ek. ‘We will torture them before we kill them. Let’s get busy then!’

And busy they got, and soon gathered together clamps and throttle-bands, stabs and wrecking irons, tweezers and cactus probes, shark hooks and purple veils, bottles of torture water and vials of vitriol, and heavy-duty urns packed with writhing centipedes and fat juicy scorpions.

Then Ek had all the captives brought out into the courtyard of the Temple of Torture. In the pungent heat of the morning they were lined up at spearpoint. Ek was pleased to see they all looked more or less undamaged. And that they were, for the moment, fairly calm. This way, he would know that the end result was all his own work.

Ek made no speeches but proceeded with the ceremonies of destruction immediately, beginning with the slow and studied sacrifice of a vampire rat. This he performed with his own hands, even though it cost him much in pain, for his arthritis was bad that morning.

‘Now,’ said Ek, ‘what I have done with a rat I will do with a human. Bring forward Jean Froissart!’

Froissart was dragged forward, flung down on an operating table and tied into place. Froissart lay there, staring upwards in terror. His heart was staccato. Master Ek loomed over him with a knife. Then Justina screamed.

‘Shabble!’ screamed Justina. ‘Kill them!’

Ek looked round wildly. There was no Shabble, no magical rescuer. Justina had bluffed. But her bluff had worked. While her guards were distracted, she had broken free, and ‘Stop her!’ cried Ek.

But already the Thrug had a wrecking iron in her hands. And Juliet Idaho had broken free — someone must have cut his bonds! — and had wrested a scimitar into his hands. And the guards were looking on in askance, residual loyalties to the Empress or to Trasilika making them hesitate rather than intervene.

‘A pardon,’ said Varazchavardan, looking at Ek.

‘Done!’ said Ek.

Thus did Aquitaine Varazchavardan plead with Master Ek for a priestly pardon for any and all sins he might have committed during the years of the rule of the Family Thrug on Untunchilamon; and Ek granted him that pardon. Whereupon Varazchavardan threw forth his hands and cried:

‘Bobskabo! Bobskabo! Bro!’

Thus he conjured into life a huge and hideous monster with half a thousand fangs. Purple were its feet, and its legs were twenty in number. Its muscles pumped outwards like dough rising with miraculous speed. It roared. Then it advanced upon Justina Thrug and Juliet Idaho, meaning to destroy them.

Not to be outdone, Nixorjapretzel Rat threw out his own hands and cried:

‘Mikrandabor! Mikrandabor! Splotch!’

Instantly, another monster materialized. This one was orange, and spindly, and was pocked all over with little blue sores, and looked in the worst of tempers imaginable.

Snarling savagely, Rat’s monster attacked that which had been created by Varazchavardan. The two monsters tore each other to bits in moments, whereupon both melted into pools of a watery pink liquid which smelt like crushed sugar cane. Varazchavardan wrested a spear from the nearest soldier and began to beat the hapless Rat with the butt of the thing.

That still left Justina Thrug and Juliet Idaho to deal with. The two heroes stood at bay in a corner of the courtyard of the Temple of Torture, and still Ek’s guards looked dubious about taking them on.

‘All right,’ said Ek, addressing himself to Justina and Idaho. ‘I’ll do a deal with you. If you surrender, I’ll cut your throats. No torture, just a straight throat-cutting. How’s that?’

In reply, Idaho shouted:

‘Wen Endex!’

And the Thrug screamed:

‘Galsh Ebrek!’

Then the pair of them charged.

Fortunately for Ek, his soldiers intervened on his behalf, and both heroes were overwhelmed and disarmed. But the episode left Master Ek badly shaken, for it showed him how loosely he held the reins of power. He would not be safe and secure until the Thrug and her supporters were dead. He had been a fool to let his acolytes tempt him into any indulgence in time-consuming torture.

‘Right,’ said Ek. ‘I’ll show them my mercy anyway. No torture, I’ll just cut their throats.’

Then he went back to Jean Froissart.

‘If I remember rightly,’ said Ek, ‘before we were so rudely interr upted, I was going to cut your throat.’ ‘Don’t!’ said Froissart.

‘Why shouldn’t I?’ said Ek.

‘Because,’ said a strangely familiar voice, ‘if you do, we will kill you.’

Ek wheeled. This, of course, he did not do with the precipitate haste of a trained athlete. Rather, he wheeled in slow motion, as befits an old man with arthritis. But wheel he did, and his wheeling brought him face to face with a young Ashdan girl, Olivia Qasaba. The Qasaba girl had intruded upon the courtyard of the Temple of Torture in the company of an Ashdan male.

A stranger, this male. Nobody Ek had ever seen before. He looked to be something like fifty years of age, and his head was bald, and indeed hairless but for a modest square-chopped beard. He was naked but for a loincloth. Yet he was an imposing figure even so, for he had a champion’s build, and he stood a head taller than any other man in sight. Sweat gleamed on his massive thews and oiled his sculpted pectorals. And his eyes — ah, the eyes! They were the startling blue so often found among the peoples of Ashmolea.

‘Who are you?’ said Ek.

‘I am Olivia Qasaba,’ said the girl.

‘I wasn’t talking to you!’ said Ek. Then, to the man: ‘Who are you? Tell me!’

‘I am Codlugarthia,’ said the man.

‘And I,’ said Master Ek, ‘am Nadalastabstala Banraithanchumun Ek, High Priest of Zoz the Ancestral for the island of Untunchilamon. I have a need of good men.’

‘I serve nobody,’ said Codlugarthia. ‘My time has come. Now others will serve me.’

Ek smiled, slightly. Then said to Varazchavardan: