Hugh Cook - The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers

A panic flight ensued. An irresistible floodtide of bodies swept young Chegory Guy through the hole in the wall of the treasury and into the yawning darkness beyond.

Down tunnels they went, blundering through confusions of darkness where elbow argued with chin and boot with instep. They jostled down echoing stoneways, sludged through mephitic passages ankle-deep in sewage, climbed stairs going up then found those same steps descending, and ever they sought for light, light, light, a glimmer of light to free them from the terrors of the darkness which yet oppressed them though their numbers were many.

Intersections were many and each thinned the mob. As intersective decisions lessened the density of the crowd so its pace and urgency lessened also. It became not a mindless flux of squalling flesh but small, disparate groups of individuals who began to think, talk and argue.

Chatter broke out.

‘Go north.’

‘North, he says! Where’s north?’

‘You doubt my sense of direction?’

‘I doubt your sense, man. There’s no way out of here!’ ‘Of course there is. Must be.’

‘Nay. Bones wander here for years. Become dust. No hope for them, no hope, we’re lost, lost.’

‘We’re dead. We’re dead, and this is hell.’

‘If you weren’t with us I’d disbelieve it.’

‘Oh! Is that you, Thagomovich?’

‘None other. Just my luck to end up with you. Now — what’s this? Name yourself!’

‘Datkinson Rowen. Tailor by trade. Born Wen Endex. What else you want to know?’

‘The way out of here, fool! And you — what have we here?’ So saying, a voice grabbed Chegory by the elbow. He broke away, for he did not care to identify himself. Two steps he took, and that was all. Then he stood still, very still, in the darkness.

‘A guard, by chance?’ said the voice. ‘Perhaps it is. Get it, boys!’

But nobody showed any enthusiasm for games of chase and thuggery in the overbearing dark. Instead, on went the arguing voices. Thirty paces further they went, then halted at an intersection.

‘Stinks!’ said one.

‘Dikle,’ said another.

‘Can’t go down there,’ said Datkinson Rowen, the tailor from Wen Endex. ‘Stuff’s poison. Gets into your skin. Does for you.’

‘But it’s solid.’

Sound of someone stamping. Thrice. Thonk thonk sploosh!

‘There! Turns to liquid, see. Goes solid when it’s cool enough but liquid when it’s walked on.’

‘Thixotropic,’ said a scholar.

‘Thixotropic! Is that what you call it? Bloody perverse, that’s what I call it. Stinks, anyway, as the man said.’

‘But there’s light at the end.’

‘Aagh, there’s light for an ending to every tunnel. Come on. Any direction will bring us to light in the end.’

‘Oh no. Not so. It’s ghosts down here. Ghosts and jaws. Sharks which float in the thinness of air.’

‘Oh yes! That I’ll believe when pigs shit silver, when sun burns blue, when my mother-in-law turns sweet…’

With that, the voices were on their way, choosing ways other than that which led down a tunnel awash with dikle. Chegory footpadded through the dark to that passage. There was indeed light at the far end, some four or five hundred paces distant if he was any judge. A cool blue light which glimmered on the dikle.

Chegory had no fear of dikle, which he knew to be no poison. Furthermore, if he was to go on alone then the sooner he found some light the better. Vampire rats shun the light, whereas he would be easy prey for such monsters ifhe continued to wander the dark on his own. He hesitated. Run after the others? Or strive to the light?

The others were part of the mob which had fought for treasure in the depths of the pink palace. Such criminal actions had already multiplied Chegory’s troubles beyond measure. Previously he had faced charges of brawling, of consorting with drug smugglers and (possibly) of inciting Shabble to violence. Now he was on the run, a hunted man implicated in riot, looting and civil disorder, guilty (though it was not his fault!) of escaping from lawful custody and (a crime equally as serious) of consorting with escaped prisoners.

Chegory remembered the stern advice his father had given him before his return to Injiltaprajura.

‘Be honest. Obey the law. Uphold the rule of order. Choose your company with care. Keep clear of criminals. Bring no disgrace upon yourself, your family or your race.’

That decided him.

He set off for the light, choosing solitary dangers rather than the dubious companionship of the lawless. Ah, what a good little boy he was! Bravely forging down the tunnel despite the stench. His footsteps broke up what fraction of the dikle yet remained solid. The stuff leaked into his sun-fractured boots. But his spirits rose regardless, for ahead was a broad and pleasant corridor lit in bright blue.

He gained the corridor.

And was promptly menaced by bright blades held by a four-strong band of men who looked more than ready to use them.

Chegory’s quartet of captors did not declare themselves, but their names in time became well-known to history and its recorders. None was a native of Untunchilamon; instead, all hailed from lands far distant.

[A tautology, and, I regret, but one of many. If someone has been declared to be no native of Untunchilamon then it is necessarily tautological to declare their genesis far distant, since the most cursory acquaintance with geography teaches us that Untunchilamon lies near no other land. To the north is Tameran, to the south Parengarenga, to the east Yestron and to west Argan, all a weary sea-voyage distant. Sundry minor islands are closer slightly, but none could rightly be described as ‘neighbouring’. This criticism inserted by Ventantakorum of Odrum, Seventh Grade Critic Textual.]

Most fearsome in appearance was a burly barbarian girded in leather. This man of ugly face and jug-handle ears was a Yarglat tribesman by name of Guest Gulkan. He was pretender to the throne of Tameran, currently occupied by the Lord Emperor Khmar. He it was who spoke first.

‘Who are you?’ said the barbarian.

He addressed young Chegory in the Toxteth of Wen Endex, a language curt and brutal at the best of times. Fortunately, Chegory could speak Toxteth (and Dub, Janjuladoola and Ashmarlan as well).

Don’t get the wrong idea! Here you will find no apology for the Ebrell Islanders after the manner of the Ashdan liberals, no claims that these people are capable of intellectual endeavour or (yes, Ashdans have dreamed as much!) of scholarly achievement. Chegory Guy was just as he has been painted: a coarse and ignorant rock gardener with the most limited of capabilities imaginable.

The juvenile redskin was certainly no linguist. This can be proved by having reference to the classical definition of ‘knowing a language’ which was framed so long ago by the scholarly Iskordan. It is (out of pity for the unwise one must often spell out these things, however ludicrous such a procedure must seem to the educated!) to be possessed of the ability to defend oneself in a court of law in that tongue, to compose poetry in the same argot, and, finally, to frame in that mode of speech a joke which is capable of eliciting laughter from a native speaker of the same.

[True true true. Yet one might wish to supplement this definition by saying that to truly ‘know’ a language one should also have certificated proof of one’s ability to treat with that tongue in the context of educated discourse. The idea that members of the polyglot rabble which infests the streets cities such as Injiltaprajura actually ‘know’ the languages in which they garble is an offensive notion deeply subversive of the underlying concepts which support the ideology of the Higher Learning, and hence is to be deprecated whenever possible. Drax Lira, Redactor Major.]