Hugh Cook - The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers

Up to the seventh landing they went.

There misfortune befell young Chegory and his companions, for a squad of soldiers rushed them from the side tunnel which there debouched. The soldiers were armoured well and armed with spears, hence the pirates had no option but to discard their weapons and surrender.

Then curt commands were issued and a most reluctant Chegory Guy was escorted up the stairs in the company of his Asral-born companions. He knew their captors were soldiers of Justina’s palace guard. Their uniforms and accoutrements left him in no doubt about that. Doubdess they had been scouring the depths Downstairs in an effort to capture at least some of the looters who had robbed Injiltaprajura’s treasury.

This means execution. At the very least!

So thought Chegory.

Then they reached the top of the stairs and were marshalled at spearpoint into a vast cellerage illuminated by cold lights overhead which shone harsh and bright on a scene of industrious activity. Those few shadows which survived were sheltering under big, heavy barrels. Workers were decanting the contents of these containers into jugs, urns, amphorae and botdes. In the air was a smell which Chegory knew to be that of alcohol.

Justina’s guards were everywhere in evidence.

Chegory did not quite understand what was going on here. Obviously this was a secret warehouse for the distribution of drugs, an underground equivalent of Firfat Labrat’s warehouse in Marthandorthan. But what then were the guards doing? Was this a raid? If so, why was work proceeding as usual? And who was this tall white-skinned man now approaching?

Was it…?

Could it be…?

Yes, it was!

The now-near newcomer with pink eyes and alabaster skin was none other than the wonderworker Aquitaine Varazchavardan, Master of Law to the Empress Justina of Untunchilamon, the dignitary whom Chegory had last met when the sorcerer had come to Jod to interrupt Ivan Pokrov’s lunch with queries about the Analytical Engine. Varazchavardan was still wearing the same silken ceremonial robes alive with dragons ultramarine and incarnadine. As the sorcerer drew near, Chegory made reverence in the Janjuladoola manner.

‘Aha!’ said Varazchavardan, ‘so it’s-’

The pirates moved.

A hand-signal from the eldest threw them into action.

The muscle man grabbed Chegory Guy and hurled him at the guarding spearmen, skittling them. The elderly pirate whipped out a hidden blade, triced Varazchavardan into his clutches then pressed steel to trachea.

‘Keep back!’ yelled Varazchavardan. ‘Keep back, or he’ll kill me!’

But skitded guardsmen were already scrambling to their feet, scrabbling for their fallen weapons. The muscle man picked up a cask of alcohol and hurled it. Then threw another, which burst on impact. Chegory rolled out of the way of a third, picked himself up and dodged a fourth.

Swiftly the throat-threatening pirate dragged his hostage Varazchavardan toward the top of the stairwell. Chegory hobbled after the fast-retreating pirates, splashing through spilt liquor as he went. What alternative did he have? To stay and be arrested. Or killed out of hand! Soldiers followed cautiously. The ancient clutching Varazchavardan let his knife tease a little blood from the albino’s skin. The sorcerer screamed at his men.

‘You want me dead? Get back, you fools! Get back!’

In response, one optimist hurled a knife, thinking he could skewer the pirate who had the Master of Law in his dutches. The knife went wide. Varazchavardan swore. This called for desperate measures!

'Richardia rincus rident!’ he gasped.

A shock of purple flame flashed from his body. It blasted away the throat-threatening pirate. Varazchavardan was free! But the same flames ignited a sea of spilt alcohol. Varazchavardan fled, howling, beating at the flames swift-flaring from his embroidered dragons as fire swarmed up his silken robes. The muscleman pirate had already scooped up the elderly one and was sprinting for the stairs. The youngest of the Malud marauders was hot on his heels, with Chegory Guy close behind.

By the time they gained the stairs the cavernous warehouse was a lurid theatre of dragon-mouthed incineration. Down the stairs they pounded, fleeing the holocaust. First landing. Second. Third. Fourth. Fifth. Thunder roared behind them as barrels of liquor began to explode in the inferno.

Still down the steps they ran.

‘Omora sora!’ gasped Chegory, pausing on the sixth landing to pant for breath.

This phrase will not be translated, for it was voiced in his native Dub and is therefore axiomatically obscene since it is impossible to say anything in that tongue which has fewer than three unseemly connotations.

While Chegory was so pausing and panting, the pirates were still pounding down the stairs. Chegory knew he must hurry else he would get left behind. But — wasn’t that what he wanted in any case? Of course it was! He had no desire whatsoever to keep the company of these desperate killers for a moment longer than he had to. Decision then was instantaneous. He ducked into the narrow side tunnel and began striding out as best he could to put the greatest possible distance between himself and all potential pursuers.

Down the tunnel of purple light went Chegory Guy. He took a left turn then a right. The tunnel broadened. The light changed from purple to lemon. All was quiet, quiet, quiet. Then he began to hear a rhythmical thumping shattering crashing up ahead. On he went, for he thought he knew what it was.

He was right.

The noise was being made by another ice machine dumping huge blocks of ice into chambers already littered with the same. Ice white bright ensnared the colours of lights of red, green and blue downshining from above. Cold, it was cold, the delicious shock of such cold thrilled him into wakefulness, cleared his head, made him sharper, stronger, readier.

His thirst craved immediate appeasement, but such melt water as there was drained away through grilles in the floor so there were no potable pools awaiting. Instead, Chegory must perforce crunch the cold, cold ice between his teeth then swallow the shattered slurry. Soon the mounting burden of fractured ice in his belly was beginning to cause him discomfort. He durst not eat more lest overconsumption led to cramps or stomach upsets.

Fatigue was regaining the ascendancy. The initial excitement of discovering the ice (and thus of being saved from thirsting to death) was wearing off. He backed off from the ice and settled himself in an ice-cooled corridor, meaning to rest for a little before he went on. Instead, he slipped off to sleep, for he was far too tired to be kept awake merely by the rocksliding downfalls of ice.

It was cold which woke him.

He found himself shivering. Goose-pimples on his skin. He hugged himself, slapped his arms and thighs, then returned to the ice stack to gnaw more concrete water, thinking it best to stock up before he resumed his march.

Cold, it was cold, bitter cold, he had not been so cold since… yes, since last year’s flying fish expedition. He had gone out in a local fishing canoe by night. Ox No Zan had been with him, and Olivia Qasaba, and a dozen others, most of them fishermen. Night, and moon on the rippling sea. Flaring torches. Olivia squealing with excitement. Flying fish kicking in the toe-deep water in the bottom on the canoe. Then the long journey back, a lean wind driving the sail and stripping the warmth from their exhausted bodies. He had been truly cold by the time they reached shore, and had remembered it long after since chills of any description were so rare on Untunchilamon.

With ice eaten, Chegory was ready to march. On he went, taking things nice and slow. Then he stopped. What was it, that thing lying in the middle of the tunnel? A nasty, grisly piece of shrivelled black. A banana skin! A banana skin long dead, admittedly, but sign of human life nevertheless, unless one was to presume one of Injiltaprajura’s monkeys had wandered this far into the deeps with a piece of fruit in hand.