Hugh Cook - The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers

‘Turn loose the dogs, that’s what I’d do,’ said Uckermark. ‘Let the dogs hunt free. They might flush something out. But if the dogs fail — forget it. You wouldn’t catch me going in there!’

‘Okay,’ said Log Jaris.

‘You’d already decided, hadn’t you?’ said Uckermark. ‘You’re not fool enough to hunt to the horrors!’

‘Yes,’ said Log Jaris, ‘but I wanted to hear you say the same for yourself.’

Then the bullman and the corpse master both laughed, and settled down to share a drink or three before Log Jaris took himself off to organise a hunt of the underworld for the wishstone and the Malud marauders from far-off Asral who had stolen it.

Young Chegory Guy slept on through much of sala-hanthara till Uckermark woke him and escorted him uphill toward the pink palace.

‘When’s the banquet, then?’ said Chegory.

‘Not yet, not yet,’ said Uckermark. ‘Don’t be in such a hurry! You’ll be close enough to her ladyship soon enough.’ ‘Oh, brender menoth,’ said Chegory, who was bad-tempered from lack of proper sleep.

[Brender menoth: chop away. Toxteth phrase. The implication is that the one addressed is guilty of unwelcome use of a wit too blunt to be amusing. Oris Baumgage, Fact Checker Minor.]

They were hiking up Lak Street before Chegory was struck by a question, which would have immediately occurred to a woman.

‘What about clothes?’ said he.

‘Clothes?’ said Uckermark.

‘Yes, look, if we’re going to, like, a banquet, okay, I can hardly go like this, can I? I mean, look at me!’

Chegory was still wearing the trousers, shirt and boots in which he had been dressed when he had left the island of Jod late in the afternoon on the previous day. Since then, he had been fighting with a kraken and brawling with soldiers, had slept in his clothes on a number of occasions and had gone on all kinds of adventures in a variety of unhygienic places.

‘Oh, don’t worry about clothes,’ said Uckermark. ‘The Empress will love you just as you are.’

‘That settles it!’ said Chegory. ‘We’re not going to a banquet at all, are we? So where are we going? Where are you taking me?’

‘You’ll find out,’ said Uckermark, his voice becoming stem and grim. ‘Oh, you’ll find out in time, young Chegory! No — don’t try to run. You can’t get away. You can’t escape! You’re doomed!’

But Chegory made a break for freedom regardless. Uckermark grabbed him before he had taken as many as three steps, and, after a brief tussle, the Ebrell Islander was subdued then marched up to the palace.

‘What’ve we got here?’ said a guard, when Uckermark and Chegory entered the foyer of the palace.

‘Meat for the kitchen,’ said Uckermark. ‘Human meat. To be cooked up in the kitchen.’

‘Oh, meat!’ said the soldier cheerfully. ‘For the Empress, is it?’

‘Yes,’ said Uckermark. ‘Her master chef Zozimus will cook it up especially.’

‘Oh, capital, capital!’ said the guard. ‘Fresh meat, yes, that’s the thing. If I recall right, she ate bits of three when she banqueted last. The heart of a fisherman’s boy, the liver of a young blacksmith and the kidneys of a — what was it?’ ‘That tender young singer from far-off Ashmolea,’ said Uckermark.

‘Oh, the singing boy, yes, that was it!’ said the guard. ‘Well, my lad, are you pleased with your privilege?’

‘You can’t do this!’ wailed Chegory fearfully.

So this was what it was all about! He was appalled by the monstrous conspiracy which had been revealed to him. So that was what Justina had meant about having him to a banquet! Now he understood Uckermark’s joke about Chegory getting close to the imperial gut. He tried to run — but Uckermark and the soldier both grabbed him. This time he struggled with such violence that it took the strength of both to control him.

As the pair were wrestling the hapless Ebrell Islander to the ground, a harassed official came bustling up to them. It was Justina’s major domo.

‘What’s this, what’s this?’ said the major domo. ‘What’s all this fighting then? Stop it immediately!’

‘This,’ said Uckermark, panting and laughing at the same time, ‘is meat from the imperial kitchen. This is young Chegory Guy. The Empress Justina wants him slaughtered for her banquet tonight.’

‘Guy!’ he said. ‘We’ve been waiting for him! You’re late, you’re late, oh we’ll never get him ready in time.’

‘It takes but a moment to gut him and clean him,’ said Uckermark. ‘Then the chef can quick-fry him in moments.’ But the major domo was not amused.

‘Let the boy go,’ he said. ‘Stand up, boy. Look! He’s shaking all over! Worse, you’ve bloodied his nose! Stand still, boy! Nobody’s going to eat you.’

‘You mean they were — they — they — a joke, they were joking?’

‘Boy, you really think Justina a cannibal? Gods! Only a — never mind. Come this way! We’ve barely time for the necessary preparations.’

‘Preparations?’ said Chegory.

‘Come! Come on! Look, nobody’s going to eat you, really, don’t be so childish. This way, quick, quick.’

With that, the major domo led Chegory from the palace foyer, and they had soon left the laughter of Uckermark and his friend far, far behind.

‘But,’ said Chegory, both frightened and bewildered by the foreboding mysteries of the palace and his complete loss of control of his own life, ‘but what’s this about preparations?’

‘Come this way, this way,’ said the major domo, hustling him along. ‘Fastest begun, fastest finished.’

‘What about Uckermark, Uckermark, you know, the corpse master, where’s he., what’s he-’

‘Don’t worry about him,’ said the major domo. ‘You’ll meet him again before the banquet. Gods! What a witless joke! Him and that soldier! I’d have the both beaten if there was one chance in ten of knocking some sense into either.’ With that, the major domo showed Chegory into an imposing bathroom where half a dozen perfumed young women were waiting for him. Immediately they fell on him and, giggling and squealing, began to tear off his clothes.

‘Help!’ wailed Chegory. ‘Help! Stop it, stop them, someone, help, no, that’s, gods-’

But all his protests were to no avail. The imperial ladies in waiting stripped him naked, threw him into a huge bath then jumped in afterwards. Then he was washed, sponged and scrubbed without mercy. To his intense embarrassment (in his anguish he thought he would faint) the young women missed nothing in their quest for cleanliness. Scenes equivalent he had oft enjoyed in fantasy — the uninhibited ministrations of nubile sylphs, of unmaidenly beauty by the roomful — but the reality proved shrivelling rather than arousing.

And what Was that a mouth at his…?!

While Chegory at one stage feared he would be raped by these giggling female ravagers, he was still in possession of his virginity when he was hauled from the bath to be towelled and combed then hastened to a table where he was hammered and pounded by a masseur who must have trained in one of the more vigorous schools of all-in wrestling. After that he was rushed to the office of Koskini Reni, her ladyship’s personal physician.

‘My clothes!’ wailed Chegory.

‘Don’t worry,’ said someone. ‘You’ll get them back.’

Then he was in Reni’s office and the physician was checking him over. Scrutinising, prodding, poking, thumping, interrogating. Whores, boy? Have you slept with whores? No? Then with what? Have you ever had a pig? No? You don’t know what you’ve missed! Yaws, boy, have you got yaws? Very well. Lepers, boy. Have you met any? Have you…