Hugh Cook - The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers

‘But what about you? Oh you’re all right, aren’t you? You got out of jail okay, you’ve got a lawyer I guess, you’ll be all right. Because you’re an Ashdan, you’ve got respect, but I’m just an Ebby, they’ll kill me as soon as look at me, whatever goes wrong it’s going to be my fault, isn’t it?

‘And none of it would have happened, none of it, if you’d just let me go back to the island. That’s all. Just hide away for the night. I knew it, I knew it, but you-’

Chegory clenched his fist as if he was going to hit her. Then he Jjurst into tears instead. Wracked by the unbearable pain of existence. Artemis stood clear of him, not at all sure what to make of his outburst — fearing him perhaps a potential killer. But Log Jaris slapped him on the shoulder and said:

‘That’s better said than living inside you unsaid.’

Then Uckermark said:

Time we were going, Chegory. The summons demands.

We can’t be late for this hearing. Log Jaris, my friend — can you stay here to help Yilda look after the shop? In case of raiders and such.’

‘My pleasure,’ said Log Jaris.

‘If you’re going,’ said Ingalawa, in a moment of swift decision, ‘then we two are going with you.’

So off they set, Artemis Ingalawa and Olivia Qasaba travelling in consort with Chegory and Uckermark.

It was one of those days when even those born and bred on Untunchilamon find the heat oppressive. The whole city had slowed to the leisurely pace of convalescence, for it was impossible to exert oneself at speed. Thanks to the heat, the very effort of idling up Lak Street had become an exercise in advanced calisthenics.

[It cannot get so hot. Sloth is a deficiency of the intellect which should never be blamed on climate. If a trifling warmth of weather truly inflicted such stasis upon Injiltaprajura then we have a shocking picture of an entire culture sunk in irretrievable decadence. One longs to see the Conquest commence and a muscular Religion bring the virtues of Work and Efficiency to such a derelict society. Srin Gold, Commentator Extraordinary.]

Untunchilamon is ever hot, but on exceptional days of sweat like rhis when even the hardiest armpit lice must fear death by drowning, when every pair of thighs in the city is as wet as honeymoon passion, when every crutch is a reeking gymnasium, then the heat seems to come not just from the sun alone but from the sky itself, and, indeed, from the very streets themselves. The bloodrock was heating to the point of flux. The white mass of Pearl was glazed by an intolerable glare. Heat-distorted buildings shimmered and buckled as the air itself warped in helpless agony.

Such weather produces certain types of madness much feared on Untunchilamon. There is for example the mind-state called (to name it in Janjuladoola) talabrapalau, when one lives in fear of bursting into flame in an episode of spontaneous conflagration. Another psychosis, the name of which escapes me, has one believing that the rocks will ignite. I have also met a man who feared he would dissolve into sweat, flow through the windows of the Dromdanjerie, tumble down the precipitous slopes of Skindik Way to Lubos, muck through the slum-filth then splosh into the Laitemata.

Thus we see that madness is specific to culture. We see this elsewhere, indeed. For example, in the city of Babrika, where everything is so mannerly, where politeness rules all and no voice is ever raised in anger, it happens that from time to time an individual will run amok and hack through the marketplace until being overpowered then chopped into pieces no larger than your baby’s thumb.

On the Ebrells, on the other hand, certain individuals revolt against the life of the organism, showing their hatred for the degeneracy of their fellows by developing a condition known as Pinch, when they refuse food and starve themselves to death. Strangely, while thus starving they delude themselves that they are healthy and getting healthier.

In Obooloo, of course, religious mania takes its toll, whereas on the island of Odrum [Here sundry slanders and laboriously erroneous pedantries have been deleted. By Order. Vendano, Guardian of the Honour of Odrum.]

Thus it was that Chegory and his companions were a muck of sweat as they laboured up Lak Street to the palace where the Empress Justina held court. The palace! A monument to eroticism. The pink thighs of its walls. The breasts of its cupolas. Sweet indeed it would have been, but for the intolerable reflections from the glitter dome, which was very agony to look at.

The redskinned Ebrell Islander and his escorts penetrated the pink flesh of Justina’s palace. After the light of the sun, everything was muted except the heat. An usher intercepted them, asked their mission, then showed them to the Star Chamber where the depositions hearing would take place. On the way, they passed the saturnine Slanic Moldova, at work on his great mural, which bears the title ‘Sky Worshipping The Kraken Her Master’.

‘Hello, Sian,’ said Olivia, pausing to look at his work.

Chegory paused with her. Slanic Moldova was working at full pitch, brush darting and sweeping, flashing from palette to wall. Then to flesh. Before Chegory could pull back, Moldova had swept blue paint from Chegory’s eyebrows to his chin.

‘Zoso!’ said Olivia sharply.

At the enunciation of this phrase, Moldova’s paint-hand swayed to a halt as he fell into a hypnotic trance. Olivia took his hand and gently guided brush to wall, knowing he would work on for much of the rest of the day without waking from his trance.

‘Hurry!’ said the usher, with a note of urgency. ‘Hurry, else the hearing will start without you.’

So they husded on down the hall, with Chegory making frantic efforts to clean his face. But mural paint is notoriously difficult to remove.

‘Stop!’ said Ingalawa, as they reached the portal to the Star Chamber.

She could see the hearings were not yet underway. They yet had time. She whipped out a clean sweat rag and attacked the paint on Chegory’s face.

‘Leave that young man alone,’ said a voice of command. It was the voice of Aquitaine Varazchavardan, Master of Law to the Empress Justina. ‘Come,’ said Varazchavardan. ‘The depositions hearing is about to begin.’

‘Just let me just clean his face,’ said Ingalawa, renewing her onslaught on the streak of sky besmirching Chegory’s flame-red complexion.

‘How dare you!’ said Varazchavardan, snatching the rag away. ‘Interfere with this witness again and I’ll have you hung, strung and gutted.’

They stared at each other. A startling contrast they made. Varazchavardan with his eyes of pink. Ingalawa with orbs as dark as the moonless sea. Varazchavardan with his skin as white as the greater narjorgo corpse worm. Ingalawa with her coal-gloss skin as dark as the plumage of the dark lartle, that bad-tempered sharp-beaked bird of Wen Endex.

As Varazchavardan had the full weight and majesty of the state behind him, it was Ingalawa who had to drop her eyes and give way. Thus Chegory entered the Star Chamber with a broad band of blue slashed across his face. He looked quite the clown. Like an actor from the Broko Comedy Theatre, in fact. Though there was nothing amusing about his predicament.

The Star Chamber was the newest part of the pink palace. It was a large hall which had been tacked on to the northern side of the palace. Its pink walls rose to a pink dome high above. Windows inset where wall met dome allowed a pink-tinged light to flood the room, which was tiled with pink tiles, and came complete with a pink-painted mezzanine floor supported by pillars of pink stone. Today the Star Chamber was almost empty, for crushing heat had dissuaded the idle elements of the rabble from attending. A few messenger boys and lawyers’ clerks hung around, chewing on betel nut or sticks of pandanus, but the bulk of the mob was absent.