Hugh Cook - The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers

At the demon’s feet were slaves kneeling in the postures of worship, careless of the clogged mass of foot-mucked food in which they grovelled.

So what had happened to Uckermark? To Logjaris? To… oh! There they were! All the missing heroes were hanging in mid-air on the far side of the Star Chamber.

Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin’s eyes were closed, and the decrepit old wizard’s head lay to one side, so he was possibly dead. But the others were clearly alive and intact — indeed, they still possessed weapons brought with them from the corpse shop or picked up along the way. But they were obviously trapped, held by invisible forces of unknown strength.

Chegory met the eyes of the muscleman Tolon. The night-black foreigner from Asral mouthed something at him. What? Chegory, unable to lip-read, shook his head. Tolon glared at him. The muscleman was armed with a massive spear made entirely of iron, a ceremonial weapon far too weighty for most mortals to put to practical use. His expression suggested that if he got the chance he would use it on Chegory.

This was all most unfair!

What was Chegory supposed to do?

How exactly does one dispose of a demon?

Chegory thought about it, then thought about it some more, then decided he should creep up on Binchinminfin then hack the demon to death. It dwelt in human flesh. Ergo, it could be killed.

Yet still he hesitated, until one of the demon’s slaves raised her head from the muck, saw him, and wailed in unfeigned despair:

‘Chegory! Chegory! Help us!’

It was Olivia!

Instandy, Chegory was on his feet. Charging, screaming. His scimitar leapt for Binchinminfin’s throat.

But He was seized.

Gigantic fingers — invisible quite! — seized him. Squeezed! Squeezed the air out of him. He was choking. Gasping. Unable to breathe. He was Moving.

Chegory kicked and struggled helplessly as the invisible fist conveyed him across the room to join the line of heroes hung high in the air. When he got there, the fist relaxed its pressure. But still kept hold of his midriff. Chegory hacked at it wildly with his scimitar. But the blade met nothing.

‘Didn’t you believe me, you dumb Ebby?’ said Tolon in passable Toxteth. ‘I told you it was no use attacking the thing. I told you to get help.’

‘Ah, go scrag yourself,’ said Chegory.

Then hacked some more at the fist which was not there to be hacked. Binchinminfin watched him through Varazchavardan’s pink eyes. Then scratched Justina’s ape behind the ears, mouthed some more spitchcock, then laughed. Belatedly, Chegory, started thinking.

‘Shabble,’ said Chegory cautiously. ‘Shabble, are you here?’

‘Yes,’ said a voice from just behind his ear. ‘Chegory, Chegory, don’t let that thing hurt me.’

‘Shabble dearest,’ said Chegory, ‘I won’t let it hurt you at all. What I want you to do is get help. Roll upward, upward. There’s windows up there. Go get Yilda, tell her what’s happened. She’ll know what to do.’

So spoke Chegory, doubting that there was actually very much Yilda could do at all, apart from arranging for their funerals. He waited. At length, a reply came from his cautious companion.

‘I can’t,’ said Shabble. ‘It’s too dangerous.’

‘It’s dangerous to be here!’ said Chegory. ‘That thing down there, that’s not Varazchavardan! That’s Binchinminfin! A demon! A horrible hideous Thing from Beyond come to rape, kill and pillage!’

‘Shabbies can’t be raped,’ said Shabble. ‘Or pillaged.’ ‘Perhaps not,’ said Chegory. ‘But they can be killed. Or sent to the therapist.’

‘Why should the demon do that?’ said Shabble. ‘Because it’s evil!’ said Chegory.

‘How do you know?’ said Shabble, to Chegory’s intense irritation. This was no time for ontological discourse! Nevertheless, Shabble continued: ‘Can you prove it?’ ‘Look,’ said Chegory, taking a deep breath. ‘Never mind the demon! If you don’t take a message to Yilda I’ll kill you myself. Or — or I could send you to a therapist myself!’ ‘You couldn’t do either,’ said Shabble reasonably. ‘Not when you’re hung up here like this.’

The fallen one was bluffing. The lord of lies knew that in fact any person-in-the-flesh can send any Shabble to any therapist at any time whatsoever on any pretext at all. The Shabble-designers of the Golden Gulag had carefully skewed Shabble’s logic-sense to ensure that this bubble of free will would always believe as much.

However, Chegory Guy did not know that his flighty companion was bluffing, therefore the young Ebrell Islander failed to make the overt threat which would have forced his recalcitrant spherical friend to obey. Instead, Chegory hung there, cursing impotently. Thayer Levant and Tolon joined him in a prolonged exercise of rage and obscenity.

‘It’s no good,’ said Uckermark. ‘Save your strength.’ ‘The demon-thing must sleep sooner or later,’ said Log Jaris. ‘Everything sleeps. Then we can get away. Surely.’ ‘Oh yes,’ said Guest Gulkan. ‘Unless it kills us before it sleeps.’

The wizard Pelagius Zozimus made no contribution to this conversation, for he was speaking urgently to Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin. At last his cousin stirred, opened his eyes and replied. Soon the two masters of the mirific were engrossed in a colloquy of their own in the High Speech of wizards.

Chegory fell silent, but only for a moment. Then his anger overwhelmed him. In a strident voice he cried: ‘Binchinminfin! I’m calling you out! I challenge you to single combat!’

A rash thing to say!

Consequences were immediate!

The demon, garbed in Varazchavardan’s flesh, got to its feet and picked up a scimitar.

‘Pain,’ said the demon, forcing Odolo’s strange foreign accents from Varazchavardan’s flesh. ‘Let us play with pain while we hack you to bits. The feet will go first.’

Then the demon advanced on Chegory, swinging the scimitar as it came.

Chegory realised his error. The demon-thing had no sense of honour. It would not dare a challenge, blade against blade. Instead, it would chop him to pieces as he hung helpless in the air. He screamed with fear.

But before Binchinminfin could hack away Chegory’s feet, a voice roared out. Oh, and what a voice!

‘Don’t you dare!’ said Anaconda Stogirov.

Binchinminfin, fearing the presence of a hostile Power, fell back. The suspended prisoners were released suddenly. They toppled from the air. Chegory landed heavily on all fours.

‘Who spoke?’ said Binchinminfin. ‘Who was it? Who is it? Who’s there?’

‘It is I,’ said Shabble, burning brightly in the air above, greatly emboldened by the demon’s manifest fear. ‘It is I, Anaconda Stogirov, Chief of Security of the Golden Gulag. Hear and obey! Or I will send you to a therapist immediately.’

‘Spah!’ said the demon.

It threw a fistful of air in Shabble’s direction. The air became a fireball. Shabble never moved. The fireball and the bright-gleaming Shabble became one. Shabble glowed a litde brighter. Then replied by unleashing a fury of flame that should by rights have incinerated the demon. But Binchinminfin laughed. Demonic laughter shrivelled the flame-fury to a few shreds of harmless smoke.

Then the demon hurled a lighting bolt at Shabble. Who ducked and spat hard radiation in reply. As a sizzling exchange of death and destruction proceeded, Pelagius Zozimus and Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin began crawling toward the nearest exit.

Shabble bobbed up and down, whistling merrily. Shabble thought this firelight was great fun. Then Binchinminfin scored a direct hit on the quick-darting Shabble. With a sphere of incandescent plasma. Shabble ate it.

‘Throw me another one,’ said the imitator of suns.