Hugh Cook - The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers

‘We’re about to be killed,’ said Chegory in a soft but urgent voice. ‘Burn them, Shabble! Burn them, burn them up! The wonderworkers! Fry them alive!’

‘Oh, I can’t do that!’ said Shabble.

‘Then — then get the Hermit Crab! Now! Now! As you love me, go. Go, or I’m dead — and Olivia with me.’

Shabble went.

Zozimus was still speaking, threatening Varazchavardan with doom unspeakable unless the Master of Law withdrew in peace from the island of Jod. The young and inexperienced Rat grew notably nervous as Zozimus enlarged on this theme. But the albino stood his ground.

‘Threats great oft bespeak performance minor,’ said Varazchavardan when Zozimus was finished. ‘I think you’re bluffing. I don’t think you’re the demon at all. I’d be dead already if you were.’

‘You hear my voice,’ said Zozimus in Odolo’s tones.

‘So you can imitate a conjuror’s voice,’ said Varazchavardan coldly. ‘What else? Do you juggle oranges as well?’

‘You won’t speak so pertly in a moment,’ said Zozimus.

Then his cousin Sken-Pitilkin exerted what power was left to him. The slab of rock on which Varazchavardan was standing lurched into the air with the Master of Law tottering for balance on its surface. To the height of a man’s head it rose. Then it fell equally suddenly. It hit the ground with a crash. It broke asunder. Varazchavardan was sent reeling. He cried with pain as he collided with his fellow wonderworkers, jolting his broken collar bone most cruelly.

‘Kill them!’ gasped Varazchavardan.

Doubtless there would then have been a great slaughter if it had not been for the intervention of a Power.

‘Begeneth!’ roared a voice of breaking rocks and rolling thunder.

This single word of Toxteth brought the warring factions to order instanter. The owner of the voice moved into view. It was the Hermit Crab. As onwards paced this eremitic dignity, the sundry delinquents cowered down and began to plead for merciful consideration. As when the Great Ocean is sdrred to storm, and sailors by fraughts of sea dismayed to their knees downfall and send aloft their prayers, so did the wonderworkers shrink and babble in their terror, as if before them was a dragon of the Qinjok Ranges, or a monster unmagnanimous of the Scorpion Desert.

Their apprehension was understandable. One can scarcely hope to contend successfully with the Hermit Crab, any more than one can wraxle a dragon to a standstill, forge ploughshare to sword with a hammer made from a feather, or shout down a thunderstorm when one’s throat is near choked off by squinancy.

‘Varazchavardan!’ roared the Crab. ‘Get off my island! Now! Before I turn you inside out!’

Nixorjapretzel Rat was already running. Certain other wonderworkers were retreating also at a pace scarcely consonant with dignity. Varazchavardan saw how things were — and joined the general retreat.

‘Now,’ said the Hermit Crab. ‘What’s going on here?’

Everyone began speaking at once.

‘Silence!’ roared the Crab. Then, when silence was granted to it: ‘Chegory! Speak! Tell me — what is happening?’

‘Uh,’ said Chegory, feeling a welter of incoherent words beginning to force their way from his throat, ‘uh — it’s — just give me a moment.’ He stopped. Counted to five. Then to ten. Calmed himself, gathered his thoughts, then said: ‘There is a demon. It’s called Binchinminfin.’

‘So I’ve heard,’ said the Hermit Crab.

‘It possesses people,’ said Chegory. ‘Sometimes one person. Sometimes more than one. It’s possessed me. Right now. That’s why you hear me speak in Odolo’s accents. But it’s also possessed everyone else you see here. A group possession. But it’s weak. Strong enough to control our accents, not strong enough to control anything else. Not entirely, anyway. We think. We hope. But it will gather strength. Given time. We understand you want to talk to it. To talk about becoming human. Well, it’s here. We guess it can speak through us. That’s why it’s changed all our voices. Minor tactics, you see. It being able to speak unnoticed. To change our counsels. So… say what you’ve got to say to it.’

The Hermit Crab was silent.

Clicking its claws.

Chegory was sweating.

He had a dreadful abodement. Something terrible was about to happen. He was sure of it. Perhaps: perhaps his death. He looked around. At the bile-green Laitemata carpeted with solid dikle. At the blue, blue, intensely blue sky. At the bloodstone of Jod. The white marble of the Analytical Institute. The white marble-chip path he had begun to lay right round the island. Behind him he heard Artemis Ingalawa say:

‘That was good, Chegory. That was very well said. I always knew you had potential.’

Olivia took his hand. Squeezed it. He turned to her. Saw her eyes limpid, liquid, trembling with tears. She too knew this might be their last moment, and that the Crab might kill them in incontinent fury. Yet she managed a slight smile. She was so brave! So brave — and so beautiful! So full of life!

Chegory and Olivia gazed upon each other.

Then they kissed.

They kissed, and were oblivious to the world around until the voice of the Hermit Crab brought them back to reality — abrupdy. They broke apart and faced the monster.

‘I have thought,’ said the Hermit Crab slowly. ‘I have thought carefully about this business of becoming human, and most certainly it is what I want. I would like to negotiate with the demon on this matter. But for that I need the demon in one body. I can’t negotiate with so many voices. After all, since you’re all mimicking Odolo’s accents, how can I tell when it’s you who speaks and when it’s the demon? Let Binchinminfin assume a single body. Then we will negotiate.’

There was a silence.

Then the Crab said, in a voice suddenly rising to thunderous anger:

‘If the demon does not comply with my wishes — Now!

— then I will incinerate all of you. Immediately!’

Each of the humans confronting the Crab then felt a lacerating painshock. They staggered. Olivia fell. Chegory caught her, lowered her to the ground.

‘Olivia!’ he said. ‘Olivia, what’s wrong, what’s wrong? Olivia, wake up! Olivia!’

But it was no good. Olivia was unconscious. Chegory knew what had happened. Doubtless the Hermit Crab knew also. In any case, Pelagius Zozimus happily gave it the news, speaking in his own voice rather than Odolo’s strange, foreign accents:

‘There you are, you see! The demon’s abandoned the group for the one girl. She’ll come round soon enough. Binchinminfin will be in full possession. Then the pair of you can negotiate.’

‘She will never regain consciousness,’ said the Hermit Crab heavily.

‘What are you talking about?’ said Chegory. ‘Of course she will!’

‘No,’ said the Crab. ‘For I must kill her. Now. To expel the demon Binchinminfin from my domain.’

‘But — but — you, uh — it’s the — the demon’s to help you! Be human, be, be like, like us, okay, arms, legs, you want that, don’t you?’

‘I want to be human,’ said the Hermit Crab, ‘but a demon can’t be trusted to help me.’

‘Then why did you — why did you say you — I mean — if you didn’t want, if you-’

‘I knew it to be my duty to expel the demon,’ said the Crab. ‘This I knew from the time I was first told there was a demon loose on Untunchilamon. Yet from what I know of such Powers I thought I might find myself unequal to the task. I might get killed in the battle. Or at least injured. Therefore, Chegory, I let it be known that I wished to do business with the demon. Thus I hoped to lure it here so I could take it unawares and destroy it while it was defenceless. Thus it has proved.’