Hugh Cook - The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers

‘I wasn’t talking to you,’ said Chegory. ‘I’m talking to Binchinminfin, okay, this demon-thing. Well, how about it? Where from now?’

But if the demon heard, it answered not.

Unfortunately, this left Chegory in quite a fix.

On the island of Jod there was the furious Hermit Crab, which might well destroy Chegory out of hand the next time it saw him. But on the mainland were the forces of the wonderworkers, led by the unpleasant Aquitaine Varazchavardan, who might prove every bit as dangerous as the Crab if Chegory ran into him.

So whafs going to happen?

The latest events would surely soon become common knowledge. Varazchavardan would learn that the demon Binchinminfin was currently housed in the flesh of Chegory Guy. Then soldiers would start looking for him in the obvious places. The Dromdanjerie, which was his customary residence. Uckermark’s corpse shop, where Chegory had recently been served with a summons to a depositions hearing.

So where could he go?

Where he eventually went was to Thlutter, the steep jungle-growth gully just east of Pearl. He couldn’t stay there forever, of course, but he could stay there for quite some time. A couple of days if he had to.

But I don’t have to stay here long.

Just long enough for the demon to get its act together.

Once Binchinminfin had rested, once Binchinminfin was stronger, then the demon would take over the flesh of young Chegory Guy, perhaps forever, and solve all his problems permanently.

Chegory, so knowing, was content to sit in Thlutter in the shade of a banana tree. The air was moist with the splitter-splatter of a dozen fountains sourced Downstairs. The air was rich with the smell of dank earth, the musk of decayed coconuts, the perfume of frangipani, and the scent of some cloying flower which was sweeter still. He could smell something else as well. Dikle and shlug. In fact those smells predominated since he was covered in the stinking stuff.

After a while, Chegory realised he had still not had breakfast. What was the time? To judge by the sun, it was getting on for lunchtime. What could he eat? Bananas? The tumescent purple quills on the banana trees nearby were as yet far from fruition. At least there was water. He sought a fountain, then drank of its effortless water.

Water, water.

Oh, to be clean!

Well, why not?

Chegory stripped off and washed himself slowly and methodically. He even washed his hair. He even picked out the dirt from underneath his fingernails. Then he did what he could for the much-tattered remnants of the canary robes which had been so glorious when first given to him in the pink palace. He put them on wet without worrying about it. They would dry quickly enough in the heat of the day.

He felt much, much better, even though a faint, ineradicable hint of dikle and shlug still hung about him.

But he was still hungry.

‘Make us some food,’ said Chegory.

‘I would, Chegory dearest,’ said Shabble. ‘But I don’t know how.’

‘I’m talking to this demon,’ said Chegory.

‘There’s nobody here, Chegory. Nobody but us.’

‘Look,’ said Chegory, ‘just stay out of this, okay? I want to have a talk with my demon. Okay, Binchinminfin. We’re hungry. We have to eat.’

‘I’m not hungry,’ said Shabble.

Chegory was sorely tempted to threaten the imitator of suns with a quick visit to the nearest therapist. After a struggle, he resisted the temptation, and again demanded food from his demon. Nothing happened. Chegory was disappointed, to say the least. When one endures demonic possession, one expects to at least enjoy a few fringe benefits.

‘What’s the matter?’ said Chegory. ‘Are you tired? Or what? Hello? Is anyone home? Are you still there?’

A thought answered him:

I am.

But immediately he knew it was his own thought. The demon Binchinminfin was silent. If it was still there at all. Maybe it had been killed at a distance by some subtle magic worked by the Hermit Crab. Or driven back to the World Beyond from whence it had come in the first place. But: ik). It had told him its host had to die before it could get home.

Gtdsf So what if it kills me?

The thought left Chegory horrorstruck. Then he pulled himself together. If the demon had wanted him dead it would haw killed him already. Maybe it couldn’t. Or didn’t want to. After all, how many people had the demon actually slaughtered since its arrival on Untunchilamon? As far as Chegory knew, it had killed precisely nobody.

Maybe the demon was a bit like a vampire rat. They do a lot of damage at times, these rats, and horror sometimes results from their depredations. But most of the time they keep themselves to themselves. Fear of them keeps much of Injiltaprajura indoors for much of the night — but such fear is mostly a nonsense.

Maybe, though, Binchinminfin was not like a vampire rat at alL Maybe it was an ethical entity with a tolerably high sense of responsibility. After all, what had the demon really done? Well, at first it had run amok. It had made blood, had made rainbows, had made krakens. But that was right at the very start when it had hardly known where it was, when it had been working with dreams and stuff. It had brought nightmares to life. Had created a dragon at banquet. But it had only created those things while it was trying to make sense of Odolo’s mind and the world that mind reflected.

Later, when the demon was properly orientated, when it knew which way was up, it had enjoyed itself, that’s all. It had partied riotously at the pink palace. It had made friends with the albinotic ape Vazzy. It had got drunk. Which was… well, was it so terrible?

Maybe demons aren’t into murder, rape, slaughter.

Maybe we just think they are.

Maybe we think so because that’s what we’re into. Maybe we think it all on to demons to make ourselves think better of ourselves. Or something.

Anyway, whatever the case, Chegory was as yet undead. Furthermore, he was free. He realised, to his surprise, that he resented his freedom. When he had accepted the rule of the demon Binchinminfin, he had not been sacrificing his freedom merely for the sake of his true love Olivia. No, it was not love alone which had commanded him. A darker, deeper urge had been at work. The desire to surrender. To be ruled, imprisoned, enslaved. To escape the torments of choice.

Chegory Guy had expected the demon to take him over entirely, and to run his life thereafter, just as it had on first possessing him during their drinking session at the pink palace. He realised this was but a variation on a familiar theme. He had thought of possession as his chance to become, in effect, no more than a rock. To be but a powerless observer housed in his own walking corpse. To die out of the world of will without dying out of the world of sensation. To have no more problems, no more decisions, no nothing.

But he found himself left with his freedom, his identity, and all the problems which go with those things.

He tried again.

‘Demon-thing, are you there or aren’t you? At least give me a sign! I have to know.’

But no sign was granted unto him.

Therefore he was faced with a philosophical problem as well as an array of practical problems. The demon had said it could only go home to the World Beyond if its host died. But that might not be true. So how was he to know whether he was still demon-possessed if his demon refused to speak to him? He so wished to be demon-possessed that his own mind was ready to fake demon-flavoured whisperings, which made the exercise of judgement all the more difficult.

‘I can’t know,’ whispered Chegory at length. ‘But I must presume.’

He must presume that the demon Binchinminfin still rode with him, silent for the moment merely because it was recovering its strength. How far it had fallen! At the beginning, it had been able to colour the entire sky with rainbow and fill the Laitemata with krakens. Then, after the battering it had taken from a series of mind-shifts and a horrifying exorcism, it had been scarcely strong enough to manipulate its hosts’ voices so they spoke with a foreign accent.