The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers (31 page)

She needed no clarification of Chegory’s concerns. His fear was of Aldarch III, the Mutilator of Yestron, who threatened to be triumphant in Talonsklavara. Once the warlord had won the civil war in Yestron and had reunified the Izdimir Empire then he would surely turn his attention to Untunchilamon. Then the wrath of the Mutilator would fall on those who had overthrown Wazir Sin, and he would without doubt appoint a new wazir to complete the work which Sin had begun.

Justina sympathised entirely with Chegory’s fears since she shared them. Aldarch III would doubtless wish to encompass her own death and surely possessed the power to do so. She had nightmares about his advent, as did most of her subjects. So she gave Chegory all the time he needed to recover before she suggested they return to the banquet.

‘Just for a little while,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t, but etiquette demands it. But it won’t last for much longer. Will that upset you too much?’

‘I’m all right now,’ said Chegory. ‘But ... no more to drink. I can’t take any more to drink.’

‘Of course not,’ said the Empress. ‘Apart from that... is there anything else?’

‘Anything else?’

‘Anything you... you can’t. Or won’t. Or don’t want to.’

Chegory knew what she was offering him. The chance to escape from all further demands if he wanted to. He did want to! But she was his Empress. It was her father who had overthrown Wazir Sin, thus putting an end to the pogrom. It was Justina who had granted all Ebrell Islanders their full rights as citizens under the rule of an equitable code of law equally enforced.

Hence Chegory was a patriot.

‘My lady,’ he said, mastering his tongue with a supreme effort which vanquished wine, sorrow and a natural tendency toward incoherence. ‘You are my Empress, and I your loyal subject. Your wish is my command.’

‘That’s darling of you Cheggy dear,’ said Justina. ‘That’s truly darling of you.’

Then she led him back to the banquet with the armed guards who had waited outside her door trailing along behind.

CHAPTER TWENTY

When Chegory Guy and the Empress Justina returned to the banqueting hall they found the festivities in full swing. The conjuror Odolo was performing. Even as they entered he was teasing a seemingly endless streamer of coloured paper from his closed fist. Uckermark had shifted from his appointed seat and was now deep in conversation with Log Jaris. A few more drunks had slid under the table. The captured pirates were sitting disconsolately in the starvation cage.

The key to the starvation cage was no longer on the table where Justina had left it. Her albinotic ape had laid claim to it and, having first torn the tablecloth asunder, was using it to graffitograph the tabletop. Oh well. No harm done. But—

‘The wishstone!’ said Chegory. ‘It’s gone!’

‘No, no,’ said Justina. ‘There it is, with my dear friend Juliet. Juliet Idaho, you see? They’re passing it round the table, that’s all right. It can’t come to any harm here, not with armed guards on every door.’

They sat.

‘Waiter!’ said Justina.

‘Ma’am?’

‘Take away the young gentleman’s wine. In view of the side effects I’m prescribing him sherbet instead.’

‘Sherbet. Certainly, my lady.’

Chegory’s wine vanished, to be replaced by sherbet in what felt like merely a moment. But it must have been more, for Odolo was done with the streamer and instead was pouring walnuts from his wide-open hands. Transitory rainbows glittered along the edges of the walnuts as they fell.

‘Oh!’ said Justina, ‘oh, do you see what he’s doing? That’s very clever! I haven’t seen him do that before!’

Then something large dropped from Odolo’s hands. It was not a walnut. It was a scorpion. A bright yellow sun scorpion as long as a man’s forearm.

‘My!’ said Justina. ‘How did he keep that up his sleeve?’

The scorpion stood in defiance amidst the scattered walnuts. Claws raised. Tail arched. Its pose was static yet nevertheless managed to convey the creature’s frenzy of paranoid suspicion and homicidal anger.

Schtlop!

A large ewer manifested itself in Odolo’s hands.

Already a bright-burning fluid was pouring from the ewer. The conjuror jumped backwards - leaving the ewer poised in space. It calmly continued to outpour the flaming fluid. Walnuts burst asunder as the fluid swept over them.

The flood of death reached the sun scorpion. It writhed in brief-lived agony. Then:

Cher-lup!

The sun scorpion exploded.

Then the ewer, now empty, burst apart into a shower of butterflies which fluttered upwards. Briefly they rose then transmuted themselves into shards of rainbow — and then were gone.

‘Bravo!’ cried the Empress, clapping her hands.

As Chegory was joining in the applause he noticed more confusion at the main entrance to the Grand Hall. What was it? More prisoners for the Empress? No, it was a man. A wonderworker, if his silken robes were anything to go by. A most extraordinary figure he made, for his skin was of the most startling yellow colour.

‘Look!’ said Chegory, pointing. ‘A yellow man! Odolo must have made him! Just like the sun scorpion!’

‘Don’t be silly, Cheggy,’ said Justina, slapping down his pointing finger to the accompaniment of a delightful little laugh. ‘That’s Dolglin Chin Xter, my Inquisitor.’

‘But - but why is he yellow?’

‘Why do you think?’ said Justina. ‘He’s got hepatitis, of course.’

That was one of the reasons why Dolglin had been made head of Justina’s Inquisition into the drug traffic on Untunchilamon: his disease sharply reduced the temptation to which he was exposed. Hepatitis tends to put people off their drink; furthermore, if they persist in taking alcohol then the effects of such indulgence tend to be dramatic and disastrous.

'Hepatitis?’ said Chegory.

He was so convinced that Xter was a conjuror’s creation that he found Justina’s explanation hard to credit.

‘Didn’t I just say so?’ said the Empress. ‘Yes, hepatitis. The worst case I’ve ever seen. It’s a wonder he’s still alive, yet alone on his feet.’

A wonder it was indeed; such a wonder that one is tempted to suspect that Xter was supporting his activities through exercise of magic.

‘Hepatitis,’ said Chegory yet again, still unsure whether to believe Justina.

‘Dear Cheggy!’ said Justina. ‘Are you after employment as my parrot?’

‘No, no,’ said Chegory, glancing at the conjuror Odolo. ‘It’s just that - oh, look at Odolo!’

The conjuror had clapped his hands to his mouth, as if horror-struck by something he had just said. But he had said nothing!

‘I think he’s ill,’ said Chegory, alarmed and concerned for the health of the man who had that day befriended him.

Meanwhile, Xter was grimly marching forward. Why? Because of something Odolo had done? Or what? Aquitaine Varazchavardan was getting to his feet. Varazchavardan and Xter confronted each other, as if for battle.

Then the conjuror Odolo screamed like a virgin molested in her chamber by an incubus.

‘Odolo!’ said Chegory frantically, rising from the table as he said it. ‘He’s sick, he—’

‘It’s all right,’ said Justina, calmly abandoning her own seat. ‘We’ll take him somewhere quiet then—’

But whatever intervention of mercy she had contemplated came to nothing. For, before she could say another word, it happened. Great gouts of smoke and magniloquent flame burst from Odolo’s mouth. He vanished behind this incendiary confusion.

‘Good grief!’ said the Empress Justina. ‘Spontaneous combustion! The poor man’s caught fire! No, Cheggy! Stay back! You’ll get burnt as well!’

Chegory kicked and struggled but his Empress had him in a grip of iron. He could not get free.

‘He’s burning, he’s burning!’ sobbed Chegory.

‘I can see that,’ said Justina. ‘But what are we to do? Get burnt along with him?’

Every person who was even halfway sober was staring at the incendiary cloud which had replaced the conjuror. Even Xter and Varazchavardan were transfixed by the sight. Already huge gouts of smoke were beginning to agglomerate to form Something huge and writhing.

Then forth from the smoke and flames it burst. A dragon! A pellucid beast the size of an ox. An ethereal monster still wreathed in the slatternly smoke of its creation, its inner organs transparent, its diaphanous wings shimmering with rainbow. It flew heavenwards, crashed into a chandelier, lost its grip on the air and fell to the floor with a thump. It got to its feet. Shook itself. Raked the floor with claws fast-hardening to jacinth.

‘Well I never!’ said Justina, glorious with wine. ‘Odolo’s a weredragon! This is a new one on me! I’ve heard of werewolves and werepigs - even weremice and were-hampsters, come to that - but never a weredragon!’

‘Um, um,’ said Chegory, hunting desperately for words, ‘um, ah, why don’t we run?’

‘Odolo wouldn’t hurt us,’ said Justina calmly. ‘Not even as a dragon. He’s far too much of a personal friend.’ Chegory had too much pride to beg therefore did not beg to differ. Yet thought the fast-transforming dragon was making the voisinage decidedly unhealthy. Others thought likewise, for the Grand Hall was filled with wails of terror as guests and waiters alike fled screaming. Even Aquitaine Varazchavardan was retreating at the fastest pace which could be remotely conceived to be consonant with dignity, though Dolglin Chin Xter stood his ground.

The dragon was strengthening. Hardening. Its rainbow wings armouring themselves with opal. Its visionary body taking on mass, weight and obstinance. Its water-clear inner organs pulsed with red blood, assumed the hues of intestinal blue and kidney brown, and then a moment later were lost to sight beneath sheathing muscle, the muscle itself disappearing an eyeblink later as the imbricated transparency of scales became dull, obliviating ash. This ash hardened to the colours of flame which rippled as the dragon flexed its strength then roared.

Chegory and Justina were by then virtually alone in the Grand Hall. Justina cooed with wonder as she gazed upon the dragon. A magnifical beast it was, its body gleaming with a high lustre, its polished eyes flaring with flame and rainbow mixed. Then it roared. Gymnic firebursts cavalcaded from its mouth in a prodigious display of incendiarism. This was going too far.

‘Guards!’ shouted Chegory, meaning to command Justina’s men into battle.

But there were no guards left. All had fled, even the scimitarists appointed to watch over the Empress during the meal. A couple of discarded cork blocks was all that remained of their presence.

‘Oh my god!’ said Justina abruptly, reality displacing wonder from her voice. ‘There’s Odolo!’

There he was indeed. Odolo was cowering on the floor aneath a table. So he was not a weredragon after all! Instead, conjuror and dragon were two separate entities.

‘You!’ yelled the eldest of the pirates in the starvation cage. ‘Let us out, let us out!’

Chegory needed no further urging - for he was seized by inspiration. He wrested the key to the starvation cage from the imperial ape, slammed the key into the lock, wrenched it round and threw the door open. The pirates bolted instantly. The dragon outbreathed its fury as they fled, but its flamethrowing efforts fell short. Meanwhile Chegory grabbed the Empress Justina and dragged her into the cage closing the door behind them.

We see from this that young Chegory Guy was not destined to fight with dragons in the time-honoured heroic tradition, to win blood-bought glory or to slay a nightmare with but sword alone. No, his first thought was to seek shelter lest he and his lady be eaten. Unfortunately an over-consumption of alcohol had fuddled his wits, and he had yet to realise that iron bars will not protect against the dangers of incineration.

‘Vazzy!’ cried Justina. ‘He’ll be eaten!’

The imperial ape doubtless shared his mistress’s concern, for the animal was struggling against its bonds. Its specially weighted chair rocked as it threw itself to right then left. Then its leather ankle cuffs burst asunder and it was off, screaming in rage and fury as it fled through the nearest door.

‘Be very still,’ said Chegory to his Empress. ‘Be - be a rock.’

This was good advice. Nevertheless, it is to be regretted that in his panic young Chegory again was guilty of a lapse in etiquette, for he spoke his words not in Janjuladoola or even in Toxteth but in his native Dub. Whether the Empress Justina understood - or even heard what he said - is a moot point. For his words were virtually obliterated by the ear-shattering roar of a dragon in anger.

The fell monster was advancing on Dolglin Chin Xter, sorcerer of Yestron, the sole occupant of the Grand Hall who had refused to run from danger. Xter stood his ground. He was too sure of his skill and too experienced in disaster to be dismayed or agazed by a mere monster.

With bombastic wing-claps the fabricant of fire advanced upon the wonderworker. They clashed in a swirl of smoke, a cascade of colours. Chegory expected to see Chin Xter reduced in an instant to a smoking cinder or a blood-boltered raggage of trampled jelly. But when smoke and colour cleared away, there stood the wonderworker in triumph with the dragon, mortally wounded, writhing at his feet.