At the head of the stairs there were a pair of polished steel doors. An emblem of a strange impossible bird was worked in dramatic relief on the metal. The small procession started up the stairs. As they reached the halfway mark, the doors began to swing slowly open. They reached the threshold of the blessed Joachim’s inner sanctum. The priests fell to their knees and touched their foreheads on the floor. Jeb Stuart Ho inclined his head slightly, but the Minstrel Boy and the Wanderer just stood and looked around.
The room was lavish. It was long and narrow, almost like a giant corridor with a high vaulted ceiling. The black stone walls had been polished to the smoothness of glass and flowing designs of weird composite animals were inlaid in them in white metal. Odd wing-shaped devices hung from the ceiling supporting hundreds of candles. Their polished steel facets reflected the light on to the mirrored walls. There seemed to be tiny points of light everywhere they looked. Two long lines of silent yellow-robed priests formed an avenue all the way down the room. At the end of the avenue was another flight of steps. They were covered with a white, thick-piled carpet. A flock of the pink-robed acolytes were arranged decoratively around the foot of them. At the top of the steps was a throne made of the same black stone as the walls. It was piled deep in white cushions. Behind it was a huge peacock fan of hammered steel. The blessed Joachim sat among the cushions.
The three travellers couldn’t see the blessed one too well from the far end of the room. The Minstrel Boy looked down at the priests. They still had their foreheads pressed against the floor. He turned to Jeb Stuart Ho.
‘Are we going to stand here for ever, or are we going to walk up there and get ourselves an audience?’
‘I suppose we should speak to him.’
He glanced at the Wanderer.
‘What do you think?’
The Wanderer shrugged.
‘Shit, let’s go up there.’
They stepped over the kneeling priests, and began slowly towards the throne. There was a strange tension growing in the room. Three hard-bitten warriors had marched into a world of flimsy fantasy. The contrast created a charge in the air. Even Jeb Stuart Ho swaggered a little as they walked between the rows of priests.
They came closer to the throne. They started to be able to make out the features of the blessed Joachim. He sat among the cushions like a flabby buddha. He was fat to the point of obesity, with pale pink baby-like flesh. He was totally bald. His features were soft and indistinct, as though they were scarcely formed. His eyes were small, and of a pale watery blue.
‘Are you the thtwangerth?’
He also lisped. The Minstrel Boy suppressed a grin. The giant production for this fat, lisping, overgrown child. He could hardly believe it. Jeb Stuart Ho, however, seemed to take the whole thing a little more seriously. He bowed formally.
‘I am Jeb Stuart Ho, an executive of the brotherhood.’
The blessed Joachim nodded gravely.
‘The bwotherhood, I thee.’
He waved a limp, pudgy hand towards the Minstrel Boy and the Wanderer.
‘And who are thethe two?’
The Minstrel Boy grinned and nodded with uncouth friendliness.
‘People call me the Minstrel Boy and him …’
He jerked his thumb at the Wanderer.
‘They call him the Wanderer.’
‘The Minthtwel Boy, the Wandewer. What kind of nameth are thethe?’
The Minstrel Boy put his foot on the second step and rested his elbow on his knee. He seemed set on acting out a kind of country boy charade for the fat little pseudo-deity.
‘Well, blessed Joachim, sir. I don’t rightly know what kind of names those are, but they’re the only ones we got.’
The blessed Joachim took some time to digest this information. He gestured to the nearest of the pink-robed devout. The man quickly scampered to his side and began mopping his bald head with a piece of silk.
‘What do you people want here? Thith ith no plathe for thtwangerth.’
The Minstrel Boy’s grin broadened.
‘Well, blessed Joachim, sir. I’ll tell you. Him, that one …’
He nodded at Jeb Stuart Ho.
‘… he came here looking for a woman, and me and the other one, we’re just looking for a way out.’
Joachim looked scandalized.
‘A woman? A way out?’
‘That’s all.’
‘There are no women here, and thertainly no way to leave Quahal.’
The idea flitted through the Wanderer’s mind that maybe the reason the place was called Quahal was that the name could be pronounced correctly even with a lisp. He was about to speak, when Jeb Stuart Ho moved forward.
‘If I might explain …’
The blessed Joachim was beginning to look petulant.
‘Pleathe do. I do not like what I’ve heard tho far
‘I am here on a mission of vital importance for the brotherhood. I am searching for one particular woman. The men with me have helped me track her to Quahal. We know the woman is somewhere in Quahal. It is my desire to find her, and theirs to return to where they came from.’
The Minstrel Boy glanced at Jeb Stuart Ho and grinned at Joachim.
‘He talks really concise and pretty, don’t he?’
The blessed Joachim was silent. As Jeb Stuart Ho had been speaking, he’d appeared to sink down into his cushions. He sat staring at the executive in his black fighting suit and his array of weapons. He seemed almost to slip into a trance, but at the last moment he pulled out of it, and spoke.
‘Thewe are no women in thith part of Quahal.’
Jeb Stuart Ho spread his hands.
‘Then I must go to the mountain and find her.’
‘If she went to the mountain she ith almotht thertainly dead. My thithter Alamada will have killed her.’
‘I must still go and look for sure.’
Joachim beckoned to one of the yellow-robed priests, who approached the throne with lowered eyes. He and the blessed one muttered together for a while, and then he returned to his place in the line. Joachim turned his attention back to Jeb Stuart Ho.
‘I have thome information that might help you. I keep the dwelling of my thithter under conthtant obthervation. She hath thome dithguthting habith. It would appear that a woman hath awived at the village, and a fight hath taken not know if it wath my thithter or the woman you theek who pwevailed.’
Jeb Stuart Ho nodded. At last it seemed as though the end of his quest was in sight. He did his best to conceal his eagerness.
‘If that is the case, I must go there at once.’
The blessed Joachim showed signs of relief.
‘Go. I will pwovide you with a guide. You have my blething.’
Jeb Stuart Ho bowed, and turned on his heel. A priest joined him. Their exit from the room proved to be a little absurd. It appeared that the priests were forbidden to turn their backs on the blessed one. Ho observed no such niceties. He strode quickly towards the steel doors with the priest attempting to keep up with him walking backwards in a half crouch.
When Jeb Stuart Ho had gone, a pink-robed acolyte once more mopped Joachim’s head with a silken cloth. The Minstrel Boy and the Wanderer looked at each other, and then at him.
‘What about us?’
Joachim remained silent for almost a minute. Finally he shook his head.
‘Thewe ith no way by which you can leave Quahal.’
The Minstrel Boy exploded.
‘That’s bullshit!’
‘I beg your pardon.’
‘With respect, that’s bullshit.’
‘I fail to underthtand.’
The Wanderer stepped in.