Varazchavardan dressed, adorning himself in silken ceremonial robes most marvellously embroidered with serpentine dragons ablaze with goldwork and argentry, with emerald and vermilion, with incarnadine and ultramarine. He had once had five such robes, each identical to each, but one had been stolen and three others damaged beyond repair in sundry alarms, confrontations and disasters of the last year.
Then the wonder-worker left his bedroom and ascended to the uppermost storey of his villa, which was devoted to one single room of prodigious size. Shutters had been taken from the windows, giving him uninterrupted views to the east (a street of grand mansions, including Master Ek’s), the west (Justina’s pink palace), the north (market gardens and the wastelands of Zolabrik beyond) and the south (portside Injiltaprajura and the Laitemata Harbour).
The view gave Varazchavardan no pleasure, for, though this was his sixteenth year on Untunchilamon, he could not look upon its landscapes without aesthetic discomfort. The colours were too hot, in particular the red of bloodstone, the red of red coral, the red of red seaweed, the red sands of Scimitar and the malevolent reds of bloodshot dawns and the slaughter-bath sunsets. Varazchavardan feared that another year with such reds would send him mad. In contrast, the greens (the exuberance of market gardens and deep-gashed overgrown gullies) and blue (sea and sky at times other than dawn and dusk) were minor discomforts.
Nevertheless, while the outlook was not pleasurable, it was most marvellously informative. Varazchavardan saw at a glance that the number of ships in the Laitemata had increased from three to five. A slave was kneeling by Varazchavardan’s breakfast table, and the wonderworker addressed the slave thus:
‘What news of the ships?’
‘Nixorjapretzel Rat waits to make report,’ answered the slave.
‘Show him in once I am finished,’ said Varazchavardan, who had never found young Rat to be an asset to his digestion.
Breakfast was papaya. One papaya. The big, bulbous, yellow-skinned fruit yet awaited the knife. Varazchavardan liked to cut. He felt a special pleasure when he butchered the thin-skinned fruit, quartering its substance to reveal the smooth and succulent orange flesh. Once he had toyed with the idea of dispatching Justina Thrug and her father Lonstantine with equal ease; but when, after long meditation, he had finally tried to realize his fantasy, the task had proved impossible. And now it was too late. Now his reputation was irretrievably soiled and stained by the protestations of loyalty he had been forced to make to Justina.
Varazchavardan dug into the helpless flesh of the papaya. It yielded with much less protest that is made by the surprisingly muscular pulp of an eye when a torturer scoops it from its socket with a sharpened spoon.
‘Ah, Justina, Justina,’ crooned Varazchavardan. And then, adjusting his fantasy: ‘Or shall we say, my dearest beloved Crab.’
‘My lord?’ said his still-squatting slave, not quite catching the import of these words.
‘Ice,’ said Varazchavardan, raising his voice; he did not want even a slave to know that he had taken to talking to himself. ‘Ice, that’s what I want.’
‘My lord,’ said the slave, and erranded away for the desired substance.
On ate Varazchavardan, imagining he was eating crab, or, more precisely, Crab. It was the dreaded Hermit Crab who had compelled him to swear loyalty to Justina. Had Varazchavardan refused, then the Crab would have played unpleasant topological games with the wonder-workers’s flesh. But Aldarch the Third, notoriously stubborn in anger, was unlikely to heed such niceties; as far as Aldarch Three was concerned, Varazchavardan was most surely a traitor. Hence the news brought by the incoming ships was of vital interest and importance to Varazchavardan.
Nevertheless, the sorcerer ate slowly. Surely the ships had brought no news to upset the status quo. For surely any decisive settlement of Talonsklavara (in favour of Aldarch Three or against him) would already have been greeted by public uproar, general riot, arson and execution as adherents of the victorious faction celebrated their triumph at the expense of those loyal to the losers.
Varazchavardan finished his papaya.
Unlike Justina Thrug, the wonder-worker did not proceed to pineapple and flying fish, but crunched some freshly arrived ice and ordered that Nixorjapretzel Rat be shown into his presence. This was done.
Rat, Varazchavardan’s erstwhile apprentice, was now (in theory, at least) a fully fledged sorcerer in his own right. Wonder-working, however, was not young Nixor-japretzel’s strong suit. His endeavours in this direction tended to be disastrous; to give but one example, when Rat had first joined the members of Injiltaprajura’s Cabal House in their traditional quest to turn lead into gold, he had managed to turn every piece of gold in the building into fragmented lead.
Rat had lately found employment with the Empress Justina; he was working as her liaison officer, which at least had the advantage of keeping him too busy to get into mischief. Furthermore, this arrangement gave Varazchavardan yet another source of intelligence, albeit a somewhat unreliable source.
‘Greetings, achaan Varazchavardan,’ said Rat, making reverence to his teacher.
Varazchavardan made no reply whatsoever. He merely crunched some more ice.
‘The Empress Justina has received reports of the latest arrivals,’ said Rat. ‘One is a general trader; the other, a brothel ship.’
So said Rat. However, he spoke in Janjuladoola, therefore his report was not as brief and blunt as it may appear in translation. For Janjuladoola is a language which lends itself to studied elegance and considerable prolixity; and Rat availed himself of both those features, using for ‘general trader’ a circumlocution which translates literally as ‘dealer-in-all-from-lapis-lazuli-and-fresh-spinach-to-the — aroma-of-mountain-clouds-of-the-Singlaramonoktidad-region-and-ballast — of-that-type-in-which-conglomerate-rock-predominates’.
Varazchavardan’s reply was similarly embroidered, though it can be translated very simply, thus:
‘Whence comes this knowledge?’
‘Canoes were on the water when the ships arrived,’ said Rat. ‘They asked, they were answered.’
‘And what of the Izdimir Empire?’ said Varazchavardan.
‘Of that they say only that it is as it was,’ said Rat.
The ships had claimed they departed from Yestron shortly before a decisive battle, a battle which must surely have become a part of history by now. Rat had heard this rumouring yet failed to report it to Varazchavardan. No deep plot, conspiracy or manoeuvring was here involved; the Rat had simply forgotten this detail.
‘Is that all?’ said Varazchavardan. ‘Or is there some small yet important detail which you have forgotten?’
Rat thought about it then answered:
‘Oh yes. That’s right. The brothel ship is called the Oktobdoj and there’s a two-dragon fee just to get aboard to inspect.’
‘Then,’ said Varazchavardan, ‘I suggest you exert yourself by turning ice cubes to dragons. Or damns at least.’
‘My master flatters me with his confidence,’ said Rat, entirely missing the ironic force of this invitation.
Rat, intending to attempt the transformation on the spot, focused his attention on the amphora which held Varazchavardan’s ice cubes, extended his hands and said:
‘Bamaka! Ba-’
‘Not here!’ said Varazchavardan in unconcealed alarm.
‘Oh,’ said a somewhat crestfallen Rat. ‘Then where?’
‘I suggest you make the experiment on Island Scimitar,’ said Varazchavardan. ‘That way, if it should succeed, your wealth will be less likely to come to the attention of the Inland Revenue.’
‘Oh,’ said Rat. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. Oh, and there’s one more thing. The conjuror Odolo waits without, whatever for I’ve no idea. He craves an audience.’