‘Idaho may have a scheme,’ muttered Varazchavardan. ‘And if not, for my own protection I should at least know what madness is on his mind.’
Thus muttered Aquitaine Varazchavardan as he analysed the conversational gambits he would use to extract the truth from the ferocious Yudonic Knight he planned to interview.
Varazchavardan, who was born to plot and scheme, soon began to take pleasure in this planning. His pleasure was enhanced by the fact that he was totally ignorant of the crucial meeting which was taking place elsewhere in Injiltaprajura. This meeting was between Master Ek and two newcomers from the good ship Oktobdoj. The newcomers had just identified themselves as Jean Froissart (a priest of Zoz) and Manthandros Trasilika (the new wazir of Untunchilamon).
Even as Varazchavardan was crunching the twenty-fourth piece of ice in which he had that day indulged, Trasilika was saying:
‘It was Aldarch the Third who appointed me. And, as I am sure you will be glad to hear, he gave me a death warrant for Justina Thrug. And this is that death warrant.’
CHAPTER TEN
The Temple of Torture, as such, had ceased to operate shortly after the death of Wazir Sin. In the seven years which had followed, the Temple had usually stood empty. Sometimes it had been used as a quarantine station, and sometimes as a detention centre; apart from that it had been untenanted. More recently, the Inland Revenue had taken over the premises; and, thanks to the patronage of that organization, the torture chambers of the Temple had been restored to their former glory.
Shortly before dawn, Master Ek was carried to the Temple of Torture in a litter; he could have walked, but such was his decrepitude that any such exercise would have taken him the better part of the day. Once in the Temple, Ek began his morning by watching the final stages of the torture of a vampire rat. His old friend Dui Tin Char (now head of the Inland Revenue) had begun the torture five days earlier. The exercise was a demonstration of the art of the Temple of Torture: a hint of delights yet to come should the temple be once again legalized.
When the vampire rat finally expired, Ek had to admit that he was impressed. He had not known that such a small animal possessed such a capacity for suffering.
‘With humans,’ said Dui Tin Char, ‘the experience is immensely more rewarding.’
Dui Tin Char was a trained Exponent of the Grand Method of the Temple of Torture. He had participated in the Temple’s daily Rites of Revelation for five years during the reign of the late and much-lamented Wazir Sin. Then Lonstantine Thrug had murdered Sin and had closed down the Temple. Since then, Tin Char had derived a considerable degree of satisfaction for his work in the field of tax collection; but, somehow, it was not quite the same.
‘I must say,’ said Ek, ‘I find it hard to see where the extra reward can come from. Never have I seen anything suffer as this creature suffered before its death. Any elaboration or exaggeration of such pain is hard to imagine.’
‘Ah,’ said Tin Char softly. ‘It is not pain which provides the pleasure. It is fear. Oh yes, fear. And humiliation. A vampire rat, you see, cannot be humiliated. Its psyche is not sufficiently developed. But humans are an altogether different proposition. You must always remember that Justina Thrug is the daughter of a Yudonic Knight. These people have considerable reserves of pride, hence their destruction upon the torture table is all the more pleasurable.’
‘And Ashdans?’ said Ek.
‘I… I have never destroyed an Ashdan,’ said Tin Char. He considered his lack of experience in this field then smiled cheerfully. ‘But I am most certainly ready to make the experiment.’
Master Ek and Dui Tin Char had intended to devote their morning to the destruction of another rat, this time using the comparatively rapid quick-shock-bone-smash method. However, they were interrupted by a servant bearing slightly alarming news: a party of officials was on its way to the Temple of Torture.
‘For what purpose?’ said Dui Tin Char.
‘To see Master Ek.’
‘How,’ said Ek, ‘do these officials know that I am here?’
‘One is the ladipti man,’ said the servant, as if that explained all.
It did explain all, for the ladipti man was another of Ek’s old and trusted friends, and had in Ek’s company observed a part of the five-day death of the vampire rat which had so recently expired.
‘Who else is coming here?’ said Ek.
‘That I know not,’ said the servant.
‘Then,’ said Dui Tin Char softly, ‘find out. Quickly!’ The servant hastened away, but the officials had reached the Temple of Torture before any fresh intelligence could be supplied to Master Ek and Tin Char. So they were none the wiser when their visitors were shown in.
Ek and Tin Char recognized the officials at once. Plague inspector, pilot, ladipti man, harbour master and a representative of the Combined Religious Guild. All, to a man, were of the Janjuladoola people. But with them were two children of Wen Endex, one a heavyweight in his forties, the other a slender and nervously blinking individual in his thirties.
‘Greetings,’ said the harbour master, making reverence to both Master Ek and Tin Char.
Ek observed the appropriate silence, emphasizing his own superiority and the harbour master’s comparative inferiority. Then he said:
‘And to you, greetings.’
Other formalities followed, then the harbour master got down to business:
‘Behold, Master Ek. I bring you two most welcome newcomers. They are from one of the new ships.’
‘These new ships which I hold in my lap,’ said Ek, spreading apart his gnarled, arthritic hands as if he was measuring an invisible fish.
The harbour master was thrown into confusion. Not because he had any difficulty understanding Ek’s idiom (he understood it perfectly) but because he realized he had made a social gaffe. He had assumed Ek knew all about the recently arrived ships, but obviously he had assumed in error. Now the harbour master would have to instruct Ek. And, in the Janjuladoola culture, a social inferior does not lightly undertake to instruct a superior in the presence of strangers.
At this point one of those strangers, the heavyweight with the cauliflower ear, broke into grammatically imperfect and badly-accented Janjuladoola.
‘We be the ship Oktobdoj. I be Trasilika. Fresh arrived we be and are from Yestron.’
‘Yestron, yes,’ said Master Ek acidly, switching from Janjuladoola to Toxteth as he did so. ‘Yestron, in whose northern reaches they speak an argot different from that of Ang, do they not?’
‘Indeed, Master Ek,’ said the heavyweight gratefully, pleased to be able to converse in his native Toxteth.
‘So you come from Yestron,’ said Ek. ‘What news?’ ‘Talonsklavara i s at an end. Aldarch the Third has triumphed. I am Manthandros Trasili ka, one whom Aldarch Three has sent to Injiltaprajura to do his biddin g. I am-’
Ek gestured for silence then pointed at the heavyweight’s slender companion.
‘You?’said Ek.
‘Jean Froissart, that’s who I am, Froissart,’ said the quick-blinking man, who was so nervous one might believe him to be on the edge of a nervous breakdown, or a heart attack, or both.
Ek hawked, then spat.
‘So,’ said Ek. ‘Talonsklavara is at an end. Aldarch Three has won. Excellent. Excellent.’
Yet, even as he said it, Master Ek found himself curiously unelated, strangely unexcited. Depressed, almost. True, he was a loyal servant of Aldarch Three. He longed to see the family Thrug overthrown and the rule of the True Law restored to Untunchilamon. But…
‘One presumes,’ ventured Dui Tin Char, ‘that Aldarch the Third will shortly appoint a new wazir to rule on Untunchilamon.’
‘He has already,’ said the heavyweight blandly. ‘For I am that wazir.’
‘And I,’ said his nervous companion, ‘am the priest of Zoz sent to accompany him.’
Master Ek and Tin Char positively goggled. Two children of Wen Endex, yet they claimed to be wazir and priest? This was unheard of! It was almost — not quite, but almost — impossible.