‘Why shouldn’t I?’ said Ek.
‘Because,’ said a strangely familiar voice, ‘if you do, we will kill you.’
Ek wheeled. This, of course, he did not do with the precipitate haste of a trained athlete. Rather, he wheeled in slow motion, as befits an old man with arthritis. But wheel he did, and his wheeling brought him face to face with a young Ashdan girl, Olivia Qasaba. The Qasaba girl had intruded upon the courtyard of the Temple of Torture in the company of an Ashdan male.
A stranger, this male. Nobody Ek had ever seen before. He looked to be something like fifty years of age, and his head was bald, and indeed hairless but for a modest square-chopped beard. He was naked but for a loincloth. Yet he was an imposing figure even so, for he had a champion’s build, and he stood a head taller than any other man in sight. Sweat gleamed on his massive thews and oiled his sculpted pectorals. And his eyes — ah, the eyes! They were the startling blue so often found among the peoples of Ashmolea.
‘Who are you?’ said Ek.
‘I am Olivia Qasaba,’ said the girl.
‘I wasn’t talking to you!’ said Ek. Then, to the man: ‘Who are you? Tell me!’
‘I am Codlugarthia,’ said the man.
‘And I,’ said Master Ek, ‘am Nadalastabstala Banraithanchumun Ek, High Priest of Zoz the Ancestral for the island of Untunchilamon. I have a need of good men.’
‘I serve nobody,’ said Codlugarthia. ‘My time has come. Now others will serve me.’
Ek smiled, slightly. Then said to Varazchavardan:
‘Try again. Get rid of him.’
‘With pleasure,’ said the wonder-worker, who was bitterly disappointed that his monster had not been able to devour Justina. He turned his attention to Codlugarthia. He flung out his hands and cried:
‘Bara-’
Aquitaine Varazchavardan said no more. For Codlugarthia pointed a finger at him. They were standing a good twenty paces apart, but Codlugarthia’s power did its work. There was a hideous crackling-snappling as Varazchavardan’s leg bones shattered in a dozen places. The albinotic sorcerer screamed in agony, collapsed, then fainted.
Nixorjapretzel Rat bravely confronted the power of Codlugarthia.
‘Barapus!’ said Rat, throwing out his hands. ‘Barapus! Mox! Mox! Nixi!’
The air between sorcerer and Ashdan boiled. An ominous cloud of blue swelled in the air, thrashed, throbbed, steadied — then resolved itself into a budgerigar.
‘Oh, get out of here!’ said Ek in disgust. ‘Guards! Get rid of this man!’
The guards levelled their spears, preparing to throw them. They presumed the intruding Ashdan to be a wizard or sorcerer, but were sure none such could survive the onslaught of a dozen fast-hurtling spears. Codulgarthia gestured.
And the spears, while still in the hands of their owners, erupted into flame, and disintegrated into burning fragments a moment later.
Then Codlugarthia pointed a finger at Master Ek.
‘I do not like your attitude,’ said Codlugarthia.
Then his lips pursed in concentration. A moment later, Ek’s left eye exploded. Ek clapped a hand to his ruined face. His shrivelled scream ascended to the heavens. Wailing, he fell to his knees.
And his guards fled.
Juliet Idaho, released from restraint by the fast-fleeing guards, strode forward and kicked Master Ek in the head, knocking him unconscious. And the Empress Justina turned to Codlugarthia and said:
‘Greetings, my good man. Let me introduce myself. I am a child of Wen Endex, Justina Thrug by name, daughter of the great Lonstantine. How was it you named yourself?’
‘I named myself as Codlugarthia,’ said the Ashdan hero who had rescued her. ‘But you know me far better by another name. For I am the Crab, long a hermit upon the island of Jod, but now set free in a form far better for the active exercise of power.’
‘Then,’ said Justina, giving a slight bow, ‘it will be my pleasure to serve you. In bed or out of it.’
Justina had no idea how many centuries the Crab had lived as a Crab upon the island of Jod, but she was fairly sure it had not enjoyed carnal delights with any human female in all that time. So surely — or so she hoped — it would be ready for a volcanic initiation into the arts of the pleasures of the flesh.
‘I will bear your offer of service in mind,’ said Codlugarthia gravely. ‘But now we must be gone from here, for a mission awaits us.’
‘What mission?’ said Justina, somewhat puzzled at this.
‘Chegory, that’s what mission!’ said Olivia. ‘Rescuing Chegory, that’s what we have to do!’
‘Oh yes,’ said Justina. ‘How remiss of me. Very well! Let us to the rescue go! Juliet — are you coming?’
‘You couldn’t keep me away,’ said Idaho.
And, heavily armed with discarded weapons — one scimitar, two knives and a handful of caltrops — the Yudonic Knight joined Justina, Codlugarthia and Olivia as they set forth from the Temple of Torture. They left Manthandros Trasilika behind to cut loose Jean Froissart — and what fate thereafter befell Froissart and Trasilika is not for this history to tell.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
It was the Empress Justina who led the way through the depths Downstairs as the rescue party hastened to the aid of Chegory Guy and Ivan Pokrov, the prisoners of the dreaded therapist. Olivia Qasaba followed at Justina’s heels. Then came Codlugarthia, with the Yudonic Knight Juliet Idaho bringing up the rear.
On they went, and down.
Justina remembered the way well, for she had sweated it out a tenth of a footstep at a time as she laboured with the organic rectifier. Without such a burden to shift, the journey was miraculously short — two or three leagues at most, which is no distance at all for a fit healthy person — and the expedition was soon approaching the lair of the therapist.
It was then that they were surprised by a dorgi.
Down a corridor it came, crunching toward them in fury, meaning to crush them to death, to munchle-crunchle their bones, to trample them thoroughly until nothing was left of them but a bloody grit.
Codlugarthia saw the metal monster coming toward him. Calmly, he raised his finger.
He exerted a fraction of his power.
There was a scream from the dorgi. The thing slewed from side to side, crashed into a wall, came to a dead halt, then backed off a bit. It was defiant, but it was still frightened. It did not quite know what had been done to it, but it had unpleasant memories of being attacked by a granch-grusher, which had produced very similar sensations.
‘Leave us,’ said Codlugarthia in Janjuladoola.
‘No,’ said the dorgi.
‘Leave,’ said Codlugarthia. Then: ‘I do not wish to have to repeat myself. Nor do I wish to have to raise my voice.’
In answer, the dorgi trained the snouts of its zulzer upon the heroic Ashdan. Then it fired. Belatedly, the dorgi remembered: it was out of ammunition. It did not hesitate: it charged.
Codlugarthia’s fingers flickered.
The floor of the corridor ruptured.
A torn and jagged split gashed the floor of the corridor. Limitless depths yawned below. And the dorgi, assaulting forward at a furious pace, had no way to save itself. It tumbled into the pit and it fell, crashing through unseen metallic obstacles far below. There was a siren-pitched scream from deep, deep below. A sullen explosion. A rumbling thunder-roar.
And then…
Nothing.
‘Let us,’ said Codlugarthia, ‘be going.’
They had to make a detour to get past the ruined section of corridor. Even so, they soon came upon the therapist. The first thing they saw was Chegory Guy and Ivan Pokrov. Both were hanging from their heels some distance above the ground, but appeared to be alive and physically intact.
‘Greetings,’ said the therapist in fluent Janjuladoola.
‘And to you, greetings,’ said Codlugarthia.
‘Have you brought the Ashdan to me as a plaything?’ said the therapist.
‘I am not your plaything,’ said Codlugarthia, gazing upon the monstrous device. ‘You are mine. Unleash your prisoners.’