‘Well,’ said Justina, ‘tell us your long story. Then we’ve one of our own to tell.’
Already Justina was figuring Pelagius Zozimus into her political calculations. Was he her ally? Not exactly. But he was not her enemy, either. He was a wizard, and so naturally at odds with Untunchilamon’s wonder workers, and so ‘You may think you have time for long stories,’ said Zozimus, ‘but in fact you do not.’
‘And why not, may I ask?’ said Justina.
‘Go to the edge of the roof,’ said Zozimus. ‘The view answers all.’
Justina went to the edge of the roof and looked out over portside Injiltaprajura. There were two ships in the harbour. The personal banner of Aldarch the Third flew from the masts of both, and both were disembarking troops.
‘It’s him!’ said Juliet Idaho.
‘Don’t talk nonsense, Julie,’ said Justina sharply.
‘Those are the Mutilator’s banners!’ said Idaho.
‘Yes, and any of his generals can fly them,’ said Justina. ‘He’s not here himself, he can’t be. He’d lose the Izdimir Empire entirely if he trifled himself here to dispute possession of this overgrown bloodstone ballast block.’
‘Then one of his generals is here!’ said Idaho. ‘We will fight and die!’
‘We will not fight,’ said Justina firmly, ‘and we will not die.’
She looked at the airship. To her untrained eye, it looked as if it was almost finished.
‘Pelagius!’ said Justina. ‘Where is your brother? It is time for us to leave, and I know not the secret of flying his airship.’
‘Neither do I,’ said Zozimus, ‘for it is a branch of wizardry entirely different to mine. I don’t know where Sken-Pitilkin is, either. Oh, and while I’m about it — he’s my cousin, not my brother.’
‘Pedantry!’ muttered Justina. ‘But what can one expect from a wizard?’
Then, nothing daunted, she scrambled into the airship, seeking to learn its mysteries.
The rooftop of the pink palace must have been under observation — either from the Cabal House or elsewhere — because as soon as Justina climbed into the airship it started to disintegrate.
‘Chegory!’ screamed Olivia. ‘Stop it!’
Her hero rushed forward and grabbed hold of one of the branches. It pulled away. He pulled back, throwing the full strength of his sledgehammer muscles into the contest. The inner wood slid free of its sheathing bark, which crumbled immediately to black flakes in Chegory’s furious grip. The wood waggled away at its leisure.
‘Blood of the Gloat!’ said Idaho. ‘The next wonderworker I see, I kill!’
Justina looked upwards at the sticks scattering in all directions. The timing of the airship’s destruction could surely be no coincidence. The wonder-workers were watching her even now. She thought to shake her fist at the Cabal House — but did no such thing. The gesture was too weak, too puny, and unlikely to be perceived at a distance.
Bereft of ideas entirely, Justina stared out at the Laitemata Harbour and the two ships still steadily disembarking their soldiers. Soon, they would march up Lak Street. They would secure the palace. They would arrest her. And if she fled Downstairs? Why, she would be hunted down, for there was no ultimate refuge there — as many escaped slaves and eloping lovers had discovered to their cost. And if she fled to Zolabrik?
Justina turned.
Zazazolzodanzarzakazolabrik awaited, its waterless wastelands stretching away for league upon league to the north. In vain she scrutinized those barrens, looking for an army. That was her last hope — that the warlord Jal Japone might have sent men south in strength to seize Injiltaprajura while the seizing was good.
But there was no army.
Maybe Justina’s envoy had never got through to Jal Japone. Or maybe Japone declined to come south. Or, more probably — the roadless way was far and the going was rough — the envoy had yet to reach his destination.
‘Still,’ said Justina to herself. ‘I tried.’
Then she felt defeat, for she could think of no further tricks she could try.
As Justina stood there upon the rooftop of the pink palace, she realized that even then — right at that very moment — there would still be people in and around Injiltaprajura who were catching fish, drawing water, cooking meals, washing dishes, collecting coconuts or weeding market gardens. And if she died that day, why, the mundane life of the city would still continue, for all the world as if she had never lived.
Thus Justina endured a vision of the world as it would be when she had died. She would die, her bones would be scattered, her memory desecrated. And still the sun would shine; still the red seas of sunset and the red seas of dawn would break against the shores of Untunchilamon.
Then she knew despair.
She walked to the edge of the rooftop, half-minded to throw herself off.
Then she stopped.
For she remembered.
In that time of despair, Justina remembered a story which had once been told to her by her father, the great Lonstantine. He had told her of an experiment once performed by a half-mad master of experimental philosophy. The man had obtained two rare and wonderful bottles made of glass, and had orientated these transparent vessels so they lay with their butts presented to the light and their throats in dark shadows, the darkness being enhanced by the careful arrangement of black cloth. Into each of these bottles the experimenter introduced an insect.
Into one bottle went a bumble bee.
Into the other, a fly.
The fly was too stupid to try to think its way out of the bottle. Instead, it flew around at random, blatting this way and that in the manner of flies — and in moments had triced its way out to freedom by inevitable accident.
The bee, on the other hand, was intelligent to know that escape lay toward the light. So to the light it went, only to find its way blocked by an impervious transparency. It struggled valorously, for it was obstinate in courage. But in the end it died, betrayed by its intelligence.
The moral of the story?
Many morals could be drawn, some of them concerning the dangers of intelligence. But to Lonstantine Thrug — he was, we must remember, a Yudonic Knight, and therefore inclined toward simplicities — the moral was this: Never despair!
‘Well,’ said Olivia Qasaba, ‘what are we going to do now?’
‘We,’ said Justina, ‘are going to retreat into Zolabrik.’ ‘No!’ sa id Chegory, who had a peculiar horror of Untunchilamon’s wasteland des erts.
‘Yes,’ said Justina. ‘We have no other choice.’
‘But why?’ said Chegory. ‘Couldn’t we just — well, surrender?’
A foolish question, this. It required no answer. But Idaho provided one anyway.
‘We can’t surrender,’ said Idaho. ‘For if captured, we might be brainwashed. ’
The Empress Justina shuddered at the thought. Brainwashing, for those unfamiliar with the niceties of political life in the Izdimir Empire, is a particularly hideous form of torture, and all its varieties are almost invariably lethal. Brainwashing can take any of seventeen different forms, the most merciful being the Hovmun Variation in which the much-washed brain is cut from its stem on the second day then fed to the next-of-kin of the deceased or (should next-of-kin be unavailable) to offal pigs bred especially for the purpose.
While Justina was still shuddering, she heard boots pounding up the stairs leading to the roof.
‘Someone’s coming!’ screamed Olivia.
‘We’ve left it too late,’ said Idaho. ‘We can’t escape.’ Then he screamed his battle cry: ‘Wen Endex!’
‘Julie!’ said Justina sharply. ‘They might be friends.’ ‘No,’ said Idaho sternly. ‘They can’t be. We have no friends left. We are doomed. Our sole remaining privilege is to die with weapons in our hands. Better it is to die thus than to be captured alive. So this is it, then. Our last stand.’
Verily, the doughty Yudonic Knight seemed almost to welcome the crisis. He had endured Justina’s civilized and charitable regime for too long. He wanted war, blood-slaughter battles, violence, glory, death. If only for a moment. Even if his own death were to be consequent upon such indulgences.