They were at the Dromdanjerie!
‘Home safe,’ said Olivia Qasaba.
But the Ashdan lass had spoken too soon. For a moment later a door was flung open and soldiers came boiling out of the Dromdanjerie itself.
‘An Ebby!’ cried one.
They grabbed Chegory, threw him against the nearest wall and began to search him for weapons. They found them, too. A business blade in a boot sheath, no toy but heavyweight steel sharpened to murder. A skewer-shiv holstered alongside the other boot. A knuckle-lance tucked in a back pocket.
‘You got a licence for these?’ snarled a soldier.
‘Yes, yes,’ said Chegory. ‘In the Dromdanjerie, my room, in there, all paid for, all legal.’
Weapon licences were ten damns each, a heavy price in terms of Chegory’s wages, but he had such a fear of getting into trouble that he had bought them regardless. The other alternative, going without any weapons at all, was not tenable for someone who had to walk through Lubos every day on his way to and from work.
‘He’s legal!’ said Ingalawa. ‘You see? All legal. You can’t arrest him. Let him go! And me!’
‘Shall I burn them?’ said Shabble eagerly.
‘You stay out of this,’ said Pokrov. ‘We’ll sort it out.’ Ingalawa was already doing (or trying to do) just that. ‘Stop that!’ she shouted, grabbing at one of the soldiers who was holding Chegory Guy.
‘Shove off,’ said the soldier, pushing her away.
‘That’s Chegory Guy you’ve got there!’ said Ingalawa. ‘A free citizen of Injiltaprajura who enjoys the full protection of the law.’
Chegory inwardly groaned. Only an Ashdan liberal would make speeches like that at a time like this. Worse, she had named him! They were mad, these Ashdan liberals. Completely detached from reality. As he had expected, Ingalawa’s intervention was useless. Nevertheless, she persisted.
‘We can vouch for him,’ said she. ‘So can Qasaba, Jon Qasaba, Qasaba. He’s just in here, in the Dromdanjerie.’ ‘Oho!’ cried a soldier. ‘So this is a madman we’ve caught! An escaped lunatic!’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ snapped Pokrov. ‘This is an honest rock gardener you’ve caught.’
‘Who are you then?’ said one of the soldiers.
‘I am Ivan Pokrov, master of the Analytical Engine,’ said Pokrov with great dignity. ‘Who’s in charge here?’
‘I am,’ said a stalwart warrior. ‘Coleslaw Styx at your service.’
‘What’s your rank, Styx?’ said Pokrov, in tones which owed more to anger than to etiquette.
‘I’m a guard marshal in the service of her imperial majesty Justina,’ said Styx.
‘Right!’ said Pokrov. ‘Sort out this mess, Marshal Styx!’ ‘Oh, that’s easily done,’ said Styx. ‘You’re all under arrest!’
Whereupon soldiers manhandled Chegory and his friends up Skindik Way to Lak Street, across Lak Street and down Goldhammer Rise. Shabble bobbed along after them in a state of high anxiety, and it was Shabble’s light which illuminated the party as the quick-falling gloom of the equatorial night overtook them.
‘Where are you taking us?’ said Ingalawa.
‘To the Temple of Torture,’ said Styx, thus precipitating disaster.
All Injiltaprajura knew the Temple of Torture had ceased functioning as such when its patron, Wazir Sin, had come to a sticky end. Ingalawa presumed (rightly) that Justina’s soldiers had taken over the empty building on Goldhammer Rise to use it as a detention centre.
But Shabble made no such sensible presumption. Instead, the lord of gossip panicked. His friends were going to be hurt, maimed, tortured, killed! They were being dragged to the hideous Temple of Torture! There to endure the unspeakable, the unmentionable, the unthinkable! Shabble acted without further thought. Moments later a dozen burnt and temporarily half-blinded soldiers were staggering around the street.
‘Kill them!’ roared Styx. ‘Catch them and kill them!’
So Chegory, Ingalawa et al. fled for their lives. They ran blind through the night, chancing life and limb as they pelted down Goldhammer Rise. They only halted when they reached Marthandorthan, the dockland area. There Shabble joined them and cast a cone of light around them.
‘Shabble Shabble Shabble!’ said Ivan Pokrov in something like despair. ‘What have you done?’
‘Nothing,’ said Shabble defensively.
‘You crazy gloop!’ said Chegory, beside himself with anger. ‘You burnt a dozen soldiers half to death!’
‘I did not,’ said Shabble heatedly. ‘I only singed them a little, that’s all.’
Shabble was telling the truth. None of the soldiers under the command of Coleslaw Styx had been seriously injured. But it made no difference. Chegory and his companions were suddenly wanted criminals on the run. He said as much.
‘But Shabble’s to blame!’ said Olivia.
‘Chegory’s right,’ said Pokrov. ‘The law is the law. Anyone with Shabble when Shabble runs amok gets punished.’
That was indeed the law, or part of it. A good law it was, too. Shabble was potentially a master of arson, espionage and public disorder, so it was best to have the strongest possible sanctions to stop people exploiting Shabble’s weakness of character.
‘What — what will they do with us?’ said Olivia. ‘When they catch us, I mean.’
‘There now,’ said Ingalawa, holding her niece close and tight. ‘There there.’
This refusal to provide specifics told Olivia that things were very bad indeed. She started weeping.
‘We, um, off the streets,’ said Chegory, conscious of their urgent need to take immediate evasive action. ‘Under cover, we have to get under cover, as soon as possible.’
‘You told me once of your cousin, Firfat Labrat,’ said Ingalawa.
‘No!’ said Chegory in alarm. ‘Not him! We can’t go to him!’
‘But we’d be safe there,’ persisted Ingalawa. ‘Wouldn’t we?’
‘All we need is a haven for this evening alone,’ said Ivan Pokrov. ‘Come morning, we can get a good lawyer and sort this thing out.’
Chegory was not at all keen on the idea. But what else could he do? If he had been on his own, he would have' found one of the entrances to the depths Downstairs, and would have taken his chances in those realms of danger. But he durst not lead Olivia into such places. Reluctantly, he agreed. He would lead them to the lair of Firfat Labrat.
But where was that?
Though Chegory was well acquainted with all quarters of Injiltaprajura, he was so upset by the turn events had taken that at first he was lost. Shabble brightened to reveal their surroundings entirely, but young Chegory found that the streets of Marthandorthan were as strange to him as those of an alien city. Then he got a grip on himself, got his bearings, and began to lead the way to safety.
CHAPTER NINE
Firfat Labrat was a drug dealer. The drug in question was the dreaded alcohol, a fearful carcinogen which shrinks the breasts of women and enlarges the breasts of men, which gnaws the liver and addles the brain. It rots the unborn while they lie within the womb. It blights the marriages of young and old alike and turns good workers into filthy, unkempt layabouts.
Such is the demonic allure of this drug that the helpless junkies who become addicted to it will persist in their course of self-destruction despite vomiting, impotence, gastric reflux and uncontrollable outbursts of unpredictable violence or shameless confession. In the final stages of their degradation they cannot live without this hellish brew to which their bodies have become hopelessly addicted. Their limbs shake constantly with fever; the walls around them crawl with nightmarish delusion; all that awaits them is a remorseless descent into insanity and death.
What kind of depraved person would traffic in such filthy stuff? What foul, leprous ghoul would seek to profit from such? Why, an Ebrell Islander of course! Such was Firfat Labrat. And in the slumlands of Injiltaprajura, where the vice of poverty is at its worst, he found plenty of people ready to work for him. Yes: it is truly remarkable what people will do to avoid starvation.