You wish to know more of this? More could be told. But it is a cruel story, a tale as grim as an executioner’s axe, a history dark with blood, an account of pain and hate, of gloating oppression and deaths obscene, of fear amidst the shadows. It is painful even to begin to remember those days of horror. If you have an appetite for such, then you must satisfy that appetite elsewhere.
For the moment, let us be content to watch Aquitaine Varazchavardan as he salvages another piece of ice from his well-stocked amphora. It melts in his hand. Drops of water slide to the coconut matting which covers the floor. He slips the ice between his teeth. He crunches. Cool, so cool! He closes his eyes and thinks of: Obooloo in winter.
Of ice and snow.
Now the moment is over. Let us flee through time and space, for our history bids us elsewhere.
CHAPTER FOUR
Very close in time and space, Shabble was still hiding out Downstairs. Shabble hated it down there, for far too many things from the Golden Gulag still survived down there. Evil evil evil! Evil was the Gulag, and accursed is its name.
There is no need to delve too deeply into the details. There is enough death, fear and horror in the world without us dredging up the sorrows of days bygone. Furthermore, it is surely wrong to gratify that all-too-common appetite which feeds on pain for its own sake, death for its own sake, fear for its own sake.
Therefore we will say nothing of the sewer pits, in which political dissidents were kept for days on end in cages waist-deep in the effluent of a metropolis. We will not mention the commercial wards, where those too sick to long survive were maimed and blinded by researchers questing for safer cosmetics. We will keep silent about the Proving Grounds, where weapons of all descriptions were tested on human subjects. We will pass over the subject of the carnivals staged to gratify the jaded tastes of debauched hedonists.
We will simply note that the Gulag was a commercial empire devoted to therapy (treatment of recidivists a speciality), and Shabble, who was once on the receiving end of some of that therapy, still had nightmares about it.
(Shabble sleeps? Even sharks sleep, my darling.)
Thus Downstairs most definitely aroused in Shabble memories most painful which (for the reasons given above) we will not detail.
The Malud marauders who were skulking in the depths Downstairs knew nothing of the Golden Gulag, but Al-ran Lars did think he knew all he needed to know about the dangers of those depths. He had briefed Arnaut and Tolon about the same, assuring them that Injiltaprajura’s underparts were basically safe. Therefore the Malud were most surprised to be challenged without warning by a voice from the shadows.
‘Halt!’ cried that doom-dark voice. ‘Halt! Throw down your weapons and surrender!’
Being who they were and where they were, the Malud marauders instead drew their weapons and charged, their voices raised in battle-bright onslaught. There was a flare of white-hot energy. Their weapons twisted and melted in their hands. Metal splashed molten to the floor where it puddled and cooled. A bright, bright sun-bright sun-globe hung in the air.
Burning, burning, burning.
Then it said:
‘I am the demon-god Lorzunduk. And you have offended me.’
If the Malud marauders had been natives of Untunchilamon then they would have answered:
‘Shabble! Don’t be silly! This is no time for games! Look what you’ve done to our beautiful swords! You should be ashamed of yourself!’
But instead the alien pirates fell grovelling to the ground, all courage gone now that they had been so spectacularly disarmed. Soon, very soon, they were pleading, praising and Confessing All.
Thus we leave the Malud marauders Al-ran Lars, Arnaut and Tolon as prisoners of the irresponsible Shabble as we shift in space (though not in time), leaving Injiltaprajura’s underworld in favour of the corridors of Ganthorgruk, that creaking doss-house which broods above Lubos in Skindik Way. Ah. As yet, nothing of interest is happening here. So let us shift in time after all, moving forward to the heart of bardardornootha. At this intersection of time and space we find the conjurer Odolo, enduring bad dreams.
It is hot in his room.
A gecko clings to the wall. A mosquito circles by his ear. A kamikaze bug bumbles noisily from wall to wall. But Odolo dreams not of the gecko, the mosquito or the kamikaze bug. No. Even when the mosquito settled on his cheek and thrust for his blood he dreamt not of it but of…
Strange things.
He dreamt of a loathsome yale, a lusus naturae which hunted him through a forest of thorns. He dreamt of ants made of honey, of candles quick-burning and rainbows bright. But never in his darkest, deepest, most murderous nightmares did he dream that the wishstone had been stolen.
If he had known of its theft, then he would have had nightmares indeed, whether he was sleeping or awake. For in the last few years the Empress Justina had smiled upon Odolo, and had granted him a few lightly paid sinecures. Among other things, he was Official Keeper of the Imperial Sceptre, which meant that the wishstone which adorned that sceptre was his responsibility.
For him, the day ahead offered every chance of disaster.
Let us shift again.
Not in place, but in time.
To dawn.
The sun has touched the glitter dome of the imperial palace. The dawn bells ring out from the pink palace, announcing the end of bardardornootha and the start of bright-favoured istarlat. Already the air is alive with the smells of curry and cassava, of saffron-flavoured rice, of braised flying fish and fried banana. Breakfast is cooking!
Ah! Dawn on Untunchilamon! Memories, memories! The rising sun shines hot on the monolithic mass of Pearl and ignites colour in the bloodstone of Injiltaprajura. The sea burns incandescent. A distant surf shatters on the Outer Reef. Within the lagoon, waves minor lap tamely at beaches incarnadine, the sands of which are made of red coral and bloodstone mixed.
Even at dawn it is still warm. Hot, even. For Injiltaprajura cools but little in the night. The sun glorious rouses flies and butterflies alike. The colours and choruses of a million million insects stir amidst Injiltaprajura’s gulleys. There many flowers, heavily perfumed, flaunt themselves amidst the jungle, which flourishes thick thanks to the urging sun and the water fresh-flowing from the eversprings sourced Downstairs. There parrots squawk and screech, there monkeys squabble and wild dogs with wilder cats contend.
This, then, is dawn on Untunchilamon.
This is what Odolo woke to.
Or, rather (to abandon nostalgic imaginings for historical truth) he woke to a hot, muggy, heavily shuttered room with a sagging roof. He reached for the jug by his bed, poured some water into a coconut-shell bowl, then drank.
A liquid thicker than water slid down his throat. He gagged and spat. Blood splattered across the floor. In horror, he clutched his throat, retched, gagged again, then spat some more. He had visions of a huge bleeding sore in his mouth, of ruptured arteries in his throat, a burst blood vessel in his lungs, a lethal ulcer in his stomach.
He lent over the side of the bed, the better to clear the blood from his gullet. Upset the jug. And saw a brief torrent of blood spurt from its neck and slither across the floor in all directions.
‘Falamantatha!’ he said, in high amazement.
Then amazement gave way to anger. Who had staged this obscene and vicious joke? He immediately suspected his feckless gossoon. But his bedroom door was still barred from the inside. The boy could not have entered while Odolo slept. Nobody could have got in during the night.