Chegory’s fingers leapt to his boot sheath. Empty! The other one, the other one, his blade was in the other one. His left-hand down-darted. Fingers found knife-hilt. Drew metal for the kill. His knifehand was relaxed and low, ready to stab upwards, to rip the gut or stab between ribs to vent heart blood.
‘Get out of my way,’ said Chegory.
‘Easy now, boy,’ said the stranger. ‘Put down the knife and nobody will get hurt.’
There was no fear in the stranger’s voice, no fear in his stance, and he showed no signs whatsoever of getting out of the way. What was he then? Some kind of combat expert? Perhaps. But only one such man in a thousand can take a knife from a trained shivman.
‘Nuk off,’ said Chegory.
Then language left him as his mind cleared for action and reaction, his senses sharpening as his heartbeat hammered, as his footsteps shadowed across the ground, his feet quick-gracing as he slid in fast with his blade slammed from left to right, flickering already from feint to feint, looking for the opening, the kill.
The olive-skinned stranger summed his approach at a glance, saw what he was up against then ducked back into his room. Slammed his door. Chegory whirled past it, turning, knife shifting from right hand to left as he dropped to a crouch, expecting the stranger to dart out to try to catch him from behind.
Instead, the door opened no more than a crack.
The stranger looked out, scrutinising the Ebrell Islander who crouched panting in the corridor, murder in his face.
‘Where you learn knife-fighting, boy?’ said the oliveskinned one.
No reply.
‘You some kind of killer, huh?’
‘Look,’ said Chegory, recovering the use of language as his heartbeat slowed, ‘I don’t want any trouble, I just want to get out of here. Don’t follow me, you won’t get hurt. Okay? Understand?’
‘Are you trying to get money off my young friend No? Is that it? How much does he owe?’
‘Look,’ said Chegory, ‘you don’t want any trouble, do you?’
A laugh from the olive-skinned one.
‘This is no bloody joke!’ said Chegory vehemently. ‘I’m in deep shit, I don’t care if I, if I — cut you up, that’s nothing, one dead man, hell, it’s all gone to shit, my whole life, don’t laugh you bastard, I’ll smash your face I’ll smash you break you cut you kill you gash you smash you-’
He was shouting now. Giving vent to all his suppressed rage, hate, frustration. To the bloody murder which breeds in the breasts of Ebrell Islanders forced to dwell in the civilised cities to which they are so unsuited. All the unsaid things came out till he was vomiting forth hate unlimited, obscenity unpardonable.
Then he was done.
He stood there, panting. A little shocked at himself.
But the stranger merely laughed.
‘Troubles!’ said the olive-skinned one. ‘You think you have troubles!’
He opened his door a little more. Chegory stood on guard still, but he was no longer poised for murder. Instead, he was assessing the stranger in depth and detail. Not much to look at. A bony body with narrow shoulders. Brown hair and olive skin, as noted already. A strange face, alien, foreign, as weird as his accents. A long, narrow face, length accentuated by steep-slanting cheek bones and a sharp-pointed chin. Thin lips, hooked nose.
‘What’s your problem then?’ said Chegory.
His curiosity was understandable. After all, few people laugh when face to face with a killer. Equally, few respond to violent obscenity with such insouciance, at least not in Injiltaprajura, where uncouth speech tends to cause serious offence.
‘My problem?’ said the stranger. ‘If I had but one I’d be laughing!’
‘You’re laughing anyway,’ said Chegory.
‘In extremity, what else is there to do? I’m to blame for the loss of the wishstone — and that’s the least of it.’
‘The wishstone?’ said Chegory. ‘How come?’
‘Because I’m Official Keeper of the Imperial Sceptre, aren’t I?’
‘Well, you tell me. Who are you?’
‘In truth you see the Official Keeper before you. Odolo of Ganthorgruk at your service. Conjurer and sinecurist. Favourite of the Empress Justina, hence still alive, but only just. And yourself now? Who would you be?’
‘None of your business,’ said Chegory.
‘Come! Don’t be like that! If you’ve got troubles, why not share them? Can’t make things worse, can it?’
Chegory hesitated.
‘What say we go to the dining room? Hey? Talk it out? You can tell me all about it over a cup of coffee or something. I’ll pay. Money’s the least of my problems, for the moment at any rate. That’s what I think, anyway — my bank manager no doubt would beg to differ.’
Still Chegory hesitated.
‘What have you got to lose?’ said Odolo. ‘If I wanted to make you prisoner I could rouse the whole slaughterhouse with a shout from my window. You’d never get away. Come. I won’t say I’m your friend, but that scarcely makes me your enemy, does it? What have you got to lose?’ ‘Okay,’ said Chegory, taking a deep breath as he eased up on the knife. ‘Okay then. Let’s talk.’
Then the two of them went down to the dining room. This was virtually empty, for most of those denizens of Ganthorgruk who were in regular employ had left for work, while those who were alcohol addicts had slipped off to speakeasies already, unless they were still sleeping off the debauches of the day (and night) before.
‘Like the view?’ said Odolo, gesturing to a window from which one could see all Lubos, the Laitemata, Jod, Scimitar, the Outer Reef, and vistas of blue and green sea beyond.
‘It’s okay,’ said Chegory, without enthusiasm.
And sat himself at a table while Odolo went for some coffee.
Then the two began to talk.
Both had been, till then, lonely individuals totally isolated in their individual predicaments, effectively bereft (at least for the moment) of any friend or confidant. Both found it a deep relief to indulge in confession.
Young Chegory told of his arrest, of Shabble’s untoward intervention and his consequent escape, of rearrest, of his deportation to the pink palace to face the squealer in the treasury, of riot, of his unwitting escape through a hole in the wall of the treasury, of his long wanderings Downstairs and of all that had taken place in that underground realm.
For his part, Odolo told of his strange dreams, some of which had prefigured (or caused?) transformations in the world itself. He told of dreaming (or creating?) the krakens in the Laitemata. Of his breakfast bowl which had come alive with boiling blue scorpions. Of other transformations, transfigurations and transubstantiations which had taken place since. Of a breadfruit which had turned of sudden into a brief-lived globe of red ants. A writing brush which had grown wings then flown away. A hash cookie turned to a cherry.
‘A cherry?’ said Chegory.
‘A stone fruit. From trees, a special type of tree. Nice enough. I’d plant the stone itself except I doubt it’d grow in this climate. That’s not all there is to it, either. There’s these words, words, my head’s crazy with words, whenever I’m not thinking hard they run amok, all kinds of words just scrambling through my head.’
‘Well,’ said Chegory, ‘maybe you’re… well, you know what I mean. Or maybe someone’s fed you zen, you know, I told you all about that. Different people, it, well, I’m not setting myself up as an expert or something but it does weird things to some people. Or then, what if you’re a wonderworker? But you just don’t know it? Or the wishstone, doesn’t that do magic? Couldn’t you, like, pick up magic? Since you’ve, you’ve looked after it so long.’
‘There’s nothing magic about the wishstone,’ said Odolo. ‘It’s, it’s beautiful, yes. It’s got a kind of soft music about it, and inside there’s all rainbows, never still but always moving, a brightness amazing when you get it in the dark. But no magic. Else what would it be doing in the treasury? Injiltaprajura’s rulers would be using it from dawn to dusk to wish and rule.’
‘You’ve tried it?’
