evening meal. The three bodyguards who had so far protected the bullman peeled off, for they had other tasks to attend to. They were to rouse out other members of the Calligrapher’s Union who lived nearby and bring them to the corpse shop for a council of war.
The bullman knocked on the door. Uckermark was slow to answer, for, all too conscious of his own guilt and hence fearing a raid by Justina’s soldiery, he was arming himself for combat. Log Jaris knocked again. His bodyguards were out of sight.
The Malud marauders seized their chance and charged from the shadows. They screamed with murderous rage as they plunged toward the bullman. Log Jaris whirled — and saw his danger.
‘Keep back!’ roared Log Jaris. ‘Back — or die!’
Uckermark heard his friend without and flung wide the corpse shop’s door. Log Jaris leapt inside. Uckermark slammed the door. And the muscle man Tolon hit it with all his weight. The door burst asunder. Uckermark and Log Jaris were both sent sprawling. In stormed the three pirates.
Yilda grabbed a tiny glass vial filled with a brilliant blue fluid. She threw it at the floor. The flask burst. The fluid exploded on contact with the air. Dragon fire roared upwards. The pirate raiders flung up warding arms.
‘Get back!’ said Yilda, another vial already in her hand. ‘Back! Or the next will find your faces!’
The pirates hesitated. After all, she was only a woman. More to the point, Uckermark and Log Jaris — knocked to the floor by the down-crashing door — would be endangered by any fire which threatened the raiders.
That hesitation lost the pirates their kill.
Already Uckermark and Log Jaris were scrambling to their feet. Even as they did so Yilda was throwing herself into action. She had a mop, was throwing the vial to the air, was striking at it with the mop. The vial exploded into flame. With mop-head blazing, Yilda charged, screaming as she did so.
The pirates fled.
Out into the street they rushed — and almost impaled themselves on the blades of four swordsmen there standing.
The pirates ducked past the unexpected newcomers and fled.
‘Bastards!’ screamed Yilda. ‘Come back and fight like men!’
She bitterly regretted the escape of the enemy. After all, she had wasted two vials of the best blue flame on the battle. The vials themselves were fearfully expensive since they were made of glass. As for the blue flame — why, only a little of this can be extracted from even a most productive dragon corpse. Hence Yilda wanted at least a couple of kills out of the encounter.
‘Ho!’ said Log Jaris, panting as he came out into the street and saw four shadowy figures standing there in the night. ‘Well met, my friends! Put down your swords — the thieves have fled!’
‘You misjudge us,’ said one, moving into the dragon-fire light of Yilda’s blazing mop and revealing himself as none other than Pelagius Zozimus, Justina’s master chef. ‘You misjudge us, for we are thieves ourselves.’
Yilda, still geared up for battle, slashed at him with her flaming mop. Zozimus ducked. His comrade Guest Gulkan swung cold steel adroitly and lopped off the head of the mop.
‘You’ve come to the wrong place,’ said Uckermark, hefting a dragon cleaver in his hand. ‘We’ve no money here. We’re not a bank or a brothel.’
‘No,’ said Pelagius Zozimus. ‘You’re the corpse master Uckermark. Within you have the wishstone which is what we’re here for.’
‘You’re wrong on all counts,’ said Uckermark. ‘I’m not Uckermark. I am but his slave. The man himself is within with seven comrades at cards. Master! Thieves without!’ Uckermark’s bawling voice echoed down the street. From inside the shop came an answer:
‘Coming! Coming!’
It was Chegory Guy, pitching his voice low the better to imitate full-grown manhood. But Zozimus and his three companions were not impressed.
‘I know you by your face,’ said Zozimus. ‘I learnt your name when you brawled at Justina’s Petitions Session. Better still, I know you’ve no fighting force within. We’ve had your place watched all day. The stone! Now! Or I’ll cut your guts open looking for it!’
Out from the interior of the shop there then came Chegory Guy with a wicked corpse hook in hand.
‘Uckermark’s just coming,’ he said in a voice quite different from the one he had used for his bluff of a few moments previously.
‘You’re beginning to bore me,’ said Zozimus. ‘I’m warning you! If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s being bored.’
Uckermark grunted and muscled forward. But Log Jaris threw out a hand and restrained him.
‘If we have got the wishstone,’ said Log Jaris, ‘then give it to them.’
‘What is this?’ said Uckermark in outrage. ‘There’s four of us! We can take them!’
Certainly the odds in a fight would have been fairly even. Guest Gulkan of Tameran was a formidable warrior — but then so was the bullman Log Jaris. Uckermark could probably have killed the cut-throat Thayer Levant even though that unscrupulous unworthy was far more dangerous than his appearance suggested. As for the two wizards, Pelagius Zozimus and Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin, why, neither of them was much of a fighter and both for the moment were right out of magic. Chegory and Yilda could probably have cleaned them up.
‘We’re not going to take them,’ said Log Jaris, ‘because the wishstone’s too dangerous to hold. Justina has sworn-’ ‘Okay, okay,’ said Uckermark in disgust. ‘I get the picture! All right, gentlemen. Wait here just a moment. My darling wife is your hostage to vouchsafe for my return.’ Uckermark disappeared into his corpse shop and was back almost immediately with a bag of offal. He flung it into the street. It burst. Bloody organs in various states of decay and disrepair went sprawling across the street. The wishstone rolled free. It was so layered in black blood that its light scarcely showed. Nevertheless, a leam of rainbow revealed it for what it was. Thayer Levant snatched it up and Guest Gulkan’s faction began to back away down the street.
‘You’ll never get away with it!’ yelled Uckermark. ‘You’ll never get off Untunchilamon alive!’
‘Get back inside!’ said Pelagius Zozimus. ‘Back! Or I’ll blast you all with wizardry!’
He was bluffing, and Uckermark guessed as much. Nevertheless, the corpse master was glad to have a face- saving excuse to bring the whole nerve-shattering episode to an end.
‘Old friend!’ said Log Jaris as they went inside. ‘You surprise me! So greed got the better of you, did it?’
‘The opportunity of a lifetime,’ muttered Uckermark, feigning grief.
In truth, he was glad the wishstone was gone. It had been a mistake to take it. The thing was far too dangerous since there was scarcely a person on all of Untunchilamon who would not gladly kill for its possession. Uckermark very much doubted that the latest thieves to seize it would get away alive.
‘Chegory,’ said Yilda. ‘Help me with this door.’
‘No,’ said Uckermark. ‘The hell with the door. Let’s eat. We can worry about the door later.’
So eat they did.
Meanwhile, in the night outside, Shabble was bobbing along behind the wishstone thieves. To Shabble’s ears, the wishstone’s beaconing was loud and strong. Shabble could have jumped the thieves then and there — disarming them, terrorising them, burning them up or making them prisoner. But that would have ended the game too quickly. Hence Shabble went shadowstalking after them.
The demon of Jod was showing no light. Only the occasional squeak of excitement betrayed the presence of the imitator of suns, and, if the thieves heard those squeaks, they doubtlessly attributed them to unseen vampire rats.
Shabble’s excitement intensified when three Malud marauders fell in behind the thieves, following them at a distance.
Oh, this was a nice bit of drama! Oh, what fun!
Then the thieves took one of the downways which led to the underworld. In they went, one after another. Pelagius Zozimus. Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin. Thayer Levant. Then Guest Gulkan.
Shabble hesitated.
Then the Malud marauders came catfooting through the night, closing with the doorway in a quick, determined rush. They hesitated also, conferred briefly in whispers, then slipped inside. Shabble watched as Al-ran Lars, Arnaut and Tolon followed the wishstone thieves Downstairs.
For a moment longer Shabble lingered outside. Then innate devilishness conquered fear and Shabble
