street to join them in the sunlight. His black bullfur shone with sunsheen. The pale ivory of his horns gleamed in the light of day’s great luminary. The two young lovers lived in his eyes as miniature reflections. Olivia looked at this obscene creature, this mutant abomination, then hid her face in Chegory’s shoulder.
‘Are you ready to go?’ said Log Jaris.
A couple of flies settled on his nostrils. He waved them away. They dizzied upwards, one settling on his larboard horn.
‘Go?’ said Ingalawa angrily. ‘Where would you be thinking of going? Where are you taking Chegory Guy? And why? Explain yourself!’
‘I’m not taking him anywhere,’ said Log Jaris. ‘It’s Uckermark who’s taking him.’
‘We have to go to the palace,’ said Chegory, trying to explain. ‘A, um, a depositions hearing, that’s what it’s all about. That’s why we’re going.’
‘A depositions hearing!’ said Ingalawa. ‘Are you guilty? Have you got a lawyer? What have you done?’
‘I’ve done nothing!’ said Chegory.
‘Oh, that’s what you all say!’ retorted Ingalawa. ‘But you were mixed up in that riot, weren’t you? That riot at the treasury? And where were you all yesterday? And all last night? Here? Doing what? Whatever it was, why didn’t you show yourself at the Dromdanjerie today? Or at Jod?’ ‘Look,’ said Chegory, ‘it’s complicated, okay?’ ‘Complicated?’ said Ingalawa. ‘What’s complicated about it?’
‘All kinds of things,’ said Chegory. ‘Varazchavardan, that sorcerer, you know, okay? He’s got — we — we had this like kind of run in so now I want to keep out of his way, okay? So he’d look for me in the Dromdanjerie, okay, or at Jod, where I live, where I work. But he doesn’t know about the corpse shop, or I thought he didn’t, though maybe he does. And this — these — those soldiers Shabble burnt, they might still be looking for me so I don’t want to be found. Because I’m, okay, maybe technically some kind of escaped prisoner, but I’ve, um-’
‘You’ve got yourself in a mess,’ said Ingalawa. ‘If you’re trying to hide from soldiers or from Varazchavardan then what’re you doing going to the palace? They’ll easily catch you!’
Chegory reacted violendy. The more so because the illogic of his position had already been exposed by the delivery of the summons. The corpse shop was no hideaway!
‘So tough!’ said he. ‘So I tried, okay? Uncaught all yesterday, all last night. Last day of my life, last night maybe. But maybe not. I’ll be okay up at the palace because, uh, the Empress, she likes me, trusts me.’
‘The boy’s deluded!’ said Ingalawa. ‘If you had the trust of the Empress you wouldn’t be going on trial for whatever it is you’ve done.’
‘I’m not on trial!’ said Chegory.
‘But you just said you were,’ said Ingalawa.
This was so unreasonable that Chegory was tempted to hit her. Then Uckermark came out into the sunlight and, speaking over Ingalawa’s wrath, said:
‘Our young friend from the Ebrells is charged with nothing. Guilty of many things he doubtless is, but he lives innocent of all charges. He is but attending a depositions hearing as a witness.’
‘In what kind of case?’ said Ingalawa.
‘A case of high treason,’ said Uckermark.
‘What a thing to get mixed up in!’ said Ingalawa, in tones of condemnation.
She was making Chegory feel as if he had done something wrong. He reminded himself that in point of fact he had been strenuously virtuous throughout his recent troubles. It made no difference. Ingalawa still made him feel soiled, contaminated, guilty. How did she do it? Easily, easily. Whenever he was in her presence, her air of effortless superiority automatically put him at a disadvantage.
Chegory, boiling with murderous resentment, almost said what he thought, but restrained himself. This took heroic effort, for, despite his recent sleep, he was as tired as the fly which flew to the moon. Waiting around in the corpse shop had scarcely helped him recover from his recent traumas. Instead, it had given him unlimited opportunity to worry about the mess he had got himself into and all the people who might be after his blood.
‘So,’ said Ingalawa, ‘how did you get mixed up in a treason trial?’
‘We can go into that later,’ said Chegory.
‘Chegory,’ said Ingalawa sharply, ‘I think you’d better tell us what’s going on right now. In detail.’
Chegory looked at Uckermark helplessly. What wasn’t going on? He was in so many kinds of trouble it would have taken all morning to catalogue them. But he had tried so hard to be good! To be an exemplary citizen!
‘Chegory?’ said Ingalawa, questioning his silence.
‘I don’t know where to begin,’ said Chegory.
‘Then start by telling us what you’re doing. Here. With these — these people. Are you in some kind of trouble?’ The woman was being so obtuse! How could he not be in trouble? Chegory had striven strenuously to remain reticent, but now found words pouring out wrath-hot and burning, like a torrent of molten wax:
‘Trouble! Of course I’m in trouble! I wanted to go back to Jod, when Ox first warned us I wanted to go back, but you wouldn’t have it on. Oh no, you said, don’t run away. It’s your right, you said. You’re a citizen, you said. You’ve got the law on your side. Oh, all right for you to speak!
‘But then what happens? That lunatic Shabble gets us all in the shit and we all get arrested then the guards come back and then what? Oh you stay put, it’s no trouble for you, but I get dragged off to the palace.
‘And then what? Oh, nothing much. Just riots, breakouts, mad wizards, monsters, drug dealers. And Varazchavardan, oh I could be here all day just telling you about Varazchavardan. And then what? The palace, and that mad bitch Justina trying to rape me, then the dragon, there was a dragon in the palace and I nearly got killed.
‘But what about you? Oh you’re all right, aren’t you? You got out of jail okay, you’ve got a lawyer I guess, you’ll be all right. Because you’re an Ashdan, you’ve got respect, but I’m just an Ebby, they’ll kill me as soon as look at me, whatever goes wrong it’s going to be my fault, isn’t it?
‘And none of it would have happened, none of it, if you’d just let me go back to the island. That’s all. Just hide away for the night. I knew it, I knew it, but you-’
Chegory clenched his fist as if he was going to hit her. Then he Jjurst into tears instead. Wracked by the unbearable pain of existence. Artemis stood clear of him, not at all sure what to make of his outburst — fearing him perhaps a potential killer. But Log Jaris slapped him on the shoulder and said:
‘That’s better said than living inside you unsaid.’
Then Uckermark said:
Time we were going, Chegory. The summons demands.
We can’t be late for this hearing. Log Jaris, my friend — can you stay here to help Yilda look after the shop? In case of raiders and such.’
‘My pleasure,’ said Log Jaris.
‘If you’re going,’ said Ingalawa, in a moment of swift decision, ‘then we two are going with you.’
So off they set, Artemis Ingalawa and Olivia Qasaba travelling in consort with Chegory and Uckermark.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
It was one of those days when even those born and bred on Untunchilamon find the heat oppressive. The whole city had slowed to the leisurely pace of convalescence, for it was impossible to exert oneself at speed. Thanks to the heat, the very effort of idling up Lak Street had become an exercise in advanced calisthenics.
[It cannot get so hot. Sloth is a deficiency of the intellect which should never be blamed on climate. If a trifling warmth of weather truly inflicted such stasis upon Injiltaprajura then we have a shocking picture of an entire culture sunk in irretrievable decadence. One longs to see the Conquest commence and a muscular Religion bring the virtues of Work and Efficiency to such a derelict society. Srin Gold, Commentator Extraordinary.]
Untunchilamon is ever hot, but on exceptional days of sweat like rhis when even the hardiest armpit lice must fear death by drowning, when every pair of thighs in the city is as wet as honeymoon passion, when every crutch is a reeking gymnasium, then the heat seems to come not just from the sun alone but from the sky itself, and, indeed, from the very streets themselves. The bloodrock was heating to the point of flux. The white mass of Pearl was glazed by an intolerable glare. Heat-distorted buildings shimmered and buckled as the air itself warped in helpless
