before he acted. Think he did. But little good it did him! The process of thought made his head hurt and his tongue go dry, but apart from that it had no demonstrable effect whatsoever.
Yet, even when Chegory realised thought was useless, he did not rush into action. Instead, he procrastinated, pretending he was thinking still. In truth, he was afraid. The world had become larger and its stones had become heavier and harder — while Chegory himself had become smaller and softer and more vulnerable to pain. At last, all pretence of thought wearied away to nothing. He sat on a rock and concentrated on sweating.
Thanks to dehydration, Chegory was wearier yet by the time salahanthara came to an end. A malevolent sun sank through skies of butchery to seas incarnadine. Then the day died in a spectacular display of exsanguination as the colours of bloody death drained from the sunset sky. The sunset bells — drowned by blood, no doubt — failed to ring. The redskinned Ebrell Islander, his own colours darkening to death in the worldshadows of evening, sat on the shores of Jod watching the bloodstone buildings of Injiltaprajura clotting into the black congealment of night. Still the dikle and shlug poured endlessly from the wealth fountains, and still the oppressive heat suffocated all of Untunchilamon. Then, in the dark, Jod’s slabender frogs began to chorus: Gork-mork-gork-mork. Gork-mork-gork- mork…
The night was hot. Breathless. Stars conjured themselves in the heavens in the livery of phoenix and firedrake. Chegory sat there staring across the black waters of the Laitemata until he had come to a decision. He would- ‘Chegory!’
It was Ivan Pokrov, calling him.
‘What is it?’ said Chegory in a voice of charred wood and cracked leather.
He was thirsty, thirsty, he had not realised he was so thirsty.
‘It’s Odolo. He’s roused himself. He’s got something to tell us.’
So Chegory roused himself from his rocks and accompanied Ivan Pokrov inside. Pain pulsed in his skull: a headache brought on by heat and lack of water.
When Chegory entered Odolo’s sickroom, the first thing he saw was the ugly Uckermark. The corpse master, who still smelt faintly of the dead, was trimming the wick of an oil lantern. How hideous he was! A grotesque mess of scars and tattoos. He grunted as Pokrov came in behind Chegory, then said:
‘Our friend’s excited.’
He spoke truly. The conjuror Odolo was sitting up in bed. He was alarmingly feverish, his eyes over-excited, his hands conjuring rhetoric from the air, his knees jog-jolting beneath a thin mosquito sheet. He reminded Chegory of the way some of the more manic patients in the Dromdanjerie looked just before they gave themselves to violence.
‘Excited indeed!’ said Pokrov, observing Odolo’s agitation. ‘Has he told you why?’
‘He’ll tell you himself,’ said Uckermark.
Then, having trimmed the oil lamp, the corpse master left the room. Odolo began his explanations instanter.
‘I,’ said the conjuror, speaking clearly despite the bruises disfiguring his throat, ‘have been possessed by the demon Binchinminfin. ’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Chegory, imitating Jon Qasaba’s most soothing voice to perfection. ‘Yes, um, that’s okay, all right? Just sit back, nice now, nice and easy, and we’ll, ah, we’ll take care of things, okay?’
‘You’d better believe this,’ warned Odolo. ‘Lives are at stake. Don’t think me mad. Can madness by itself conjure dragons or make a man the match of a wonderworker in battle?’
Chegory made no answer. What could he say? He had made yet another social gaffe! Everything he did or said or thought was wrong, and got him in trouble with someone. He was too tired to cope. He just wanted to vanish.
‘Well,’ said Odolo. ‘Can it? Can madness conjure the powers of magic?’
‘I must apologise on behalf of young Chegory Guy,’ said Ivan Pokrov. ‘He’s boarded at the Dromdanjerie for so long that he probably expects everyone he meets to be at least half-way insane.’
Chegory was too tired to be grateful.
At that point Uckermark returned with a couple of servants bearing wickerwork chairs, jugs of cool water and beakers for the drinking of the same. Chairs were distributed, water was poured, the servants departed, then Chegory, Uckermark and Ivan Pokrov sat back and listened in silence as the conjuror Odolo told his story. Told how: the demon Binchinminfin had taken residence in his skull; the demon Binchinminfin had then brought Odolo’s dreams, fears and nightmares to life. Water to blood at his bedside. Scorpions in his breakfast bowl. The sky made rainbow. Krakens in the Laitemata. All this the work of the demon, as it toyed with concepts itfound in Odolo’s head before it properly understood what they were. ‘So it understands now?’ said Chegory.
‘It’s grown less extravagant,’ said Odolo. ‘If that means understanding, well — maybe. That dragon at the banquet, that dragon was the last thing it made as if from a whim. It’s as if — as if it’s outgrown the playing stage. It’s got serious. It’s got down to business.’
Then Odolo told how the demon Binchinminfin: had ransacked Odolo’s brain for knowledge of the languages of Untunchilamon while Odolo was incarcerated in a cell in Moremo Maximum Security Prison; had practised its powers by fabricating life-forms in miniature in the same cell; and had sat back waiting and watching until Varazchavardan tried to kill Odolo.
‘So it refused to help you till then?’ said Chegory.
‘You — you don’t understand,’ said Odolo. ‘When you’ve got a demon aboard, you don’t — you don’t exactly ask it for things. When it wants to exert itself it does. Then it takes control entirely and there’s nothing you can do about it. But the rest of the time — well, it just rides about with you, invisible and weightless.’
‘But help,’ insisted Chegory. ‘You could have asked it for help, surely.’
‘You’re forgetting something,’ said Uckermark. ‘Terror, that’s what you’re forgetting.’
‘Yes.’ said Odolo gratefully. ‘That’s how it was. It was terrifying. So-so there’s things you think of afterwards which you don’t think of at the time.’
‘Afterwards?’ said Pokrov, trying to understand. ‘Are you telling us you’re no longer possessed? Are you telling us the demon’s gone back where it came from?’
‘Not at all!’ said Odolo. ‘I’m trying to tell you. If you wouldn’t mind listening, maybe I could get through this a little quicker.’ Pokrov promised silence, then Odolo continued. ‘This Binchinminfin demon behaved itself. All day. Till Varazchavardan tried to chop off my head. Then Binchinminfin took me over entirely to do battle with Varazchavardan. Long they fought, till Varazchavardan
'But that’s — that’s crazy!' said Chegory. ‘These demons, aren’t they, you know, all powerful? I mean, how does Varazchavardan smash up a demon when he’s only a wonderworker?’
‘You underestimate our wonderworkers,’ said Odolo. They obtain their powers by permitting demons to partially possess them. In extremis, a sorcerer will permit possession complete. This must be what Varazchavardan did. Thus did the Master of Law find the strength to meet and defeat Binchinminfin.’
Chegory, angry because he had erred yet again in public, could not help challenging this.
‘Well, that’s what you say. But what do you know?
You’re a conjuror, aren’t you? So what do you know about sorcery and stuff?’
‘I know,’ said Odolo, ‘because I have communed with a demon direct. Binchinminfin is the source of my knowledge.’ ‘Well,’ persisted Chegory, still reluctant to be wrong, ‘if a demon can just take someone over like that, how come we haven’t all been taken over by demons?’
‘Because the demons themselves forbid it,’ said Odolo. ‘Our world is fragile, its substance thin. Our world is like a sheet of ice. If demons in great number were to commit their full weight to our world, it would shatter. Thus to enjoy the world’s pleasures they must commit but a fraction of the weight of a few. This they arrange according to their own laws.’
The conjuror sipped at his water. Chegory did likewise, then refilled his own beaker. His headache had eased away to nothing and he was feeling stronger and more alert now that he was rehydrated. He listened as Odolo continued: ‘It was the demons who sought out the first sorcerers. Who taught those sorcerers the disciplines whereby a man supports at least some of the weight of a demon without wrecking the world. Thus says Binchinminfin. Who is himself a renegade, a demon working in our world in defiance of the laws of his own.’
Thus said Odolo.
But everything he said must be treated with caution. After all, the sole source of his knowledge was the self-confessed renegade, Binchinminfin. Even supposing that demon meant to speak true, little knowledge of the
