Abandoning his fruitless scrutiny of the night sky, Varazchavardan opened the mosquito screens and went back inside. He poured some sherbet into a glass, opened an amphora arid clawed out a chunk of ice which he dropped into his drink. Ice, sourced Downstairs, was dirt cheap in Injiltaprajura. Otherwise Varazchavardan would scarcely have found life in the tropics bearable. He hated the heat.
This was his fifteenth year on Untunchilamon. Much of that time had been tolerably enjoyable — the eight years he had spent as chief adviser to Wazir Sin. At the start of Talonsklavara he had considered going to Yestron to join the struggle for control of the Izdimir Empire, but had abandoned the notion since the probable outcome of the continental civil war had at that time been unclear. Shortly afterwards, Varazchavardan’s old friend Sin had been murdered by Lonstantine Thrug.
Then life had become difficult.
Still, by adroit political manoeuvring, Varazchavardan had managed to stay close to the heart of power. He had been helped by the fact that he was head of the wonderworker’s Cabal House. Lonstantine Thrug had not wished to pick a quarrel with Injiltaprajura’s sorcerers, and his daughter Justina had been similarly cautious, allowing Varazchavardan to retain his position as Master of Law.
All in all, life had been good. Particularly as Varazchavardan had certain extracurricular interests which had brought him wealth sufficient to pay for both the villa on Hojo Street and the taxes on the same.
But the good times were over. Talonsklavara was almost at an end, and it seemed Aldarch the Third, the dreaded Mutilator of Yestron, was sure to be victorious in the struggle for control of the Izdimir Empire. Once Aldarch III had made himself master of Yestron, he would surely take steps to reintegrate Untunchilamon into his realm. Then Varazchavardan would have to flee — or else make his peace with the Mutilator.
How?
Varazchavardan could scarcely hope to conceal the fact that he had served Injiltaprajura’s illegal regime for the last seven years, working first for the murderer of the rightful governor, the eminent Wazir Sin, then for the murderer’s daughter. Aldarch the Third was unlikely to look favourably on such activities.
If Varazchavardan were to seize power on Untunchilamon in the name of Aldarch III, he might win the confidence of that formidable conqueror. But if he were to act, he would have to act quickly indeed. For all he knew, Talonsklavara might have ended already. No news of Yestron’s civil war could reach Untunchilamon in the season of Fistavlir when the doldrums made intercourse with distant shores near impossible.
Of course, the. canoes of the Ngati Moana still sailed the seas. But in this season they came only from the west, using the Coral Current to supplement the breezes which the weather rationed out a single breath at a time.
These were the political questions which were occupying Varazchavardan’s mind and distracting him from an analysis of unexpected paranormal phenomena. That night, as he sat in his grand house in Hojo Street, quietly sipping his sherbet, he at last came to a decision.
He would mount a coup. He would overthrow the Empress Justina and burn her to death. He would drag her mad father from the sanctuary of the Dromdanjerie then butcher him. Then he would raise a memorial to the memory of Wazir Sin and strive to complete the great work which Sin had begun. He would slaughter the surviving Ebbies. Then begin on the aboriginals, the deranged, the mutant and the senile. Such resolute action would surely commend him to Aldarch III.
Til do it!’
Thus said Varazchavardan, and drained the last of his sherbet.
‘Do what?’ said Nixorjapretzel Rat, who had entered the room without Varazchavardan being aware of him.
‘What are you doing here?’ said Varazchavardan, startled from reverie.
‘I came to wake you up,’ said Rat, the young sorcerer who had till recently been Varazchavardan’s apprentice. ‘There’s strange things afoot in the city.’
‘What kind of things?’ said Varazchavardan. ‘Crocodiles? Trolls? Walking rocks?’
‘None of those,’ said Rat. ‘Something invisible which eats lamplight and swallows the flames of candles by the thousand. Something invisible also which rouses dogs by the hundreds. Something which lights the sky with rainbows.’ ‘You think I don’t know about that already?’ said Varazchavardan. ‘Do you think I haven’t got eyes? Or ears? Stop wasting my time! Get out of here!’
Then he fished a lump of ice from his glass and flung it at the fast-retreating Rat.
So.
We have discussed Varazchavardan and his thoughts, motives and intentions in some detail.
What is our authority for such discussion?
If you have personal knowledge of Aquitaine Varazchavardan, you will doubtless know that the eminent Master of Law lived without friend, lover or confidante. Yet without the testimony of such, who could ever guess-at the thoughts behind that inscrutable maggot-white face? Nobody. You will have noted that the young Rat was not admitted into Varazchavardan’s confidence, but fled without having any discourse of consequence with his master. So who betrayed Varazchavardan to this chronicle?
The answer is simple.
Varazchavardan betrayed himself.
Know then that there later came a time when Aquitaine Varazchavardan shared a pallet with an intellectual of scholarly disposition in the dungeons of Obooloo. Both at the time were under sentence of death, and the stress of such sentence can change much. Certainly it changed Varazchavardan, and he sang to his scholarly companion as if to a lover. Hence knowledge personal and private passed to another, and in due course to this history.
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
