Al-ran Lars did think he knew all he needed to know about the dangers of those depths. He had briefed Arnaut and Tolon about the same, assuring them that Injiltaprajura’s underparts were basically safe. Therefore the Malud were most surprised to be challenged without warning by a voice from the shadows.
‘Halt!’ cried that doom-dark voice. ‘Halt! Throw down your weapons and surrender!’
Being who they were and where they were, the Malud marauders instead drew their weapons and charged, their voices raised in battle-bright onslaught. There was a flare of white-hot energy. Their weapons twisted and melted in their hands. Metal splashed molten to the floor where it puddled and cooled. A bright, bright sun-bright sun-globe hung in the air.
Burning, burning, burning.
Then it said:
‘I am the demon-god Lorzunduk. And you have offended me.’
If the Malud marauders had been natives of Untunchilamon then they would have answered:
‘Shabble! Don’t be silly! This is no time for games! Look what you’ve done to our beautiful swords! You should be ashamed of yourself!’
But instead the alien pirates fell grovelling to the ground, all courage gone now that they had been so spectacularly disarmed. Soon, very soon, they were pleading, praising and Confessing All.
Thus we leave the Malud marauders Al-ran Lars, Arnaut and Tolon as prisoners of the irresponsible Shabble as we shift in space (though not in time), leaving Injiltaprajura’s underworld in favour of the corridors of Ganthorgruk, that creaking doss-house which broods above Lubos in Skindik Way. Ah. As yet, nothing of interest is happening here. So let us shift in time after all, moving forward to the heart of bardardornootha. At this intersection of time and space we find the conjurer Odolo, enduring bad dreams.
It is hot in his room.
A gecko clings to the wall. A mosquito circles by his ear. A kamikaze bug bumbles noisily from wall to wall. But Odolo dreams not of the gecko, the mosquito or the kamikaze bug. No. Even when the mosquito settled on his cheek and thrust for his blood he dreamt not of it but of…
Strange things.
He dreamt of a loathsome yale, a lusus naturae which hunted him through a forest of thorns. He dreamt of ants made of honey, of candles quick-burning and rainbows bright. But never in his darkest, deepest, most murderous nightmares did he dream that the wishstone had been stolen.
If he had known of its theft, then he would have had nightmares indeed, whether he was sleeping or awake. For in the last few years the Empress Justina had smiled upon Odolo, and had granted him a few lightly paid sinecures. Among other things, he was Official Keeper of the Imperial Sceptre, which meant that the wishstone which adorned that sceptre was his responsibility.
For him, the day ahead offered every chance of disaster.
Let us shift again.
Not in place, but in time.
To dawn.
The sun has touched the glitter dome of the imperial palace. The dawn bells ring out from the pink palace, announcing the end of bardardornootha and the start of bright-favoured istarlat. Already the air is alive with the smells of curry and cassava, of saffron-flavoured rice, of braised flying fish and fried banana. Breakfast is cooking!
Ah! Dawn on Untunchilamon! Memories, memories! The rising sun shines hot on the monolithic mass of Pearl and ignites colour in the bloodstone of Injiltaprajura. The sea burns incandescent. A distant surf shatters on the Outer Reef. Within the lagoon, waves minor lap tamely at beaches incarnadine, the sands of which are made of red coral and bloodstone mixed.
Even at dawn it is still warm. Hot, even. For Injiltaprajura cools but little in the night. The sun glorious rouses flies and butterflies alike. The colours and choruses of a million million insects stir amidst Injiltaprajura’s gulleys. There many flowers, heavily perfumed, flaunt themselves amidst the jungle, which flourishes thick thanks to the urging sun and the water fresh-flowing from the eversprings sourced Downstairs. There parrots squawk and screech, there monkeys squabble and wild dogs with wilder cats contend.
This, then, is dawn on Untunchilamon.
This is what Odolo woke to.
Or, rather (to abandon nostalgic imaginings for historical truth) he woke to a hot, muggy, heavily shuttered room with a sagging roof. He reached for the jug by his bed, poured some water into a coconut-shell bowl, then drank.
A liquid thicker than water slid down his throat. He gagged and spat. Blood splattered across the floor. In horror, he clutched his throat, retched, gagged again, then spat some more. He had visions of a huge bleeding sore in his mouth, of ruptured arteries in his throat, a burst blood vessel in his lungs, a lethal ulcer in his stomach.
He lent over the side of the bed, the better to clear the blood from his gullet. Upset the jug. And saw a brief torrent of blood spurt from its neck and slither across the floor in all directions.
‘Falamantatha!’ he said, in high amazement.
Then amazement gave way to anger. Who had staged this obscene and vicious joke? He immediately suspected his feckless gossoon. But his bedroom door was still barred from the inside. The boy could not have entered while Odolo slept. Nobody could have got in during the night.
‘Some work of the wonderworkers!’ said Odolo. ‘That’s what it is!’
But which of Untunchilamon’s sorcerers would have done such a thing? And why? Was it a threat? A message? A warning? Had he offended one of the island’s mages by his agile conjuring and his lighthearted jokes about magic and its practitioners? If so, then who precisely had he offended? And how could he make amends?
‘Varazchavardan,’ said Odolo slowly. ‘Maybe that’s who it is.’
Odolo was cursed with incurable levity, which had got him into trouble many times in the past. Maybe his wit had once again landed him ‘upside down in boiling dung’ as the local expression so nicely put it. Maybe he had finally told one albino joke too many.
‘Well,’ said Odolo, ‘Varazchavardan forgets. The Empress Justina likes me very well.’
The thought gave him confidence, but the confidence was misplaced. For the blood was but a token of horrors greater yet to come, and the Empress was to prove powerless to protect him from those horrors.
A little later, Odolo descended to Ganthorgruk’s dining room. He slapped a damn on to the chef’s counter and breakfast was served to him. It was a mess of something grey and brown with bits of wiggly stuff poking out of it.
‘Gods!’ said Odolo, swilling it round in his bowl. ‘Is there a doctor in the house?’
‘Enough of your cheap cracks,’ said Jarry the chef, who had a hangover. ‘If you don’t like it, don’t buy it.’
‘Cheap?’ said Odolo. ‘No joke is cheap if loss of life be its inspiration. Unless the life in question was yours, dear Jarry. A joke would be a bargain if that were its price.’ Jarry hawked and spat, missing Odolo by a fmgerlength. The conjurer retreated, bearing his breakfast away to a table out of spitting range. Then he began to eat.
Usually, part of Odolo’s daily routine was to play animal-vegetable- mineral with his breakfast, to the general amusement of all in earshot. But this morning he slopped down the food without comment, scarcely tasting it. He was still thinking about the jug of blood.
He finished his breakfast, pushed the bowl away from him, and paid out another damn to buy himself a cup of cinnamon-flavoured coffee, which he took to his favourite window. From here, one could look over the roofs of Lubos to the waters of the Laitemata, to the island of Jod, to the island of Scimitar which lay yet further south, to the lagoon beyond Scimitar, to the Outer Reef and then to the scintillating immensity of the open sea.
Odolo loved that view.
As he sipped his coffee, he thought of all the things he had to do that day. By rights he should go to the Vidal mansion to make a formal apology for the joke he had made at the funeral of Old Redlegs. He had to placate his bank manager, and try to convince the old monster that the overdraft was not nearly as large as it seemed. Since there was to be a Petitions Session on the morrow, he should drop by at the treasury to clean the Imperial Sceptre. It would only take a few moments. Then he had some tricks to rehearse for his performance at the banquet which would follow the Petitions Session.
Okay. And what else? The room, of course! Have to get someone to clean that bloody room.
