person who entered the premises of the Brothelmaster’s Credit Union; and, in their enthusiasm, removed eyes, lips and tongues as well as noses and ears.
This application of martial technique to a financial problem brought immediate satisfaction, for the run on the Credit Union ended within the day; and, furthermore, the Union enjoyed years of unprecedented liquidity thereafter, for only the most courageous of its depositors were brave enough to demand so much as a broken damn from the place.
By application of similar techniques, the Empress Justina could have ended the run on the Narapatorpabarta Bank. But of course she did no such thing; and, by the next day, the run on the N’barta had gathered such momentum that a much-worried Chief Accountant estimated that the institution would be bankrupt by noon. This greatly disconcerted Justina’s agents, for if the N’barta actually ran out of money and had to close its doors then the cunning plan of entrapment would come to naught.
However, istarlat was only half over when an excited clerk slipped behind the scenes with breathless news.
‘What is it?’ said one of the agents.
But the clerk could not speak. His news was so breathless it had precipitated an asthma attack.
‘It must be the blackmailer,’ said one of the agents.
A guess, but accurate regardless.
Moments later, another clerk came backstage.
‘Hurry!’ said the clerk. ‘He’s getting impatient.’
‘Who is?’ said one of the agents.
‘The man you seek.’
‘Can you point him out to us?’
‘Do you ever ask an intelligent question? Of course I can!’
Thus it was that a would-be blackmailer was very shortly arrested on the floor of the N’barta, that blackmailer being none other than Nixorjapretzel Rat.
‘Back!’ cried the young sorcerer, throwing up his hands. ‘Back! Or I’ll turn you into scorpions!’
Such was his threat, but with three crossbows pointing variously at his heart, his liver and his left kneecap, he dared try no expedient so uncertain.
Even had Rat been a wizard, he would still have hesitated under such circumstances; and of course young Nixorjapretzel was not a wizard but a wonder-worker. The powers of such sorcerers are flamboyant and readily renewed; unlike wizards, they have no need to indulge in laborious meditations, nor do they find themselves powerless for days at a time after great expenditures of power. From which the unwise might be tempted to deduce that the powers of sorcery exceed those of wizardry: a temptation to which sorcerers themselves have yielded on occasion.
But it is not so.
For wizards by their labours forge alliances with dark and dangerous powers which permit such mages to make themselves into beings of an order different from the rest of humanity. When wizards are referred to (as they often are) as Lights in the Unseen Realm, such designation is far from idle; rather, it makes explicit a truth which some have thought monstrous.
But the consequence is that wizards ultimately possess their Powers in their own right, albeit at a price. Whereas sorcerers obtain their Effects in an altogether different way, which is that each permits his own partial possession by a demon. ‘Partial’ is the operative word here, and it is the partiality of such possession (combined with the poverty of intellect which characterizes so many demons) which serves to undermine the effectiveness of the wonder-workers.
We have seen young Nixorjapretzel in action already. In a mansion on Hojo Street, for example, where the Rat, seeking to make himself invisible, succeeded only in converting himself to a boiling cloud the colour of octopus ink. More examples of Rat’s ineptitude could be given to demonstrate the deficiencies of the wonder-workers. But such procedure would be unfair, for Rat compounded all the above-mentioned problems with problems of his own. A youthful impetuosity, for example, which led him to act in such haste and with so little forethought that it was difficult for his demon to keep up with his intentions. And, also, a certain weakness of personal intellect which was more the exception than the rule among the members of Injiltaprajura’s Cabal House.
It is unfortunate that the intellectually deficient Rat found himself linked with a particularly deficient demon. Not all demons are equal, and the Power which found itself in alliance with Nixorjapretzel Rat was more unequal than most; therefore the synergetic principle necessarily applies, with disaster the inevitable consequence.
Let us not therefore use the example of Rat as a weapon with which to landdamne the wonder-workers; for we are not wizards with professional jealousies to be served. Let us merely note that Nixorjapretzel Rat showed an uncommon leavening of wisdom when he meekly accompanied his captors to the pink palace, there to submit to interrogation at the hands (and, sometimes, at the feet) of that most formidable of Yudonic Knights, the ferocious Juliet Idaho.
The interrogation took place in Justina’s private study in the presence of Herself, the above-mentioned Juliet Idaho, and the conjuror Odolo who had lately served both Empress and Yudonic Knight as courier, ambassador and spy. We have seen Odolo in the past, bringing a message privily to Aquitaine Varazchavardan; while we have not see him since, he has been busy regardless, especially in organizing liaisons between the pink palace and the Crab’s young secretaries.
With that established, let us now attend to the interrogation.
Rat soon confessed. Yes, yes, he had tried to blackmail Bro Drumel. Why? Because he knew the imperial household intimately, and had (correctly) deduced that Drumel was by temperament the most likely to succumb to blackmail. He had bought a secret account from the N’barta, planning to draw on that account only after the political turmoil on Untunchilamon was long since over.
Yes, he had some of the Injiltaprajuradariski in his possession. Where? His stash was cached in a room in Ganthorgruk, a room he had rented specifically for the purpose.
Juliet Idaho thereupon dispatched the conjuror Odolo to Ganthorgruk to recover the relevant pages of the Secret History. As the olive-skinned foreigner lived in Ganthorgruk, he could venture to that huge and rotting doss- house without attracting attention. He did so, and brought back Rat’s treasure of manuscripts.
There were (Idaho later counted them) some 284 pages of ricepaper, each page utterly beleaguered by an onslaught of purple scripting in Ashdan orthography.
‘Next question,’ said Idaho, studying these inscrutable writings, ‘where did all this come from?’
Rat started to look uncomfortable.
‘Out with it!’ roared Idaho.
‘A — a family friend,’ said Rat.
‘Who?’ said Idaho.
‘Ms Mix,’ answered Rat.
‘Ms Mix?’ said Idaho in puzzlement.
‘The mother-in-law of the notorious Orge Arat.’
‘This Arat of yours may be notorious in your own mind but that’s not the case with mine,’ said Juliet Idaho. ‘Explain!’
Rat did so.
Orge Arat was a lunatic who had long been incarcerated in the Dromdanjerie. Orge Arat believed himself to be perfectly sane; indeed, such was the cunning of his lunacy that he thought himself to be a sane man pretending to be mad. Such was his derangement that he thought he had murdered his mother-in-law and was being held in the Dromdanjerie on that account; whereas in fact he had slaughtered an innocent tax inspector whom he had, in a fit of manic delusion, mistaken for his wife’s mother.
At last, in one of his rare lucid moments, Orge Arat had realized the truth. Ms Mix still lived! There was only one thing to do. He had packed up his belongings, including the Secret History on which he had long been working. Then he had broken out of the Dromdanjerie, whereafter he had stolen an axe and had proceeded to the domicile of Ms Mix, meaning in his sanity to accomplish the murder he had but imagined in his lunacy.
‘And?’ said Juliet Idaho.
‘Ms Mix,’said Rat,‘she’s… she’s very well built.’ ‘Well built?’
‘Not to put too fine a point upon it,’ said Rat, ‘she’s a… an ogre.’
