flaccid skin of papaya, the flexible armour of pineapple and the obstinate wood of clean-picked coconut.
There danced the spoons.
Click — clack — sklakkety clack!
Clok — clok — cluckety tuckety cluckety skluk!
As the spoons thus amused themselves, tatters of meat and splatters of fruit discarded in all directions. A waiter tried to restrain these irresponsible culinary instruments, but they slipped from his grasp and fled down the table.
Plat — mat — blattatarat!
Sklip — blip — tukatatot!
So rhythmed the spoons as they drummed on the tabletop, chimed against steel and porcelain, upset glasses of sherbet and wine alike, and at last started dancing right in front of Nadalastabstala Banraithanchumun Ek himself.
The High Priest of Zoz the Ancestral glared at the spoons in fury, then looked around the table. He saw half a dozen wonder-workers sitting together and laughing uproariously. Master Ek fastened his gaze upon them. As the sorcerers felt the sharp talons of that gaze digging into their flesh, their laughter ceased abruptly, and the spoons fell dead on the table. Shortly thereafter, the miscreants made their excuses and took themselves off to their Cabal House.
Many people were leaving now, for the debauch really had entered its final stages. Fuddled drinkers spilt their brandy, stumbled with their wine and slid beneath the table. In disregarded bowls, intoxicated pyramids of icecream melted to muddled puddles. Candles shickered and swayed in subtle draughts of sweating air. A dizzy mosquito cannoned cockeyed through wreaths of insect-destroying smoke, then, half-seas-over, plunged to its own destruction in a jug of vinegar.
At the head of the table, the Empress Justina turned to Olivia and said:
‘Enough. Our duty tonight is done.’
Justina left the table in company with the Ashdan lass; and shortly both were in bed and asleep.
The departure of the Empress was the signal for everyone else to leave, which they did. Master Ek departed in the company of his acolytes and other companions. Juliet Idaho was not so quick to leave, but at last the Yudonic Knight got to his feet and stumbled down Lak Street towards the grand mansion he shared with his wife Harold.
Idaho never got there.
As he was walking down Lak Street, a group of men surrounded him. He was seized by the strength of six. A hood was dragged down over his head. A gag was stuffed into his mouth. Then he was thrown on to a dung cart and taken to Goldhammer Rise and the Temple of Torture. There he was ungagged and, after a preliminary beating, was brought into the presence of Nadalastabstala Banraithanchumun Ek.
‘Good evening,’ said Master Ek.
Juliet Idaho spat out a little blood then said:
‘What do you want from me?’
‘Oh, just a little talk,’ said Ek. ‘Come, I mean you no ill. Here, have a drink.’
Idaho accepted this invitation, and swallowed the drink Ek proffered him.
A mistake!
Immediately Idaho’s head began to spin. The room swelled, stretched, blurred and hummed. Phantasmagoric dragons flickered across his field of vision then collapsed into tinkling rainbows.
Ek had fed Idaho a drink containing a carefully measured dose of oola, that truth drug also known as babble tongue. This is made from opium and alcohol mixed with a special extract obtained from the scorpion fish, and mixed also with zen, a dissociative drug which has devastating effects on the mind.
‘Now,’ said Ek, ‘speak to me.’
‘I speak to you,’ said Idaho.
‘Tell me all,’ said Ek. ‘All that I shouldn’t know.’
Thus spoke Ek; and, with very little further prompting, the Yudoni c Knight began to blabbermouth secrets. ‘Froissart is false,’ said Ida ho.
‘Nonsense,’ said Ek, even though he believed as much himself. ‘Froissart can’t be false. He proved himself in trial by ordeal.’
Juliet Idaho grinned a drunken grin and said:
‘Froissart proved the powers of conjuring. The executioner who waited upon him was the conjuror Odolo — who had Shabble up his sleeve.’
‘That can’t be so,’ said Master Ek. ‘I saw Shabble myself at sunset, spinning above the Xtokobrokotok.’ ‘So?’ said Idaho. ‘Shabble needs no guides to find Shabbleself s way from Marthandorthan to Pokra Ridge. Shabble came privily to Odolo shortly after sunset. Oh, they fooled you nicely!’
This infuriated Ek, because he had been fooled indeed; and, now he understood what had happened, it was blindingly obvious. Had it not been for his arthritis, Ek would have kicked himself severely.
‘But,’ protested one of the acolytes, who knew more of sorcery than of prestidigitation, ‘I was there! I saw! It wasn’t Shabble, it was a ball of iron. We smashed it to pieces afterwards.’
‘Long sleeves,’ said Idaho. ‘Long sleeves.’
He giggled.
Then the Yudonic Knight fainted, and slid beneath the table.
Leaving Ek and his acolytes looking at each other.
‘The Thrug thinks us children,’ said Ek in rage. ‘Children, to be fooled by a cheap trick. But she’s gone too far this time! And her Froissart thing! What they did was blasphemy. For that I’ll have Froissart butchered.’ Slowly, Ek recovered his temper. Then he kicked the unconscious Juliet Idaho and said:
‘Strip him.’
‘Hmmm,’ said Master Ek, without much surprise. ‘It is as I thought.’
Then the High Priest stubbed out his cigarette in Idaho’s omphalos.
‘We’ll keep this thing here in our holding cells,’ said Ek. ‘Hold it under constant observation in a lighted cell. Give it no chance to commit suicide. I want to dispose of it myself. By way of sacrifice. In public. When the time is right.’
‘When will that be, master?’ said one of the acolytes.
‘When I say so!’ said Ek, irritated by a question so witless. ‘Now, I have another job for you. Our congregation must be roused, for I wish to celebrate the Festival of Dark. Yes, here, tonight, this very night. Not in our Temple on Hojo Street. That’s unsafe. No, we’ll hold it here.’
‘But,’ said one of the acolytes, ‘this building is consecrated to the-’
Ek kept his temper.
Instead of losing it, he merely said:
‘I will formally dedicate this building to Zoz before the Festival of Dark commences. Now go and rouse our people!’
The rousing shortly commenced.
The acolytes woke certain Janjuladoola people who were adherents of the Temple of Zoz the Ancestral. And these woke others, who roused more fellow worshippers in turn. Soon people in their dozens were flocking to Goldhammer Rise, where they thronged into the Temple of Torture. This could not accommodate them all, so the unaccommodated gathered in the street outside, with acolytes relaying Master Ek’s words to them once the Festival of Dark began.
In the Most Holy Calendar, the Festival of Dark falls a few days before the Festival of Light. The precise timing is at the discretion of the local High Priest, and Master Ek was within his rights to schedule it for that very night.
It is traditional for the High Priest of the Temple of Zoz to celebrate the Festival of Dark by preaching on the conflict between anarchic chaos and that countervailing redemptive power which brings order. In contrast, the Festival of Light is devoted solely to a celebration of that prosperity which naturally flows from the triumph of order, to the general benefit of all.
Nadalastabstala Banraithanchumun Ek performed his duties as tradition decrees, and held the required service. In the course of his preaching, he declared the worship of Power to be the ultimate aim of humanity; and
