described Aldarch Three as Power incarnate.
‘The natural instinct of the natural man is to ravage, savage and despoil,’ said Ek, getting into his stride. ‘To preserve the world against such destructions, the State gives each man incentives to support the ruling order. In the way of incentive, in return for allegiance to the ruling order, the State allows each man the power over his women, his children, his slaves and his other chattels.
‘As it is a man’s privilege to dispose of his wife, his children and his slaves, so it is a Temple’s privilege to dispose of its priests. And so, as the Festival of Light draws near, I name Jean Froissart, priest of Zoz the Ancestral, as the sacrifice of the year.’
A remarkable honour! But Jean Froissart, as yet unconscious of the great privilege which had been bestowed upon him, slept on in ignorance; and he would not learn his fate for some time yet.
By this time, certain students of history may be ready to raise an outcry about the disproportionate amount of space which has been given to insignificant people such as the Yudonic Knight named Juliet Idaho. Why, they will ask, is this so? And why, in contrast, has a person of such importance as Jon Qasaba been allowed to disappear from this Chronicle? Why has no effort been made to show his role in these events?
Certainly it would be interesting to follow Jon Qasaba’s fortunes. But this is not Qasaba’s biography: instead, this is the history of the final days of the rule of the Family Thrug on Untunchilamon.
And, despite what he later became, Jon Qasaba played no role whatsoever in those final days. For Olivia’s father, feared by many to be dead, had been taken prisoner by Ms Mix.
You will remember that Ms Mix was an ogre, one of the twenty-seven creatures of that breed then dwelling on Untunchilamon. You will doubtless further remember that this Ms Mix was the mother-in-law of the escaped lunatic Orge Arat, Arat himself being the author of a Secret History known as the Injiltaprajuradariski.
Or perhaps you will not remember.
If you have no mother-in-law of your own, you may fail to understand the formidability of the breed; and hence the particularities of Ms Mix may have failed to lodge in your mind.
Regardless of what has or has not been remembered, the fact remains that Jon Qasaba was in the hands of a mother-in-law (admittedly someone else’s, not his own) and was doomed to suffer much before he escaped and regained his freedom. Yes, Jon Qasaba was a man much cursed by adventures. Now adventuring is greatly to the taste of an adolescent, but Qasaba was a scholarly Ashdan who had long outgrown desires for such overinvolvement in life. So he did not take kindly to what was happening to him. But that was his doom, and there was no way for him to avoid it.
While we are on the subject of adventuring, let us note that Jon Qasaba was by no means the only person undergoing adventures in and around the city of Injiltaprajura. Many were the people who were undergoing sore trials in the wilds of Downstairs; or who had found themselves in grave danger after retreating into the wastelands of Zolabrik; or who were caught up in the currents of mutinous conspiracy which flourished and festered aboard the ships which were conveying looters, deserters and other such rabble away from the shores of peril.
But of these we can say nothing further, for fooskin is expensive, life is short and the reader’s patience limited; all of which conspires against history. Their existence is noted merely to point out that Jon Qasaba’s suffering was by no means unique.
Certainly Jon Qasaba’s life was a bath of rosewater compared to the terrors being endured by Chegory Guy and Ivan Pokrov, hapless prisoners of the therapist.
As yet, not a hair of their heads had been touched. But the therapist (which had a very fertile imagination) had indulged in all manner of threats. And it was getting restless. Chegory and Pokrov saw its restlessness and rightly feared that the therapist might well do something unfortunate unless it was swiftly granted satisfaction.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The morning after the banquet, a great inertia hung over Untunchilamon. Grey clouds had spread across the constellations by night, but the sunless day was nevertheless as hot as ever. In the smothering heat of morning, it was hard for hangover heads to compel fatigued bones and bleary eyes to get about their business.
It had rained in the night, and the humidity was nothing short of oppressive. Even in the Long Dry, the heat and humidity of Injiltaprajura are hard to take; but when the rains come, and the air is damp, and it is impossible to get anything dry, and rot and fungus flourish everywhere, then one strenuously wishes oneself elsewhere. The weather worsened the temper of the citizenry, which temper was made no better by the unceasing activities of the drummers, whose percussion power ruled the streets from Lubos to Marthandorthan.
Manthandros Trasilika woke feeling dreadful. He felt (not to put too strong a point upon it) as if he had been suspercollated from a gibbet ever since sunset. The cause of his physical unease was a headache. Yes, Manthandros Trasilika had a headache, as an ogre has bad breath or a vampire a taste for blood. It was no ordinary headache, this; rather, it was an all-enveloping disaster, a world-obliterating agony. It felt as if, surely, a master smith was forging a sledgehammer with Trasilika’s scalp as his anvil.
And the cause of the headache? One suspects it to be a side-effect of the prescription medicine in which Trasilika had so vigorously indulged himself while at banquet; that medicine consisting of some extremely expensive imported cherry brandy, a potent toddy derived from a part of the coconut palm which shall remain nameless, some vodka, and a quantity of jellyfish wine (which is to ordinary wine as a spear is to a nail, a lion to a cat, a land dragon to a dragon imperial, or a mountain to an anthill).
Let it be noted that Manthandros Trasilika did not wake voluntarily, and was extremely displeased at having been woken at all. He was wazir of Untunchilamon. Surely nobody would dispute that now that the priest of Zoz the Ancestral who supported his claims to the wazirate had proved himself true in trial by ordeal. Yes, Trasilika was the rightful wazir, one of the lords of the Izdimir Empire — and, at the very least, he expected to be able to sleep in on the morning after a banquet. ‘Why have I been woken?’ said Trasilika.
‘Because,’ said the manservant who had roused him, ‘Justina Thrug demands that you wake. She has things to discuss with you.’
Trasilika groaned.
How much longer would he have to put up with this woman?
Why — no time at all.
She had served her purpose, and it was time for her head to be chopped off.
‘Call my guards,’ said Trasilika to his manservant. ‘Tell them to seize the Thrug and cut off her head. ’ ‘Master,’ said the servant dif ferently, ‘I’m afraid you have no guards.’
‘Nonsense!’ said Trasilika. ‘I had plenty of guards last night.’
‘I’m afraid, master, that they’ve deserted in the night.’ ‘But that’s absurd! Why should they desert now?’
‘I believe, master, that agents acting on behalf of Master Ek have lured them away with promises of higher pay elsewhere.’
‘Are you trying to tell me,’ said Trasilika furiously, ‘that the High Priest of Zoz the Ancestral has bought the loyalty of my guards?’
The manservant quailed, but did not seek to alter the truth. Instead, he said:
‘My lord, that would appear to be the case.’
‘Then — then send to my ship,’ said Trasilika. ‘A dozen men, that’s all I need. A dozen men with swords and hatchets. We’ll hack up this Thrug then see what we can do about N’stala Ek.’
‘Master,’ said the manservant nervously, ‘you… you…’
‘I suppose,’ said Trasilika sarcastically, ‘that next you’re going to tell me I don’t have a ship any more.’ ‘Well…’
‘Are you seriously…?’
‘Master, I–I-’
‘Has my ship been burnt? Or pirated? Or what? Has my scurvy crew deserted to Ek as well?’
‘Master, the ship sailed before dawn. I know not why, or not for certain — but rumour has it that the High Priest of Zoz ordered the bark to depart.’
Manthandros Trasilika, looking for all the world like the famous stunned mullet of the Fables of Skod, gaped
