That still left Justina Thrug and Juliet Idaho to deal with. The two heroes stood at bay in a corner of the courtyard of the Temple of Torture, and still Ek’s guards looked dubious about taking them on.
‘All right,’ said Ek, addressing himself to Justina and Idaho. ‘I’ll do a deal with you. If you surrender, I’ll cut your throats. No torture, just a straight throat-cutting. How’s that?’
In reply, Idaho shouted:
‘Wen Endex!’
And the Thrug screamed:
‘Galsh Ebrek!’
Then the pair of them charged.
Fortunately for Ek, his soldiers intervened on his behalf, and both heroes were overwhelmed and disarmed. But the episode left Master Ek badly shaken, for it showed him how loosely he held the reins of power. He would not be safe and secure until the Thrug and her supporters were dead. He had been a fool to let his acolytes tempt him into any indulgence in time-consuming torture.
‘Right,’ said Ek. ‘I’ll show them my mercy anyway. No torture, I’ll just cut their throats.’
Then he went back to Jean Froissart.
‘If I remember rightly,’ said Ek, ‘before we were so rudely interr upted, I was going to cut your throat.’ ‘Don’t!’ said Froissart.
‘Why shouldn’t I?’ said Ek.
‘Because,’ said a strangely familiar voice, ‘if you do, we will kill you.’
Ek wheeled. This, of course, he did not do with the precipitate haste of a trained athlete. Rather, he wheeled in slow motion, as befits an old man with arthritis. But wheel he did, and his wheeling brought him face to face with a young Ashdan girl, Olivia Qasaba. The Qasaba girl had intruded upon the courtyard of the Temple of Torture in the company of an Ashdan male.
A stranger, this male. Nobody Ek had ever seen before. He looked to be something like fifty years of age, and his head was bald, and indeed hairless but for a modest square-chopped beard. He was naked but for a loincloth. Yet he was an imposing figure even so, for he had a champion’s build, and he stood a head taller than any other man in sight. Sweat gleamed on his massive thews and oiled his sculpted pectorals. And his eyes — ah, the eyes! They were the startling blue so often found among the peoples of Ashmolea.
‘Who are you?’ said Ek.
‘I am Olivia Qasaba,’ said the girl.
‘I wasn’t talking to you!’ said Ek. Then, to the man: ‘Who are you? Tell me!’
‘I am Codlugarthia,’ said the man.
‘And I,’ said Master Ek, ‘am Nadalastabstala Banraithanchumun Ek, High Priest of Zoz the Ancestral for the island of Untunchilamon. I have a need of good men.’
‘I serve nobody,’ said Codlugarthia. ‘My time has come. Now others will serve me.’
Ek smiled, slightly. Then said to Varazchavardan:
‘Try again. Get rid of him.’
‘With pleasure,’ said the wonder-worker, who was bitterly disappointed that his monster had not been able to devour Justina. He turned his attention to Codlugarthia. He flung out his hands and cried:
‘Bara-’
Aquitaine Varazchavardan said no more. For Codlugarthia pointed a finger at him. They were standing a good twenty paces apart, but Codlugarthia’s power did its work. There was a hideous crackling-snappling as Varazchavardan’s leg bones shattered in a dozen places. The albinotic sorcerer screamed in agony, collapsed, then fainted.
Nixorjapretzel Rat bravely confronted the power of Codlugarthia.
‘Barapus!’ said Rat, throwing out his hands. ‘Barapus! Mox! Mox! Nixi!’
The air between sorcerer and Ashdan boiled. An ominous cloud of blue swelled in the air, thrashed, throbbed, steadied — then resolved itself into a budgerigar.
‘Oh, get out of here!’ said Ek in disgust. ‘Guards! Get rid of this man!’
The guards levelled their spears, preparing to throw them. They presumed the intruding Ashdan to be a wizard or sorcerer, but were sure none such could survive the onslaught of a dozen fast-hurtling spears. Codulgarthia gestured.
And the spears, while still in the hands of their owners, erupted into flame, and disintegrated into burning fragments a moment later.
Then Codlugarthia pointed a finger at Master Ek.
‘I do not like your attitude,’ said Codlugarthia.
Then his lips pursed in concentration. A moment later, Ek’s left eye exploded. Ek clapped a hand to his ruined face. His shrivelled scream ascended to the heavens. Wailing, he fell to his knees.
And his guards fled.
Juliet Idaho, released from restraint by the fast-fleeing guards, strode forward and kicked Master Ek in the head, knocking him unconscious. And the Empress Justina turned to Codlugarthia and said:
‘Greetings, my good man. Let me introduce myself. I am a child of Wen Endex, Justina Thrug by name, daughter of the great Lonstantine. How was it you named yourself?’
‘I named myself as Codlugarthia,’ said the Ashdan hero who had rescued her. ‘But you know me far better by another name. For I am the Crab, long a hermit upon the island of Jod, but now set free in a form far better for the active exercise of power.’
‘Then,’ said Justina, giving a slight bow, ‘it will be my pleasure to serve you. In bed or out of it.’
Justina had no idea how many centuries the Crab had lived as a Crab upon the island of Jod, but she was fairly sure it had not enjoyed carnal delights with any human female in all that time. So surely — or so she hoped — it would be ready for a volcanic initiation into the arts of the pleasures of the flesh.
‘I will bear your offer of service in mind,’ said Codlugarthia gravely. ‘But now we must be gone from here, for a mission awaits us.’
‘What mission?’ said Justina, somewhat puzzled at this.
‘Chegory, that’s what mission!’ said Olivia. ‘Rescuing Chegory, that’s what we have to do!’
‘Oh yes,’ said Justina. ‘How remiss of me. Very well! Let us to the rescue go! Juliet — are you coming?’
‘You couldn’t keep me away,’ said Idaho.
And, heavily armed with discarded weapons — one scimitar, two knives and a handful of caltrops — the Yudonic Knight joined Justina, Codlugarthia and Olivia as they set forth from the Temple of Torture. They left Manthandros Trasilika behind to cut loose Jean Froissart — and what fate thereafter befell Froissart and Trasilika is not for this history to tell.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
It was the Empress Justina who led the way through the depths Downstairs as the rescue party hastened to the aid of Chegory Guy and Ivan Pokrov, the prisoners of the dreaded therapist. Olivia Qasaba followed at Justina’s heels. Then came Codlugarthia, with the Yudonic Knight Juliet Idaho bringing up the rear.
On they went, and down.
Justina remembered the way well, for she had sweated it out a tenth of a footstep at a time as she laboured with the organic rectifier. Without such a burden to shift, the journey was miraculously short — two or three leagues at most, which is no distance at all for a fit healthy person — and the expedition was soon approaching the lair of the therapist.
It was then that they were surprised by a dorgi.
Down a corridor it came, crunching toward them in fury, meaning to crush them to death, to munchle- crunchle their bones, to trample them thoroughly until nothing was left of them but a bloody grit.
Codlugarthia saw the metal monster coming toward him. Calmly, he raised his finger.
He exerted a fraction of his power.
There was a scream from the dorgi. The thing slewed from side to side, crashed into a wall, came to a dead
