The Wordsmiths and the Warguild (46 page)

       
"Oh, pox and
piles!" shouted Togura.

       
Frustrated beyond
endurance, he was about to smash the triple-harp to pieces. Just in time, he
restrained himself. It was, after all, valuable in its own right.

       
"Play some more
pretty music," said Governor Troop. "The ilpses like it, after
all!"

       
"Oh, shit shit shit!"
shouted Togura, losing his temper entirely.

       
And he hurled the
triple-harp into the odex.

       
"Oh,
buggeration!" said Togura, as the odex swallowed the triple-harp.
"Now look what you've made me do!"

       
"I?" said
Governor Troop, with the merest hint of a giggle in his voice. "Boy, I
made you do nothing!"

       
Togura was tempted to
draw steel and kill him.

       
But before Togura could
reach a decision on the matter, the odex spat out the triple-harp.

       
"There, boy,"
said Governor Troop, in a condescending voice. "Don't fret now. It's given
you your music back."

       
Togura stooped, and
picked up the triple-harp. Of its own accord, it began to play. Not music,
exactly, but a weird series of disjointed notes, some high, some low, some
flaunting after bat-squeak pitches, some rumbling low to challenge earthquake.
And, as it played, the odex began to disgorge things.

       
Out came the old man
wheezing with emphysema.

       
Out came the unwanted
girl baby.

       
Out came the bundle of
squalling kittens.

       
Out came a bucket-burden
of breakfast slops.

       
"All right,"
said Governor Troop, "you've proved your point. Now stop it."

       
"No!" said
Togura, who couldn't have if he had wanted to, because he didn't know how.

       
Oue came a heap of slag
and ashes.

       
Out came a blind woman
with a battered face.

       
"You will stop it,
you know," said Governor Troop, advancing on Togura.

       
Togura drew steel.

       
"One step further
and you're dead!" shouted Togura.

       
He kept the Wordsmiths
at bay for just a little time, then needed to keep them at bay no longer, for
things were pouring out in such a flurry that nobody could get near him. He
held his station beside the odex as things vomited forth: blood, spittle,
urine, dung, ashes, rags, mouldy bread, stones, a mad dog, fish bones, a
madman, a cripple, a three-headed calf.

       
All the filthy, obscene,
dirty, unwanted, unloved, despised, hated, feared and abominated objects the
world had seen fit to dispose of came surging, screaming, fighting, biting,
shouting, reeking, piddling, lurching, slurching and slumping out of the odex.
Soon Togura was ankle-deep in filth, then knee-deep. The Wordsmiths fled as
things half-dead and half-alive blundered abotu the courtyard, seeking and
finding ways of escape.

       
Suddenly a familiar
voice cried:

       
"By the hell, you
pox-blighted Suets!"

       
"Paps!"
screamed Togura.

       
His father, the
redoubtable Baron Chan Poulaan, turned and saw his son, and waded toward him.

       
"Pox of a
demon!" roared the Baron. "What is going on here? Where have those
dog-buggering Suets run away to? What's all this - blood's corruption! What a
stink!"

       
"Paps!" said
Togura, almost weeping with joy and relief.

       
"Don't call me
that!" said his father, savagely. "What's making this mess? What's
that music-thing?"

       
"It's commanding
the odex," said Togura.

       
"Then stop
it."

       
"I can't,"
said Togura.

       
"Can't?" said
his father. "I'll show you can't!"

       
And he snatched the
triple-harp from Togura.

       
"No, paps!"
screamed Togura.

       
But hsi father put the
triple-harp on his knee and smashed it with his mailed fist. The music jangled
away into silence. One last thing fell out of the odex: a black-clad Zenjingu
fighter and the young and beautiful Day Suet.

       
"Day!" shouted
Togura.

       
"Help me!"
screamed Day.

       
The Zenjingu fighter
looked around, bewildered. As far as he was concerned, he had jumped into the
odex - which had been described to him as a door - just a moment before. That
had been at night. Now broad daylight shone down, revealing -

       
The Zenjingu fighter saw
what he was standing in, and swore. He picked up Day Suet and threw her into
the odex. Then he jumped in after her, and was gone. An ilps popped out of the
odex, giggled, and hauled itself into the sky.

       
"Well," said
Baron Chan Poulaan, briskly. "So much for that. Come along home,
Togura."

 
      
Togura
turned and smashed him. Or tried to. What actually happened was that his father
caught his fist in his hand.

       
"If you want to
play fisticuffs," said the baron, "do it with someone else. Coming?
No? Well, we'll see you when you get hungry, no doubt."

       
And with that, Baron
Chan Poulaan strode for the exit.

       
"Wait about!"
said Governor Troop, intercepting him. "You haven't paid the resurrection
tax yet."

       
"Resurrection
tax?" said the baron, in tones of outraged incredulity.

       
"You've been in the
odex three year,s you know. You owe us three years' rent, as well."

       
"It was you who let
those pig-licking Suets throw me into it in the first place," roared the
baron.

       
"That doesn't alter
your obligations," said the Governor.

       
And he grabbed hold of
the baron, who smashed him with one mail-clad fist, breaking his collar bone.
As Governor Troop slumped down in the muck, the baron stalked out of the
Wordsmiths' compound; Togura thought it safest to follow him.

       
He foudn a quiet corner
then sat down and wept bitter tears of hate, spite, self-disgust, self-pity,
remorse, frustration and despair.

Chapter 44

       
What now?

       
The only thing Togura
could think of was to go to the island of Drum and get help from the wizard of
Drum. Somewhere, other indexes were hidden. He would have to go and get one. He
had to!

       
Anyway, first things
first.

       
Furtively, Togura stole
water from someone's rainwater barrel, and cleaned himself up. Then he went and
sold his sword, to get some working capital. He still had a knife, after all,
and lack of food would kill him sooner than would lack of a sword.

       
With a little of the
money, he bought some roasted chestnuts, and wandered about, eating slowly, and
brooding. While he was still undecided as to what to do next, he was hailed:

       
"Hi there!"

       
Looking around, Togura
saw his half-brother Cromarty approaching with half a dozen grinning scungers
flanking him.

      
 
"Long time no see,
little brother," said Cromarty.

       
"Pax," said
Togura, offering peace.

       
"Oh, we could
always have pax with your bones, suppose suppose," said Cromarty.

       
And advanced on him,
with evil his obvious intent. Togura turned and fled. Whooping, Cromarty's mob
followed. They ran him to earth near Dead Man's Drop. Caught in a cul-de-sac,
Togura turned at bay, his back to the wall and a knife in his hand.

       
Cromarty drew to meet
his challenge.

       
"This is the end,
methinks methinks," said Cromarty, closing with him. "So it's goodbye
little Tog-Tog."

       
Steel against steel,
they clashed, slashed, lunged, parried. Panting, they thrust and counterthrust,
dared for a blink, hacked, countered, feinted, tried for a scalp.

       
"Blood his
eyeballs, Crom!" screamed one of the mobsters.

       
"Bollock him!"

       
"Rivet him!"

       
"Into him,
Crom!"

       
"A throat tattoo!
Teach him!"

       
Then Cromarty slipped.
Togura put in the boot. Cromarty went backwards. Togura stamped all the wind
out of him, then grabbed him, knife to throat.

       
"Yield!"
hissed Togura, digging his steel in just a little deepr than a tickle.
"Yield!"

       
Cromarty slowly got his
breath back. He croaked:

       
"I yield."

       
"Good," said
Togura.

       
And stood, and sheathed
his knife. Cromarty's sidekicks promptly grabbed him.

       
"Let go!"
shouted Togura, kicking, punching, wriggling, scratching, biting - all to no
avail.

       
"Good,"
crooned Cromarty, mustering up a smile. "Very good. What shall we do with
him?"

       
"Throw him over
Dead Man's Drop," suggested one.

       
"An excellent
idea!" said Cromarty, beaming.

       
Togura started to scream
with hysterical panic as they carried him through the streets to Dead Man's
Drop. Nobody took any notice - private quarrels, after all, were private
quarrels.

       
They reached the Drop.

       
"Take off his
boots, boys," said Cromarty.

       
They took them off.

       
"Hold him over the
edge," said Cromarty.

       
Togura was held.

       
"Watch," said
Cromarty, with sweet satisfaction in his voice.

       
He lofted first one boot
then the other into the air. They went sailing down, falling away to the
pinnacles far below. Togura, sick with fear, vomited weakly. His whole body was
trembling.

       
"Please
don't," he begged. "Please please please don't. I'll do
anything!"

       
Cromarty tore the green
bottle from Togura's belt, where it had been tied on with twine. He threw that
over too.

       
"We're
brothers!" screamed Togura.

       
"I'm no brother of
yours, son of a whore," said Cromarty pleasantly.

       
"Don't don't don't
do it," said Togura, almost too frightened to speak. "I'll do
anything."

       
"Will you lick my
boots?"

       
"Yes!"

       
"My arse?"

       
"Yes!"

       
"Well," said
Cromarty, sweetly, "I don't want any boot-licking arse-lickers in my
family. Throw him over, boys!"

       
They began to swing
Togura back and forth.

       
"One!" they
chanted.

       
"Two!"

       
Togura moaned with
terror.

       
"Three!"

       
On the word
"three," they tossed Togura into the dizzy gulf. He fell, screaming.
His arms flailed. His legs kicked. Down, down, down he went.

       
And remembered the ring!

       
The ting on his hand,
which, if turned, would get him inside the green bottle!

       
Desperately, he turned
it.