Mort - Страница 40

К оглавлению

“Does that mean we’re too late?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry. I wish there was something I could do.”

“There isn’t.”

“At least you kept your promise to Albert.”

“Yes,” said Mort, bitterly. “At least I did that.”

Nearly all the way from one side of the Disc to the other…

There should be a word for the microscopic spark of hope that you dare not entertain in case the mere act of acknowledging it will cause it to vanish, like trying to look at a photon. You can only sidle up to it, looking past it, walking past it, waiting for it to get big enough to face the world.

He raised his dripping head and looked towards the sunset horizon, trying to remember the big model of the Disc in Death’s study without actually letting the universe know what he was entertaining.

At times like this it can seem that eventuality is so finely balanced that merely thinking too loud can spoil everything.

He orientated himself by the thin streamers of Hublight dancing against the stars, and made an inspired guess that Sto Lat was… over there…

“Midnight,” he said aloud.

“Gone midnight now,” said Ysabell.

Mort stood up, trying not to let the delight radiate out from him like a beacon, and grabbed Binky’s harness.

“Come on,” he said. “We haven’t got much time.”

“What are you talking about?”

Mort reached down to swing her up behind him. It was a nice idea, but merely meant that he nearly pulled himself out of the saddle. She pushed him back gently and climbed up by herself. Binky skittered sideways, sensing Mort’s feverish excitement, and snorted and pawed at the sand.

“I said, what are you talking about?”

Mort turned the horse to face the distant glow of the sunset.

“The speed of night,” he said.

———

Cutwell poked his head over the palace battlements and groaned. The interface was only a street away, clearly visible in the octarine, and he didn’t have to imagine the sizzling. He could hear it—a nasty, saw-toothed buzz as random particles of possibility hit the interface and gave up their energy as noise. As it ground its way up the street the pearly wall swallowed the bunting, the torches and the waiting crowds, leaving only dark streets. Somewhere out there, Cutwell thought, I’m fast asleep in my bed and none of this has happened. Lucky me.

He ducked down, skidded down the ladder to the cobbles and legged it back to the main hall with the skirts of his robe flapping around his ankles. He slipped in through the small postern in the great door and ordered the guards to lock it, then grabbed his skirts again and pounded along a side passage so that the guests wouldn’t notice him.

The hall was lit with thousands of candles and crowded with Sto Plain dignitaries, nearly all of them slightly unsure why they were there. And, of course, there was the elephant.

It was the elephant that had convinced Cutwell that he had gone off the rails of sanity, but it seemed like a good idea a few hours ago, when his exasperation at the High Priest’s poor eyesight had run into the recollection that a lumber mill on the edge of town possessed said beast for the purposes of heavy haulage. It was elderly, arthritic and had an uncertain temper, but it had one important advantage as a sacrificial victim. The High Priest should be able to see it.

Half a dozen guards were gingerly trying to restrain the creature, in whose slow brain the realisation had dawned that it should be in its familiar stable, with plenty of hay and water and time to dream of the hot days on the great khaki plains of Klatch. It was getting restless.

It will shortly become apparent that another reason for its growing friskiness is the fact that, in the pre-ceremony confusion, its trunk found the ceremonial chalice containing a gallon of strong wine and drained the lot. Strange hot ideas are beginning to bubble in front of its crusted eyes, of uprooted baobabs, mating fights with other bulls, glorious stampedes through native villages and other half-remembered pleasures. Soon it will start to see pink people.

Fortunately this was unknown to Cutwell, who caught the eye of the High Priest’s assistant—a forward-looking young man who had the foresight to provide himself with a long rubber apron and waders—and signalled that the ceremony should begin.

He darted back into the priest’s robing room and struggled into the special ceremonial robe the palace seamstress had made up for him, digging deep into her workbasket for scraps of lace, sequins and gold thread to produce a garment of such dazzling tastelessness that even the Archchancellor of Unseen University wouldn’t have been ashamed to wear it. Cutwell allowed himself five seconds to admire himself in the mirror before ramming the pointy hat on his head and running back to the door, stopping just in time to emerge at a sedate pace as befitted a person of substance.

He reached the High Priest as Keli started her advance up the central aisle, flanked by maidservants who fussed around her like tugs around a liner.

Despite the drawbacks of the hereditary dress, Cutwell thought she looked beautiful. There was something about her that made him—

He gritted his teeth and tried to concentrate on the security arrangements. He had put guards at various vantage points in the hall in case the Duke of Sto Helit tried any last-minute rearrangement of the royal succession, and reminded himself to keep a special eye on the duke himself, who was sitting in the front row of seats with a strange quiet smile on his face. The duke caught Cutwell’s eye, and the wizard hastily looked away.

The High Priest held up his hands for silence. Cutwell sidled towards him as the old man turned towards the Hub and in a cracked voice began the invocation to the gods.

Cutwell let his eyes slip back towards the duke.

“Hear me, mm, O gods—”

Was Sto Helit looking up into the bat-haunted darkness of the rafters?

“—hear me, O Blind Io of the Hundred Eyes; hear me, O Great Offler of the Bird-Haunted Mouth; hear me, O Merciful Fate; hear me, O Cold, mm, Destiny; hear me, O Seven-handed Sek; hear me, O Hoki of the Woods; hear me, O—”

With dull horror Cutwell realised that the daft old fool, against all instruction, was going to mention the whole lot. There were more than nine hundred known gods on the Disc, and research theologians were discovering more every year. It could take hours. The congregation was already beginning to shuffle its feet.

Keli was standing in front of the altar with a look of fury on her face. Cutwell nudged the High Priest in the ribs, which had no noticeable effect, and then waggled his eyebrows ferociously at the young acolyte.

“Stop him!” he hissed. “We haven’t got time!”

“The gods would be displeased—”

“Not as displeased as me, and I’m here.”

The acolyte looked at Cutwell’s expression for a moment and decided that he’d better explain to the gods later. He tapped the High Priest on the shoulder and whispered something in his ear.

“—O Steikhegel, god of, mm, isolated cow byres; hear me, O—hello? What?”

Murmur, murmur.

“This is, mm, very irregular. Very well, we shall go straight to the, mm, Recitation of the Lineage.”

Murmur, murmur.

The High Priest scowled at Cutwell, or at least where he believed Cutwell to be.

“Oh, all right. Mm, prepare the incense and fragrances for the Shriving of the Fourfold-Path.”

Murmur, murmur.

The High Priest’s face darkened.

“I suppose, mm, a short prayer, mm, is totally out of the question?” he said acidly.

“If some people don’t get a move on,” said Keli demurely, “there is going to be trouble.”

Murmur.

“I don’t know, I’m sure,” said the High Priest. “People might as well not bother with a religious, mm, ceremony at all. Fetch the bloody elephant, then.”

The acolyte gave Cutwell a frantic look and waved at the guards. As they urged their gently-swaying charge forward with shouts and pointed sticks the young priest sidled towards Cutwell and pushed something into his hand.

He looked down. It was a waterproof hat.

“Is this necessary?”

“He’s very devout,” said the acolyte. “We may need a snorkel.”

The elephant reached the altar and was forced, without too much difficulty, to kneel. It hiccupped.

“Well, where is it, then?” snapped the High Priest. “Let’s get this, mm, farce over with!”

Murmur went the acolyte. The High Priest listened, nodded gravely, picked up his white-handled sacrificial knife and raised it double-handed over his head. The whole hall watched, holding its breath. Then he lowered it again.

“Where in front of me?”

Murmur.

“I certainly don’t need your help, my lad! I’ve been sacrificing man and boy—and, mm, women and animals—for seventy years, and when I can’t use the, mm, knife you can put me to bed with a shovel!”

And he brought the blade down in a wild sweep which, by sheer luck, gave the elephant a mild flesh wound on the trunk.

The creature awoke from its pleasant reflective stupor and squealed. The acolyte turned in horror to look at two tiny bloodshot eyes squinting down the length of an enraged trunk, and cleared the altar in one standing jump.

The elephant was enraged. Vague confusing recollections flooded its aching head, of fires and shouts and men with nets and cages and spears and too many years hauling heavy tree trunks. It brought its trunk down across the altar stone and somewhat to its own surprise smashed it in two, levered the two parts into the air with its tusks, tried unsuccessfully to uproot a stone pillar and then, feeling the sudden need for a breath of fresh air, started to charge arthritically down the length of the hall.