The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers Read Online Free
Author: Hugh Cook
misleading to describe him as a knifefighter since he owned a number of blades and had been trained to kill with them. Furthermore, he trained with his weapons on a daily basis, practising feinting, shifting, slashing and slicing, stabbing and hacking.
Once you know this, you will not be surprised to hear that he was an Ebrell Islander. These people are, of course, notorious for their violence. Such generalisations are, or so we are told by the Ashdan liberals, odious, untrue and misleading; nevertheless, it would be hard to make sense of the world without them, and in the case of Chegory Guy they make a great deal of sense.
This dangerous young man dwelt in the fair city of Injiltaprajura (or, shall we say, the bloodstone-complexioned city of Injiltaprajura?). To be precise, he was domiciled in the Dromdanjerie.
The Dromdanjerie.
What and where?
What is easy. The Dromdanjerie is the lunatic asylum of Injiltaprajura. It is a huge building fabricated from the native bloodstone of Untunchilamon. It has 2 kitchens, 27 showers, 44 stench holes, 6 high-security cells and 19 dormitories. One of the many fountains sourced Downstairs has been linked directly to the plumbing. This provides unlimited fresh (potable!) water for the showers with their floors of glistening green tiles, for the sluice rooms, for the kitchens gay with sun-faced representations of flowers, and for swabbing out those filthy dormitories so drearily painted in institutional brown and grey.
The Dromdanjerie, then.
What of it?
Does my acquaintance with the place seem too intimate? If so, know this: the Brin think me normal enough. Though what is ‘normal’ if one metabolises silicon, as do the Brin? Never mind. Enough of that. Let us not return to it again. Let us return to Chegory Guy. And to the action:
As Shabble was sliding down a drainpipe to escape the massive energy drain which threatened Shabbleself’s very' existence, the Dromdanjerie was waking. All the lights had gone out, waking those many who could not sleep in the dark. They screamed as if they had swallowed acid. They raved as if fresh-returned from hell. This set off most of the others. The dogs in the Dog Worshipper’s Temple at the back of the Dromdanjerie began barking and howling. So, with uproar rising to heights unendurable, the staff of the Dromdanjerie was waking.
Chegory Guy was not on the staff - he was in fact a rock gardener who worked on the island of Jod - but as he boarded in the Dromdanjerie’s staff quarters he too was wakened by the racket.
He kindled fire, then helped light (or, as the case may be, relight) lanterns by the dozen. Jon Qasaba took the first dozen, and, carrying them on a bablobrokmadorni stick, strode away into the depths of the bedlam. Guy loaded a second bablobrokmadorni stick for Qasaba’s daughter.
Olivia.
Olivia Qasaba. She of the uncertain moods, at one moment a playful gamine, then on an instant a sophisticated ice lady, as remote and as distant as the stars. A female creature who was suffering that confusion of the blood which besets a girl who is in the process of becoming a woman. There are several symptoms of this confusion, the most notable being a propensity for slamming doors and a tendency to burst into tears upon provocation which should by rights produce (at the very most) no more than the briefest of scowls.
Chegory Guy was at least in part responsible for her erratic emotional weather. What did he do? He was there! That was enough. Sometimes Olivia wished to romp with him like a boy at play with a peer, giving expression to simple high spirits and the natural ebullience of youth. At other times, she imagined him as an ardent suitor into whose arms she could swoon in a waking dream of passion.
Either way, Chegory disappointed her, for he daily grew more remote. Why? Because he had a nice regard for his own safety. He sensed her confusion. (He sensed it: but to most of the other people in the Qasaba household that confusion
Once you know this, you will not be surprised to hear that he was an Ebrell Islander. These people are, of course, notorious for their violence. Such generalisations are, or so we are told by the Ashdan liberals, odious, untrue and misleading; nevertheless, it would be hard to make sense of the world without them, and in the case of Chegory Guy they make a great deal of sense.
This dangerous young man dwelt in the fair city of Injiltaprajura (or, shall we say, the bloodstone-complexioned city of Injiltaprajura?). To be precise, he was domiciled in the Dromdanjerie.
The Dromdanjerie.
What and where?
What is easy. The Dromdanjerie is the lunatic asylum of Injiltaprajura. It is a huge building fabricated from the native bloodstone of Untunchilamon. It has 2 kitchens, 27 showers, 44 stench holes, 6 high-security cells and 19 dormitories. One of the many fountains sourced Downstairs has been linked directly to the plumbing. This provides unlimited fresh (potable!) water for the showers with their floors of glistening green tiles, for the sluice rooms, for the kitchens gay with sun-faced representations of flowers, and for swabbing out those filthy dormitories so drearily painted in institutional brown and grey.
The Dromdanjerie, then.
What of it?
Does my acquaintance with the place seem too intimate? If so, know this: the Brin think me normal enough. Though what is ‘normal’ if one metabolises silicon, as do the Brin? Never mind. Enough of that. Let us not return to it again. Let us return to Chegory Guy. And to the action:
As Shabble was sliding down a drainpipe to escape the massive energy drain which threatened Shabbleself’s very' existence, the Dromdanjerie was waking. All the lights had gone out, waking those many who could not sleep in the dark. They screamed as if they had swallowed acid. They raved as if fresh-returned from hell. This set off most of the others. The dogs in the Dog Worshipper’s Temple at the back of the Dromdanjerie began barking and howling. So, with uproar rising to heights unendurable, the staff of the Dromdanjerie was waking.
Chegory Guy was not on the staff - he was in fact a rock gardener who worked on the island of Jod - but as he boarded in the Dromdanjerie’s staff quarters he too was wakened by the racket.
He kindled fire, then helped light (or, as the case may be, relight) lanterns by the dozen. Jon Qasaba took the first dozen, and, carrying them on a bablobrokmadorni stick, strode away into the depths of the bedlam. Guy loaded a second bablobrokmadorni stick for Qasaba’s daughter.
Olivia.
Olivia Qasaba. She of the uncertain moods, at one moment a playful gamine, then on an instant a sophisticated ice lady, as remote and as distant as the stars. A female creature who was suffering that confusion of the blood which besets a girl who is in the process of becoming a woman. There are several symptoms of this confusion, the most notable being a propensity for slamming doors and a tendency to burst into tears upon provocation which should by rights produce (at the very most) no more than the briefest of scowls.
Chegory Guy was at least in part responsible for her erratic emotional weather. What did he do? He was there! That was enough. Sometimes Olivia wished to romp with him like a boy at play with a peer, giving expression to simple high spirits and the natural ebullience of youth. At other times, she imagined him as an ardent suitor into whose arms she could swoon in a waking dream of passion.
Either way, Chegory disappointed her, for he daily grew more remote. Why? Because he had a nice regard for his own safety. He sensed her confusion. (He sensed it: but to most of the other people in the Qasaba household that confusion
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