The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster coaaod-9

by Hugh Cook

  Then Levant fired, unleashing a blunt-tipped quarrel which went hurtling in Shabble's direction.

  The quarrel smashed into Shabble.

  Shabble was slammed across the room and knocked through the nearest arched window.

  "Go!" yelled the Weaponmaster.

  Sod charged across the room, grabbed the star-globe, then rushed to the window. Guest Gulkan followed, as did Levant. Levant gave a piercing whistle. In response to that whistle, Sken-Pitilkin's airship swooped down. Guest, Sod and Levant joined Sken-Pitilkin, Eljuk and Ontario Nol in Sken-Pitilkin's stickbird. Sken-Pitilkin took the starglobe into his own hands – for he thought Sod an unreliable custodian of such a treasure – then sent his stickbird whirling to the skies.

  As Sken-Pitilkin and his passengers climbed toward the heights, there glowed in the fog behind them an arc of fire, an arc which marked the wrath of the burning of the exterior stairway built out from the side of the mainrock Pinnacle.

  For Shabble, it was all very confusing. Shabble was happily dreaming, bobbing up and down in seas of silver-sharded dream music, when the world suddenly bucked and buckled, and the bubble of bounce found itself unceremoniously smashed into wakefulness.

  "Squa!" squeaked Shabble, in shocked amazement.

  The entire world appeared to have unaccountably vanished.

  Gone was the mainrock Pinnacle, gone the kitten-friendly company of wishstone and star-globe. Instead, Shabble was lost in a formless blackness-in-grayness-in-blackness, a nothing-in-nothing, a primordial pre-Creation chaos.

  The world had ended!

  The universe had ceased to be!

  Time was at an end, and Shabble had suffered the misfortune of surviving that end!

  Shabble had time to think just this:

  – Woe!

  Then Shabble realized that Shabbleself was falling.

  A moment later, the bubble was struck by the slam-shock impact of the Swelaway Sea. The falling bubble hit the waters hard and fast, and plunged deep into the watery darkness.

  Lost.

  Bewildered.

  Utterly confused.

  In many ways, Shabble was much smarter than any human, but Shabble had been short-changed in the matter of unreasoned orientation. A human shocked awake in unfamiliar circumstances will orientate itself to new surroundings almost instantaneously.

  A cat or dog will do likewise. But Shabble had been designed to run on logic – albeit the logic of a child rather than that of an adult – and hence was poorly equipped to deal with any alogical ellipsis.

  And what is more illogical than to go to sleep in a tower and wake to find oneself in water?

  – But it is water.

  So thought Shabble, still sinking, and still trying to work what had happened and where it was.

  – I'm in water.

  – I think.

  – But what kind of water?

  Then Shabble steadied itself. Once stable, Shabble spat out a fireball to mark its place, then let itself sink again. Using the quick-fading fireball as a watermark, Shabble computed the rate of sinkage, deduced the salinity of the water, and pronounced the water fresh.

  – I'm in fresh water.

  – The Swelaway Sea is fresh not salt.

  – So maybe.

  – Maybe…

  The hard-thinking bubble decided that maybe – indeed, probably – it had been violently displaced from the mainrock

  Pinnacle and precipitated into the waters of the Swelaway Sea.

  Which meant…

  Why, it meant that in all probability someone had attacked poor Shabble with a weapon from the Nexus or the Technic Renaissance. Perhaps a force-shock projector such as a Maverick IV slam-gun.

  "Well," said Shabble, loudly, "you're going to pay for that."

  Having issued that threat – easy enough to do underwater, since Shabble lacked any mouth or other orifice, and hence could speak as easily to the fishes as the birds – Shabble quested upwards to the surface.

  Won the night air.

  Spun thrice, to rid itself of excess water.

  Then started to climb.

  Somewhere out in the fog of the night, a fire was burning, high, high above the water. Shabble sent flame flaring through the baffling fog, fire answering to fire. Then Shabble homed in on the flames, and found the stairway outside the mainrock Pinnacle to be burning.

  It had been the hope of the conspirators that Shabble would be confused by the fire, and would waste valuable time in searching the burning stairway for clues as to the loss of the star-globe. But Shabble had lived through much human disorder, and on the grounds of grim experience the bubble of bounce had come to associate arson as a customary and essentially motiveless manifestation of all other forms of disorder.

  Therefore, when Shabble saw the stairway burning, Shabble thought thus:

  – Oh, the stairway's burning!

  And having thus acknowledged the fact, Shabble wasted no further time on it, but instead did a swift-search sprint up and down a quick half-dozen stairways.

  The search ended when Shabble dropped down to the Palace Docks of Alozay and found Sken-Pitilkin's stickbird missing. Then Shabble guessed! Then Shabble knew!

  The bubble sprinted outwards, whizzed upwards, shot through one of the windows of the Hall of Time, and spun to a hovering halt in the presence of Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis, Demon By Appointment to the Great God Jocasta.

  "Where's Sken-Pitilkin?" said Shabble. "Him and whoever's with him! Where are they?"

  "They are fled by air," said Iva-Italis.

  Since Shabble's arrival on Alozay, the quarantine which had previously isolated the demon had ended entirely, and Italis had since made up for lost time. Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis knew much, heard much, guessed much, was nourished in wisdom by spies and informers, and had wit sufficient to deduce what was not told by direct presentation. "They are fled – Sken-Pitilkin, Sod, Levant, Guest Gulkan, and possibly others. They have fled by air, and if you are swift you will catch them."

  "Which way have they gone?" said Shabble.

  "Seek!" said Iva-Italis. "Seek, seek! For as you bubble in your folly they are cleaning their heels with the moon's doormats."

  "The clouds, you mean," said Shabble.

  "Of course," said Iva-Italis, indulging in a moment's smug pride. "For I am a poet amongst other things, poetry being – "

  But Shabble was gone already.

  Through a slit window shot Shabble, slicing with speed toward the north. Then Shabble climbed, and scanned. But all was cloud, impenetrable cloud which hid the thieves who had made off with the star-globe. Shabble blasted fire in all directions. Clouds bloomed red. Water steamed as bolts of Shabble-wrath struck home.

  But all was useless, useless, for the night was vast and Shabble but a pinprick lost in that night. Shabble was most upset.

  Everything had been going so well! It had been so much fun!

  But now -

  Shabble returned to Alozay, and in the Hall of Time the bubble of bounce again sought counsel from the demon Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis.

  "What's happened, little friend?" said Iva-Italis. "Couldn't you catch them?"

  "No," said Shabble. "They got away. Where have they gone?"

  "Come closer," said Iva-Italis, "and I'll whisper it in your ear."

  "Shabbles don't have ears," said Shabble, keeping well out of reach of Iva-Italis. "Just tell me where they've gone and I'll -

  I'll, um – "

  "You'll do me a favor," said Iva-Italis.

  "Yes!" said Shabble.

  "Then," said Iva-Italis, "listen closely, little friend. I don't know for certain where they've gone, but Sken-Pitilkin, you doubtless recall, is not known as the wizard of Drum for nothing."

  That was all the clue that Shabble needed. The wrathful bubble promptly launched itself into the night skies, making for the Penvash Channel, for the island of Drum, and for a confrontation with those who had stolen the star-globe.

  Chapter Forty-Four />
  Drum: Sken-Pitilkin's home island in the Penvash Channel (otherwise known as the Penvash Strait) from which he has long been exiled. In spring of the year Alliance 4293, the peace of Drum was disturbed by the arrival of fugitives, these being Pelagius Zozimus, the dralkosh Zelafona and the dwarf Glambrax.

  All three were running from the wrath of the Confederation of Wizards. Sken-Pitilkin gave them shelter, only to find that pursuit was hot on their heels. Fearing for his life, Sken-Pitilkin fled from Drum with the others, and after two years of wandering all four arrived in Gendormargensis, in spring of the year Alliance 4295, at which time Guest Gulkan was only five years of age. It is now Alliance 4315, but Sken-Pitilkin has not returned to Drum in the 22 years since he first fled from that island.

  To make a swift transit to Drum, Shabble soared high above fog and clouds, then navigated by the stars. But Sken-Pitilkin kept his stickbird firmly in the mist, and flew throughout the night in those realms of obscurity.

  In the gray of dawn, the exhausted wizard of Skatzabratzumon set his stickbird down in a swampy clearing somewhere in the woods. Which woods? Sken-Pitilkin and his passengers could not tell.

  "We don't know where to find ourselves," said Sken-Pitilkin,

  "so it's most unlikely that Shabble can hunt us. Therefore I pronounce us safe. Guest. Look to our security. For I must sleep."Sken-Pitilkin was as good as his word. He curled up in the bottom of his stickbird, shrouded himself with a solskin horse blanket, and in moments was as dead to the world as a hedgehog wrapped in clay.

  Whereupon Guest marched across the soft and yielding turf, making for the nearest tree. The over-bright luxuriant green went squidge-slush-slurk beneath his boots. He grasped the lowest branch of the nearest tree then began to climb, forcing his way upward to the heights which rustled with the dry rasp of leaves growing brittle-brown as their autumn change beset them. Guest expected his survey to reveal a clutch of bloodthirsty saurian monsters, or mayhap a crocodile. But all he saw was swampland and the glimmer-glip of water clipped by the sun.

  In such a setting, it was hard to take seriously the possibility of pursuit. But of course there would be pursuit.

  Shabble would hunt for the star-globe, because if there was one thing Shabble loved it was a toy, and the Door of the Partnership Banks was surely the greatest toy of all. Guest, then, was doomed to be hunted by an immortal bubble.

  And how exactly could one hide from such a bubble for three years, particularly when rumor's sweep tracks out a radius measured in leagues by the hundred? Shabble would be monitoring rumor. And so too might the various demons such as Italis of Alozay and Ko of Chi'ash-lan.

  If the demons conspired with Shabble, and dedicated themselves to sifting the news which filtered through cities such as Obooloo and Chi'ash-lan, then Guest and his companions would have to shun all of civilization for fear of discovery. And, speaking of demons – how many of the things were there exactly?

  There were two of the jade-green monsters in Obooloo alone: the demon Lob in the precincts of the Bondsmans Guild and the demon Ungular Scarth in the Temple of Blood.

  Demons and Shabble.

  A dire combination, if it ever came to pass.

  Meantime, Shabble alone was formidable enough.

  Human pursuit is constrained by time, weather, money and mortality, but Shabble acknowledged none of those. Only boredom would bring Shabble's hunting to an end – and would a three year hiatus be long enough to guarantee such boredom?

  What if Shabble found the very hunt itself to be an eternally rewarding game?

  So thinking, Guest tried to rouse himself to a state of concern. But all was autumn drowsiness.

  Sunlight.

  Shadow.

  Peace.

  Somewhere a bird called:

  "Kil-klop! Kil-klop!"

  Its song was bright-metallic, a slither of sharpness needling through the utter relaxation of the day.

  After his ravaging journeys, the Weaponmaster had at last entered upon a phase of utter peace and oozing time. He felt strangely at a loss; and then, in his idleness, gradually became conscious of his overwhelming fatigue. So he descended from his tree and joined Sken-Pitilkin in sleep; and he slept like a baby until roused for a conference. Sken-Pitilkin kicked off that conference.

  "I had thought to run to Drum," said Sken-Pitilkin, "but on mature reflection that seems too obvious. After all, I am known to all of Safrak as the wizard of Drum."

  "You are?" said Guest, by no means certain that Sken-Pitilkin was as famous as he thought.

  "At the very least," said Sken-Pitilkin, "the demon Italis knows me as such, and it may well be that the demon will tell Shabble where to look for me. So we must not go to Drum. At least, we must not go there directly. As we know, the bubble's weakness is its capacity for boredom. It lacks persistence. If it does not find us in a season, then, having searched Drum and found it empty, it is unlikely to return."

  "We hope," said Sod.

  "We hope, yes," said Sken-Pitilkin. "In any case, we know that we must at a minimum secure our disappearance for our season.

  Therefore we must choose some place which is less than obvious."

  "Ema-Urk," said Guest, naming the island on which his brother Morsh Bataar had wife, children and sheep farm.

  "You jest, I hope," said Sken-Pitilkin, "for Ema-Urk is far too close to Alozay."

  Then the wizard of Skatzabratzumon pulled out a map of Tameran, a weathered map of parchment which had dirt seamed in its folds.

  "As you can guess from the condition of this document," said Sken-Pitilkin, "it is no map of mine. I abstracted from a room of maps in Trilip Obo, the Archive Stratum of the mainrock Pinnacle."

  Then Sken-Pitilkin pulled out a handful of coins.

  "What's this?" said Guest. "Divination?"

  "In a manner of speaking," said Sken-Pitilkin. "We must each write down the name of one of the destinations shown on this map, then choose a destination by the tossing of coins."

  "Why?" said Guest.

  "Because," said Sken-Pitilkin, "Shabble is smart enough to out-guess us if we work by logic. Therefore we must call chance to our assistance."

  Then Sken-Pitilkin demanded that they each choose a destination. Guest Gulkan vacillated between Stranagor – the place of his birth – and Gendormargensis. He settled on Gendormargensis. His brother Eljuk opted for Qonsajara, high in the mountains of Ibsen-Iktus. Thayer Levant decided upon Favanosin, while Ontario Nol chose the uplands of the Balardade Massif. Sken-Pitilkin himself then chose Stranagor.

  "And you?" said Sken-Pitilkin to Sod.

  "I," said Banker Sod, "choose Alozay itself."

  "Alozay!" said Sken-Pitilkin. "Why, but that's impossible!"

  "Why?" said Sod. "Shabble will surely have left Alozay to seek us elsewhere. If we return, then we can revenge ourselves upon Shabble's creatures. Furthermore, we can glut our pockets with gold, which would see us better prepared for a journey than we are at present."

  Sod's plan was extremely dangerous, but Sken-Pitilkin, though he thought Sod over-audacious, nevertheless accepted that plan as one possible option.

  Then Sken-Pitilkin tossed the coins that the coins might decide which plan they would opt for.

  The coins directed them to Guest Gulkan's choice:

  Gendormargensis.

  This occasioned uneasiness amongst all of them, even Guest Gulkan himself, for Gendormargensis was ruled by the Red Emperor Khmar, who had won his name by slaughtering so many of his enemies that the rivers ran red with their blood.

  "I have another plan," said Nol. "It lacks the virtue of being randomly chosen. But, even so, I do not think that Shabble will divine this plan."

  Then the wizard of Itch pointed at Sken-Pitilkin's map. He pointed at the south-west of Tameran. He pointed at a tongue of land which sprinted out into the sea, terminating in a bulb of rock. He pointed at the bulb itself "There," said Ontario Nol, softly. "The bubble will not seek us there."

  "There!?" sa
id Sken-Pitilkin, in patent alarm.

  While thoughts of venturing to Gendormargensis had made Sken-Pitilkin uneasy, this new suggestion made him positively alarmed.

  "What place is that?" said Guest Gulkan. Sken-Pitilkin looked around, then said, albeit with some reluctance:

  "We will not speak its name. Not here. But Nol is right. It is a good destination."

  So Sken-Pitilkin flew his stickbird to Lex Chalis, a place of caverns where the rock is fluid and warm beneath the touch. It is a place of ghosts, a place of hallucinatory dreams and waking delusions. Do you wish to hear more? Then you must seek elsewhere for the telling. For Lex Chalis awakens things which the mind has deliberately put to sleep. It stirs the old things to life, cracks the inner coffers of the psyche, incarnates the dead.

  Worse, in the caverns of Lex Chalis, the thoughts of one person's mind create half-perceived shadows in the minds of that person's companions. Assume, then, that you are in Lex Chalis in the company of Guest Gulkan, he who was once mauled by the Great Mink in an arena in Chi'ash-lan. Assume that Guest is asleep, and dreaming, and that you are dreaming too. Can you imagine what your condition will be when you finally wake, heart pounding, eyes bulging, skin drenched with sweat?

  In the great days of the Empire of Wizards, when all of Argan was ruled by the eight orders of the Confederation, then many wizards ventured north to Tameran, and dared their way to the caverns of Lex Chalis. But it is not recorded that any of them had any profit from such venture. For the place is beyond the understanding of wizardry; and, as far as history can tell, there has never been anything made of flesh or blood or stone or steel which has been able to grapple with its mysteries.

  During the season in which the travelers sojourned in Lex Chalis, Ontario Nol was once moved to theorize on the nature of the caverns of Lex Chalis. He claimed those caverns to be the work of a theoretical breed of Experimenters.

  "It is said by those who claim to know," said Ontario Nol,

  "that Probability is a single sheet of fabric pockmarked here and there by those patches of embroidery which mortal creatures know as the Realms of Time.