by Hugh Cook
Let it then merely be recorded that Sken-Pitilkin escaped from the Morgrim Bank, which is set in the approximate center of the city of Chi'ash-lan, and he was levitating toward the outskirts of the city when -
When a cloud formed in the air close at hand. Sken-Pitilkin had barely time sufficient to gape at the cloud before it configured itself as a Yarglat barbarian. Judging from the bigness of his ears, that barbarian was Guest Gulkan. And, on this occasion, the bigness of his ears was matched by the bigness of his mouth. For, when Guest emerged from the bottle to find himself poised in mid-air above the city, his jaw dropped in outright horror.
"The ring!" bawled Sken-Pitilkin.
But it was too late.
Guest was already falling, and by the time he had wit sufficient to turn the ring on his finger, he was too far removed from the yellow bottle for the ring to compel him within it. Thus he fell, with Sken-Pitilkin – his own power nearly exhausted by battle and flight – helpless to save him. Guest did not fall far.
After all, Sken-Pitilkin was no seagull, hence had not soared to any great height. Rather, he had been levitating – and not without difficulty, for it is a business far more tricky than it may appear to the uninitiated, this fine art of levitation – about four storeys above the ground. Guest fell but three storeys before his fall was intercepted by a roof. He crashed through the roof and disappeared from sight.
In the face of this disaster, Sken-Pitilkin did not have to make any fine ethical calculations. The best he could do was to ensure his own survival, so that was what he did. He got himself to the outskirts of the city, landed, and took to his heels and fled.
Need we give here an account of Sken-Pitilkin's escape? No, surely not. For it was only Zenjingu fighters who were pursuing him, and any fieldsman who cannot elude five thousand of the Zenjingu or more is not worthy of his bootleather.
While Sken-Pitilkin was a wizard, he was other things as well. Amongst other things, he was a fisherman. He had not adopted a fisherman's skirts as his customary attire by random choice! No, he had studied the Art of Arts for generations, and from its study he had learnt his fieldcraft thoroughly.
Thus Sken-Pitilkin was able to elude the Zenjingu, and get himself away from Chi'ash-lan – and, eventually, to improvise a stickbird of sorts and go limping back to the island of Drum.
A fine predicament, this!
For Sken-Pitilkin was still in possession of the yellow bottle, which he took with him all the way to his home island of Drum, but he did not have the ring which allowed one to enter or leave that bottle. The sole ring to command that bottle was in Guest Gulkan's possession, and, for all the wizard knew, Guest might well be dead.
Well.
We all have to die sometime.
But the truly tragic part was that Thayer Levant, Guest's long-serving, long-suffering and totally unappreciated servant, was trapped in the yellow bottle, unable to get out through his own exertions, and with Sken-Pitilkin (for all his undoubted sagacity) in no position to help him.
And suppose one to be trapped in a wizard-made bottle, as was Thayer Levant. What then will one have to drink? And what to eat?
As a rule, drink is no problem, for wizards take care to stock such bottles well with water. And food? Well, this yellow bottle had lately been used as a portable storehouse on a journey into the Shackle Mountains, so it contained rations sufficient to feed one person for a few months or so. But supposing those few months to pass, what then? Why, a prisoner trapped in a wizard- made bottle and beyond succor by outside forces must necessarily resort to the siege dust which is so commonly found in such bottles.
Of siege dust, it may be said in its favor that it can last for upwards of five thousand years while still remaining as good to eat as it was to start with. The problem is that, even to start with, siege dust is no more palatable than ordinary dust.
So Thayer Levant was doomed to suffer a cruel and unusual punishment, for his ordinary food must inevitably run out unless Guest could make it back to Drum in six months or less.
But six months passed and there was no sign of Guest. A year passed, and still there was no sign of Guest. Sken-Pitilkin had every right to presume to Weaponmaster to be dead – but, not content with taking such a position, the wizard of Skatzabratzumon had built a fully serviceable stickbird, and had several times flown it the full length of the Ravlish Lands in search of the Weaponmaster.
However, despite Sken-Pitilkin's exhausting and exhaustive endeavors on his account, Guest Gulkan had to do it all on his own. Having survived the fall through a roof – he had after all fallen a mere three storeys, and what is three storeys to a stoutly built Yarglat barbarian? – Guest escaped from Chi'ash-lan and fled east through the Ravlish Lands.
For a year and a day he fled, with the Zenjingu fighters ever close on his heels. And, a year and two days after Guest's intemperate materialization in the skies of Chi'ash-lan, the sea dragon Hobagamandrik came to Sken-Pitilkin with the news that a fishing boat had arrived from D'Waith, and that Guest Gulkan was a passenger on that fishing boat.
(Two Zenjingu fighters arrived the very next day, and were shortly thereafter eaten by Sken-Pitilkin's sea dragons, who pronounced them to be rather stringy, and of a flavor midway between that of cat and that of pig).
Thus Guest Gulkan returned to Drum, and was able to use his ring to liberate Thayer Levant from the yellow bottle. For all that time, Levant had preserved the star-globe, which Guest had left behind in the bottle when he had exited to the skies of Chi'ash-lan. Levant – rightly enraged by a year of imprisonment – declared that Guest could count himself supremely lucky that the star-globe had not got itself flushed down one of the vents which allowed wastes to exit from the yellow bottle.
In the light of what later happened, it may be seen in retrospect as being very unfortunate that Guest did not take the time to address Levant's complaints in depth and in detail, to soothe him with flattery and to balm him with promises. But instead, Guest belittled Levant's sufferings, saying they had all taken place indoors, free from the wind and rain, the wasps and thorns, the rockburn and sunburn which had bedeviled the Weaponmaster on his year of flight from Chi'ash-lan.
Then Guest promptly launched himself into a conference with Sken-Pitilkin, making plans for returning to Alozay with the starglobe, and, assuming his father to still be in possession of that island, using Alozay as a base for a struggle which would surely seem him end as master of the Circle of the Partnership Banks.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Lord Onosh: the Witchlord, the sometime lord of the Collosnon Empire who retreated to Alozay after his defeat at the hands of the Red Emperor Khmar. On Alozay, Lord Onosh made himself master of the Safrak Bank. His regime suffered a setback when Shabble temporarily usurped his authority; but, when Shabble left Alozay,
Lord Onosh was easily able to restore his authority, and has governed the Safrak Islands and the Safrak Bank ever since.
Of Guest Gulkan's return to Alozay, there is no need to give a detailed account.
Lord Onosh had long been separated from Guest, the most warlike of his sons. So, when Witchlord was reunited with Weaponmaster, the celebrations were considerable. Horses were slaughtered, and their meat cooked in great barbecues. A babble of storytelling was followed by bout upon bout of drunken boisterousness.
The celebrations went on for a full ten days; the hangovers lasted a further three; and it was not until the fourteenth day after Guest's return to Alozay that a council of war was held to consider the reopening of the Circle of the Doors.
"After all I have endured," said Guest, "I will settle for nothing less than the rule of the Circle."
"That may be difficult," said his father.
"Nevertheless," said Guest, "it is what I have set my heart on."
"Then," said Sken-Pitilkin, "perhaps our first move should be to talk with the resident demon of the Hall of Time."Guest was most reluctant to do this. But he knew the importance of the demons to the Banks. Had it
not been for these silent, ever-watchful jade-green monsters, then Bank security would have been a much more difficult proposition. The Circle of the Banks could still be run – and perhaps dominated – without the assistance of such monsters. But their co-operation would make Guest's schemes of conquest infinitely easier.
"But," said Guest, "what can I offer them?"
"You can offer," said Sken-Pitilkin, "to give material assistance to the Great God Jocasta when that dignitary eventually emerges from the tunnels of Cap Foz Para Lash."
"I can what?!" said Guest.
"You heard me," said Sken-Pitilkin.
Then they began to argue the rights and the wrongs of offering to aid the Great God Jocasta, the delinquent controller- of-carts which was currently sheltering inside one of the minor mountains of Dalar ken Halvar.
During this debate, Sken-Pitilkin reminded both Witchlord and Weaponmaster of some uncomfortable facts. Both were Yarglat born and Yarglat bred, but they were cut off from their own people. Few of the Yarglat had followed Lord Onosh to Alozay, most choosing instead to desert to the Red Emperor Khmar. Lord Onosh had won the rule of Alozay with a rabble of mercenaries, slaves and other such underlings.
"You have no natural constituency on Alozay," said Sken-Pitilkin. "You have no natural constituency in the Safrak Islands.
The society you rule has no internal cohesion. It is not unified by language, or by race, or by religion. By personal strength, by studied alliance, by careful management and with the assistance of a fair measure of luck, you have managed to reach an accommodation with the Partnership Banks in the past."
"With difficulty," said Lord Onosh, remembering the many vicissitudes of his relationship with those Banks.
"Yes," said Sken-Pitilkin. "You know the Bankers can be cunning, treacherous, and totally ruthless in the application of power. Your own resources have served to let you deal with them.
But if you and your son are resolved to conquer them, why, then you must have something greater to stand behind you in support. If you can win the aid of the demons of the Circle by promising support to the Great God, then you have that something."
"But what do we do then when this Great God comes forth from the hiding place where it is licking its wounds?" said Guest.
"The licking of those wounds may take generations," said Sken-Pitilkin. "Don't worry about it."
Here Sken-Pitilkin showed his great wisdom, for he no longer sought perfect solutions. If Guest Gulkan was determined to make himself master of the Circle, then he might have to settle for a regrettably imperfect alliance with a treacherous Great God. Even such a flawed solution would be safer than trying to challenge the might of the Banks single-handed – and Sken-Pitilkin knew full well that it was useless to suggest that Guest might care to abandon thoughts of such challenge and make his retreat to a monastery. Sken-Pitilkin said as much, and at length. After long deliberation, the wizard's wisdom prevailed, and so Guest and his father went in Sken-Pitilkin's company to the Hall of Time, where they bearded the demon Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis. Guest Gulkan did the talking. He made a frank confession of his desire to conquer the Circle of the Banks; he declared his intention to seek an alliance with the demons of the Circle, using their brute strength and intelligence to his advantage; he offered in return to declare himself for the Great God Jocasta; and then he asked, quite openly, how long it would be before Jocasta returned to the world of daylight.
"The Great God Jocasta will come forth from the tunnels of Cap Foz Para Lash in due course," said Iva-Italis. "But the Great God's renaissance will not take place for many years yet. The Great God was grievously injured by the evil Stogirov in the Temple of Blood."
"I'm sorry to hear that," said Guest, who was not sorry at all, and wished upon Jocasta a thousand years of painful convalescence.
"However," said Iva-Italis, "while Jocasta will not be seen by the sun for many years yet, there is work to be done even now.
Should we conclude a satisfactory alliance, then there would be much for you to do in preparation for the Great God's renaissance.
There are for example many machines which should be built – machines designed to aid comfort supplement and support the Great God in its endeavors. The contrivance of such mechanisms is not easy. You would have to build lesser machines to construct greater machines, and even with guidance from myself and my colleagues, this task could not be accomplished in anything less than two or three generations."
Then Iva-Italis paused. Guest Gulkan promptly answered the unstated but implicit question, which was this: can you, mere mortal, make any meaningful commitment to a task which may well last generations?
"My brother Morsh Bataar has bred sons on the island of Ema Urk," said Guest. "Though my brother Morsh is slow in his wits, his sons by all accounts have proved worthy of their grandfather.
I have sired no dynasty myself, but will pledge myself to the support of Morsh Bataar's sons. Yurt and Iragana can be the founders of a dynasty which would see your machines constructed as you wish."
"Very good," said Iva-Italis, positively purring. "Very good."Sken-Pitilkin was almost inclined to purr himself. This was all going very well. Guest Gulkan had spoken with uncommon reasonableness, and the demon had matched him in that.
But there was more to come: "I have conferred with the Great God Jocasta," said Italis.
"That was quick!" said Guest.
"It is over a year since you stole the star-globe from the Morgrim Bank," said Italis. "We have had a full thirteen moons to consider the possibilities. Where would you come to if not to here? We have had a year to talk this matter out in full – and to discuss it with Shabble."
At that, Guest and Sken-Pitilkin exchanged glances. It is significant that Sken-Pitilkin should look to his former tutor rather than to his father. Despite the rapturous reception which Lord Onosh had given his long-lost son, the plain fact was that Guest had spent much more of his adult life in Sken-Pitilkin's company than he had in his father's house, and wizard and Weaponmaster knew each other to a nicety, whereas Guest had inevitably become something of a stranger to his father.
"What are you talking about?" said Lord Onosh, addressing his question to Italis. "What's this about Shabble?"Guest and Sken-Pitilkin had already realized what Italis was going to propose, and had acknowledged the realization to each other by no more than a wordless glance. But then, both Guest and Sken-Pitilkin had endured long and deep acquaintance with Shabble, who had been to Lord Onosh but a transitory phenomenon briefly encountered and thereafter unknown.
"We feel," said Italis, "and here by we I mean both the Great God Jocasta and the conference of demons which serves that god – we feel we need an immediate deity under which the Circle can be united."
"Shabble, you mean?" said Lord Onosh. "If that's how you feel, why do you come by the notion now? Now and not formerly?"
"Formerly," said Italis, "we did not have the pleasure of Shabble's company. Shabble has only kept us company for the last year or so. It is Shabble who now forms the focus of our plans.
Let me make it clear that your offer of dynastic support for the Great God Jocasta is not sufficient to tempt us to support you in a conquest of the Circle."
Translation: you are mortal, we are not. You will be gone in a hundred years, whereas we will be here in a thousand.
"In addition to your dynastic support," said Italis, "we feel we need an immediate deity. The peoples of the Circle are wedded to the superstitious worship of that which they can see, touch, hear and feel. They are not yet ready to bow down and worship Jocasta, who is distant, and wounded, and temporarily unavailable to worshippers. We need a god."
"The Yarglat have gods," said Lord Onosh. "There is the horse god, Noth. Would Noth suit hour purposes?"
"I have another god in mind," said Iva-Italis. "This god was born upon Untunchilamon."Guest knew what was coming. But, fearing his father was going to make a fool of himself by an undue display of ignorance, Guest intervened with a preemptiv
e question.
"You're not talking about, uh, a certain Cockroach, are you?" said Guest.
"But what else?" said Italis. "What else would I be talking about? You know it, you know it all, even if your father does not."
By that response, Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis, demon of Safrak, showed the intimacy with which it knew Guest Gulkan. The thing had divined the reason for his slow-on-the-uptake question. Just as Guest and Sken-Pitilkin could confirm shared perceptions with no more than a glance, so too the demon Italis could as good as read Guest Gulkan's mind.
Intimacy was the key to this skill. Sken-Pitilkin, Italis, Guest Gulkan – they had shared so much of the recent years that they had no secrets from each other. Guest certainly had very few secrets from the demon Italis, for, while formerly incarcerated in the yellow bottle with Shabble, Guest had shared many intimacies with that ever-talkative bubble, and the demons of the Circle had had a full year and more extract the history of those intimacies from Shabble.
In a way, Guest Gulkan could not help but be gratified by the manner in which the demon Italis understood him. For Guest, the mainrock Pinnacle had become a place of stability, and his easy familiarity with the demon Italis was an index of that stability.
The demon had prevailed, unmoved, unchanging, while the rest of existence had shifted beyond recognition.
One of the terrors of human existence is that, as we get older, the world loses the solidity and stability which it possessed of during childhood, when the existing order seemed absolute. Indeed, to a wizard, the world seems at times a sheer phantasmagoria, in which empires shift, deform, and melt like fog in the sun, and in which the very gods themselves change the faces which they show to humanity as they endure their evolution.
