The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster coaaod-9

by Hugh Cook

  "A set of ruins," said Sken-Pitilkin. "A place of no particular consequence."

  "Oh," said Levant.

  The knifeman's nondescript response showed that he had heard nothing of Penvash and its terrors, though these – as the reader may well be aware – are known to the rumor of as many as fifty lands.

  "Penvash," said Guest, savoring the word. "Why Penvash? Why ruins?"

  "There is a Door in these ruins," said Sken-Pitilkin. "If we are to be denied Drum, then I have it in mind to open this Door."

  "But why?" said Guest.

  "To see where it goes," said Sken-Pitilkin.

  And flew onwards.

  Quite apart from any other consideration (such as sheer curiosity) Sken-Pitilkin had in mind the possibility that Shabble might have spotted them already, and might shortly pursue them, in which case a Door in the Old City would give them (possibly) the means of escape.

  So Sken-Pitilkin dared himself to the Old City in Penvash.

  Much the wizard knew of this Old City. Before his exile to Tameran and his embroilment in the affairs of the Yarglat barbarians, the wizard of Skatzabratzumon had dwelt for generations on the island of Drum, and had come to know the surrounding geography in detail.

  In particular, he had learnt much of Penvash from the questing heroes of Sung, a mean and provincial place in the Ravlish Lands, not far from Drum. The Melski – a breed of pacific but formidable green-skinned creatures which live in Penvash – had once defeated the people of Sung in a great war. Ever since then, the Old City of Penvash had possessed a peculiar fascination for the more warlike of Sung's inhabitants. For it was known that the Melski shunned that city, which led the optimistic to presume that something potent against the Melski could conceivably be recovered from that city.

  Consequently, down through the generations, a great many questing heroes of Sung had ventured to Penvash, with all of them having the Old City as their goal; and, though few had returned to tell of their venturing, most of the survivors had at one time or another discussed their experiences with Sken-Pitilkin. In the course of his debriefings, Sken-Pitilkin had made great heaps of maps, charts and diagrams, and so had recorded the existence of a Door in the Old City long before he ever knew what a Door might be good for.

  Being in possession of a star-globe capable of opening such a Door, Sken-Pitilkin therefore headed for the Old City, a heap of ruins in the Penvash Peninsular, well north of Lake Armansis.

  In Sken-Pitilkin's stickbird the heroes hustled across the horizons, making for the continent of Argan, for the Penvash Peninsular, and for the dangers of the Old City.

  They had actually caught sight of the ruins of the Old City when Guest spied a flash of fire in the sky in front of them. He cried out in alarm.

  "What is it?" said Sken-Pitilkin.

  "Shabble!" said Guest.

  "Where?" said Sken-Pitilkin, looking back. "Where?"

  "Not behind us!" said Guest. "In front of us! Look!"

  "He's right!" said Levant. "It's either Shabble – or a dragon!"Sken-Pitilkin looked, and, on squinting, did indeed see something which might well be Shabble, spitting out volleys of fire in non-stop spasms of incontinent anger.

  For once, Sken-Pitilkin was hard put to believe the evidence of his own eyes. For Drum was by now more than an eyeshot distant.

  They had flown over the ocean, had crossed the coast, and were now almost ready to spit upon the Old City. How then could Shabble be in front of them?

  The wizard of Skatzabratzumon deduced that Shabble must have been flying in a great circle of scrutiny designed to accommodate the visual inspection of the vastest possible area of land, sea and sky. He marveled at Shabble's speed, and realized that he had previously underestimated the bubble's capacities.

  "Don't just stand there gawking!" said Guest. "Put us down!

  Put us down!"

  Realizing that the Weaponmaster had reason, Sken-Pitilkin sent his stickbird into a downward spiral.

  "It's stopped," said Levant, clutching tight to the rail of the stickbird.

  "What's stopped?" said Sken-Pitilkin.

  "The flame-spitting," said Levant. "Shabble's stopped flamespitting, I can't see the thing. So that means – "

  "Ten to one it means that Shabble's seen us!" said Guest.

  At that, Sken-Pitilkin began to make his final approach, for he had spied the Door of the Old City. It was set in a muddy clearing, in which Sken-Pitilkin shortly made his landing in a shower of filth and spray.

  On landing, the stickbird spun thrice in a sickening fashion, exhausting the last of its momentum in a flurry of flying mud.

  Then it ceased to spin. It rocked twice or thrice, then was still.

  They had landed.

  "Out! Out!" said Sken-Pitilkin. Guest jumped to the mud. Thayer Levant snatched the star- globe from Sken-Pitilkin and followed.

  "Hey!" said Sken-Pitilkin. "The globe!"

  "Tell Shabble you lost it," said Levant, holding the thing close. "Try for the sky. Try fly the horizon, we'll hide in the trees. When Shabble catches you, then bluff like crazy."

  "It's a plan," said Guest. "It's not much, but something."Guest was right.

  It was not much of a plan.

  But Sken-Pitilkin could think of nothing better. Sken-Pitilkin took to the skies in his stickbird, while Guest and Levant ran for the nearest trees. They sprinted through the mud toward the shelter of the foliage – but before they reached it, that foliage erupted into fire.

  "Halt!" yelled a voice from the sky. "Halt right where you are! Or you'll be incinerated!"Guest and Levant looked up.

  There was Shabble, hovering high above them.

  "I will not be captured," said Guest. "Not by that thing. I have it in mind to run."

  "Where?" said Levant.

  "The Door!" said Guest, snatching the star-globe from Levant.

  "Where it goes I don't know, but I'll chance it."

  Then Guest sprinted for the plinth on which stood the Door of the Old City. He slammed the star-globe into the niche in the marble base of that plinth. A screen of living silver hummed to life, filling the metal arch which rose from that plinth. Guest leapt onto the marble plinth, and positively rolled through the silver screen, disappearing through sight.

  "How dare you!" roared Shabble, furious to see this quarry escaping.

  And Shabble swooped down from the skies, and flashed through that silver screen, following Guest Gulkan.

  Upon which, Thayer Levant did a quick calculation. Sken-Pitilkin had fled to the skies, and Shabble had pursued Guest Gulkan through the Door. So if Levant were to close that Door, why then, he would be in undisputed possession of the star-globe.

  So thinking, Levant ran to the marble plinth, snatched the star-globe from its base, and thus closed the Door. At which a voice challenged him from the sky.

  "Hoy! Shabble!"Thayer Levant looked upwards, and saw Sken-Pitilkin's stickbird go scudding overhead at speed. Sken-Pitilkin, realizing that Shabble had not chosen to chase him, had returned, and was trying to tempt the bubble into pursuit.

  Of course, Shabble was in no position to pursue, for the bubble had vanished through the Door to some place Elsewhere, some place doubtless far over the horizon. But if Sken-Pitilkin was not going to flee, then soon he would land. So, if Levant wanted to keep the star-globe for himself, he would have to persuade the sagacious wizard of Skatzabratzumon that it had been lost.

  What then went through Levant's head?

  Did this disgruntled servant think he could persuade Sken-Pitilkin that the star-globe had been carried off by a large magpie, say, or eaten by a hungry porcupine?

  We cannot tell.

  But what is certain is that Levant swiftly buried the star- globe at the base of the marble plinth, and, having concealed this buried treasure, he hastened himself toward the treeline, doubtless working to contrive an excuse to explain the loss of the precious globe.

  Meantime, Sken-Pitilkin swooped back and forth across the clearing, e
ndeavoring to tempt Shabble to pursuit. On his second swoop, Sken-Pitilkin saw Levant running for the treeline. And on his third swoop, Sken-Pitilkin saw Levant thrashing in the jaws of a gigantic scorpion.

  In long interrogation of some of the questing heroes from Sung who had ventured to the Old City of Penvash, Sken-Pitilkin had heard many stories of the monsters which haunted those ruins.

  He had heard, for example, of just such a giant scorpion. Even so, it was a shock for him to see Levant twisting in his death-agonies in the jaws of such a monster. Sken-Pitilkin did not hesitated.

  The wizard of Skatzabratzumon, who was as courageous as he was sagacious, threw his stickbird into a tight spiral, and brought it down in the clearing of the Door. The scorpion promptly dropped Levant, who fell writhing to the ground. The monster then advanced on Sken-Pitilkin. Sken-Pitilkin raised his country crook and cried out a Word.

  A flare of levitational energy caught the scorpion, which was blasted backwards, and sent tumbling into a tree. It smashed into the tree trunk, then flopped to the ground. An ooze of yellow slime issued from its twitching body.

  Warily, Sken-Pitilkin advanced, seeking to succor the fallen Thayer Levant.

  But, by the time the wizard reached Levant, the man was dead.

  His body had been hideously crushed. His shattered ribs had pierced through outward through his skin, and the froth of unbreathing blood on Levant's lips told Sken-Pitilkin that the man's lungs had been pierced by those same cruel-edged bones.

  Dead, dead, finished, doomed, beyond all chance of cure, beyond all chance of resurrection.

  In the aftermath of the crisis, Sken-Pitilkin started to shudder. He felt weak. He felt his age. As he stood there in the clearing, rain began to fall, pattering on the leaves of the trees, splattering on the mud of the clearing. Amidst that rain, something large and yellow began to ooze out of the forest, and Sken-Pitilkin realized it was a slug. A huge slug. A slug as big as an ox. Behind it was another slug. And another. A veritable armada of the things was cruising through the trees. Sken-Pitilkin remembered stories told by some of the questing heroes who had ventured from Sung to Penvash. Those yellow slugs ate men.

  But – before Sken-Pitilkin quit the clearing – where was the star-globe?

  "You had it last," said Sken-Pitilkin, addressing Levant's corpse.

  Then Sken-Pitilkin hastily searched the corpse, for such was the importance of the treasure. But Levant did not have it, and the slugs were swift closing in on Sken-Pitilkin and his stickbird. Sken-Pitilkin used his Power to test the weight of one of the slugs. It was as heavy as it was huge. In a battle with such monsters, he must necessarily exhaust himself, and be swiftly overcome by their numbers.

  Realizing this, Sken-Pitilkin hobbled to his stickbird, supporting himself with his country crook. He hauled himself into the stickbird and took to the skies, leaving behind him the clearing, the marble plinth, the steel archway of the Old City's Door, the slow-cruising yellow slugs, and the untenanted corpse of Thayer Levant.

  Where was Guest? Sken-Pitilkin cruised backwards and forwards across the Old City, hunting for the Weaponmaster. But there was no sign of him.

  And as there was likewise no sign of Shabble, Sken-Pitilkin deduced that in all probability the pair of them had gone through the Door. And as to where they might be now, he had no idea whatsoever.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Guest Gulkan: the Yarglat barbarian otherwise known as the Weaponmaster. He dueled his father for possession of the Collosnon Empire – this civil war so weakening that empire that it was conquered by the interloper Khmar. Guest Gulkan then united with his father to fight Khmar – but lost.

  Retreating in defeat, father and son sought refuge on the island of Alozay, which they were constrained to conquer. Conquest of Alozay made them masters of one of the Doors of the Circle of the Partnership Banks, embroiling them in an unrelenting struggle for the mastery of that Circle.

  The latest entity to enter this struggle is Shabble, the miniature sun which has lately made an alliance with those demons which serve the Great God Jocasta. Shabble itself is a servant of the Holy Cockroach, is determined to conquer the world for that Cockroach, and wishes to use the Circle of the Partnership Banks to expedite this conquest.

  For Guest Gulkan, the flight from Drum to the Old City was terrifying. He was bucked across the sky without the slightest hope of controlling his own destiny, and in hot pursuit was the outraged Shabble.

  The Old City came into sight below them. Sken-Pitilkin sent his stickbird hurtling down out of the skies. As they slammed into the earth, Guest Gulkan threw himself out of the stickbird and raced for the Door. He slammed the star-globe into the socket of the marble plinth on which stood the steel arch of the Door. The archway filled with humming mercury. Guest Gulkan bounded up onto the plinth, drew his sword, then leapt through the Door, with his sword braced to strike down whatever enemy confronted him. He found himself alone in a hot and insect-humming eucalyptus forest. Without tarrying for further inspection, he dared his way through the Door again.

  Of course he did not return to the Old City, for the Door was not like one which opens into a bar or a brothel. Rather, it is best construed as a series of one-way valves arranged in a Circle, and by bearing this model in mind one can easily understand the Weaponmaster's progress.

  On leaping through that Door a second time, leaving the eucalyptus forest behind him, Guest emerged onto a sunstruck desolation of sand. He mistook it for desert – then blinked at the sundazzling sea, and realized it was beach. Beach? A quick scan proved it to be an island. Guest Gulkan had time for no more than that one quick scan, for Shabble came bursting through the humming screen of the Door before he could engage in a more elaborate survey of his surroundings.

  "Maraka daga dok?" said the seething Shabble. Guest knew Shabble to be fast-striking, able to outpace a human in any martial endeavor. Yet if he could somehow distract the impetuous bubble of wrath, then perhaps he could plunge back through the Door and made his escape.

  As Guest was so thinking, that Door snapped out of existence.

  The shimmering silver screen in the metal archway vanished, and was replaced with hot and cloudless sky.

  "Daga!" demanded Shabble. "Daga dok!"

  "What?" said Guest, afraid for his life and so striving mightily for comprehension.

  "I said," said Shabble, reverting to Toxteth, "Where is my toy?" Guest Gulkan was quite out of the habit of speaking Toxteth, so it took him a disconcerting interval to comprehend even this simplicity. But with comprehension achieved, Guest gladly explained that the star-globe was – most naturally! – back in the Old City of Penvash.

  "And you," said Guest, "should be heading for that Old City immediately, for obviously the globe has been taken out of its pocket, and every moment you waste here sees the thing slip further from your grasp."

  "I can still spare a moment to burn you alive!" said the wrathful Shabble.

  "If I am to be firewood," said Guest, "then burn away."

  In answer, Shabble stung the Weaponmaster with a bolt of singing fire. It burnt a smoking hole in his skin. The stench of burnt flesh and singed hairs rose hot to his nostrils. For a moment, Guest gaped at his wound. Then the pain hit hard, driving him into the sea. But all the waters of Moana were not sufficient to quench the pain of that wound. As Guest soaked it, Shabble hummed round his head like a mutant wasp. The buzzing globe of malevolence bobbed and bounced, hitting the water repeatedly, sending stinging spray in all directions.

  But Guest paid no heed to Shabble because his pain was so great. Indeed, the Weaponmaster was in such palpable agony that Shabble backed off somewhat. Guest, divining that the bubble might have realized it had gone further than it truly wanted to, began to recover a degree of self-possession. As he began to master his pain, he took advantage of his recovering self-possession to stage deliberate theatricals of ever-intensifying agony.

  "Are you hurt?" said Shabble anxiously. Guest responded with gro
ans, as if the Great Mink itself was in the process of tearing off his toes one by one.

  "Are you really really hurt?" said Shabble. Guest fell to sand and thrashed in an agony which was nine- tenths simulated. All the while he watched Shabble covertly from the corner of his eye.

  The response surprised even the Weaponmaster For, after a bare ten breaths and a heartbeat, Shabble lost interest in the Weaponmaster's prolonged suffering, and went to investigate the sea, disappearing from sight beneath the waters.

  This stunned Guest, who did not quite follow Shabble's reasoning. Shabble saw that Guest appeared to be in grievous pain; and, knowing humans in such condition were no fun at all, Shabble had gone to look at the coral and play with the fishes. Shabble's earlier anxiety had not been feigned. But Guest had been wrong to assume that anxiety to be symptomatic of vast reserves of empathy.

  Shabble had been designed and built as a toy, and so had the emotional resources appropriate to the nursery rather than those befitting grand opera.

  While Guest did not quite realize how and why his tactics had failed, he did see that his operatic performance was getting him nowhere. So he gave up his groaning and sat on the sand clutching his arm – which still hurt like hell.

  Then Guest waited.

  He waited for Shabble to emerge from the waters.

  But Shabble did not emerge. Guest was profoundly puzzled by this, for Shabble's behavior was contrary to human experience. A human, on arriving abruptly on a coral island in the company of a grievously wounded companion, does not proceed immediately to extended underwater tourism. But, again, Shabble's performance would not have been out of place in the nursery, for Shabble had been made as a toy for children, not as a replacement for a parent.

  In the absence of any mature adult concern from Shabble – who surface briefly once or twice, but immediately splashed down under the water again – Guest at last got to his feet and sauntered over to the door. In the white coral sand – sand whiter than eggshell, whiter than bone – he saw only one single set of footprints. They were his own. Guest confronted the Door.