by Hugh Cook
"Your Great God is a secret," said Guest. "The Guardians don't know about your Great God, and - and - and these temple people, these people in Obooloo, how much do they know? I'll tell Sod, that's what, then Sod will tell Obooloo. Oh yes, and once Obooloo knows it has a Great God in its midst, well, who wants something like that lurking in the closet? Obooloo won't be very happy, no, and your Great God neither. The temple. The Temple of Blood. The Great God. Imprisoned by the Stog, the Stogirov. That's all they need to know. I'll tell Sod, then Sod will tell, Obooloo will know, then it's doom for your Great God, or maybe for you too."
"An empty threat," sneered Iva-Italis. "For how would you or Sod say anything such to Obooloo when Obooloo is so far away from here?"
Now as it has been earlier remarked, Guest Gulkan knew no more geography than a hedgehog. If anything, he knew less.
Therefore he had no true conception of the distance between Safrak and Obooloo, and no untrue conception of that same distance either. But, since Witchlord and Weaponmaster had recently performed prodigies of geographical excursion, venturing over unmapped lands with no more than sun and stars to guide them, Guest was inclined to sneer at distance, and to think no prodigies of sea or mountain sufficient to bar the distances to the brave.
Hence he answered easily:
"Why, it will be no great difficulty for Sod to get news to Obooloo, for Obooloo is but a step from Safrak."
Now when Guest spoke of that "step" between Safrak and Obooloo, he was speaking in the poetic manner, in which a "step" can mean any distance less than a lifetime. But Iva-Italis took this throwaway remark for a statement of literal truth, and was enraged.
"Who told you of that?" said Iva-Italis in fury.
"Ha!" said Guest, realizing he had struck on something, though he did not know what. "It is a step, yes, a single step!"
"Who told you?" roared the demon, with renewed rage.
The roar was sufficient to refocus the attention of everyone in the Hall of Time on Guest Gulkan's dealings with the demon.
"Hush down," said Guest softly. "Or do you want them all to know the secret."
"Come closer," said Iva-Italis, "and I will hush in truth."
"Ha!" said Guest. "Closer! If you want us closer, then you must come to me."
"Then stay where you are," said Iva-Italis. "But if you wish to have dealings with me, then you must tell what you know of the passage between Safrak and Ang."
Ang? Now where was Ang? Guest Gulkan was adrift already, for though he had been told a thousand times that Ang is a province of the Izdimir Empire, and that the city of Obooloo stands fair and square in the center of that province, he had neglected to commit these facts to memory. Hence the name of Ang came to him as if he and it were both just fresh-born. But Guest bluffed it out bravely.
"I am the Weaponmaster," said Guest staunchly, "and the greatest of my weapons are those of the intellect. I was born to power and then raised in the wisdom of wizards. I have walked in the sun and have walked at the feet of the dead. I have spoken with Those Who Are Not and have slept alongside Those Who Will Be.
I have looked through time and space and I have seen much, aye, even the Untunchilamons."
A nice froth of nonsense, this! But Guest had heard sufficient legends, stories and fairy-tales to know how a Master of Knowledge and Power should speak, so spoke accordingly. And with remarkable effect.
"Untunchilamon!" said Jocasta.
"Why, yes," said Guest, surprised to see that he had enraged the demon yet further, but concealing his surprise with bland insouciance. "No secret is there concealed from me, for I know - "
Then Guest halted himself. He had been about to say that the Untunchilamons were a group of twenty-seven islands where the
Rovac had long dwelt in power, but he dimly and distantly remembered the wizard Sken-Pitilkin correcting him on this. For some reason, Guest connected that correction with Strogloth, author of Strogloth's Compendium of Delights. So was Untunchilamon the birthplace of that infamous author? Perhaps. But Guest could not be sure of this.
"You were saying," said Iva-Italis, observing Guest's confusion. Guest shook his head to free it from confusion.
"You have been addling my wits," said Guest, turning on Iva-Italis with a note of accusation.
"I?" said Iva-Italis in surprise. "I've been doing no such thing!"
"Of course you have," said Guest. "You know what I know and you know you must yield, but you have been negotiating in bad faith, seeking to probe me out of my secrets, and seeking also to delay decision in the hope that the Guardians may swamp my father's men and hack me before I can betray your truth to Sod.
You think me patient? Patient I am not, not when I am hard up against the wall of my death. Very well! I must go call out Sod, for it is time for me to confess to him my secrets."
With that, Guest turned to go, making as if to head up the stairs to the abditory to which Sken-Pitilkin and Glambrax had conveyed the captive Banker.
"No!" said Iva-Italis. "Wait! I have a message."
"What message?" said Guest, turning.
"A message from Jocasta," said Iva-Italis. "Jocasta says you can have my help. If. If you will swear. If you will swear yourself to venture to Obooloo. Yes, and to rescue. To free the Great God Jocasta from the clutches of the evil Stogirov, High Priestess of the Temple of Blood. Do that, and Jocasta in gratitude will make you a wizard, yes, and you will live forever." Guest hesitated.
"You realize what I need?" said Guest. "You realize what your offer of help implies?"
"Tell me," said Jocasta.
"It implies, amongst other things, that you must call off the Guardians. They have sworn oaths of fealty to you, therefore you can tell them to pledge their allegiance to me and my father."
"I will do it," said Iva-Italis.
"Then I will put you to the test," said Guest. Then again moistened his throat by sucking on his finger, and, having thus eased his throat for shouting, bellowed: "Father! Here!"
The Witchlord Onosh did not respond to this call, for he was out of earshot, having left the Hall of Time, descending to a lower landing where Thodric Jarl and others were in hot dispute with the Guardians. But the witch Zelafona and the wizard Zozimus approached the demon in response to Guest's shout, and, halting a safe distance from the beast, heard his requirements.Guest required his father to ask that one of the Guardians come to the Hall of Time under flag of truce, to receive instruction from the demon of Safrak, Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis,
Keeper of the Inner Sanctum and Guardian Prime.
A truce was procured, and a Guardian was allowed into the Hall of Time to hear the demon's diktat.
"Edlard," said the demon, identifying the Guardian by name.
"You know me."
"You are my lord," said Edlard "Then hear," said Iva-Italis. "And obey."
Then Guest knew it was going to be all right.
The denouement was swift.
Long had the Bankers of Safrak trusted the demon Iva-Italis, relying on that demon to guard their greatest secrets, and using that demon as the supreme commander of the Guardians. But now that trust was betrayed. Edlard was commanded to give his allegiance to the Weaponmaster Guest, and to command the rest of the Guardians to present themselves to the Hall of Time to receive the same instruction.
In the end, the greatest impediment to the conquest of the mainrock Pinnacle was the Witchlord Onosh himself, for, being distrustful of the demon, Lord Onosh would only permit the Guardians to enter the Hall of Time in groups of three or four.
Then, when all the Guardians in the mainrock had been sworn to Guest Gulkan's service, Lord Onosh banned all the Guardians from the Hall of Time, and commanded Thodric Jarl to guard the entrance to that Hall against all intruders.
Having thus ensured that Iva-Italis could not command the Guardians to betray the oaths so freshly given, Lord Onosh at last consented to venture past the demon to join his son. The wizard Zozimus went with him, and they took themselves
up the stairs to pierce the mystery of the abditory above - the place to which Sken-Pitilkin and Glambrax had retreated with Sod as their prisoner.
At the top of the stairs, in the weirding room in the uppermost stratum of the mainrock Pinnacle, the abditory awaited.
But in it was no great treasure, no mystery, no wonder, no splendor. Instead, the stairway debouched into a room which was large but plain, an airy room with multiple widespan windows, pleasantly lit but bereft of adornment. In the midst of this room there stood a plinth, and from that plinth there arose an archway of what appeared to be steel.
It was cold in that room, for the chill breeze of a winter's morning came wafting through those widespan window-ways. The grayest, chilliest, coldest light of dawn lit the room with a kind of gray liquidity. This was the light before the sun, the light which is too gray to sustain color, the cold and disillusioning light which drains away the manic pretensions of the night.
By that light, Witchlord and Weaponmaster examined the disappointments of the abditory, its marble plinth, and its steel arch. Banker Sod had been firmly tied to that arch. He was asleep.
The dwarf Glambrax appeared to be standing on guard, but on examination he proved to be asleep on his feet. The wizard Sken-Pitilkin was huddled on the floor, snoring.
"Sod," said Guest, waking the Banker by pricking him in the nose with a knifeblade.
Sod woke with a start.
"Your ring," said Guest, as Sod tried to blink away the confusions of sleep. "Give it! Or must I cut it from your finger?
Your ring, man! And, mind - if you swallow it, I'll cut it out of you!"
In the face of Guest's threat - a threat which owed nothing to bluff - Sod surrendered up the ring of which the Weaponmaster spoke. This ring was adorned with a chip of ever-ice which, as Guest knew well, had the power to open and close the timeprison pods of the Hall of Time.
Once Guest had the ring, he woke Sken-Pitilkin. The wizard proved difficult to rouse, so much so that Guest suspected he had been drugged. But he was merely exhausted. When roused from sleep, and persuaded that the demon Iva-Italis truly had betrayed the mainrock Pinnacle to the invaders, Sken-Pitilkin watched while Witchlord and Weaponmaster examined the plinth and the arch.
The search proved singularly disappointing.
"I had thought," said Guest, after long examination, "that there was some great secret here. But this is nothing."
"It is something indeed," said Sod. "It is a shrine, holy to the God of Money."
"Shrine!" said Guest. "I spit on your shrine!"
And he suited words to action.
"Come," said Lord Onosh. "There's nothing for us here. Come.
The mainrock awaits. First the rock, then Molothair. That gives us Alozay. Let's take Sod and go below."
"No!" said Guest. "Not Sod! He stays here! I don't want him anywhere near the demon!"
Lord Onosh considered.
"That's reasonable," said the Witchlord. "By my judgment, we can't trust either in isolation, far less in combination. Sod!
We'll keep you happy here! A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, a chamber pot - what else could you want?"
"A blanket," said Sod.
"Done!" said Lord Onosh, jovial in victory.
With blanket promised, Witchlord and Weaponmaster went below, accompanied by Zozimus and Sken-Pitilkin. Lord Onosh was impatient to be gone, but Guest paused in the Hall of Time, insisting on inspecting the timeprison pods. For, in the course of descending from the abditory, he had become convinced that the woman Yerzerdayla stood frozen in one of those pods.
But a rigorous inspection of the time pods yielded up no trace of the woman, nor of any woman like her. This is the thing about visions, premonitions and such - even when a person does actually possess a Gift, their interpretation of the future is likely to be wrong as often as it is right. Lord Onosh, for example, most definitely had the Gift of Seeing; yet he was apt to mistake his own hopes and fears for the preaching of that Gift. So Lord Onosh, on a hunt in the mountains near Gendormargensis, had once thought himself doomed to die in those mountains, struck down by his son Guest - yet this had not happened, and, despite the strength of his convictions, the Witchlord had returned alive to his capital city.
Betrayed likewise by the workings of his own unconscious mind, Guest hunted for Yerzerdayla in the Hall of Time, but found her not.
The young Weaponmaster did, however, find two time prisoners whom he recognized from the past. One of these was the elderly Ashdan who had once introduced himself as Ulix of the Drum; and the other was that Ashdan's servant.
The small and antiquated Ashdan was frozen in an expression of anger. He held in his fist a crooked walking stick, the head of which was a pelican cast in silver, and appeared to be using it to menace the world. Guest had no idea how long that Ashdan might have been imprisoned there, but decided to release him.
But first the young Weaponmaster consulted with Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin.
"You know this Ulix, don't you?" said Guest. "The pair of you were here that night, that night when the demon first talked of the Great God."
"It is true," said Sken-Pitilkin.
"Then what I want to know," said Guest, "is whether you think it's a good idea for me to let this Ashdan out." Sken-Pitilkin considered, then said that the release of the Ashdan might have its merits. So Guest placed the chipstone of ever-ice against the surface of the Ashdan's time pod; and drew a line vertically on the transparent surface of that pod; and the pod opened sweetly, just as rumor had always said it would.
And out boiled the Ashdan, in the worst of tempers imaginable.
Fortunately, Zozimus and Sken-Pitilkin were able to placate that withered ancient, and ease his temper before he did an injury to himself while attempting to injure others. Much heated discussion followed, at the end of which it was proved that Ulix of the Drum had been in the time prison for upwards of a year.
"Though it was but an eyeblink for me," said Ulix. "And will have been an eyeblink likewise for my servant. Speaking of whom -
I would be very pleased if you would release the fellow."
Now the Ashdan's servant was one Thayer Levant, who had the face of a rat and the eyes of a vulture. He wore a rag-tatter patchwork cloak with was weighted with lead so it could be used in a knife-fight; and the cloak was grimy; and his face was grimy likewise; and the eyes set in that face were bloodshot; and the teeth of that face were broken and brown; and his hair was brown likewise, and was thin, revealing the fungus which grew in green patches on his scalp.
But Guest was tolerant, therefore consented to release this miserable specimen into his palace. Upon release, Levant was soon orientated to his changed situation, and took up a position of watchful obedience a pace behind his master and a half-pace to his master's right.
"Very well," said Ulix of the Drum to Guest Gulkan. "Now you will pledge yourself to preserve my life, and in return I will do you a great favor."
"What great favor?" said Guest, who did not think that he had any cause to pledge anything whatsoever to this Ulix.
"Swear to him," said the wizard Zozimus. "Swear to him, for he is trustworthy."
"He is?" said Guest. "How would you know?"
"Trust me," said Zozimus. "Have I ever betrayed you in the past?"
"Have you ever had the opportunity?" retorted Guest.
Then Sken-Pitilkin intervened.
"Guest," said Sken-Pitilkin, "my cousin Zozimus is but a slug-chef, it is true, but even a slug-chef may have his honor, and Zozimus has his. Take his advice. I trust him, and so may you."
Then Guest Gulkan at last consented to be advised by Zozimus, and so swore that he would preserve the life of the ancient Ashdan, the pelican-bearing Ulix of the Drum. Whereupon Ulix said unto him:
"Come. Let us ascend to the uppermost chamber of the mainrock
Pinnacle, and there I will explicate to you the greatest of the world's secrets, and its most powerful."
"We've been," said Guest.
"We've seen. There's nothing there."
"On the contrary," said Ulix. "There is a great secret upstairs from here."
"An acroamatical secret, I suppose," said Guest.
"Precisely," said the Ashdan Ulix, raising an eyebrow. "How did you know that?"
"Because," said Guest, "I have long been in the company of wizards, and have enjoyed the full advantages of their tutoring."
And this Ulix believed, though the truth of it was that Guest did not know an acroamatical secret from a stench pit; and, while he used the word "acroamatical," and liked its flavor, he was completely ignorant of its proper meaning.
Lord Onosh was reluctant to be dragged upstairs, for a great weariness was upon him. Yet Guest insisted, for he was sure that Ulix of the Drum had something utterly fantastic to reveal to them.
And so it shortly proved.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Inner Sanctum: the most secret of all the abditories of the Safrak Bank. The Sanctum lies upstairs from the Hall of Time, and the sole approach to the Sanctum is guarded by Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis, the Keeper of the Inner Sanctum. Its contents - so far as Witchlord and Weaponmaster have been able to discover - are restricted to an uninteresting marble plinth sustaining an inscrutable steel archway.
"Where's my blanket?" said Sod, when Witchlord and Weaponmaster made their return to Jezel Obo, the Sky Stratum, topmost level of the mainrock Pinnacle.
"Yes," said Glambrax, "and his chamber pot. I have need of one, and so does he."
"There is the living rock outside," said Ulix of the Drum, waving at one of the floor-to-ceiling windows with his pelican- headed walking stick.
"Then let Sod loose," said Lord Onosh, "and let him dung upon the living rock of the heights of the Pinnacle."
Sod was released, and his example proved inspirational, for the whole company took itself outside.
The uttermost top of the mainrock was a perilous place.
The rock fell away steeply from the southern and northern windows of the weirding room which held plinth and arch, and none but a mountaineer in his folly could have ventured such steepness. To east and west, the crested rock was narrow, and rough.
