The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster

by Hugh Cook

  "But," said Guest Gulkan, "you told me that you traveled the Circle of the Doors at length while you were acting as diplomat for my father Lord Onosh!"

  "So I did, so I did," said Sken-Pitilkin.

  "Then," said Guest, "your travels must have taken you repeatedly to Obooloo, where it seems the story of Untunchilamon's wazirless state is well known! Therefore I find myself unable to understand why you did not learn what Obooloo knows all too well!"Sken-Pitilkin took this criticism hard, but at last admitted - and let this concession be seen as proof of his scholarly maturity! - that he had not inquired too closely into the affairs of Untunchilamon because he had been there once himself.

  Admittedly, that personal visit had been a long time in the past; but the fact of having made such a visit had tricked Sken-Pitilkin into thinking himself an expert on Untunchilamon, and hence free from the duties of research.

  Let this be a lesson to all travelers! The country you visited in your youth is no longer the same nation of which you have such fond recollections! For its government has changed, yes, and its laws, its customs, its currency, and maybe its very language and religion into the bargain!

  So, if a moral is to be drawn from this book (and it is said, is it not, that all books should have morals, even if they be books of history like this one?) then let the moral be this: personal knowledge does not secure one's freedom from the burdens of research!

  The Untunchilamon which Sken-Pitilkin had visited in his youth had been a well-ordered state ruled by a wazir loyal to the rulers of Obooloo. But the Untunchilamon in which he now found himself was a mutinous state in rebellion against the Izdimir Empire, that hegemonic power which was ruled from Obooloo by Aldarch the Third, Mutilator of Yestron.

  Finding themselves in this disordered city, our heroes did the obvious. They pursued their business relentlessly! Using every power and device at their disposal, they strove mightily to win possession of the x-x-zix, the device known to Injiltaprajura as the wishstone.

  But, since Sken-Pitilkin had been pitifully weakened by his encounter with the therapist Schoptomov; and since Guest Gulkan's strength proved quite unequal to the difficulties of the task; and since Pelagius Zozimus allowed himself to be shamefully distracted by the various career opportunities available to a master chef; and since Thayer Levant proved absolutely no help whatsoever; and since Injiltaprajura proved to be an uncommonly restless, dangerous, brutal, licentious and anarchic place, the bottom line is quite simple -

  They failed.

  Our heroes were now in a parlous position. They had quite failed to win control of the wishstone, the x-x-zix, the precious triakisoctahedron which would give them political leverage in the struggle for control of the Circle of the Partnership Banks.

  Furthermore, they were marooned on Untunchilamon, which might at any day be invaded by the bloodthirsty armies of a victorious Mutilator. Sken-Pitilkin did the obvious.

  He built another airship.

  But, since Sken-Pitilkin's efforts to secure possession of the x-x-zix had made him many enemies on Untunchilamon, and since those enemies included certain sorcerers who were resident upon that island, Sken-Pitilkin's airship was promptly destroyed.

  "This is not profiting us," said Pelagius Zozimus. "I vote that we build a boat."

  "I vote that we steal one," said Guest Gulkan.

  "I vote," said Thayer Levant, in disregard of the fact that he was not strictly entitled to a vote, "that we flee to Zolabrik and join Jal Japone."

  Jal Japone was an outlaw drug dealer who dwelt in the desert wastelands north of Injiltaprajura. His reputation naturally made him attractive to one with Thayer Levant's criminal propensities, but Levant's suggestion was vetoed out of hand.

  "I'll tell you what we do," said Sken-Pitilkin.

  Then told.Sken-Pitilkin would build a decoy airship in public view and a real airship in secret. It would take time, but time they had - he hoped.

  The days that then followed in Untunchilamon were tense and desperate. As Sken-Pitilkin labored to build his decoy airship and his true escape ship, the various factions on that fraught and troubled island manoeuvered for advantage. Ships arrived with the

  Trade Winds, bringing confusing news, rumor, raiders, imposters, swindlers, cheats, refugees and free market entrepreneurs hellbent on making as many dragons as they could out of confusion and alarum.

  And all these alarums ultimately culminated in a riot, in the course of which Guest Gulkan at last managed to secure the x-x-zix from Injiltaprajura's treasury, and to make his escape with the thing on a ship, in the company of Thayer Levant.

  Now, one might think this a perfectly reasonable procedure.

  For, after all, Levant and Guest Gulkan had come to Injiltaprajura to steal the x-x-zix, had they not? They had. But they had come, of course, in the company of the wizards Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin and Pelagius Zozimus.

  And the really unfortunate thing is that, when riot arose,

  Levant and Guest Gulkan seized a transitory opportunity to win the x-x-zix, and departed from Untunchilamon on a ship, leaving Sken-Pitilkin and Zozimus to make their way off the island as best they could.

  This the two wizards eventually managed to do, for Sken-Pitilkin did in the end successfully build another airship. But the really unfortunate thing is that, by the time the wizards escaped from the island, Pelagius Zozimus had been turned into a hamster by a delinquent sorcerer of Injiltaprajura.

  A hamster!?

  The mighty slug-chef Zozimus, reduced to a hamster's estate?!

  Sad but true!!

  The details I would tell, but unfortunately it is a long story, which requires a book of its own, and cannot be fitted into this one. For this book concerns itself above all else with the history of the mighty Guest Gulkan, who got away from Untunchilamon by ship only to run into hideous danger before his ship had got all that terribly far.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Moana: the Great Ocean bounded by the continents of Tameran (to the north), Parengarenga (to the south), Yestron (to the east) and Argan (to the west). The southern shallows of Moana are known as the Green Sea, and local names have been given to several of its smaller fractions, so that for example the cold and stormy whale wastes of the north are known in Galsh Ebrek as the Winter Sea, and the more tropical waters east of the Stepping Stone Islands are commonly known as the Ocean of Cambria.

  Injiltaprajura's riots saw the ships in its harbor flee - though most fled slowly, for they were heavily burdened by loot. Guest Gulkan fled initially on a ship commanded by one Troldot "Heavy-Fist" Turbothot, who had personally looted from Injiltaprajura a female creature named Theodora, and who was intent on taking her home with him to the distant island of Hexagon. Since Hexagon was not on Guest's itinerary, both the Weaponmaster and Thayer Levant soon transferred to another ship, one which was making for Galsh Ebrek. Guest had fond memories of Galsh Ebrek, that city in Wen Endex where he had once worked for Anna Blaume as a barman. In Galsh Ebrek stood one of the Banks, the Flesh Traders Financial Association. By rights, Guest should be able to win admission to that Bank, and venture through its Circle of Doors to his home on Alozay.

  If the Bank denied him the Door, well, even that would not be a disaster, for ships traveled intermittently between Galsh Ebrek and the Port Domax. Once at Port Domax, Guest could take the overland trade route which led from there to the Swelaway Sea; and, once he had reached the shores of the Swelaway Sea, a short journey by boat would take him home to Alozay.

  One way or another, he would get there.

  Once Guest was safely home in the Safrak Islands, he would be able to bend his mind to the important tasks: to rescue his father from a time pod in the Temple of Blood; to liberate the Great God Jocasta; and to reclaim his wife Penelope from the tunnels of Cap Foz Para Lash in the city of Dalar ken Halvar.

  But what of Pelagius Zozimus? And what of Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin?

  Truth to tell, Guest Gulkan did not trouble his head about either of those digni
taries. They were wizards, were they not? Of course they were! Therefore it followed - did it not? - that they would be able to find their own way back to Alozay without any help from the Weaponmaster.

  Thus thinking, Guest relaxed, and repeatedly congratulated himself on his success. He had dared himself to Injiltaprajura, and had wrested the x-x-zix from the treasury of that most perilous of cities. And he had got away scot-free!

  Or so he thought.

  Actually, he had not got away at all.

  Though he did not know it, he was irrevocably trapped, and his doom was almost upon him.Guest was trapped because the fleet of which his ship was a part was making its way northward between the reefs of Untunchilamon's narrow lagoon; and, simultaneously, a fleet of ships loyal to the Mutilator of Yestron was making its way southward between those same reefs. It therefore followed that a collision was inevitable between the ships bearing the looters and those which were carrying the Mutilator's soldiers; and, in the fullness of time, this collision duly occurred.

  As Guest was one day sunbathing himself - he was no fan of washing, but this business of bathing in the sun was much to his liking - the lookout of his current ship announced the sighting of ships coming from the north.

  Those oncoming ships soon proved to be ships of war, ships which were flying banners which marked and identified them as the ships of Aldarch the Third, the dreaded Mutilator of Yestron.

  Before venturing to Untunchilamon, Guest Gulkan had not been very clear as to the identity of Aldarch the Third. But the Mutilator had so dominated the imagination of the inhabitants of Injiltaprajura that Guest now felt he knew the fellow as a brother. Aldarch had initiated Talonsklavara, a seven-year civil war which had devastated the Izdimir Empire. The general presumption was that Aldarch had proved victorious in that civil war, and that he was going to celebrate his victory with an orgy of sanguinary destruction.

  So Guest was not exactly happy when the lookout announced the approach of the Mutilator's ships. Indeed, he was so unhappy that he felt as if the world itself had been upset.

  The sky above was the same blue sky as ever, and the sea the same green and coral-spiked sea. There was no change in the chop of the light which came brisking from the quick-flick waves which slapped and sundered against the ship's creaking sails. Yet all of existence had been subjected to an abrupt reversal; and, in token of this, the sails of Guest Gulkan's ship shuddered as the vessel hove to.

  As the ships of the dreaded Mutilator closed with Guest Gulkan's barque, that ship remained hove to. Over its silence there soared a seabird, a white flash briefing away to the life of its own purpose.

  With a pang of regret, Guest compared the bird's freedom to his own blighted state. The bird could wish itself away on a wing, free-flighting to anywhere the winds might take it, but Guest was hopelessly embroiled in the toils of his ambition. And after all he had been through, his father was still stranded in a time pod in Obooloo's Temple of Blood. And, if Guest was to be captured and stripped of the x-x-zix, then what profit would he have to show for his adventures in Injiltaprajura? Its horrors were still fresh in memory, and those horrors looked set to be his only reward for his pains.

  With all sincerity, Guest wished he had settled for a quiet life - assuming such a thing as a quiet life to be truly possible in a world as disordered as the one we are doomed to live in.

  As Guest was thus wishing, Thayer Levant came up to him, and addressed him thus:

  "Master."

  "What do you want?" said Guest.

  He strongly suspected that Levant wanted something which Guest would be in no mood to give, for Levant usually shunned formalities such as "master", preferring an independent taciturnity to anything which might be construed as servility.

  "Well?" said Guest.

  "I want to help you," said Levant.

  "How?" said Guest, further disturbed by this prolonged indirectness.

  "I have it in mind to protect your mazadath," said Levant.

  "That and the x-x-zix."

  "Protect!" said Guest. "How could you protect them?"

  "By hiding them," said Levant. "I believe myself equal to the task of concealment. I believe I could work my way back to Obooloo then take those treasures through the Door."

  "And?" said Guest.

  "I could take them to Dalar ken Halvar," said Levant. "There,

  Plandruk Qinplaqus could put the x-x-zix to work, to modify the weather of his capital city. Furthermore, he could hold in custody your mazadath, keeping it safe for your return."

  "If I return," said Guest, who had no certainty of survival.

  "Well," said Levant, "if you don't return, then the mazadath could go to your heirs."

  "I have no heirs!" said Guest, with some bitterness.

  "Your brother Morsh has sons, has he not?" said Levant. "If memory serves, he has sons in duplicate. Yurt and Iragana. May they not serve as your heirs? After all, they're your nephews."

  "That is true," conceded Guest, somewhat comforted to think that he was an uncle even if he was not a father, and that he would always have a place in family tradition, even if he was doomed to be slaughtered by the mutilator's men.Guest considered Levant's plan.

  It was true that Levant had a better chance of hiding the mazadath and the x-x-zix than did Guest Gulkan. For Guest had been too loud-mouthed and open in his dealings with the world. He had led something of a high-profile existence, so that there must by now be a thousand people on Untunchilamon who knew Guest Gulkan to be an emperor in exile. Within the fleet which was trying to escape from Injiltaprajura, and which looked to shortly fall prisoner to the Mutilator's men, there might be ten dozen people or more who knew Guest by face, name and mission, and who knew him to have seized control of the x-x-zix.

  But Levant ....

  To Guest's knowledge, Thayer Levant spoke no language other than Galish, and so restricted his dealings with strangers to the business of sharping them at cards. Thayer Levant had the lowest of profiles imaginable; and, though many men must have marked him as Guest Gulkan's companion, he might escape attention thanks to his lowly status - for, after all, Levant was in all truth nothing but a ragged serving man.

  "Why do you hesitate?" said Levant, as Guest puzzled thus through his options. "The x-x-zix is no weapon of war."

  "That is true," conceded Guest.

  It was true indeed. The x-x-zix, the famous wishstone of Untunchilamon, granted no wishes to anyone, despite what rumor might say. It was but a heap of cubes and pyramids conglomerated into something approximating the dimensions of an orange; and, on Untunchilamon, its sole use had been ornamental, for it had long been reserved as a bauble set aside for the enhancement of the scepter wielded by whoever temporarily governed that island.

  "As for your mazadath," said Levant, "what use is that?"Guest thought about it.

  His mazadath had sentimental value, for it had been given to him by his purple-skinned Penelope, and in his exiled condition he found he missed the woman. Furthermore, the mazadath was doubtless a thing of Power. But what Power? Guest had tried to use the mazadath as a weapon against the therapist Schoptomov, but the therapist had simply laughed at the shining silver, and had knocked it from Guest Gulkan's hand. The wizards Sken-Pitilkin and Pelagius Zozimus had never thereafter remarked on the thing, a circumstance which suggested that, even if the mazadath were assumed to be possessed of Power, its Power was nothing which could be diagnosed by a wizard.

  "I'm not sure," said Guest.

  "Of what do you lack certainty?" said Thayer Levant.

  "I'm not sure you have wit enough to hide these things from the search which will surely befall us," said Guest. "There are plenty of men in this fleet who know me to be possessed of these toys, and nine in ten of those men will surely be ready to betray my possession to the Mutilator's soldiers. So. We will be searched."

  "Then you must show the world you have already hidden the things," said Levant, "and hidden them where nobody can find them."

&nb
sp; "What are you talking about?" said Guest, who had ever been irritated by riddling.

  In response, Thayer Levant smiled, and gestured at the sea.

  "What are you on about?" said Guest.

  "Come down below decks," said Levant, "and I'll tell you."

  So the Weaponmaster and his servant disappeared below decks.

  When Guest Gulkan shortly thereafter manifested himself on deck, he was possessed of a purposeful air. After glancing at the oncoming fleet of ships which was loyal to the Mutilator, Guest Gulkan dived to the waters of the sea.

  This sparked an uproar on the ship he had quit. For that ship had hove to as an act of submission, thus declaring its loyalty to the Mutilator. Hence Guest's rebellion was not to the taste of the ship's crew, which promptly launched a boat and pursued him.

  But Guest Gulkan, after the long exercise which had marked his years of convalescence in Dalar ken Halvar, could swim with the fluency of a fish. Indeed, swimming was now as natural to him as the act of riding (an act which is ever far more natural to a Yarglat barbarian than the tedious business of walking). So Guest had gained the shores of Untunchilamon before he was caught.

  Thus it was that Guest Gulkan was taken prisoner by a fleet of ships loyal to the Mutilator of Yestron, a fleet of ships which had been sent to return the rebellious island of Untunchilamon to the Izdimir Empire. In due course, Guest was interrogated; and confessed himself to be the Guest Gulkan who was notorious for having stolen the wishstone from Injiltaprajura's treasury during a riot; and confessed further that he had ditched this treasure in Untunchilamon's reef-waters when pursuit was close upon him.

  As to what really might have happened to the wishstone and to the mazadath - why, since Guest was parted from Thayer Levant, and had no news of him, he had no way of telling whether that shifty master of devices had successfully concealed these treasures, and no way of telling whether Levant might ultimately make good his promise to deliver those things to Dalar ken Halvar.