Hugh Cook - The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster

The therapist lashed at Levant with a tentacle.

Almost caught him!

But Levant gained the safety of the corridor to which his fellows had fled, leaving the therapist behind him. The wounded monstrosity bellowed in a fury close to madness. In the heat of its rage, it forgot which languages the adventurers had used, and swore at them in some uncouth tongue from its monstrous past.

"Gods!" said Guest, coming to a panting halt, and letting Sken-Pitilkin slip unconscious to the floor. "He's heavy. And he's hot!"

Pelagius Zozimus touched Sken-Pitilkin's skin. It was hot, hot as if in a fever. The venerable wizard of Skatzabratzumon seemed to be positively burning up. Zozimus shuddered.

"What is it?" said Guest.

"We are lucky he is only hot," said Zozimus. "That is what it is!"Guest did not rightly understand the import of this remark, but, sensing it might be something he was better off not understand, he asked no more about it. Instead, he reclaimed his mazadath from Thayer Levant, slung the chained amulet around his neck, and declared himself ready to go on a reconnaissance mission to find some ice.

By the time Guest had returned with some ice – quite a long time, as it happened – Sken-Pitilkin was conscious again. The wizard of Skatzabratzumon proved strong enough to suck on some ice, though it was a long while before he was strong enough to speak, and longer yet before he was capable of walking.

But at last the adventurers got underway again, and a long and weary journey they had before they at last found their way to the daylight.

When at last the travelers did escape to the outer air, they found the fair city of Injiltaprajura to be in a state of uncommon disorder. For the eminent Wazir Sin had indeed been overthrown, and overthrown something close to seven years earlier, a fact which had escaped the notice of everyone from Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin to Plandruk Qinplaqus; for it must be understood that, while Untunchilamon is regularly visited by travelers bent on trade, the extreme isolation of that island means that news is only slowly disseminated from there to parts as far removed as the northern continent of Tameran and the southern continent of Parengarenga. Sken-Pitilkin explained as much to his companions.

"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.