Hugh Cook - The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster

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."

"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.

Thus the Weaponmaster fell to the forces of the Izdimir Empire. He was returned to the city of Injiltaprajura, there to endure a weary confinement, a muchness of interrogation, several beatings and a wastefulness of impossible requests. To Guest's dismay, rumor had marked him as a wizard, and so he found himself asked to serve his new masters with his wizardry, and beaten anew in consequence of his failure to serve.

With the Mutilator's men at last convinced that Guest was no wizard, and convinced that he would be of no further use to them on the island of Untunchilamon, he was consigned to a ship that was traveling eastwards, and so was conveyed across the vastness of the oceans as a prisoner in the company of other prisoners.

Thus the Weaponmaster Guest Gulkan voyaged to the continent of Yestron as a prisoner.

Since his ship was no seagull's wing, it was a long time before Guest was landed at Bolfrigalaskaptiko, that city which lies upon the shores of the river Ka, just upstream from the great lagoon of Manamalargo. From there, he was taken inland to the mountainous region of Ang, where he arrived at last at Obooloo, capital city of the Izdimir Empire and home of Aldarch the Third.

Such were the rigors of this journey that Guest was suffering from both dengue fever and dysentery by the time he was brought into the notorious prison known as the Fulch, and his condition was such that it was a full six months before he was in a fit state to be presented to Aldarch the Third, the Mutilator of Yestron.

The day before Guest was due to be so presented, a kindly jailor who spoke a little Toxteth exercised his skills in that language to advise the Weaponmaster that it would be best advised to commit suicide rather than to endure such presentation. But Guest distrusted the jailor, and so rejected this perfectly sound advice, and so on the morrow was conveyed uphill to the knoll which sustained the Mutilator's palace, that building known as Ubazakura. Guest was checked through the gates of Ubazakura, and thus passed from the world of men, entering the lair of a demon-beast best fitted for a life in an otherworld hell.

But, as yet, the Weaponmaster was still far from despair.

For, as yet, the Weaponmaster Guest Gulkan had not met the Mutilator, and so was inclined to discount nine tenths of that which rumor had conveyed to his ears – whereas the truth of the matter was that Guest, rather than discounting rumor, should rightly have amplified it.

As he was soon to find out.

Aldarch the Third: the Mutilator of Yestron, he who by genius of terror won the vicious civil war known as Talonsklavara. His joy is to supervise the scourging of the Izdimir Empire, which he governs from the province of Ang in the heartland of the continent of Yestron. His capital city is Obooloo, where he resides in the palace known as Ubazakura, which affords him a splendid view over Lake Kak.