Hugh Cook - The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster

Then Guest felt properly foolish, for he knew his father's feet to be a match for his own.

"Never mind that," said Guest, unbuckling the sheath which held the Mutilator's hooked knife. "We'll see about boots later."

With that, Guest Gulkan withdrew the Mutilator's blade from its sheath.

And wondered.

How had the demon Ungular Scarth detected the presence of that weapon when it had been hidden from sight inside the buckle-down sheath? Maybe… maybe by logic alone. For, after all, Guest would not have ventured idly into the Temple of Blood. His presence in that Temple implied that he had secured resource sufficient for the liberation of the Great God.

With knife in hand, Guest Gulkan advanced upon the Great God Jocasta, who hung silent and unchanging in the air. While Guest advanced, his father hung well back, taking care to keep well out of reach of the demon Ungular Scarth. For Lord Onosh did not trust the demon further than he could throw it.

While Lord Onosh had profound reservations about the demon and the Great God it served, Guest Gulkan had none such. He smiled upon the Great God, which presented the same aspect to the world as it had done when Guest had seen it first. It was a doughnut the size of a man's head, floating in the air within two shells of light – a dull red inner shell of its own production, and a sharp- burning outer shell of blue which constituted its imprisonment.

"Hail, Jocasta," said Guest, with due formality.

The Great God made no reply, and the demon Ungular Scarth did not speak on its behalf.

Then Guest applied the blue-green bead at the end of the Mutilator's hooked knife to the surface of the blue-burning shell which imprisoned the Great God.

As the knife touched the force field, it began to vibrate, setting Guest's teeth on edge. He had expected the knife to slice apart the transparent shell, but instead it twisted wickedly and skidded across the surface.

"More strength!" said Scarth.

"More!" said Guest. "I am using strength enough to open a coconut!"

"More," affirmed Scarth. "Use your muscle!"

Then Guest gritted his teeth and applied his full strength to the task. His hands, his arms, his entire body shook with vibratory energy. A thin line of white fire appeared, and widened to a slit.

"I've done it!" said Guest.

And withdrew the knife.

The slit promptly healed itself.

"The force field is self-sustaining," said Ungular Scarth.

"Self-sustaining, self-healing."

"Now you tell me!" said Guest.

"Try again," said the demon.

"Again!" said Guest, who was sweating heavily, and who could feel his forearms shaking with the effort of his exertions.

"Are you a weakling?" sneered the demon.

"Am I weak?" said Guest, with an ill temper. "Well, yes, I am, because I have suffered in the dungeons of the Mutilator, and suffered in the Stench Caves, and suffered from bedless wandering since, and I am in no mood to be trifled with!"

"I do not call the liberation of gods a matter of trifling," said Scarth, softly. "Look! The Great God is ready!"

At which Guest saw that the red glow of the Great God's selfprotective force field was dying away. Where there had been two spheres of light, now only one remained: the outer sphere of imprisoning blue. Guest realized that the Great God was preparing to exit, was preparing to escape.

"Your strength, now," said Ungular Scarth. "Use your strength, and liberate a god!"

Thus encouraged, Guest scraped the ruinous mess of his straw sandals from his feet, and braced his bare feet against the rigidity of the metal grille. Then, with all the brutality at his command, Guest hacked a great slice through the blue-burning skin of the force field. Before the slit could heal, the Great God pushed its way to liberty, birthing itself with a sound like a breaking harpstring.

"Ha!" said Guest, his face alight with a grin of triumph.

"So! You are free! Well, here I am!"

There he was, indeed, and the Great God Jocasta was duly conscious of the fact. Liquid fire ran through Guest Gulkan's veins. Images swirled through his head in a dementing turmoil. He felt dizzy, and almost dropped the knife he was holding. A hand which was not his own forced that knife to the challenge, but the hand was his own, his own hand but not his own to control, and his head was turning, his body was turning, he was turning on his father, the knife was poised to kill -

Then Guest found tongue enough to cry and yelled:

"Run!"

Lord Onosh took the hint, and fled.

Then Guest Gulkan, hopelessly possessed by the Great God Jocasta, was puppeted into the pursuit of his father.

With his son in hot pursuit, Lord Onosh raced into the central courtyard, slipped in a puddle of urine and went down. And before he could rise, his son was upon him. Guest felt his own hand wrench at his father's hair. Felt his own strength smash his father's face to the reeking urine. Felt his knotted fingers haul his father's face from the splash-puddle, then twist it, exposing to knife to the blade.

Then – compelled by the Great God Jocasta, which had him in firm possession – Guest Gulkan raised his knife for the slaughtering of his father.

Guest Gulkan: the Yarglat barbarian otherwise known as the Weaponmaster. Under the compulsion of hubristic ambition, he has dared his way into the Temple of Blood. There he has liberated the Great God Jocasta. By way of reward, he expected to be given the powers of the wizard. Instead, the Great God has taken possession of him. His father, the Witchlord Onosh, lies at his feet. And Guest is poised to kill his father. He does not want to, but he cannot help himself!

So there was Guest, about to slaughter his father, when with a whoosh a high-pressure flood of saliva came barrel-bursting from the cornucopia, knocking him down and rolling him over and over till he ended up in a thrashing heap against the temple wall. The Great God Jocasta lost control of Guest's body, for its contortions were too quick to be followed by the God's mechanism of control – and Guest abruptly found himself free.

Free from possession, Guest fought through a swiftly-rising flood-rush of foaming spittle, grappled with the pumping cornucopia, and brought it to the upright, thus cutting off the outflow of his father's spit – which otherwise would surely have continued pumping until it had digested the world.

This was no sooner done than Guest realized that the Great God Jocasta was moving in on Lord Onosh, humming ominously.

"Run!" said Guest.

But, even as he said it, a voice of thunder roared in outraged anger:

"HALT!"Guest momentarily thought it was the Great God Jocasta speaking, but it was not.

"HALT!" roared the wrath-thundering challenger. "HALT! THROW DOWN

For a moment, Guest was all confusion, then he saw the challenger who owned that voice which mountains would surely have envied. The loud-mouthed challenger was a woman who was dressed in an armor fashioned from the same painfully bright blue transparency which had imprisoned the Great God Jocasta. Guest had never seen this woman before, but he had heard the odd snippet of news about Obooloo while he had been incarcerated in the Mutilator's dungeons – and knew enough to surmise (with absolute accuracy, as it happened) that this was none other than Anaconda Stogirov, High Priestess of the Temple of Blood.

Stogirov had a weapon in her hand, a weapon of contorted metal which ended in a nozzle tipped with white light. Guest had barely caught sight of it when it spat flame.

The firebolt which jolted from Stogirov's alien weapon slammed into the Great God Jocasta. That blast of raw energy struck the Great God, sending the free-floating thing crashing backwards. The Great God was sent slamming into the rearward wall.