Hugh Cook - The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster

It caromed off the blank-faced stone, tumbled through the air, then steadied itself.

The Great God spat fire at Stogirov, who ducked.

She ducked too slowly!

She was hit!

But not vaporised – for her armor absorbed the fireshock.

Stogirov coolly leveled her own weapon and returned the Great God's fire. Guest acted.

He grabbed his father, who was in no condition for independent heroics, then he slung the unconscious man over his shoulder like a sack of severed heads and positively sprinted from the central courtyard.

Behind him, Stogirov and the Great God engaged in a firefight which the Great God lost – for Stogirov's weaponpower was greater.

So Jocasta followed Guest Gulkan's lead and fled, exiting from the Temple of Blood in the wake of the Witchlord-burdened Weaponmaster.

"COME BACK, YOU!" said Stogirov, firing yet once again at the retreating Great God.

The echoes of the amplified boom of Stogirov's voice died away, to be replaced by the truncheon-beat of her boots trampling over the heat-cracked rock as she moved in the pursuit of the fast-fleeing Great God. Out of the Temple of Blood went Anaconda Stogirov – out of the temple and into the streets of Obooloo. Guest Gulkan most naturally fled up Lobdoptiskop, that narrow street which winds its way uphill in the shadow of Achaptipop, the massive rock which sustains the Sanctuary of the Bondsman's Guild.

Up that street he labored, sweating under the burden of his father's weight. Then that burden began to gasp and croak. Hoping that if Lord Onosh was well enough to complain then he might be well enough to walk, Guest dumped the man down.

Panting and sweating, Guest Gulkan turned. And looked downhill. And saw. He saw a floating doughnut, which he knew immediately to be the Great God Jocasta. And in pursuit of that doughnut was a figure bulbous in blue-burning armor – the wrathful Anaconda Stogirov, High Priestess of the Temple of Blood! Guest, in his supreme innocence, had thought those two would happily spend the rest of the day fighting it out in the temple.

"Grief of gods!" said Lord Onosh, staggering to his feet.

"There's no way out for us now!"

But Guest still had the cornucopia.

Nearby was a cow which was fortuitously lifting its tail. As a great gush of urine gouted from its backside, Guest filled the cornucopia. Then he upended that horn of plenty. A limitless surge of bovine urine slammed forth from the cornucopia like a spout of water erupting from a hole at the base of a mighty dam.

In moments, the plunging street of Lopdoptiskop was being pillaged by a flood of drenching urine. Anaconda Stogirov clutched at a doorway but was knocked away. With a scream, she was swept downhill, vanishing in the millrace of the cow's multiplied bounty. But the Great God Jocasta floated clear of the jouncing flood. Guest abruptly brought the cornucopia upright. He held it firmly upright, to let the horn of plenty swallow what urine remained within it. Guest stowed the cornucopia, then father and son hurried on up the street to gain the gateway of the Sanctuary of the Bondsman's Guild.

"You can't come in here!" said a guard, addressing the pair in the Janjuladoola tongue, which language neither of them spoke.

Whereupon Guest Gulkan knocked him unconscious, and hurried into the Sanctuary with his father in his wake.

To penetrate the precincts of the Sanctuary had been easy, but to get into its Holy of Holies was (theoretically) rather more difficult. For that Holy of Holies was guarded by a jade-green block of stone, a block of stone which ate people who had not permission to pass. This monster was of course the demon Lob (in whose honor the street of Lobdoptiskop had been named).

Lob was but one of the far-scattered demons loyal to the Great God Jocasta, and of course Lob was under the impression that Guest Gulkan had set himself the task of rescuing that Great God.

So when Lob saw Guest approaching with Jocasta bobbing along behind, why, Lob naturally thought that Guest had fulfilled his mission of rescue (as he had) and that the Weaponmaster was now Jocasta's beloved friend (or slave).

So the man-eating demon let Witchlord and Weaponmaster pass, unwounded and unrestrained, and so they entered into the Holy of Holies where the Door of the Bondsman's Guild was kept safe from all prying eyes.

There was the Door!

The gate to the Circle of the Partnership Banks!

In all his life, Guest had seldom been so relieved as he was when he saw that metal archway standing on its marble plinth, and confirmed that the span of the archway was filled with a screen of shimmering, hard-humming silver.

In front of that archway stood a Banker, and he did not look happy to see Witchlord and Weaponmaster intruding on his domains.

He held up a single finger in a gesture of admonition. The Great God Jocasta fired a bolt of energy at the Banker, and it burnt off that upraised finger. The Banker looked at the roastmeat scar where his missing digit had been but a moment earlier, then he fainted clean away. He fell face forward. There was a solid crunch as his face smashed into the marble of the plinth, teeth splintering, jaw breaking.

Remorselessly, the Great God glided through the air toward the humming silver screen.

"No!" shouted Guest, horrorstruck.

But it was far too late for protest.

For the Great God slipped through that screen and was gone.

It had escaped! It had got away from Obooloo, going through the Door to – why, to Dalar ken Halvar, of course! For Dalar ken Halvar was the next place on the Circle of the Partnership Banks.

Witchlord and Weaponmaster did not hesitate. They scrambled up onto the plinth and hurried through the humming screen of vertical quicksilver, arriving instantly in the Bralsh, the Bank of Dalar ken Halvar. In the Bralsh there was a smell of scorched flesh and a scene of panic-stricken disarray. The Great God Jocasta was briefly glimpsed – vanishing out of the main exit.

"Guest Gulkan!"

So cried Yubi Das Finger, the leading Banker of the Bralsh.

But Guest had no time to spare for idle conversation. Instead,

Witchlord and Weaponmaster charged from the Bralsh, striving out into the hot sun of Dalar ken Halvar. Precisely what they hoped to accomplish is a mystery, for surely they must have known themselves to be unequal to the powers of a Great God.

But charge they did.

And got out into the streets of Childa Go, the fishing quarter of Dalar ken Halvar. There the Great God lurched to a halt, and turned to confront them. And, to his horror, Guest Gulkan felt his mind again slipping into the possession of his enemy.

Name: Paraban Senk (aka the Teacher of Control).

Birthplace: Charabanc.

Occupation: teacher.

Status: head of the Combat College of Dalar ken Halvar.

Description: disembodied entity which typically manifests itself as an olive-skinned face, male and of middle years.

Age: Senk claims an age in excess of 20,000 years.

Hobby: Senk personally schedules the entertainments which appear on the Eye of Delusions at Dalar ken Halvar, and this voluntary activity may be the nearest thing which Senk has to a hobby.

Quote: "The Stormforce exists for the controlled application of force."

"No!" shouted Guest Gulkan.

His voice was a wing-broken squawk of protest.

But it was too late for protest, for the Great God Jocasta was bent on taking over the Weaponmaster's mind, and was in no mood to argue about it. Yet Jocasta did not find the act of possession as effortlessly easy as before, since this time Guest was forewarned and fighting – and the Great God itself had been damaged in its battle with Stogirov.

There in the hot sun, Guest Gulkan felt bright-spark slivers of memory sharping out of his mind's darkness as Jocasta probed for a hold, a grip, a secure possession of the Weaponmaster's will. Cold. That was what Guest felt. Despite the heat of the day, he shivered, for Jocasta's probing had recalled to mind the frozen heights of the mountains of Ibsen-Iktus. Guest remembered -