Hugh Cook - The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster

Shabble has set up a god upon Alozay, and we have no choice but to treat with this problem in a serious manner."

Lord Onosh shook his head. He was still having trouble adjusting to the news. His home island – invaded by a cockroach!

The Witchlord Onosh had often feared that the Safrak Islands might be invaded by the Red Emperor, the fearsome Khmar, whose horsemen currently dominated the Collosnon Empire. He had feared, too, that he might be betrayed by the treachery of the Partnership Banks, or face an intemperate challenge from his son Guest. But never in his wildest dreams had he thought himself likely to suffer invasion from a talking ball and an immortal cockroach.

"You say that Shabble is installed upon Alozay," said Guest.

"Do you mean that this Shabble-thing is there as a conqueror?"

"Not yet, not yet," said Qinplaqus. "At the moment, Shabble is but an uninvited guest. But I fear that it will be but a matter of time before Shabble declares itself the lord of Alozay, and the lord too of all the Doors of the Circle."

The Plandruk Qinplaqus called for tea, for coffee, for wine, for chocolate, for sweetmeats, for roast polyps and boiled water, to afford them a break in which they could chew over their difficulties as they chewed over their food. Guest chewed with some anger.

The Weaponmaster had thought of Untunchilamon as a mere waystation in his life; and, though he had sojourned there for some considerable time, and though a great many things had there happened to him, he had never expected any of the strangers encountered on Untunchilamon to intrude into his future. Least of all on Alozay! After all, there was an entire ocean between Untunchilamon and Alozay.

While chewing, Guest suffered the most horrendous sense of overwhelming difficulties. As a hero whose multiple heroics had no precedent in myth, legend or affidavit, the Weaponmaster had dared unimaginable dangers (including the temptations of therapists and a great Flood of his father's saliva), and had succeeded where many had failed. In the face of all the odds, he had won the wishstone from Untunchilamon and had got it as far as Dalar ken Halvar – but now the wishstone didn't work, or not yet at any rate, and his return home was problematical.

During his earlier sojourn in Dalar ken Halvar, when he had spent four years convalescing from injuries, Guest had learnt something of the rise of the religion of Nu-chala-nuth, which was now the dominant faith in Parengarenga. If Shabble was intent on seizing the Circle of the Doors of the Partnership Banks and converting the world to the doctrines of the Holy Cockroach, then there was surely the potential for a horrific holy war when the adherents of the Cockroach clashed with the Nu-chala-nuth.

So, with a potential religious war added to his own problems, Guest felt positively depressed. And things were all the worse because he was facing his current difficulties without the help of his wizards.

So where exactly were those dignitaries?

When Guest had escaped from Untunchilamon by ship, he had left behind the wizards Pelagius Zozimus and Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin. At the time, Sken-Pitilkin had been trying to build another of his flying machines.

Assuming that he had succeeded…

"Is Sken-Pitilkin on Alozay?" said Guest, with a note of intense suspicion in his voice.

"Why, yes," said Qinplaqus. "I forgot to mention that. Sken-Pitilkin arrived with Shabble."

"I knew it!" said Guest, speaking like a man who has just discovered a scorpion beneath his pillow. "Only Sken-Pitilkin could have tempted that bubble to Alozay. Shabble could never have got there by accident, not ever! What would Shabble know of Alozay, Safrak, demons, Doors? It's Sken-Pitilkin, he's the one!"

"Yes," said Lord Onosh, relieved to find they had an obvious target to blame for the mess they were in. "I blame it all on Sken-Pitilkin. Him and his flying machines!"

"Yes," said Guest, "if he hadn't got into this business of flying, we'd never have been in this mess. I knew right from the start that those stickbirds of his was bad news. Why, back at Locontareth he wanted to build one especially to drop bombs."

"Bombs?" said Lord Onosh.

"Those rock-things which fly from volcanoes," said Guest. "He wanted to build a stickbird to drop bombs. Drop them on peoples' heads."

"No, no," said his father. "It was nothing to do with volcanoes. It was donkeys! He was going to load them up then – then drop them on people. He almost killed me with one of his infernal experiments. He dropped a donkey from a roof."

"It might be," said Plandruk Qinplaqus, "that the donkey was a beast of burden which he intended to transport by air, and that its fall was an accident."

"Nonsense!" said Lord Onosh. "For we were preparing for war.

And – and there was an armchair on the donkey! One does not go to war with an armchair, not even if one is a sotted old wizard like that worthless Sken-Pitilkin."

Then Guest remembered Sken-Pitilkin talking with the demon Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis about flight. Sken-Pitilkin's intensity had helped convince Guest that the demon was truly a creature of Power. Consequently, Guest was more than half-inclined to blame Sken-Pitilkin for all their subsequent disasters.

And had it not been Sken-Pitilkin who had been truly enthusiastic about questing to Untunchilamon for the x-x-zix? Of course it had been! And why? Perhaps – this was Guest's dire thought – perhaps Sken-Pitilkin had not been intent on winning the wishstone. Perhaps Sken-Pitilkin had bethought himself of the Shabble which lived on Untunchilamon.

So…

If Sken-Pitilkin had seen Iva-Italis on Alozay, and if Sken-Pitilkin had then gone to Untunchilamon, then might it not be that the wizard's true intent had ever been to introduce Shabble to the demon Italis? Guest could not help but think that, while a Shabble in isolation was not necessarily particularly dangerous, a Shabble in combination with a demon – or in combination with all the demons of the Circle of the Partnership Banks – might prove an alliance capable of dominating the world.

"We will not be contending with Shabble," said Guest grimly.

"Rather, we will be contending with Sken-Pitilkin, for I fear him in conspiracy against us."

"How so?" said Qinplaqus.

"I fear that Sken-Pitilkin may have deliberately sought out Shabble on Untunchilamon with the sole purpose of introducing that delinquent to the demon on Alozay," said Guest. "I fear that Shabble and the demon may now league with Sken-Pitilkin, matching their powers with his powers of flight, and producing a world- dominating combination."

"Then," said Lord Onosh, with the ferocity which befits a Yarglat warlord, "we must hurry to Alozay and cut off Sken-Pitilkin's head!"

But it was not till three days had passed that they were conveyed at last to the Bralsh in covered palankeens.

By this time, Yubi Das Finger had obtained clearance from all the Banks through which Witchlord and Weaponmaster would travel on their way home. They were free to travel.

Plandruk Qinplaqus then assigned Thayer Levant to Guest Gulkan's service, partly so Levant could later bring Qinplaqus an independent account of the activities of Witchlord and Weaponmaster, and partly because Qinplaqus thought that Levant might be of use to those Yarglat barbarians.

After all, had it not been for Levant's audacity and endurance, the x-x-zix would never have reached Dalar ken Halvar and the mazadath would not have been saved for Guest Gulkan.

Instead, both those treasures would have fallen to the Mutilator of Yestron.

Levant was not particularly keen to again be of service to Guest, for the Weaponmaster had proved singularly ungrateful for the magnificent service which Levant had rendered him. The shifty- eyed knifeman was beginning to think he had had quite enough of this adventuring business, and that it was time for him to be thinking of settling down in his native Chi'ash-lan, or perhaps in Dalar ken Halvar itself.