Hugh Cook - The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster

Demon by Appointment to the Great God Jocasta.

The jade-green monolith of cold-glowing stone stood exactly where Guest had left it – at the eastern end of the Hall of Time.

Little had changed in that Hall. It was larger than Guest remembered, for his recent past was so tainted by dungeon confinements and underground endurance tests that his memories of the entire world had been claustrophobically squeezed. Yet the oval Hall cut in the granite of the mainrock Pinnacle had undergone no such crushing, and was still its full hundred paces in length, its full three dozen paces in width. And the jade-block demon was still its original height, which was twice Guest Gulkan's own.

"So," said Iva-Italis, when Guest presented himself. "It's you. Have you come to beg forgiveness of my lord and master?"

The demon addressed Guest in Eparget – a courtesy which was much appreciated. In many ways, Guest had found the worst and most effortful part of his travels to be the weary business of dickering with strangers in languages of which he lacked a perfect comprehension. To be addressed in the Eparget of his Yarglat upbringing was a great relief, and Guest felt a surge of positive gratitude. Even so, he did his best to hide that emotion.

"No," said Guest staunchly. "I have not come to beg forgiveness. It's you who should be begging me. And I wouldn't forgive you even if you did. You never told me I needed a knife!"

By this remark, Guest was referring to the special knife he had needed to cut the Great God Jocasta free from force-field imprisonment – the knife which he had been forced to win from the Mutilator of Yestron in battle.

The knife which – he did not like to remember it! – he had subsequently lost in the Temple of Blood.

But, though the need for such a knife had not been explicated to Guest before his first venture to the Temple of Blood, and though Guest had suffered much at the hands of the Great God Jocasta since then, the demon Iva-Italis did not so much as bother to acknowledge the Weaponmaster's discontent.

"If you are not here to beg forgiveness," said Iva-Italis,

"then what are you here for?"Guest, seeing that the demon was quite shameless about the way in which it had misled him about the nature of the task it had wanted him to perform in Obooloo, dropped the subject and got down to business immediately.

"I have come to seek your aid against Shabble," said Guest.

"I don't know if you've heard, but Shabble has seized Safrak.

Shabble's a ball, a ball which flies. It throws fire, too, and speaks in prophecy of the teachings of a Cockroach."

"I know of Shabble," said Iva-Italis. "And I know of Shabble's recent doings. Do not trouble your head about Shabble, dear friend, for Shabble is but a toy, a thing of trifles."

"A toy!" said Guest.

"Just so," said Iva-Italis approvingly.

"This… this toy of which you speak so lightly, this toy has set its heart on global conquest, a feat one thinks within its powers."

"Undoubtedly," said Iva-Italis, entirely unperturbed by this probability. "So Shabble seizes. So Shabble conquers. But, having seized, will Shabble hold?"

"I don't see what can stop the thing," said Guest.

"It's not a question of stopping," said Iva-Italis. "The thing is a toy, as I have said. It is trifling in its nature. It has fads, fashions, passing fancies. The preaching of religion, the conquest of the world – Guest, the thing is but a bubble. It will tire of its games. Come back to me when Shabble is gone, and then we will talk business."

Privately, Guest thought as did Iva-Italis. Shabble would tire of the game of world conquest sooner or later. But it had by now occurred to Guest that the people Shabble had been installing on Alozay – many of them piratical refugees who had fled from Untunchilamon and had arrived by diverse paths at the Temple of Cockroach which had been founded in Port Domax – would not tire so readily.

By the time Shabble abandoned the Circle of the Partnership Banks to find new toys elsewhere, Shabble's followers might have consolidated a regime which could rule the world with or without the bubble of bounce – a regime which would have precious little use for Guest Gulkan, and precious little time for his pretensions to power.

So Guest wanted Shabble abolished – and now! Guest had expected Iva-Italis to be angry rather than calm; and, finding the demon not angry, Guest presumed the thing to be ignorant of the fate of its master Jocasta, and hence vulnerable to bluff.

"My lord," said Guest, seeking some way to bend Iva-Italis to his will. "You may not have heard, but your master Jocasta is in desperate peril in Obooloo. Shabble has chosen to close the Door which gives us access to Obooloo from Alozay. If we could but reopen that Door, and promptly, then – "

"You are a liar," said Iva-Italis calmly.

"A liar?" said Guest, effecting surprise. "Me? My lord, the Yarglat are noted for their honor."

"You," said Iva-Italis, "are noted for the weight of your turds and the bigness of your ears. I am in daily contact with the Great God Jocasta. Even now, that Great God languishes in Dalar ken Halvar, recovering its strength after an encounter with the evil Anaconda Stogirov."

"So you will not help me," said Guest.

"I will do nothing precipitate," said Iva-Italis. "If you cannot control your suicidal urge to over-hasty action, then you must find your death in your own time, in your own way, and without any help from me."

Rebuffed, Guest Gulkan withdrew, and began to brood his way around the Hall of Time, pacing a slow and steady track around its echoing oval. While he tried to think of a way to coerce Iva-Italis to his service, he began an idle inspection of the timepods, smearing away the dust and spiders to gaze on the visages inside.

Most were unchanged from the first inspection he had made of this facility – long, long ago, in the years when he had been but a boy hostage on Alozay.

But to his surprise, when he had scarcely begun his inspection, Guest found someone who was – was it? – yes! – it was her! Yerzerdayla! Yerzerdayla, yes, the woman whom he had won from Thodric Jarl in combat! Yerzerdayla the fair, locked in her timeprison! Guest Gulkan thought this the greatest of all imaginable mysteries, for he had long been under the impression that Yerzerdayla had been left in Gendormargensis when Witchlord and Weaponmaster had gone to war with each other. As the interloper Khmar had taken advantage of that civil war to conquer first Gendormargensis then the entire Collosnon Empire, Guest believed that Yerzerdayla had surely fallen to Khmar's possession. He had heard, after all, that Thodric Jarl had chosen to enter Khmar's service specifically so he could reclaim the luscious Yerzerdayla.

So how had Yerzerdayla come to be on Alozay?

A great, great mystery!

Of course it was really no mystery at all. For the simple fact was that the Witchlord Onosh, insulted to find Thodric Jarl leaving his service on account of a woman, had arranged by secret treaty for Yerzerdayla to be covertly brought to Safrak.

The Weaponmaster – who had entirely forgotten about his beloved Penelope now that he had sight of Yerzerdayla – caught himself licking his lips.

He broke away from the time prison pod, since staring at the stasis-frozen woman was getting him nowhere. From past experience he knew full well that the pods could not be broken by brute force – they could only be opened or closed by application of ever-ice.

And the sole chip of ever-ice on Alozay was in the ring which had fallen to Yilda's possession!

Well. Guest Gulkan was not about to confess his need for that ring, since such confession would give Yilda a hold over him, and give Shabble a hold too.

As Guest turned away from Yerzerdayla, a thought occurred to him. He returned to the ever-patient block of jade which represented the corporeal form of Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis.