Hugh Cook - The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster

"My good lord Italis," said Guest.

"Iva-Italis," said the demon, as fond of its proper name as any person-in-the-flesh.

"Iva-Italis," said Guest. "Can you… have you any idea how long Shabble usually maintains an interest in… in a new sport?"

"Shabble," said Iva-Italis, "never maintains an interest in anything for more than half a thousand years at a time."

Half a thousand years!

That prospect was enough to push Guest into swift and decisive action, and soon afterwards a gathering of seven met in conspiracy. Those seven were Vernon Brigadoon Sod, Onosh Gulkan, Guest Gulkan, Eljuk Zala Gulkan, Thayer Levant, Ontario Nol and Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin.

"Half a thousand years!" said Sod, when he knew the worst.

"One suspects," said Lord Onosh, "that it is but the blink of an eye to a demon."

"An eyeblink!" said Sod. "I have been on Alozay far too long to suffer another eyelash of it!"

Banker Sod had of course been taken hostage before Witchlord and Weaponmaster went questing for the x-x-zix. Sod had expected his hostagehood to be brief, but instead it had stretched out almost to eternity.

"So the demon will wait," said Ontario Nol. "It will wait rather than help us. Very well. Then we must wait likewise. Or else we must steel ourselves to action, and tackle this Shabble on our own. However

… do we have the power to destroy this Shabble?

One doubts it."

"The thing can be broken," said Sken-Pitilkin.

"Surely," said Guest Gulkan, remembering back to his adventures on Untunchilamon, and a crisis of combat in the wormways deep beneath the equatorial city of Injiltaprajura. "It can be broken, and knows it, and fears its own breakage."

"How do you know that?" said Eljuk Zala, he who in his prideful days as a wizard's apprentice was inclined to doubt very much that his warworthy but ignorant brother Guest could be an authority on anything as arcane as a Shabble.

"We fought this Shabble on Untunchilamon," said Guest. "There was an iron dog, underneath the city. A dorgi. The iron dog, the dorgi, the dorgi made the bubble run. Later, there was a demon."

"Like Iva-Italis?" said Eljuk.

"No," said Guest, glad to be able to lecture his scholarly brother for once, instead of enduring the reverse position. "The demon on Untunchilamon was greater by far. Not a rock but a spirit. It's name was Binchinminfin."

Then Guest indulged himself by giving his wide-mouthed brother Eljuk a terse but melodramatic account of the doings of the demon Binchinminfin on the island of Untunchilamon.

"We were underground when the demon raided Untunchilamon," said Guest. "We were held prisoner by Shabble. But by the time Shabble got us to the surface, why, this demon Binchinminfin had seized the island's ruling palace. So we decided to attack it.

Shabble set us at liberty, and we launched ourselves on an assault of the palace."

"And?" said Eljuk.

"And we were lucky not to be killed!" said Guest. "The demon was mightier than any of us! It almost killed Shabble! There was a firefight, Shabble and the demon. Then Shabble ran, because the bubble was too scare to fight with Binchinminfin any further."

"So what did you do then?" said Eljuk.

"Why," said Guest, "we left the demon in possession of the palace. Then we went downhill and we all got drunk."

This was the truth, but it was not at all what Eljuk had expected to hear. He had expected to hear that his warworthy brother had somehow challenged the demon and defeated it – though the sorry truth was that the mastery of Binchinminfin had proved beyond Guest Gulkan's means, and in the end it the task of getting rid of it had been accomplished by an Ebrell Islander named Chegory Guy, whose later destiny had been to serve the Cockroach in a temple in Port Domax.

Seeing that he was in danger of losing some large fraction of his brother's esteem, Guest hurried past the subject of getting drunk in the face of a demon's danger.

"Anyway," said Guest, "enough of Binchinminfin! Suffice it to say that the demon, why, it could take people in possession then change their form to whatever monstrosity suited its purposes.

That demon – why, that one made Shabble run."

"How?" said Eljuk, wishing that he himself had been privileged to see the doings of Binchinminfin on Untunchilamon.

"I don't know," said Guest. "Maybe Iva-Italis could tell us, after all, Italis is a demon of sorts, but Italis doesn't want to help."

With a brute force confrontation being eventually ruled out by careful debate, the conspiracy then discussed the character of Shabble's trusted associates, and in particular the character of Yilda and Uckermark.

"Uckermark is a corpse master," said the Weaponmaster. "He's a pillager and a pirate to boot. A booty-hunter with the morals of a mosquito. If we can bribe him to our purpose, then he'll turn from Shabble's service sharply enough."

"But Shabble is bent on world conquest," said Lord Onosh.

"What could we offer Uckermark which would over-shadow the potential rewards of association with a world-conqueror?"

"I think," said Eljuk Zala. "I think – "

"About time, young man," said Sken-Pitilkin. "I always thought you had some thinking in you, if you would but give yourself a chance. Tell us now, what do you think?"

"We may perhaps lack the slaughtering of this Shabble," said Eljuk. "But I think its displacement still within our power."

"Displacement?" said Guest, who knew not that word in its Galish incarnation.

"Maybe he means we could kick it," said Thayer Levant.

"I have," said Eljuk Zala carefully, "something very close to that in mind."

Then Eljuk explained what he had in mind.

Name: Vernon Brigadoon Sod (aka Banker Sod).

Birthplace: Latimore (a small town near Chi'ash-lan).

Occupation: merchant banker.

Status: Owner of the Morgrim Bank of Chi'ash-lan; claimant to the Safrak Bank; sometime Governor of the Partnership Banks; owner of the wondrous Pazabantsen mansion (most notable building in all of Chi'ash-lan); father of the voluptuous Damsel.

Description: florid male of iceman race, with the black fingernails and thick white bodyhair so typical of that breed.

Hair, eyes and teeth all similarly yellow.

Hobby: breeding snails.

Quote: "The world's one great hidden secret is that we live in a great Age of Agiotage. This is the real significance of the Circle of the Doors."

The conspirators required a night of cloud and fog, something they could not wish into being by mere force of will alone. The right conditions first came some five nights after the banquet which had greeted the return of Witchlord and Weaponmaster to the island of Alozay.

With a night of cloud and fog having been secured to their satisfaction, the conspirators gathered in the banquet hall in Dolce Obo, the Pillow Stratum of the mainrock Pinnacle. In that great gloom, they confirmed their federation. Sken-Pitilkin had a stickbird airship waiting on the Palace Docks of Alozay. The wizard of Skatzabratzumon, accompanied by Ontario Nol and Eljuk Zala, would fly the airship to the heights.

As a wizard of Itch, Ontario Nol had powers to command the winds, and Nol's ability to summon up a miniature tornado or a minor whirlwind could conceivably prove useful if things went wrong and they found themselves locked in outright battle with Shabble.

With those three confirmed in their roles, they departed, going downward toward the Winch Stratum, where bribed washerwomen were waiting to lower them to the docks where Sken-Pitilkin's stickbird waited.

For his part, the Witchlord Onosh would play no active role in the assault on Shabble. Rather, he would withdraw and wait.

Once the star-globe had been stolen, Lord Onosh would stay on Alozay and play at being innocent. If Shabble chose to remain on the island even with the star-globe gone, why then, Lord Onosh would accept Shabble's authority.