Hugh Cook - The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster

At last, Sod was persuaded – coerced is perhaps a better word for it – into Sken-Pitilkin stickbird. Then Sken-Pitilkin sent this airship whirling skywards, and headed south. Guest Gulkan, who had grim memories of a traumatic journey across the wastewaters of Moana, predicted of a certainty that Sken-Pitilkin would lose them somewhere over the sea. But in this the Weaponmaster was entirely mistaken, for Sken-Pitilkin knew Drum and its surrounding geography to a nicety. Thanks to his intimate knowledge of the area's geography, the wizard had already worked out a failsafe method of finding his way to Drum by air.

The sagacious wizard of Skatzabratzumon flew south, navigating by the sun alone. Since Lex Chalis is barely a hundred leagues north of Argan, Sken-Pitilkin soon picked up the coast of that continent. Then it was a simple matter to continue down the coastline, keeping a lookout to the west.

As Drum lies barely thirty leagues west of Argan, and as it is a considerable island (for an ant must walk for twenty leagues to cross from its northern coast to its southern), the island is easily seen from the air on a clear day.

Had Sken-Pitilkin gone too far south, he would have realized his error as soon as he reached Larbster Bay, an unmistakable landmark which should serve to safeguard the aerial navigator against error. That at least was the theory – but there was no need to put theory to the test.

For, as Sken-Pitilkin flew south, he sighted Drum to the west, and headed in that direction.

On reaching the island, Sken-Pitilkin did not immediately land at his castle, but ventured on a circumnavigation of the shore. From the heights, Sken-Pitilkin and his companions checked the rocky shores for boats, ships, rafts, canoes and wreckage, but saw none such. All they saw was a number of sea dragons, variously sea bathing and sun bathing.

"It is safe," said Sken-Pitilkin with satisfaction, "at least as far as I can see."

Then the wizard sent his stickbird scudding downwards toward his castle. But, while the airship was still high in the air, it began to shake, as if seized in the grip of an enormously powerful invisible monster.

As the air adventurers clutched at the sticks of the airship in outright panic, it tore apart entirely – leaving them hanging in the air with nothing between them and the rocks below but the clear blue sky.

Confederation of Wizards: the organization which represents the interests of the eight orders of wizards. The strongholds of the Confederation are the strongholds of Drangsturm, the flame trench which divides Argan North from Argan South. The Confederation dedicates itself to guarding that flame trench, which protects the lands of the north from the Swarms – monsters of the southern terror-lands which are controlled by an entity known as the Skull. The Confederation looks upon the maintenance of Drangsturm as a holy trust. And a very profitable holy trust it is, too, since the Drangsturm Road is an important trade route, and the wizards tax every scrap of merchandise which moves along it.

So Sken-Pitilkin's stickbird tore apart, leaving the sagacious wizard of Skatzabratzumon and his passengers hanging in midair – with nothing between them and the rocks below but the clear blue sky.

Much to Sken-Pitilkin's surprise, they did not fall.

"Are you keeping us up?" yelled Guest.

"No!" said Sken-Pitilkin, clutching the star-globe tight to his chest and keeping a firm grip on his country crook. Sken-Pitilkin's powers of levitation were by no means equal to the task of supporting so many in midair so far above the ground.

"If you're not keeping us up here," said Sod, kicking his legs in midair, "then how about getting us down?"

"I'll think about it," said Sken-Pitilkin.

But he had not the slightest idea of where to start. Usually, to descend after levitating, a wizard of Skatzabratzumon simply eased off the application of Power, and gravity (that force of universal suction exerted by the planet on which we live) then secured a certain descent.

"Get us down!" yelled Sod, kicking his legs in fury.

At which – without Sken-Pitilkin doing anything about it at all – they began to rotate. Swiftly they grew dizzy, and in their dizziness they were sucked downward through the air, which thickened to an impenetrable white fog, which hardened to something as cold as glass.

They ceased rotating, and found themselves sitting in a small teardrop-shaped chamber which glowed with its own cold white light. The light was that of sunstruck snow.

"Where are we?" demanded Sod. Sken-Pitilkin made no response to this demand, for he had not the slightest idea where they might be. He was disorientated – and more than a little frightened.

Then the opacity of the walls began to clear, easing away to a lucid transparency, and Sken-Pitilkin and his erstwhile passengers found themselves sitting inside a tiny teardrop in the center of a three-legged table. Abruptly, the teardrop was ceased, and hoisted skywards. Eljuk screamed in involuntary terror, and Sken-Pitilkin almost joined him in that scream.

A giant – it was a giant, wasn't it? – was holding the teardrop on the palm of his hand. The giant brought the teardrop close to his face so he could peer inside. He grinned. Sken-Pitilkin stared at the vastness of the giant's slab of a face, at the stalks of his stubble poking through his skin, at the yellowness of his gravestone teeth and the white fur of unscrubbed detritus between the top of those teeth and the gums, and the whale-flank rubberiness of the giant's lips and the snarling crevices by his nose. In the wet overlay of reflections which slicked across the giant's nearest eye, Sken-Pitilkin saw the teardrop and its captives caught in reflection.

Then the giant began to move, jolting the teardrop severely.

Eljuk Zala was sick, spewing vomit all over Sod, who swore at him.

In response, Guest Gulkan braced himself in the swaying teardrop then bloodied Sod's nose with a blow from his fist. Nothing daunted, the Banker struck back, and the two of them began to fight in earnest. Thayer Levant and Ontario Nol fell on the fighters, struggling to separate them, while Sken-Pitilkin lashed out at knees and elbows with his country crook.

All the frustrations of a long season of confinement in Lex Chalis came out in that fight, which left all of them panting, besmirched by blood and vomit, stinking of bile and digestive juices. At which point the teardrop was set down on another table, this one being inside -

"Why," said Sken-Pitilkin in amazement, looking at the vastly enlarged geography outside the teardrop. "This is my living room!

My very own living room inside my very own castle!"

Thus did Sken-Pitilkin belatedly come to realize that he had not fallen to the possession of giants. Rather, he and his companions had been shrunk.

While Sken-Pitilkin was still savoring this discovery, another giant picked up the teardrop, then fiddled with a ring on his finger. Even as the giant twisted the ring, Sken-Pitilkin caught sight of a small yellow bottle on a nearby table, and guessed that the giant, the teardrop and the people trapped inside that teardrop would shortly be sucked inside that bottle.

And so it came to pass.

By now, both Sken-Pitilkin and Ontario Nol realized – more or less – what had happened. The stickbird had been destroyed by a subtle act of wizardry. And, caught by some new and unprecedented advanced in the wizardly arts, the stickbird's passengers had been sucked down from the sky and encapsulated in miniature in a small teardrop of some kind of imitation crystal. And now they were inside a bottle – and the nature of such bottles is well known to all wizards.

So Sken-Pitilkin and Ontario Nol, being orientated to their surroundings, tried to calm and reassure their bewildered companions. But they had barely begun this labor when the teardrop began to expand. Then, with dizzying velocity, Sken-Pitilkin and his companions expanded likewise – upon which the teardrop abruptly dissolved away to nothing.