Hugh Cook - The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster

"What alternative is there?" said Lord Onosh. "I am no wizard, and I have not wandered the world as widely as you have, but I think I know enough of Italis and such similar demons to know that they cannot in any way be trusted."

With Guest coming to reluctant agreement, preparations were made for the Weaponmaster to depart once more with his tutelary wizard. Thayer Levant agreed – with some considerable reluctance – to accompany the Weaponmaster once again. The yellow bottle was heavily provisioned. The demon Italis was placed under interdict once more, with the doors to the Hall of Time being sealed and guarded. Sken-Pitilkin took charge of the star-globe.

All these arrangements took no more than the length of a day.

And, on an evening of fog and low cloud, Guest and Sken-Pitilkin took to the skies, accompanied by a somewhat surly Levant.

They had flown no great distance from Alozay when the darkening mists behind them were torn apart by rupturing fire.

Either a dragon was assailing Alozay, or else the mainrock

Pinnacle was coming under attack from a very, very angry Shabble.

"We got away only just in time," said Guest, soberly.

"We are not away yet," said Sken-Pitilkin, "for we have yet to reach a place of refuge."

And, with that, the wizard of Skatzabratzumon guided his stickbird through the night, wondering just how much damage Shabble might have done on Alozay, and just how much more damage Shabble might do in the future, and what manner of place might give the refugees some kind of reliable sanctuary.

Penvash: peninsular in the north-west of Argan. To the south, at the base of this peninsular, is Estar. To the north, across the waters of the Pale, is the rockthrust of Lex Chalis. To the west is Sken-Pitilkin's home island of Drum.

In Penvash are the ruins of the Old City, which house dangerous arcana which have killed many an unwary treasure seeker.

The construction of the Old City is a feat variously attributed to an extinct race of intelligent dragons, to a breed of men possessed by malign demons, or to an entirely hypothetical breed of land-dwelling octopuses. In fact, the Old City was a creation of the Technic Renaissance, and so is the work of ordinary humans.

The Old City is superficially similar to the mazeways Downstairs beneath Untunchilamon's ruling city of Injiltaprajura.

But there are profound differences. Much Downstairs – lights and ice-makers in particular – is reliable in its fulfillment of an obvious and useful purpose. Whereas the Old City is the ruinous habitation of mad destruction, a place unfit for human flesh.

As on their first retreat from Alozay, Sken-Pitilkin and his companions flew through the night in the roughest of directions, so that by dawn they had lost themselves entirely. As on their first retreat, they settled in the wilderness of Tameran.

"But this time," said Sken-Pitilkin, "we cannot make Lex Chalis our next stop."

"Good!" said Guest, who had the direst of memories of that place of extreme unpleasantness.

"That is an entirely inappropriate reaction," said Sken-Pitilkin sternly. "Lex Chalis is a very interesting place.

Possibly, our one and only proof of the existence of the Experimenters of old."

"Which Experimenters were doubtless very fond of irregular verbs," said Guest.

"One would expect so," said Sken-Pitilkin, "for scholarship and greatness typically go hand in hand. However, much as we would all like to return to Lex Chalis, Sod may have betrayed its secrets to Chi'ash-lan, and Chi'ash-lan may have betrayed its secrets to Shabble."

This was a sobering thought.

"Sod knew all the thinking which guided our earlier retreat," said Guest.

"Precisely," said Sken-Pitilkin.

"So Shabble may have been granted a disclosure of that thinking," said Guest, "if only at third or fourth hand."

"Exactly," said Sken-Pitilkin. "So what would you do if you were Shabble? What would you do if you knew it to be our policy to choose directions at random?"Guest puzzled over the question, but could come up with no answer. It was his servant Thayer Levant who, abandoning the business of scratching the green fungus which grew on his scalp, delivered himself of the answer:

"Shabble will quarter the skies."

"Exactly," said Sken-Pitilkin. "Perhaps in circles, perhaps in spirals, perhaps in a cross-hatched pattern. But that is certainly how Shabble will search for us."

"Then we must fly by night," said Guest promptly.

"But how are we to navigate?" said Sken-Pitilkin. "This business of night flying has perils of which you are not properly aware. We have come so far with good fortune, but if we press our luck too often then we must sooner or later fly into the side of a mountain."

"Or the mouth of a dragon," said Thayer Levant.

"Yes," said Sken-Pitilkin testily, "though I think a mountain the more likely danger. Anyway. Shabble is searching for us, so I think we must do what Shabble does not expect. We must fly to Drum."

"Drum!" said Guest, in startlement.

"Well, yes, yes," said Sken-Pitilkin. "It's perfectly safe.

I've lived there a year with not a sniff of any other wizard anywhere. The Confederation thinks me dead, you realize. As far as the Confederation's concerned, we're all dead. You, me, Shabble, our good friend Levant here. We vanished beyond the Veils of Fire, vanished into the Cave of the Warp. Nobody ever comes back from there alive."

"But Shabble will look for us on Drum," said Guest.

"Not if Shabble thinks us choosing destinations at random," said Sken-Pitilkin.

"But Shabble may not think us thus choosing at all!" said Guest. "We're making assumptions! We're assuming that Sod blabbed our strategies in Chi'ash-lan. We're assuming, too, that Shabble heard of those strategies. Then we're making yet another assumption – which is, that Shabble will act on that which Shabble has heard."

All this was uncomfortably logical.

But the logic of Guest Gulkan's argument tended inevitably toward more wandering, more deracinated exile. And, while the Weaponmaster might yet have stomach sufficient for more such adventuring, Sken-Pitilkin did not. He wanted his bed, his armchair, his cats, his kitchen, his established routines and the comforts of his library.

So, in the end, since Sken-Pitilkin was in charge of the stickbird, it was Sken-Pitilkin who prevailed.

So the adventurers flew south till they picked up the coast of Tameran. They crossed the wind-thrashed waters of the Pale, the strait which separates the northern continent of Tameran from the southern continent of Argan, then flew toward Drum, that island which lies off Argan's western coast.

But in the skies above Drum, Guest Gulkan spied a spark of fire.

"Fire?" said Sken-Pitilkin.

"It is fire, yes, fire," said Guest, whose eyes were sharper than those of the wizard of Skatzabratzumon.

Then Sken-Pitilkin realized that his emotional weariness might have overmastered his sagacity; that the spark of fire might be Shabble making a display of wrath above Drum; and that the stickbird could be even now flying toward its doom.

So Sken-Pitilkin abruptly swung his stickbird into a tight turn.

"Where are we going?" said Levant.

"To Penvash!" said Sken-Pitilkin. "I have it in mind to hide out in the Old City, at least for tonight."

"The Old City?" said Levant.

"A set of ruins," said Sken-Pitilkin. "A place of no particular consequence."

"Oh," said Levant.

The knifeman's nondescript response showed that he had heard nothing of Penvash and its terrors, though these – as the reader may well be aware – are known to the rumor of as many as fifty lands.

"Penvash," said Guest, savoring the word. "Why Penvash? Why ruins?"