Hugh Cook - The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster

As Shabble's tale unfolded, Guest began to understand how the jade-green monsters of the Circle of the Partnership Banks had been able to suborn Shabble to their will. They had not discovered a new method of torturing or coercing Shabble. No. They had got to the bubble through its weakest point – its need for friends and friendship.

In Chi'ash-lan, the jade-green monster which named itself the demon Ko had indoctrinated Shabble. The demon Ko had told the bubble of bounce that the star-globe had been restored to the island of Alozay (which was true), that Guest and Sken-Pitilkin planned to seek the control of the Circle (which was also true), and that they were eagerly waiting for Shabble to assist them by bringing the Cult of Cockroach to the populations of the lands of the Doors.

The demon Ko and its colleagues had obviously miscalculated.

They must have thought that Shabble would arrive on Alozay, hot with enthusiasm for missionary work, and that the combination of Shabble's eagerness and flame-throwing abilities would leave Guest and Sken-Pitilkin with no choice but to co-operate.

But of course, by the time Shabble reached Alozay, Guest and Sken-Pitilkin had fled with the star-globe. This had been the bitterest of all possible disappointments for Shabble. The bubble had precious little use for power, or gold, or women, or opium, or any of the other things men commonly fight for. But Shabble wanted friendship. Needed it. Valued it above all else. And Shabble, having been told that friends awaited on Alozay, was furious to realize it had been victimized by lies.

"You realized the demons had been lying to you?" said Guest.

"Of course," said Shabble.

"So what did you do?"

"I blasted the demon!" said Shabble, positively squeaking with excitement. "I blasted that thing Italis! I blasted it!"

"Really?" said Guest.

"Really and truly," said Shabble.

"So it's dead."

"Well," said Shabble, guardedly. "Not exactly."

"What do you mean, not exactly? What happened? What happened when you blasted it?"

"Well," said Shabble, "what happened was that it laughed."

"It laughed?"

"Yes," said Shabble, sounding mightily crestfallen. "It laughed at me. It told me to go bounce."

"So what did you do then?"

"I blasted it again. But it didn't make much difference."

"So then you chased me," said Guest. "That wasn't very fair, was it? To get angry with the demon then go chasing after me on that account?"

Shabble tried to avoid the question, but Guest pressed the bubble hard, and in the end it had to concede that it had been naughty.

"Naughty!" said Guest. "You were rather more than naughty!

I'm stuck here on this hellhole of an island, and there's no way off that I can see!"

"You've got the Door," said Shabble.

"But it's closed!" said Guest.

"Well," said Shabble, "there's, uh, there's this boat."

"This rowing boat?" said Guest. "Are you mad? It's got cracks in it which I could just about crawl through."

"Well, someone came here in it," said Shabble.

"From a sinking ship, maybe," said Guest. "Or maybe they were marooned. But judging by the evidence, they didn't get much further!"

With that, Guest indicated the bones which he had found beneath the rowing boat.

"Well, I don't see what you're so worried about," said Shabble. "You've got the bottle, you've got the ring, there's food, there's water, they told me that on Alozay."

"Who told you?" said Guest.

"The one with big ears," said Shabble. "Your father."

"Neither of us has big ears," said Guest. "We have normal ears. Everyone else has an undersized issue."

"If you say so," said Shabble. "But you've still got food, you've stood got water, what else do you need?"

"All kinds of things!" said Guest. "Women, to start with."

"Oh," said Shabble, crestfallen.

Shabble knew that men liked women, and had a theoretical knowledge of the reasons why, but Shabble remained unconvinced of the validity of the theories. Shabble had once maintained a small harem, but many nights of sleeping with women and exploring their intimacies had convinced the bubble that the whole experience was grotesquely overrated. Shabble much preferred sleeping amidst the flames of a fire (for fire was pretty, and gave Shabble melodious dreams), or sleeping with a balloon (for Shabble thought balloons were happy creatures), or sleeping alongside a billiard ball (which gave Shabble the comforting illusion of having the company of one of its own kind).

"You wouldn't understand," said Guest moodily.

"Oh, I understand," said Shabble. "You miss your Yerzerdayla."

"Yerzerdayla?" said Guest.

"The woman," said Shabble. "You know! She was locked in a pod, you were all set to rescue her!"

"Oh," said Guest. "Yes, yes, so I was."

But the truth was that the Weaponmaster had long ago forsaken Yerzerdayla. She was a figure from his adolescence, and in these the years of his maturity he had almost forgotten her. The woman

Penelope meant much more to him, for it was Penelope who had comforted him during the four years of his convalescence in Dalar ken Halvar – but even Penelope, it seemed, was lost to him.

As for Yerzerdayla – why, on his latest sojourn on Alozay, Guest had been so busy getting drunk and eating horse meat, or planning strategy and dealing with demons, that he had never thought of the woman for so much as a moment. Long ago, he had conceived the notion of rescuing her from the pod in the Hall of Time in which he had seen her last, but all such thoughts had long since passed from his head.

Still, Guest thought it unwise to confess as much to Shabble, for he feared the bubble might be a romantic. If so, then it would think less of Guest for his forgetfulness. So Guest put his head in his hands and moaned, in what he hoped was a convincing manner:

"Oh! Oh! My poor Yerzerdayla!"

Then much more of the same followed, until Shabble gallantly declared that it would fly back to the Old City in the Penvash Peninsular, and find the star-globe (wherever that might have got to) and reopen the Door so Guest could continue round this particular Circle.

"Or," said Shabble, "I could find Sken-Pitilkin and get him to fly here."

"But that's impossible," said Guest. "For a start, you don't know where we are to start with, and even if you did, you'd never be able to get here again."

"I know exactly where we are," said Shabble.

"How?" said Guest, wondering if Shabble perhaps had some anciently derived knowledge of the previously unexplored Circle into which Guest had so precipitately ventured.

"From the sun," said Shabble simply.

Then the bubble declared that they were some hundreds of leagues north-west of Untunchilamon; that it had calculated their position to a nicety; that its agility at celestial navigation would permit it a swift passage back to Penvash; and that it would have no trouble whatsoever in guiding Sken-Pitilkin back to Guest Gulkan's island. Guest then expected the bubble of bounce to go whistling up into the heavens, hastening with all possible force to the Old City. But Shabble did not. Shabble wanted to chat, to talk, to play some more in the water, to invent names for the fishes, to speculate on the size of the clouds. And Guest, realizing that he was dependent upon Shabble for his rescue, had no alternative but to play along with these games.

At last, after a full two days of play – an excessive indulgence, doubtless, but Shabble had been held prisoner by the demon Ko for upwards of a year, and so was in a mood to enjoy its liberty to the full – Shabble gave Guest a parting present. The parting present was a full-length massage of the Weaponmaster's back, and Guest had to admit that Shabble did it very well.

Then the bubble set forth.