Hugh Cook - The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster

As Guest closed the distance with the strangers, he was confronted by the largest of them, a whale-built thing larger than any two-footed creature in all Guest Gulkan's experience. It towered above him. Its height was equal to that of the monsters Ko or Italis, and it towered over him all the more because it was standing on the plinth whereas he was standing on the sand. It had bulging cheeks and a skin which had the yellowness of vomit. Its eyes were small: glimmering buttons bright with malign suspicion.

It had no ears.

Not wishing to show any fear – and afraid he was, for the monster was armed with a monstrous species of crowbar, fit for the pulping of a hippopotamus – Guest jumped up onto the plinth, an act which made great demands on his courage.

In response, the monster opened its mouth.

Then it spoke, and, to Guest's surprise, its speech proved surprisingly intelligible. It spoke in a roughwork variant of the Galish Trading Tongue, that language which Guest had formerly been accustomed to use in his converse with Thayer Levant.

"Who you be?" said the thing.

Of all the questions it could have asked, this was the most surprising. In his exile on the island, Guest Gulkan had thought himself very much the focus of the world's concerns. He had imagined that his fate, whereabouts and destiny would be vigorously debated in Chi'ash-lan and Molothair, on Drum and in Obooloo. He had imagined demons, Bankers, wizards and warriors studying maps and debating his whereabouts. He had imagined quests, searches and hunts, all focused on him.

To console himself when he had nothing else but the verbs as his comfort, Guest had studiously inflated his own sense of his own importance, until it had come to seem entirely logical to him that the whole world must surely be aflame with the news of his loss, and must surely be hunting for him.

So, of all possible questions, the one addressed to him by the monster was the most surprising. For what was the thing doing on this desolate island if it was not hunting for the great Guest Gulkan, the famed and fabled Weaponmaster, the hero of the Stench Caves, the Emperor in Exile?

Seeking to buy time so he could puzzle over this conundrum, Guest braced himself for possible action, and said:

"Who asks?"

But before he could be answered, a monster came bursting through the Door – a brute of a thing as gray as one of the Janjuladoola, its neck frilled with a collar of ruffled armor from which great man-tearing spikes projected.

Moments later, the monster was dead, killed by the swift reactions of those it had incontinently assailed. The speed of the battle-blades of his new companions told Guest they were all trained for war. Dangerous men, then. He scanned the dead monster, noting the heavy-duty claws on its feet, and the mud on those feet, and the dead leaves plastered to its underbelly. On the slender evidence of the mud and leaves, he guessed that the thing had come from the Old City in Penvash.

But -

"What is it?" said Guest.

"No member of my family, you can be sure of that," said one of the bloodthirsty ruffians who had helped kill the thing. Guest summed the man. An Ashdan. Beyond his prime. Bald. Hard death in his weathered blue eyes. A battle-worthy confidence in his shoulder-width stance. A warrior's training confirmed by the methodical cleansing of his blooded blade. Guest realized that blood was still dripping from the blade of his own sword, which had taken its share of the gray-skinned monster's lifeforce. He should clean it, but -Guest wanted time, time to think, time to question, to find out who and what and when and where and why. But the Ashdan was already ordering his men through the Door. But to where? Where were they going, and why?

"Where does this Door go to?" said Guest.

"You know about Doors, do you?" said the Ashdan. Guest almost gaped at the question. How could the fellow be so stupid? Of course he knew about Doors! Else how could he have arrived on the island?

Even as he was thus thinking, and parrying the question with a joking reply, Guest remembered the rowing boat. Of course! The Ashdan had seen the rowing boat, and had presumed that Guest had arrived on the island by means of that vehicle! So he didn't know who Guest was! Or how he had got here!

Even as Guest was figuring that out, his companions were bustling through the Door at the scramble.

"What did you say?" said Guest, realizing the Ashdan had said something.

But the Ashdan, having done with dialog, went plunging through the Door himself.

It was like a battle. Everything was happening too quickly, with not enough time to sit down and figure out what was going on, or why, or who was involved.

As Guest was thinking then, two more men came through the Door. The first hacked at Guest, who almost died then and there.

But his sword was in his hand, and a short and vicious battle saw him hack down both of his would-be murderers.

"What the hell is going on?" said Guest.

Then, unable to answer that question on his own account – and realizing that he was now alone again, if corpses be not counted as company – the Weaponmaster plunged through the Door.

To his shocked surprise, Guest found himself by Drangsturm.

Drangsturm, of all places! Yes, and the wrong side of Drangsturm at that!

During his time at the Castle of Controlling Power, Guest had studied the fortifications of Drangsturm with a battle-commander's diligence; and, on a march from the Castle of Controlling Power to the Castle of Ultimate Peace, he had taken every opportunity to back up study with scrutiny.

So Guest could place himself with a great degree of exactitude, and was surprised to find his small group of new companions were entirely ignorant as to where they were. He started to explain, and, as he gave his explanations, he realized one of his companions was – why, it was Rolf Thelemite!

Wasn't it?

It was now so many years since Guest and Rolf Thelemite had last seen each other that Guest was not certain of this identification. When Rolf had bodyguarded Guest in the city of Gendormargensis, both had been mere striplings. Since then, the battering of the years had seen them mature, age, thicken and change. Yet -Guest caught Rolf's eye, and Rolf gave him half a wink.

So it was Rolf!

Then Guest began to conjecture wildly. Maybe Rolf was engaged in a plan to rescue him. Maybe Rolf had been directed to the island by Shabble, or by Sken-Pitilkin, or by Thayer Levant. Maybe there was conspiracy here, and danger. Maybe Rolf was rescuing the Weaponmaster in defiance of his Ashdan master, the bald-headed warrior who seemed to be in charge of the party. Maybe -

But at this point Guest was forced to abort thought in favor of action, for a gigantic green centipede came trundling across the landscape, forcing all to retreat through the Door.

They came out on a mountainside of precipitous ice and driving cold, a mountainside so high and bleak that Guest was more than half-convinced it was a part of Ibsen-Iktus. There they thought themselves safe, but the centipedes attacked them through the Door.

They fought viciously with one of the monsters, by brute strength precipitating it from the plinth of the Door, and sending it hurtling down the mountainside in an avalanche of snow which saw it precipitated over a cliff. Guest realized he was fighting in the company of great warriors, for none shirked combat. But one of their number was dead by the time the silver-shining screen of the Door suddenly snapped out of existence, amputating the head of one of the monsters.

Then Guest asked the obvious question:

"Who was controlling the Door for you?"

"Nobody," said the Ashdan. "We had a star-globe. We left it where we started out."Guest was all the more perplexed to know who he was dealing with. Who were these people? Adventurers? Bandits? Pirates?