Hugh Cook: The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster

And the whole heart-breaking exercise had very much confirmed to Asodo Hatch that which he had long suspected: namely, the fact that the impoverished city of Dalar ken Halvar was too poor to emulate the arts of the ancients. It could not support the number of specialists which a machine civilization required; it could not command an adequate supply of energy; and it was short even of the basic metals such as iron, tin, copper, gold and silver.

Since Plandruk Qinplaqus was not likely to yield in his determination to have the x-x-zix made functional, Hatch was doomed to waste out the rest of his life in futility unless he could capture the resources needed to exploit his knowledge.

"Stokos can give us iron, and coal, and steel," said Hatch, as he began to appreciate the potential of this Circle. "On Stokos, the mines have been dug already, the forges built, and generations of craftsmen have refined the arts of working metal.

If we open this Circle, then the ruling city of Stokos becomes a suburb of Dalar ken Halvar, which means that we have steelworks on our doorstep."

Thus did Asodo Hatch signify his conversion to Sken-Pitilkin's plan; and, though the conversion of Plandruk Qinplaqus was by no means as simple, eventually the Lord of the Silver Pelican was brought to the same opinion.

There then followed long days of preparation, for all were acutely conscious of the fact that the Door in Voice opened to a region long overrun by the Swarms, hence there was the possibility that such monsters would muscle through to Dalar ken Halvar as soon as the Door in the Bralsh was opened. The problem was solved – at least as far as Dalar ken Halvar was concerned – by placing huge blocks of stone on either side of the steel arch within the Bralsh. These blocks constricted the approaches to the archway so that, while a man could get to the arch, a monster in its hugeness would not have been able to get out into Dalar ken Halvar.

Nor were these brute physical preparations the end of the matter, for the city of Dalar ken Halvar as a whole had to be briefed as to what was afoot, and prepared for the opening of the Circle. For there was no way that it could be held secret. Not when it would be necessary to use hundreds of men to guard and fortify the Door at Voice, and hold it against the Swarms.

Then came the day.

In the Bralsh, Plandruk Qinplaqus ceremonially placed the star-globe in its niche in the base of the marble plinth which supported the steel arch of the Door. Immediately, there came a hum as of wasps or of bees. The seductive silver shimmer of the screen of the Door came to life, filling the arch. And Guest Gulkan – accompanied by Asodo Hatch, by Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin and by a dozen spearheading heroes – was gone through that screen in moments.

A single footfall took Guest from the Bralsh in Dalar ken Halvar to the Singing Dove Pensions Trust of Tang. He found himself in a well-remembered conical chamber hung with silken ropes and scented with incense. It was utterly empty.

Onward!

Back through the Door went Guest, his onslaught taking him to the Taniwha Guarantee Corporation of Quilth. Here was a similar conical chamber, but this one had been sealed with doors of steel.

It was lit – but dimly – by small barred windows high overhead.

No time to linger! Guest went through the Door again, this time stepping to the Orsay Bank of Stokos. He found the Orsay Bank's Door unattended but for the fresh-made corpse of an elderly Banker who had dropped stone dead at the shock of seeing the Door so unexpectedly reactivated.

Press on! Guest plunged through the Door again, this time stepping through to the Morgrim Bank of Chi'ash-lan. He found the chamber of Chi'ash-lan's Door to be in utter darkness but for the unearthly green light emitted by the demon Ko. The glowing green shone sick and wet on the skeletons which hung from the ceiling of Chi'ash-lan's weirding room. By that same light, Guest saw that the entrance to the room had been bricked up.

The demon Ko said nothing, but Guest supposed the thing saw him, and supposed too that it would immediately communicate its knowledge to every other demon in the Circle of the Partnership Banks.

Time to go! Guest dared through the Door again, to Alozay. He arrived in Alozay's weirding room in the highest level of the mainrock

Pinnacle. It was bright with sun, and it was empty.

That high and airy chamber was not empty for long, for Asodo Hatch and Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin came pushing through the Door in Guest's wake, with armed men following. As Guest lingered – for he had given himself the task of introducing Alozay to the new realities of the renascent Circle – Hatch and Sken-Pitilkin pushed onward. More and more men came pouring through the Door, stepping into Alozay then stepping back through the silver screen so they could push through to the ruins of the Monastic Treasury of Inner Adeer, where a Door opened to the ruins of the city of Voice.

They would hold Voice in strength, and fortify it against the Swarms.

Once this great press of men had hastened in and out of Alozay, Guest Gulkan was left alone in the weirding room in the mainrock Pinnacle. He had thought it best that he confront his father alone, rather than with armed men at his back, for he wanted the Witchlord Onosh as an ally rather than a slave. He wanted no taint of coercion to contaminate their relationship. He sought an alliance of equals: himself and his father, united against the world.

So Guest was alone when he ventured to the outer stairway which led downward from the Sky Stratum of Jezel Obo to the Archive Stratum of Trilip – bypassing the Hall of Time where the demon Italis maintained its vigil. But he found that outer stairway hanging in tatters, splinters of sky interpolated into its shattered fabric.

Then Guest ventured out onto the living rock of the mainrock

Pinnacle, and scanned the view to north and south. To south was the city of Molothair, which was inhabited still, for smoke was rising from its chimneys. To the north, the broad expanse of the Swelaway Sea was dotted with fishing boats. So. The island of Alozay, the ruling rock of the Safrak Islands, was still inhabited. Was still at peace. That knowledge canceled one of Guest's fears: for in recent days he had endured a nightmare in which the Swarms had made a covert invasion of the Safrak Islands.

There had been no such invasion.

Alozay still maintained its integrity.

But the outer stairs had fallen to ruin, so Guest had no choice but to descend the inner stairs, and thus to precipitate a confrontation with the demon Italis – a confrontation which he had wished to defer until after he had met his father in conference.

So down Guest went, descending the inner stairs until he came in sight of that monolithic block of rock, twice his own height, which was as green as jade, that smoothest and hardest of stones, which the Ngati Moana call -

What is the word?

Pounamu.

Remembering that word, Guest remembered Untunchilamon. And so, as he looked around the Hall of Time – trying to see past the demon Italis – the Weaponmaster's head was alive with incongruous memories of tropical heat, of monkeys and of and coconut palms.

There was nobody in the Hall of Time.

Not as far as Guest could see.

The Hall was empty. Its walls were terribly scarred by fire, and its tiles, which had once been patterned with skull-shaped designs, were scarred and blistered. Turning his attention back to Italis, Guest realized that there was a spark of brightness moving within the demon. A spark? Watching the lurid light which flashed and pulsed inside the demon, Guest realized it was a sphere about the size of a fist, and realized this was Shabble. That explained why nothing had been heard of the shining one since it had left Guest on his desert island.