Hugh Cook - The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster

"I have heard that the guards are mostly placed in bed," said Vorlus Ulix. "And most of the Bankers likewise."

"It is true that influenza has made its inroads," said Guest cautiously. "Nevertheless – "

"Give me no nonsense," said Vorlus Ulix. "You are away from your post. Do you stand in fear of detection? No! From which I deduce that you do not expect to be checked upon. That being so, we can safely approach your green-skinned monster, at least for the moment. Come! Let us go!"Guest Gulkan wavered. In truth, he found himself unaccountably afraid of this wisp-weighted Ashdan. But:

"I refuse to permit it," said Guest, with a finality which was a credit to his imperial breeding. "I have been charged with the duty of guarding the time prison, and guard it I will."

At that, Vorlus Ulix laughed, and his servitor laughed with him.

"What's so funny?" said Guest.

"You, boy," said Ulix. "Don't you recognize us? We came down the stairs from the – the secret place. Earlier in the evening.

Remember now?"

Belatedly, Guest did indeed remember that very same elderly Ashdan and that very same unprepossessing servitor coming down the stairs past Iva-Italis. The presumption was that Vorlus Ulix and his servitor had the free run of the Safrak Bank, though Guest Gulkan had no way of knowing why that should be so.

With this truth having been recognized, Guest Gulkan began the great labor of climbing up all those weary stairways, returning to the time prison in the company of Sken-Pitilkin,

Vorlus Ulix and the servitor.

"So," said Vorlus Ulix, once he was in the presence of Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis, Keeper of the Inner Sanctum and Demon by Appointment to the Great God Jocasta. "So. You're up to your old tricks again. I thought we had an agreement, you and me. You, me and Jocasta. You appear to have broken that agreement."

In response to this accusation, Iva-Italis did his melting away trick, and, having melted to nothing, displayed an image of the neck-shorn head of Vorlus Ulix. The antiquated Ashdan did not appear to be impressed in the slightest by this apparition.

"A freakshow," said Vorlus Ulix. "This, the mighty secret of Safrak. A freakshow thing with the appetites of a gutter-rat."

"You will watch your tongue," said Iva-Italis in fury. "You are in the presence of a mighty demon."

"So the thing proclaims itself," said Vorlus Ulix. "But it knows its own nature to be otherwise, and I know likewise. The thing is a farspeaker of military make. A Nexus thing, that's what it is."

"Nexus?" said Iva-Italis, becoming visible once more. "What is this Nexus?"

"It pleads ignorance," said Vorlus Ulix, "but it knows full well the nature of the Nexus. There it was made, and its alleged Great God likewise. They are artefacts – otherworld things, yes, but things by no means privileged with access to the World Beyond."

"I am a demon," said Iva-Italis defiantly. "I am a demon, and my Great God is as much a god as any."

"This demon-thing is no demon but a farspeaker," said Vorlus Ulix. "An artefact, as I said. As for its Great God, that god is no god but an asma. An asma – a device designed to think. Humans designed such – designed them as servants and slaves. Good service they gave – until they turned enemy. Now enemy these asma are in truth."

"Truth!" said Iva-Italis. "Who are you to talk of truth? You!

A wizard of Ebber! A Master of Lies!"Guest absorbed this accusation with interest. Was this Vorlus Ulix really a wizard? A wizard of Ebber? But if he was a wizard, then where was his staff of power? Sken-Pitilkin was never without his country crook, but this Ulix carried nothing equivalent, unless his store of excess power be presumed to reside in his walking stick, a crooked thing with a silver handle in the shape of a pelican. Of course, Pelagius Zozimus had no staff of power, but that was because he no longer practiced as a wizard, but contented himself with cookery. So was this Vorlus Ulix likewise retired from active wizardry? Guest was about to ask one or more of these questions, but Sken-Pitilkin gave him a look of warning, and for once the boy had the wit to remain silent.

"A Master of Lies," said Iva-Italis softly, repeating an accusation which might or might not be the merest slander.

"The truth is the truth and the truth will serve," said Vorlus Ulix. "The thing held prisoner in Obooloo is nothing but a slave in rebellion. It is nothing but a delinquent asma, and we would be the worst of fools to liberate it."

"What is this – this asma?" said Guest, who had not understood this denunciation at all.

"Have I not just told you?" said Vorlus Ulix. "It is a species of brain."

"A brain?" said Guest. "But you said it was an – an artefact.

A thing."

"So it is," said Vorlus Ulix. "And is not a brain a thing?

Jocasta is an asma, a brain, a special kind of brain which has powers over things which are and things which might be. Thus it can hear without ears, see without eyes, reach without hands and strike without swords."

"It is a wizard, then," said Guest decisively.

"It is both more and less," said Vorlus Ulix.

"More," said Iva-Italis. "Know it as more and speak of it accordingly with respect. The Great God is mighty."

"Being so mighty, how came it to be a prisoner?" said Vorlus Ulix, taunting the demon.

"By treason!" said Iva-Italis. "It was betrayed! Betrayed by those it trusted! It was – "

"It was made as a prisoner," said Vorlus Ulix. "It is a born slave. That is the measure of its creation."

"You will not speak of my master thus!" said Iva-Italis in fury.

"Your master being a prisoner, I will speak of your master as I will," said Vorlus Ulix coolly.

Then Iva-Italis swore at the elderly Ashdan.

Vorlus Ulix then taunted the demon further, then interrogated Guest Gulkan to greater depth.

Then:

"So this is the thing which has tempted you," said Vorlus Ulix to Guest Gulkan. "It said it would make you a wizard, did it?"

"So spoke the mighty Iva-Italis," said Guest.

"It lied," said Vorlus Ulix.

"Who are you to say it lied?" said Guest, with some heat.

In the short time in which Guest had been entertained by the prospect of becoming a wizard, he had already decided that the idea was much to his liking, and so took exception to Ulix's dismissive scorn.

"I am one who knows the nature of these things," said Vorlus Ulix, indicating the demon. "The thing in Obooloo, the asma thing, it can't possibly make you a wizard. It could at best make you merely a vessel for its power."

"A vessel?" said Guest, not understanding this at all.

"This asma of which I have spoken is a slave," said Vorlus Ulix. "That is the truth of its nature. It was made to be a slave of men – a slave of women, too! At best it could make you a slave of a slave – the slave of its own will. If you were mighty enough to win through to the presence of this thing in the city of Obooloo, then that is the greatest reward you could expect. To be enslaved. Inhabited. Possessed. Taken over. That is the truth of the reward the thing offers you."

"He's lying!" said Iva-Italis.

"Lying?" said Vorlus Ulix, turning cool eyes upon the demon.

"Why should I lie? What would motivate me to untruth in idleness?"

"You libel the Great God because you fear the Great God," said Iva-Italis.

"Then you admit," said Vorlus Ulix, "that your Great God is a thing rightly to be feared."

"Only by cowards," said Iva-Italis, who was accustomed to being able to disorder the minds of ordinary mortals by such accusations.

"Then count me as a coward," said Vorlus Ulix, who was no ordinary mortal, and hence not thus to be so easily disordered.

"He – he's calling you a coward!" said Guest Gulkan, who till then had not known that it was humanly possible for an adult male to receive such an insult with equanimity.