Hugh Cook - The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster

"Perhaps I will die," said Guest. "But before I go down to destruction, I will reveal to the world your secrets."

"I have no secrets," said Iva-Italis. "I stand here naked, and all of Alozay knows me."

"Your Great God is a secret," said Guest. "The Guardians don't know about your Great God, and – and – and these temple people, these people in Obooloo, how much do they know? I'll tell Sod, that's what, then Sod will tell Obooloo. Oh yes, and once Obooloo knows it has a Great God in its midst, well, who wants something like that lurking in the closet? Obooloo won't be very happy, no, and your Great God neither. The temple. The Temple of Blood. The Great God. Imprisoned by the Stog, the Stogirov. That's all they need to know. I'll tell Sod, then Sod will tell, Obooloo will know, then it's doom for your Great God, or maybe for you too."

"An empty threat," sneered Iva-Italis. "For how would you or Sod say anything such to Obooloo when Obooloo is so far away from here?"

Now as it has been earlier remarked, Guest Gulkan knew no more geography than a hedgehog. If anything, he knew less.

Therefore he had no true conception of the distance between Safrak and Obooloo, and no untrue conception of that same distance either. But, since Witchlord and Weaponmaster had recently performed prodigies of geographical excursion, venturing over unmapped lands with no more than sun and stars to guide them, Guest was inclined to sneer at distance, and to think no prodigies of sea or mountain sufficient to bar the distances to the brave.

Hence he answered easily:

"Why, it will be no great difficulty for Sod to get news to Obooloo, for Obooloo is but a step from Safrak."

Now when Guest spoke of that "step" between Safrak and Obooloo, he was speaking in the poetic manner, in which a "step" can mean any distance less than a lifetime. But Iva-Italis took this throwaway remark for a statement of literal truth, and was enraged.

"Who told you of that?" said Iva-Italis in fury.

"Ha!" said Guest, realizing he had struck on something, though he did not know what. "It is a step, yes, a single step!"

"Who told you?" roared the demon, with renewed rage.

The roar was sufficient to refocus the attention of everyone in the Hall of Time on Guest Gulkan's dealings with the demon.

"Hush down," said Guest softly. "Or do you want them all to know the secret."

"Come closer," said Iva-Italis, "and I will hush in truth."

"Ha!" said Guest. "Closer! If you want us closer, then you must come to me."

"Then stay where you are," said Iva-Italis. "But if you wish to have dealings with me, then you must tell what you know of the passage between Safrak and Ang."

Ang? Now where was Ang? Guest Gulkan was adrift already, for though he had been told a thousand times that Ang is a province of the Izdimir Empire, and that the city of Obooloo stands fair and square in the center of that province, he had neglected to commit these facts to memory. Hence the name of Ang came to him as if he and it were both just fresh-born. But Guest bluffed it out bravely.

"I am the Weaponmaster," said Guest staunchly, "and the greatest of my weapons are those of the intellect. I was born to power and then raised in the wisdom of wizards. I have walked in the sun and have walked at the feet of the dead. I have spoken with Those Who Are Not and have slept alongside Those Who Will Be.

I have looked through time and space and I have seen much, aye, even the Untunchilamons."

A nice froth of nonsense, this! But Guest had heard sufficient legends, stories and fairy-tales to know how a Master of Knowledge and Power should speak, so spoke accordingly. And with remarkable effect.

"Untunchilamon!" said Jocasta.

"Why, yes," said Guest, surprised to see that he had enraged the demon yet further, but concealing his surprise with bland insouciance. "No secret is there concealed from me, for I know – "

Then Guest halted himself. He had been about to say that the Untunchilamons were a group of twenty-seven islands where the

Rovac had long dwelt in power, but he dimly and distantly remembered the wizard Sken-Pitilkin correcting him on this. For some reason, Guest connected that correction with Strogloth, author of Strogloth's Compendium of Delights. So was Untunchilamon the birthplace of that infamous author? Perhaps. But Guest could not be sure of this.

"You were saying," said Iva-Italis, observing Guest's confusion. Guest shook his head to free it from confusion.

"You have been addling my wits," said Guest, turning on Iva-Italis with a note of accusation.

"I?" said Iva-Italis in surprise. "I've been doing no such thing!"

"Of course you have," said Guest. "You know what I know and you know you must yield, but you have been negotiating in bad faith, seeking to probe me out of my secrets, and seeking also to delay decision in the hope that the Guardians may swamp my father's men and hack me before I can betray your truth to Sod.

You think me patient? Patient I am not, not when I am hard up against the wall of my death. Very well! I must go call out Sod, for it is time for me to confess to him my secrets."

With that, Guest turned to go, making as if to head up the stairs to the abditory to which Sken-Pitilkin and Glambrax had conveyed the captive Banker.

"No!" said Iva-Italis. "Wait! I have a message."

"What message?" said Guest, turning.

"A message from Jocasta," said Iva-Italis. "Jocasta says you can have my help. If. If you will swear. If you will swear yourself to venture to Obooloo. Yes, and to rescue. To free the Great God Jocasta from the clutches of the evil Stogirov, High Priestess of the Temple of Blood. Do that, and Jocasta in gratitude will make you a wizard, yes, and you will live forever." Guest hesitated.

"You realize what I need?" said Guest. "You realize what your offer of help implies?"

"Tell me," said Jocasta.

"It implies, amongst other things, that you must call off the Guardians. They have sworn oaths of fealty to you, therefore you can tell them to pledge their allegiance to me and my father."

"I will do it," said Iva-Italis.

"Then I will put you to the test," said Guest. Then again moistened his throat by sucking on his finger, and, having thus eased his throat for shouting, bellowed: "Father! Here!"

The Witchlord Onosh did not respond to this call, for he was out of earshot, having left the Hall of Time, descending to a lower landing where Thodric Jarl and others were in hot dispute with the Guardians. But the witch Zelafona and the wizard Zozimus approached the demon in response to Guest's shout, and, halting a safe distance from the beast, heard his requirements. Guest required his father to ask that one of the Guardians come to the Hall of Time under flag of truce, to receive instruction from the demon of Safrak, Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis,

Keeper of the Inner Sanctum and Guardian Prime.

A truce was procured, and a Guardian was allowed into the Hall of Time to hear the demon's diktat.

"Edlard," said the demon, identifying the Guardian by name.

"You know me."

"You are my lord," said Edlard "Then hear," said Iva-Italis. "And obey."

Then Guest knew it was going to be all right.

The denouement was swift.

Long had the Bankers of Safrak trusted the demon Iva-Italis, relying on that demon to guard their greatest secrets, and using that demon as the supreme commander of the Guardians. But now that trust was betrayed. Edlard was commanded to give his allegiance to the Weaponmaster Guest, and to command the rest of the Guardians to present themselves to the Hall of Time to receive the same instruction.

In the end, the greatest impediment to the conquest of the mainrock Pinnacle was the Witchlord Onosh himself, for, being distrustful of the demon, Lord Onosh would only permit the Guardians to enter the Hall of Time in groups of three or four.