Hugh Cook - The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster

Then, when all the Guardians in the mainrock had been sworn to Guest Gulkan's service, Lord Onosh banned all the Guardians from the Hall of Time, and commanded Thodric Jarl to guard the entrance to that Hall against all intruders.

Having thus ensured that Iva-Italis could not command the Guardians to betray the oaths so freshly given, Lord Onosh at last consented to venture past the demon to join his son. The wizard Zozimus went with him, and they took themselves up the stairs to pierce the mystery of the abditory above – the place to which Sken-Pitilkin and Glambrax had retreated with Sod as their prisoner.

At the top of the stairs, in the weirding room in the uppermost stratum of the mainrock Pinnacle, the abditory awaited.

But in it was no great treasure, no mystery, no wonder, no splendor. Instead, the stairway debouched into a room which was large but plain, an airy room with multiple widespan windows, pleasantly lit but bereft of adornment. In the midst of this room there stood a plinth, and from that plinth there arose an archway of what appeared to be steel.

It was cold in that room, for the chill breeze of a winter's morning came wafting through those widespan window-ways. The grayest, chilliest, coldest light of dawn lit the room with a kind of gray liquidity. This was the light before the sun, the light which is too gray to sustain color, the cold and disillusioning light which drains away the manic pretensions of the night.

By that light, Witchlord and Weaponmaster examined the disappointments of the abditory, its marble plinth, and its steel arch. Banker Sod had been firmly tied to that arch. He was asleep.

The dwarf Glambrax appeared to be standing on guard, but on examination he proved to be asleep on his feet. The wizard Sken-Pitilkin was huddled on the floor, snoring.

"Sod," said Guest, waking the Banker by pricking him in the nose with a knifeblade.

Sod woke with a start.

"Your ring," said Guest, as Sod tried to blink away the confusions of sleep. "Give it! Or must I cut it from your finger?

Your ring, man! And, mind – if you swallow it, I'll cut it out of you!"

In the face of Guest's threat – a threat which owed nothing to bluff – Sod surrendered up the ring of which the Weaponmaster spoke. This ring was adorned with a chip of ever-ice which, as Guest knew well, had the power to open and close the timeprison pods of the Hall of Time.

Once Guest had the ring, he woke Sken-Pitilkin. The wizard proved difficult to rouse, so much so that Guest suspected he had been drugged. But he was merely exhausted. When roused from sleep, and persuaded that the demon Iva-Italis truly had betrayed the mainrock Pinnacle to the invaders, Sken-Pitilkin watched while Witchlord and Weaponmaster examined the plinth and the arch.

The search proved singularly disappointing.

"I had thought," said Guest, after long examination, "that there was some great secret here. But this is nothing."

"It is something indeed," said Sod. "It is a shrine, holy to the God of Money."

"Shrine!" said Guest. "I spit on your shrine!"

And he suited words to action.

"Come," said Lord Onosh. "There's nothing for us here. Come.

The mainrock awaits. First the rock, then Molothair. That gives us Alozay. Let's take Sod and go below."

"No!" said Guest. "Not Sod! He stays here! I don't want him anywhere near the demon!"

Lord Onosh considered.

"That's reasonable," said the Witchlord. "By my judgment, we can't trust either in isolation, far less in combination. Sod!

We'll keep you happy here! A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, a chamber pot – what else could you want?"

"A blanket," said Sod.

"Done!" said Lord Onosh, jovial in victory.

With blanket promised, Witchlord and Weaponmaster went below, accompanied by Zozimus and Sken-Pitilkin. Lord Onosh was impatient to be gone, but Guest paused in the Hall of Time, insisting on inspecting the timeprison pods. For, in the course of descending from the abditory, he had become convinced that the woman Yerzerdayla stood frozen in one of those pods.

But a rigorous inspection of the time pods yielded up no trace of the woman, nor of any woman like her. This is the thing about visions, premonitions and such – even when a person does actually possess a Gift, their interpretation of the future is likely to be wrong as often as it is right. Lord Onosh, for example, most definitely had the Gift of Seeing; yet he was apt to mistake his own hopes and fears for the preaching of that Gift. So Lord Onosh, on a hunt in the mountains near Gendormargensis, had once thought himself doomed to die in those mountains, struck down by his son Guest – yet this had not happened, and, despite the strength of his convictions, the Witchlord had returned alive to his capital city.

Betrayed likewise by the workings of his own unconscious mind, Guest hunted for Yerzerdayla in the Hall of Time, but found her not.

The young Weaponmaster did, however, find two time prisoners whom he recognized from the past. One of these was the elderly Ashdan who had once introduced himself as Ulix of the Drum; and the other was that Ashdan's servant.

The small and antiquated Ashdan was frozen in an expression of anger. He held in his fist a crooked walking stick, the head of which was a pelican cast in silver, and appeared to be using it to menace the world. Guest had no idea how long that Ashdan might have been imprisoned there, but decided to release him.

But first the young Weaponmaster consulted with Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin.

"You know this Ulix, don't you?" said Guest. "The pair of you were here that night, that night when the demon first talked of the Great God."

"It is true," said Sken-Pitilkin.

"Then what I want to know," said Guest, "is whether you think it's a good idea for me to let this Ashdan out." Sken-Pitilkin considered, then said that the release of the Ashdan might have its merits. So Guest placed the chipstone of ever-ice against the surface of the Ashdan's time pod; and drew a line vertically on the transparent surface of that pod; and the pod opened sweetly, just as rumor had always said it would.

And out boiled the Ashdan, in the worst of tempers imaginable.

Fortunately, Zozimus and Sken-Pitilkin were able to placate that withered ancient, and ease his temper before he did an injury to himself while attempting to injure others. Much heated discussion followed, at the end of which it was proved that Ulix of the Drum had been in the time prison for upwards of a year.

"Though it was but an eyeblink for me," said Ulix. "And will have been an eyeblink likewise for my servant. Speaking of whom -

I would be very pleased if you would release the fellow."

Now the Ashdan's servant was one Thayer Levant, who had the face of a rat and the eyes of a vulture. He wore a rag-tatter patchwork cloak with was weighted with lead so it could be used in a knife-fight; and the cloak was grimy; and his face was grimy likewise; and the eyes set in that face were bloodshot; and the teeth of that face were broken and brown; and his hair was brown likewise, and was thin, revealing the fungus which grew in green patches on his scalp.

But Guest was tolerant, therefore consented to release this miserable specimen into his palace. Upon release, Levant was soon orientated to his changed situation, and took up a position of watchful obedience a pace behind his master and a half-pace to his master's right.

"Very well," said Ulix of the Drum to Guest Gulkan. "Now you will pledge yourself to preserve my life, and in return I will do you a great favor."

"What great favor?" said Guest, who did not think that he had any cause to pledge anything whatsoever to this Ulix.

"Swear to him," said the wizard Zozimus. "Swear to him, for he is trustworthy."