Hugh Cook - The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster

"He is?" said Guest. "How would you know?"

"Trust me," said Zozimus. "Have I ever betrayed you in the past?"

"Have you ever had the opportunity?" retorted Guest.

Then Sken-Pitilkin intervened.

"Guest," said Sken-Pitilkin, "my cousin Zozimus is but a slug-chef, it is true, but even a slug-chef may have his honor, and Zozimus has his. Take his advice. I trust him, and so may you."

Then Guest Gulkan at last consented to be advised by Zozimus, and so swore that he would preserve the life of the ancient Ashdan, the pelican-bearing Ulix of the Drum. Whereupon Ulix said unto him:

"Come. Let us ascend to the uppermost chamber of the mainrock

Pinnacle, and there I will explicate to you the greatest of the world's secrets, and its most powerful."

"We've been," said Guest. "We've seen. There's nothing there."

"On the contrary," said Ulix. "There is a great secret upstairs from here."

"An acroamatical secret, I suppose," said Guest.

"Precisely," said the Ashdan Ulix, raising an eyebrow. "How did you know that?"

"Because," said Guest, "I have long been in the company of wizards, and have enjoyed the full advantages of their tutoring."

And this Ulix believed, though the truth of it was that Guest did not know an acroamatical secret from a stench pit; and, while he used the word "acroamatical," and liked its flavor, he was completely ignorant of its proper meaning.

Lord Onosh was reluctant to be dragged upstairs, for a great weariness was upon him. Yet Guest insisted, for he was sure that Ulix of the Drum had something utterly fantastic to reveal to them.

And so it shortly proved.

Inner Sanctum: the most secret of all the abditories of the Safrak Bank. The Sanctum lies upstairs from the Hall of Time, and the sole approach to the Sanctum is guarded by Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis, the Keeper of the Inner Sanctum. Its contents – so far as Witchlord and Weaponmaster have been able to discover – are restricted to an uninteresting marble plinth sustaining an inscrutable steel archway.

"Where's my blanket?" said Sod, when Witchlord and Weaponmaster made their return to Jezel Obo, the Sky Stratum, topmost level of the mainrock Pinnacle.

"Yes," said Glambrax, "and his chamber pot. I have need of one, and so does he."

"There is the living rock outside," said Ulix of the Drum, waving at one of the floor-to-ceiling windows with his pelican- headed walking stick.

"Then let Sod loose," said Lord Onosh, "and let him dung upon the living rock of the heights of the Pinnacle."

Sod was released, and his example proved inspirational, for the whole company took itself outside.

The uttermost top of the mainrock was a perilous place.

The rock fell away steeply from the southern and northern windows of the weirding room which held plinth and arch, and none but a mountaineer in his folly could have ventured such steepness. To east and west, the crested rock was narrow, and rough.

In his weariness, Guest was uneasy to be out and about on such a perilous height, and was glad once they were back inside, back in the uppermost chamber of the mainrock Pinnacle.

That chamber was as it had been previously – a big room of disappointing emptiness, its airiness housing nothing of worth, not even a clipped coin, a bent pearl or a slightly despoiled virgin. It was devoted to the sheltering of plinth and arch.

"Sod has been telling me of this plinth and arch," said Glambrax.

"Really," said Guest. "And what has he told you?"

"He has told me," said Glambrax, "that this archway is the eye of the Sacred Needle, and is symbolic of the pattern which the moon weaves through the sky, which pattern is matched by that of the shoaling of the fish which swim in the Swelaway Sea. That at least is what Sod says. He claims, then, that this Eye is a sacred monument, an altar of his religion. Nothing more and nothing less."

Glambrax voiced this in the Eparget of the Yarglat, and Sken-Pitilkin kept up a running translation in the Galish. Ulix of the Drum spoke many languages, as Sken-Pitilkin knew well, but the servile Thayer Levant was monolingual. So, out of pity for Levant's crippled condition, the wizard of Skatzabratzumon translated all into Levant's native Galish.

With the account of Sod's claims translated, Ulix of the Drum laughed, then said, using the Galish for the purpose:

"There is more to this thing than there appears to be."

So saying, Ulix gestured at the steel archway with his pelican-headed walking stick.

"More?" said Guest. "But what? Is it hollow? Is there gold and jewels and stuff inside?"

"Investigate," said Ulix. "Investigate, and find out."

Given that invitation, Guest Gulkan jumped up onto the marble plinth, walked round the steel archway, walked through that archway, kicked it, put his ear to it and listened to it, then said in decisive conclusion:

"I know what this is. It is art. I have heard about art. Sken-Pitilkin has tutored me in its intricacies. Art, or so he says, is great lumps of metal twisted beyond utility, then set upon marble for the general admiration of an uncomprehending public. This fits the description, does it not? This then is art, without a doubt – high art, like unto the works which are held within the tubework halls of the fair city of Veda."

"There is art within Veda, true," said Ulix of the Drum, impressed with Guest's knowledge – though he would have been less impressed had he known that Guest was incapable of placing the city of Veda upon any map, even though Sken-Pitilkin had told him of its wonders some five thousand times at least. "But this, my young friend, this is not art."

"Then what is it?" said the Witchlord Onosh.

His query was voiced in the Yarglat tongue, but the Lord of the Silver Pelican responded in the Galish, with Sken-Pitilkin again providing the translation.

"My lord," said Ulix of the Drum, "this is a Door. It opens unto foreign realms, as a door of ordinary make opens from one room to another." Guest, still standing astride the plinth, cast a sharp glance in Sod's direction. Banker Sod's yellow teeth were bared, and he looked very much the carnivore, and a hungry carnivore at that.

"Have a care for Sod," said Guest, warning his father. "For his temper is up, and he may do something foolish in a moment."

"Has he a weapon?" said Lord Onosh.

"He has not so much as a pin about his person," said Glambrax. "Unless he can kill with his hands, he is harmless."

"If he attempts such a killing," said Lord Onosh, "then he will die on my sword. Perhaps he will. For a great and perhaps contagious foolishness seems on the loose today. This business of a door – is that not foolishness? What we have here is plain. It is plain, it is clear to the touch and the eye. There's no door here. There's only an arch."

"The arch, my lord, is the door," said Ulix of the Drum. "For when it is opened, one may then step through from this room to a far and foreign country."

"And step back again?" said Lord Onosh.

"In a manner of speaking, my lord," said Ulix. "One must travel in a great circle, stepping from city to city, from nation to nation. But the journey can be accomplished in less time than a dog requires for its mating, and I have made that journey myself, many times."

"Really," said Lord Onosh, making no attempt to conceal his disbelief. "Then if this be a door to escape, then – why, man, the door is yours! If the world lies but a step from this chamber, then go make that step – and vanish, if your choice is such."

"Ah, my lord," said Ulix, "but the door is not yet open. At the moment, the door is closed."

"Then open it!" said Lord Onosh.

"Ah," said Ulix of the Drum, "but to do that I must have in my possession a certain globe of stars, which I do not see kept here anywhere."