The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster coaaod-9

by Hugh Cook

"A bablobrokmadorni stick," said Sod. "I thought you were a scholar!"

  "Well," said Guest. "I study."

  "But obviously not hard enough," said Sod. "For a command of the Janjuladoola seems to be lacking from your tongue."

  "It is so," conceded Guest.

  "Then learn at least a word of it," said Sod. "This is a bablobrokmadorni stick, a device used in the Izdimir Empire for the carriage of lanterns. Look! You can put it on your shoulder and carry six lanterns without a risk of fire."

  "A lantern stick, then," said Guest, making no attempt to pronounce the Janjuladoola name of the thing, since he feared that any such exercise in applied linguistics would precipitate the rupture of his jaw.

  Then Sod showed him the water jug, which was half-full. The bread box, which held some lumps of black peasant bread so hard they could have been used as missiles for a catapult. The chamber pot – which was unclean, and smelt accordingly.

  "Empty it from that northern window," said Sod, gesturing at the nearest slit window. "You'll find it by its smell, even if you can't find it otherwise."

  With these instructions given, Sod warned Guest not to leave his post before he was relieved at dawn. Then the Banker took himself off to his bed, descending the darkened stairs without bothering himself with a light – for Sod knew every shadow in the mainrock by its heights, its depth, its heat, its cold, its timbre or its smell.

  Once left alone, Guest immediately busied himself with the lighting of lanterns. The boy Guest was not zealously industrious by nature, but night was setting in. The ominous darkness – scarcely relieved by the cold green glow which emanated from the distant flanks of the demon Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis – beset the boy with fears. This was a high place, a cold place, a barren place, and he did not like it.

  Lanterns swayed from the chains of the bablobrokmadorni stick, sending a dozen shadows of Guest Gulkan lurching across the skull-pattern tiles of the Hall of Time. When hung by the time pods, they seemed merely to enlarge the darkness rather than to light the hall. The unlit gulf of the western staircase became a funnel descending into the nether depths, and Guest, made uneasy by that plunging chasm of blackness, placed his armchair up against the northern wall.

  Yet even with the armchair so placed, Guest found it impossible to settle. Instead, he began to perambulate around the room, checking the oil levels in the lanterns, testing the room's acoustics by hawking and spitting, and amusing himself by examining the people so firmly frozen in the timestasis of the pods of the time prison. A motley bunch they were, those prisoners, a good many of them showing signs of extreme age, of disease, or of wounds or torture.

  Rumor claimed – and Guest had heard the rumor, for ears as big as his were singularly well adapted for the capture of gossip – that time prisoners almost inevitably died upon release. The process of being frozen within a block of unchanging time was held to be harmless in itself, but the psychic shock of being displaced from one's own time by days, years or generations was held to be inevitably fatal.

  Hence the Safrak Bank used the time pods as instruments of execution. After two or three generations of incarceration, a prisoner would be abruptly released into a future in which friends, lovers and relatives were dead, or reduced to decrepit spiderwebbed ghosts of their former selves, old-aged skeletons thinly cloaked by arthritic mottlestone flesh. From the prisoner's point of view, an eyeblink aged the world. The shock of such change was sufficient to kill – though one rumor claimed that a quick-acting poison was covertly administered to supplement that shock. Guest Gulkan, growing disturbed by the unblinking stares of those imprisoned in the time pods, ceased his scrutiny of the same. Though the hall was very large, it was nevertheless becoming increasingly claustrophobic. The shadows weighed heavily on Guest Gulkan's shoulders. He topped up the oil in each and every lantern, and trimmed the wicks to maxi mise their light-producing efficiency, yet the heavy burden of shadow seemed scarcely relieved.

  As if seeking escape from the hall, Guest Gulkan eased himself into a north-facing slit window. It was easily tall enough to accommodate his height, but narrowed sharply, its sides arrowheading inward as the window pierced its way through the wall to the outer air. The outermost aperture of this defensive fenestra was just large enough for Guest to stick his head outside. He did so. He warped his head around to look up at the sharp-slash stars, then looked down at the sightless gulfs of the Swelaway Sea far below.

  "Sa!" said Guest, pulling his head in, then rubbing his ears to warm them against the cold.

  The young Yarglat barbarian jumped down from the slit window and returned to his armchair. But it was growing increasingly cold – far too cold for him to stay seated slumped and sleep. So he resumed his perambulations. Guest was far from the demon when he heard someone coming down the stairs. Guest geared himself up for action instantly. His blood began to pulse in his ears. A warm flush of battle-readiness surged through his body. Then – then Guest belatedly remembered that the stairs were not his concern. The stairs were guarded by the demon, or so Banker Sod most earnestly believed, and the guardianship of those stairs was the demon's concern, with Guest Gulkan's duty being merely to prevent interference with the prisoners of the time prison.

  Down came a single person, who paused by the demon, who spoke – or appeared to speak, for Guest heard the whispering ghost of a comment across a distance greater than eighty paces – then tramped toward the downward stairway in the west.

  Resting on the stranger's left shoulder was a bablobrokmadorni stick from which two lanterns depended, and these lit him as he approached. A remarkable figure! He was dressed in brightly-colored patchwork motley. A multitude of small ceramic animals were attacked to his trousers and his jacket. On his feet were slippers, which curved upward at the toes, terminating in pink pom-poms. He wore a golden skullcap fringed with tiny glass bells, which rang out in a rain of music as he stepped lightly, briskly, across the cracked and broken tiles of the Hall of Time.

  A bright and briskful figure, this.

  But the face!

  As the man drew near, Guest Gulkan saw his face was hideously disfigured by burns. Twisted welts and lava-field fluxes had warped that face until its age and race were beyond determination.

  On his right hand, the man wore a glove puppet in the form of a green-skinned dragon with red dewlaps. As he drew level with Guest, the man's right hand moved. The dragon snapped at Guest's ear. And it had teeth! Yes, there were miniature teeth built into the mouth of the glove puppet, teeth sharp as razors! Guest's hand went to his sword.

  But the stranger laughed, laughed like a bell, laughed with such penetrating clarity that one might imagine him to be heard from one side of the Swelaway Sea to another. He had a singer's voice, trained to carry, and the laugh was a song of sorts, so penetrating that Guest felt its vibrations in his bones.

  Disarmed and made dumbstruck by that laugh, Guest stood like a scarecrow, gawking at the stranger. Who sniffed him. Smelt him.

  Sucked sweat, dust and dinner into his nostrils. Sampled him.

  Memorized him. Then snorted, hummed, winked, and went tripping down the western stairs, the light of his lanterns swaying from the walls in a warmglow wash as he descended.

  Such was Guest Gulkan's first encounter with Yubi Das Finger, a citizen of the Empire of Greater Parengarenga, and a resident of the far-distant city of Dalar ken Halvar.

  Descending the stairs, the stranger began to sing. Abruptly, his song was cut off by a lurching cry. There was a pause. A scream! In panic, Guest sprinted to the head of the stairs, his sword already in his hand.

  Then upward from the depths below there came a bright and bell-clear laugh, a laugh both generous and mocking at the same time, and Guest knew himself to have been the victim of a joke.

  Sweating and blood-pounding – in the aftermath of his influenza, he was far too weak to enjoy such a joke! – Guest seated himself in his armchair. But no sooner had he settled himself than he heard more footsteps descending in the east.r />
  Though the Hall of Time was a full hundred paces in length, though Guest Gulkan was seated near its western end, he clearly heard two people descending the stairs in the east. He got the disconcerting impression that the jade-green demon of the east was amplifying the sound of those descending footsteps. He tried to dismiss the thought, but the thought proved reluctant to be dismissed.

  – It is but a stone.

  Thus thought Guest, who had been seriously disconcerted by his encounter with Yubi Das Finger, and did not think himself up to the stress of facing further shocks.

  Down came two people. They passed on either side of the coldglowing demon and proceeded toward Guest Gulkan at a measured pace, the lattermost carrying a bablobrokmadorni stick bright with twin lanterns.

  As they came near, Guest saw the foremost was an ancient featherweight of an Ashdan, who was followed by a ragged servant.

  More strangers. Guest braced himself for jokes, threats or revelations, but the pair gave him only the most cursory of glances before exiting from the hall, taking the stairs which led downwards. Guest was relieved that the passage of the dwarf-statured Ashdan and his lowbrowed bablobrokmadorni servant had gone off so smoothly.

  Then: More footsteps!

  Coming down!

  And there were many of them!

  Yes, there was no mistaking it!

  A great body of armed men was coming down the eastern stairs, their armor clanking, boots tramping, horns blowing, shields clashing. Horses! They had horses! Guest heard hoofs on stone, heard an animal whinny. And – barrels! They were rolling barrels as they came! The barrels were thumping on the steps! And – one burst! Guest heard it shatter to a gust of liquid, heard curses, guttural swearing.

  Now Guest was under the impression that the seventh and last stratum of the mainrock Pinnacle – Jezel Obo, the Sky Stratum – was a small place. No place, then, where one could hide a bootshod army with its horses, its shields, its barrels.

  Yet they were coming downstairs!

  From where?

  From the sky!?

  In something of a panic, Guest hastened across the skull- pattern tiles of the Hall of Time, his heart swift-hammering, his sword in his hand.

  The sounds of the descending army grew louder and louder as he hurried to the eastern stairs. Would he have to challenge him?

  No, they had leave to pass. Unless the demon said otherwise! Would it say? And if it did – would Guest have to hold an army singlehanded? But the demon could bite! Sod said so. It could bite, it could kill, it could gullet down men. Men? Well, a man. Maybe. But – an army?

  In a boil of fearful anticipating, Guest braved himself to the eastern stairs… only to have the noise of the onslaughting army fade, melt, diminish, then echo away to nothing, vanishing into silence even as he reached the eastern end of the hall. Guest stood sweating, his heart pounding. He shook his head, half-convinced he had suddenly lost the power of hearing. But his hearing was clear enough. He could hear his own breathing, could hear a subtle wind-whine as a draught from the Swelaway Sea penetrated the Hall of Time through the high-vented slit windows.

  Despite the cold of the night air, a bead of hot sweat rolled down Guest's forehead.

  He thought he heard – faintly, distantly – a cold and desolate laugh.

  "What is going on here?" said Guest, harshly, addressing the demon Jocasta in the Eparget of the Yarglat.

  But the demon made no reply.

  The demon in question was, as previously indicated, an entity firmly incarnated in a square-cut jade-green pillar, this pillar being an imposing monolith which stood twice the height of a man.

  The pillar glowed with its own cold inner light – not a white light like that of ever-ice, but a green light hinting of deepwater depths. The demon, Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis by name, was Guardian Prime and Keeper of the Inner Sanctum, the holy of holies of the Bank. Iva-Italis had been in the service of the Safrak Bank for generations, and had long had charge of the Guardians.

  The Weaponmaster Guest should by rights have been intimidated by such an august personage, but was not. Unfortunately, Guest had yet to acquire a mature respect for the Holy and the Unholy, the Hallowed and the Unhallowed, and as far as he was concerned the demon was just a hunk of rock. In truth, the young Weaponmaster in his ignorance thought this lump of rock to be incapable of speech, thought and action, believing rather that the powers attributed to the glowing stone were but idle tales fabricated to intimidate the ignorant.

  Yet -

  Yet something had made that noise of an army.

  "What is it?" said Guest, questioning the rock. "What was it?

  Ghosts?"

  But nobody answered him.

  He started to feel foolish.

  He had been sick, had he not? He had. Even now he was weak in the aftermath of his fever. He was alone, and a man alone hears voices. So

  … well…Guest turned away from the demon and started the long trek back to his armchair.

  Then someone spoke his name.

  "Guest Gulkan."

  The voice was deep, dark, cavernous. A voice of roiling stone and flensing steel. A voice of sulphurous flames and bone-grinding appetites. At the sound of it, Guest halted. His flaring nostrils endeavored to gape still wider. His hair, that part of it which was not firmly matted to his skull by the dedicated accumulation of filth, endeavored to stand on end.

  With eyes wild, with the agitated whip-crack intemperance of a highly-strung horse about to panic and bolt, Guest turned to face the demon.

  "You!" said Guest, challenging the jade-green block of glowing stone. "Is it you?"

  "Who else?" said the voice.

  This time there was no mistaking the source of that voice.

  The jade-green monolith was speaking to him. Guest Gulkan was being directly addressed by a demon – by Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis,

  Keeper of the Inner Sanctum and Guardian Prime.

  "What do you want?" said Guest, trembling on the edge of a one-man stampede.

  "I want you," said the demon. "Come here!"

  Chapter Five

  Guardians: mercenaries who serve the Safrak Bank, which has long hired such warriors from Port Domax and Wen Endex – both places where Toxteth is the ruling language. As Guardians frequently settle in Safrak on retirement, Toxteth now dominates Safrak, and many geographers erroneously denote it as the sole language spoken in that archipelago.

  "Come here!" said Iva-Italis.

  The demon did not speak in the Toxteth of the Guardians of Safrak, nor the Galish with which Bankers habitually intercommunicated. Rather, it commanded Guest Gulkan in the Eparget of the horse tribes – just as Banker Sod had done when briefing Guest on his duties.

  "You!" said Iva-Italis. "Yes, you, hair-of-a-horse! Come here!"Guest hesitated. With the jade-green monolith revealed as a demon for real, the Weaponmaster found himself healthily afraid of the thing. The rock's proven demonhood gave substance to the breath-bating horror stories told about its temperament. Many a drunken Guardian had denounced it as a very vampire in its humors – a monster of deceit which would plead one close with pleasantries then snap away one's head to satisfy anthropophagous passions.

  Yet -

  Yet Safrak trusted the demon, for Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis was Guardian Prime of Safrak and Keeper of the Inner Sanctum, that most secret of all abditories. Did that say something of the falsity of rumor? Or did it, rather, say something rather unpleasant about the Bank itself?

  "I do not wish to repeat myself," said Iva-Italis. "Nor do I wish to have to raise my voice. Come here!"Guest Gulkan advanced, though – remembering tales of the demon's head-biting displeasure – he did not venture too close. Though Guest thought himself momentarily innocent of any wrongdoing, he had learnt long ago that a child's subjectivity is no guide to the judgments of adults. And, truly, the trembling Weaponmaster felt a very child in the presence of the thunderous patriarchal authority of the Hall of Time.

  "Halt!" said Iva-Ital
is, when Guest was just a half-pace short of being as close as he wanted to be.

  The tone was so sharp, the order so sudden, that Guest tried to halt with one foot in mid-air and a footstep's momentum still carrying his body forward, the result being that he almost fell over. He was still pawing at the air for non-existent handholds when the demon spoke again.

  "What am I?" said Iva-Italis. Then, before Guest had a chance to answer: "Well? What's this? Defiance? Defiance, is it?

  Defiance in silence! Defiance! We know it well!"

  "My lord," said Guest, struggling mightily to master an apologetic eloquence to his tongue. "My lord, I – I – "

  "You! You!" said Iva-Italis, mocking his efforts with an adroitness which made Guest's tongue's stumbling become a regular stammer. "Y-y-y-y-you!" said Iva-Italis. "Your name, stumbleblock!

  No, too slow. Failed that one. Failed. None to know, nothing to answer. Know my nature? Know? No?"

  "M-m-m-my lord!" said Guest, abacked and baffled, snowballshattered and seastorm-shaken.

  At times in the past, the boy Guest had thought his tutor Sken-Pitilkin to be a sadistically sarcastic interrogator, but he had been wrong: and now, face to face with the real thing, Guest found himself quite unprepared to cope with it.

  "Who am I?" said Iva-Italis, thundering at the shout. "Who am I?"

  "My lord," said Guest. "The commander of my sword."

  "Your sword!" sneered Iva-Italis. "Do I need a bodkin-prick or a needle? Sword! Hah! I think you an apple-slicer, but I no apple, nor connoisseur neither."

  "Well I think you exceedingly rude," said Guest, who had been pushed too far for awe of authority to further compel his politeness. "I think you – "

  "Think!" said Iva-Italis. "Since when had you the art of thinking?"

  "I have suffered the tutoring of a wizard yet survived," said Guest with bravado, seeking to extract at least some small shred of self-respect from this confrontation.

  Immediately he regretted his show of pride, thinking the demon's discipline might be death. But Iva-Italis, having seen how far Guest could be pushed, changed tack entirely.