by Hugh Cook
To this end, Guest set himself the job of getting close to the leader of the defeated pirates, a Rovac-born warlord by the name of Elkor Alish. Being jealous of the secret of star-globe and Doors, Guest did not immediately reveal all to Alish. Indeed, he revealed nothing. Guest thought he should first learn the temper of this man, and assess the degree to which his oath was trustworthy, and should only then suggest to him an alliance of purpose.
So Guest sought audience with the black-bearded Elkor Alish, he of the elegant dress, the bright-gleaming jewels. On being granted audience, Guest sought employment as a bodyguard.
"Explain yourself," said Elkor Alish.
Upon which the Weaponmaster gave a heavily circumscribed account of his own life. He declared himself to be the son of Onosh Gulkan, the ruler who had been overthrown so many years ago by the barbarous Khmar.
"My childhood was spent in Gendormargensis," said Guest,
"where I was tutored exclusively by Rovac warriors. Thus I learnt the manners of the Rovac, and something of their tongue. After my father lost his empire, I was exiled into the world. Thereafter, I put my sword at the service of the world, until I wandered too near Drangsturm and fell victim to the Ethnologists who dominate the castles of wizardry."
"The Ethnologists?" said Alish. "I have long studied the Confederation of Wizards, for I count that Confederation as the greatest of my enemies, but I have heard nothing of these Ethnologists."
"They are a new and horrible kind of evil," said Guest. "They are a cabal of wizards which specializes in the destructive interrogation of selected individuals from every race and nation.
They seek to gain intimate knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of each breed of men, so that by possession of such knowledge they can conquer the world."
This news was of intense interest to Elkor Alish, who was widely famed for his hatred of all wizards. So the mighty Rovac warrior demanded a full account of Guest's experiences at the hands of the Ethnologists, and Guest happily obliged, ending with a graphic account of the heroic manner in which he had finally fought his way out of the Castle of Controlling Power, leaving seven wizards dying in his wake.
"All this is well and good," said Alish, pleased to hear a tale so greatly to his taste. "But you have yet to explain why I should hire you as my bodyguard. I am of the Rovac and have others of the Rovac in my entourage."
"Yes, my lord," said Guest. "And my father was of the Yarglat, and had many mighty Yarglat warriors in his entourage.
Yet his bodyguards were of the Rovac. For the Rovac had no power base in Tameran, therefore could not be a threat to his rule.
Likewise, as a single Yarglat barbarian in the Greater Teeth, I have no power base. Hence I can be trusted."
"Are you accusing my Rovac compatriots of harboring thoughts of revolution?" said Alish.
"I remark only that my lord is said to have lately been in dispute with one of his valued Rovac compatriots," said Guest Gulkan. "While serving in Androlmarphos, I have heard much of the tale of Elkor Alish and Morgan Hearst. The details are all in confusion, yet it seems clear that here were two Rovac warriors, and that bad blood led to battle between them."
This was undeniable.
Still.
"There are many refugees like yourself," said Alish.
"Masterless men without power base. If I make a choice of such for my bodyguards, why should I trust one of them and not you?"
"Because of my familiarity with wizards and their ways," answered Guest. "Wizards are your enemies, or so it is said. As their prisoner, I have learnt of their ways, and of their devices.
My lord has sought to command such devices, and to use them against their originators. Yet many of his men have a superstitious dread of such things, and no knowledge of their powers and limitations."
"Good, but not good enough," said Elkor Alish. "There are a thousand people a day petitioning for my patronage. You will have to do better than that if you want to be my bodyguard."
"Then," said Guest, "know this. I had a special motive for seeking to serve you."
"What?" said Alish.
"I am Guest Gulkan, the son of Onosh Gulkan, and the rightful heir to the Collosnon Empire. My lord Alish is engaged in a struggle which has as its ultimate aim the control of the western seaboard of Argan and the destruction of the Confederation of Wizards. With such ambition secured, his thoughts will turn north.
Surely. With his ambition contented by the digestion of Argan, he will want allies in the north. I do not ask my lord to give me an army. Not now. Not this month, or next. But I suggest to my lord that it might be to his ultimate advantage to accept my offer of service, that he may sound out the degree to which my oath is trustworthy, and learn my temper."
This speech was greatly pleasing to Elkor Alish.
It was true that Alish had grotesquely grandiose visions of conquest, and entertained these visions still, even though he had lost the city of Androlmarphos and had been driven back to the Greater Teeth. In defeat, few believed that Alish could do more than hold those bare and barren rocks against the onslaughts of his enemies. So Guest made the sweetest of music when he confidently stated that Alish would secure Argan as his own – and then have the strength to look for greater influence to the north.
Alish considered at length.
Then said:
"I can offer you nothing now."
"I ask for nothing now," said Guest. "I wish only to serve, that we may measure each other's temper. When we have tested each other's temper, then we may talk of power, of conquest, of alliance. Till then, my sword is yours."
With that persuasive argument, Guest Gulkan entered the service of Elkor Alish. Flattery had helped win him that position; and his knowledge of the works of wizards; and the fact that he had personally murdered seven wizards in the course of escaping from the vile and hideous ethnologists who had turned the Castle of Controlling Power into a grim place of screaming evil and of blood-curdling torture. Added to this, it must be acknowledged that a person of royal birth is always of potential use to any ruler; for the superstitions of the world are such that it is commonly thought that an emperor's son has a heaven-sent claim to great destiny, and Elkor Alish must surely have been aware of the political potential of such superstition.
So Guest was installed in the court of Elkor Alish, who was then making a diligent effort to acquire whatever devices of wizardly power he could gather in by purchase, by bribery, by search and by theft.
Having thus placed himself at the heart of the information nexus, Guest was ideally placed to learn of the destiny of the star-globe. And his manoeuvering was duly rewarded on the day when Rolf Thelemite himself was produced before Elkor Alish, and was commanded to tell the tale of his adventuring in Penvash.
One can imagine the shock, astonishment and consternation of Rolf Thelemite when he was brought before Elkor Alish and found the Weaponmaster standing as bodyguard at that warlord's side.
Rolf had last met up with Guest on a desert island on the Circle of the Door of the Old City, and had last parted from him on a battlefield to which one of the other Doors of that Circle had opened.
How then had Guest come to be standing on the Greater Teeth, in company with Elkor Alish? And in what capacity was he there?
And with what intention?
"Be not afraid of me," said Elkor Alish, seeing Rolf Thelemite's confusion. "I am merciful. All I want is the truth. Do but grace me with the truth of your history, and I will be content."
Then Guest intervened.
"My lord," said Guest. "If I may make so bold."
"Be bold," said Alish. "It is a virtue in a warrior, though it be a vice in a chambermaid."
"Then, my lord," said Guest, "let me say that I know this man. This Rolf Thelemite, he was bodyguard to my father in the days when he served my father in Gendormargensis. He was a mighty warrior in my father's armies, and covered himself in glory in the battles of our empire. His confusion is perhaps because he thinks I have placed myself
at your side by subterfuge."
"Is this so?" said Elkor Alish.
"It, uh, it's true," said Rolf Thelemite, whose true terror came from the fact that he was an oath-breaker accursed of Rovac, and was sure to be dead meat if Elkor Alish learnt of the details of his history.
"Then know that Guest Gulkan has declared himself to us properly as the son of Onosh Gulkan, the Witchlord of Tameran," said Elkor Alish. "He has declared himself further to be the son of Bao Gahai, a witch – and, as all the world knows, the witches are the sworn enemies of all wizards. My enemy's enemy is my friend, and the wizards of the Confederation are most definitely my enemies."
This set Rolf Thelemite to gaping, for, if there was anything Rolf was sure of, it was that Guest Gulkan was not and could not possibly be the son of Bao Gahai. For the dralkosh Bao Gahai was surely a thousand years beyond the age of childbearing, hence could not have mothered Guest. But – well, Elkor Alish had never set eyes on Bao Gahai, nor was he likely to. And doubtless Guest had stretched the truth at the corners to win himself the confidence of the doughty Elkor Alish.
Very well.
"My lord," said Rolf. "I, uh, you're – it's this globe you're interested in."
"This globe of stars," confirmed Elkor Alish. "This Door of Doors.
"You've, ah, heard some of this story," said Rolf Thelemite.
"From Drake Douay, I mean. Did you speak to him? They said you met him in 'Marphos, they said – "
"Just the truth," said Alish, cutting off Rolf Thelemite's verbating.
Then Rolf controlled himself, and gave a plain account of his doings.
"I was engaged in this diplomacy business," said Rolf. "There was a mission, a mission from the Greaters to Ork."
"So I've heard," said Alish.
"There was a sea-wreck," said Rolf.
"Is there any other kind of wreck?" said Alish.
Rolf Thelemite was about to answer in the affirmative. Rolf Thelemite was about to say that a person could be air-wrecked as easily as they could be sea-wrecked. But then Guest Gulkan caught Rolf Thelemite's eye, and conveyed a warning by the grimness of his expression.
Only then did Rolf Thelemite catch himself. He was in the presence of Elkor Alish, the scourge of the Confederation of Wizards. It might well be death for Rolf if he was to confess his long association with the notorious Hostaja Torsen Sken-Pitilkin, wizard of Drum, wizard of the order of Skatzabratzumon, and master of controlled flight. Much has been written about the hazards of the battlefield, and the dangers of the sea, but the terrors of a court can be worse than storm and battle put together; and Rolf, realizing how dangerous his long association with Sken-Pitilkin might yet prove to the integrity of his liver, was hard put to know what to say next.
"You were saying?" said Alish.
"There's, ah, carts," said Rolf Thelemite. "Carts can be wrecked, yes, wheels came off, Drake told me once, a cart, it was Cam, there was coal, a whole building demolished, there – "
"Just the facts," said Alish. "The facts of your journey.
Briefly. Not the whole of your life in vomiting detail."
"Ah," said Rolf, relieved that this dangerous business of wrecking was done with. "I was diplomat, then. But wrecked.
Wrecked on Penvash. There was capture and battle beforehand, a big ship, a metal ship, but the wrecking was the end of it, and, ah – inland, we went inland, north was the start and the south to be the finish, and the Old City in the middle."
"Tell on," said Alish.
"We reached this Old City," said Rolf, "and it was Drake,
Drake Douay, you've met him, I'm told. He found the globe, it was full of stars, he put in this hole, and then this Door opened, a Door between countries."
"Then?" said Alish.
"We closed it," said Rolf. "Because it was, ah, there were crocodiles, there were big lizards, a battle, all kinds of stuff, giant centipedes, a mountainside. So we got back to the Old City, we closed it, that was enough. But then there was a fight."
"I'm sure there was," said Alish. "So?"
"The, the globe," said Rolf, "it got lost in the river.
Because of the fight, I mean."
"Then?" said Alish.
"Then we came back," said Rolf, lamely. "Back home. Back to the Greaters, I mean."
"And that's it?" said Alish.
"That's it," said Rolf.
And that was the end of the interview. Guest Gulkan then expected Elkor Alish to rush an army to Penvash to filter that region's rivers for the star-globe. But Alish remained singularly unmoved by Rolf Thelemite's revelations.
And, on mature reflection, Guest Gulkan realized the reason why.
Elkor Alish desired to conquer Argan. The Door in the Old City started in no place in which he wanted to be, and went to no place to which he wanted to go. Ultimately, he desired to make war on the wizards of Drangsturm, true – but there was no point whatsoever in opening a Door which debouched into the territory of the Swarms on the wrong side of Drangsturm. Alish was searching for devices, yes, but he wanted things he could use immediately as weapons of war.
Unlike Guest Gulkan, Alish did not know of the existence of the far more valuable Circle of the Partnership Banks. Unlike Guest Gulkan, Alish did not have a father who ruled Alozay, where one of the Doors of the Banks was located. Unlike Guest Gulkan,
Alish did not have the hope of eventually making an alliance with gigantic and invulnerable jade-green demons like Ko of Chi'ash-lan and Italis of Alozay.
So Guest Gulkan began to plan an expedition into Penvash on his own account, and to this end he renewed his acquaintance with Rolf Thelemite, and tried to meet and covertly interrogate all those who had been in Penvash when the star-globe was lost to the river. For Guest had already realized that the difficulties of finding a small star-globe in a large river could well be extreme; and that he could easily exhaust his life in futile search unless he could pin down the location of loss with some degree of exactitude.
In the end, Guest realized that research would not be sufficient in itself. To have any hope of success, he would have to take Rolf Thelemite or one of Thelemite's companions to Penvash, together with several hundred people equipped to rigorously search whatever stretch of river Thelemite indicated as the site of star-globe's loss.
To this end, Guest Gulkan began to sound out the temper of some of the other chieftains on the Greaters, concentrating in particular on the most lordly of the pirates.
When Guest was not thus engaged, he spent much of his time in a green bottle which had fallen to Elkor Alish's possession. In the secrecy of that bottle – the commanding ring of which was retained in Alish's possession – Guest spent most of his time writing a detailed account of the fortifications of Drangsturm, and of the Castle of Controlling Power in particular. Since Guest had studied those fortifications in detail, he was well-equipped for the task; and, since he still held a grudge against the Confederation, and against its ethnologists in particular, he had no hesitation in honorably discharging that duty.
Thus Guest was hard at work in the green bottle when that treasure of treasures was stolen from Elkor Alish by a sneak-thief named Togura Poulaan; and Guest was still helplessly imprisoned in the same bottle when that Poulaan carried it away from the Greater Teeth in a small boat which was shortly struck by storm.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Togura Poulaan: a would-be questing hero from Sung who became one of Sken-Pitilkin's proteges at a time when Sken-Pitilkin was living alone on Drum (Guest Gulkan having disappeared through a Door in the Old City of Penvash).
Now Guest Gulkan was a questing hero, a survivor of encounters with Crabs and with therapists, a mighty swordsman whose daring had defeated both the murkbeast and the crocodile.
Yet being such a person is no defense against ignominious disaster, for the world's greatest warlord may yet step by accident in a dogturd, or have a chamber pot emptied on his head by a careless chambermaid at work in the upper storeys of a building which overshadows
the route of his promenade.
So it was that Guest, he who had confronted the dreaded Ethnologists in their lair yet had lived to tell the tale, he who had suborned the imperial strength of Plandruk Qinplaqus to his service, he who had dueled with the Great God Jocasta and had survived the treachery of the demon Italis, fell victim to the lowest and meanest specimen of scuttling cowardice to be found west of Galsh Ebrek and east of Chi'ash-lan.
The vile and villainous Togura Poulaan, a native of the porkeating nation of Sung, stole the bottle in which Guest was hard at work on his self-interrogation; and, by the time Poulaan had managed to carry the bottle home to his lair in Sung, he had succeeded in damaging the bottle so badly by long abuse that it ultimately broke, liberating Guest Gulkan from its interior.
That, at least, is the story as told by the Weaponmaster. It must be admitted that the above-mentioned Poulaan has given a different account of the matter, and claims that Guest destroyed the bottle from within by incontinently tampering with a subtle wizardly mechanism he found in its depths.
Be that as it may, the outcome was that Guest Gulkan was carried north of the Greaters to Sung, a barbarous province of the Ravlish Lands. In some quarters, it is alleged that he did not leave Sung before committing a number of murders. Indeed, Poulaan is said to have blamed the Weaponmaster for the death of his much- beloved brother Cromarty, who was put to death in the town of Keep in a singularly sanguinary manner.
Whatever the truth of the matter, it is certain that Guest, having been abstracted from the Greater Teeth by the villainous Poulaan, ended up in Sung, a dismal land of bogs and rockdumps in Ravlish East, where peasants with provincial mudpuddle minds dedicate themselves to the practice of obscure yet hideous abominations. The inhabitants of this depraved place eat offal (in addition to pork), rape sheep, commit vile abominations with toads, and abominate themselves also with liquid dung. Nor is this the limit of their delinquencies, for the people of Sung have disgraced themselves down through the generations by systematic inhospitality, the worst manifestation of which is that they frequently mistake wandering scholars for lepers and endeavor to stone them to death. They further display their debased iniquity by giving houseroom to the skavamareen, an instrument of aural obscenity which has long been outlawed in every civilized nation from Tang to Chi'ash-lan. It must also be said that a debasement equal to that of their morals has from time to time afflicted their coinage; and from this great injury has been suffered by innocent persons.