Partnership Banks: those Banks which have long exploited the Circle for secret profit. On Alozay, the Safrak Bank has ever been the government; but governments elsewhere have usually been ignorant of the secret of the Circle. Since the Banks are immortal bureaucracies they have managed to outlast kingdoms, empires and dynasties. Starting from Safrak, the Banks of the Circle are these:
– the Safrak Bank of the Safrak Islands;
– the Monastic Treasury of Inner Adeer, in Voice;
– the Flesh Trader's Financial Association of Galsh Ebrek;
– the Bondsman's Guild of Obooloo, capital of Aldarch III;
– the Bralsh, of Dalar ken Halvar;
– the Singing Dove Pensions Trust of Tang;
– the Taniwha Guarantee Corporation of Quilth.
– the Orsay Bank of Stokos;
– the Morgrim Bank of Chi'ash-lan.
Three men had left Alozay by way of the Door, and these three were the Weaponmaster Guest Gulkan, the iceman Sod, and the rough and ragged Thayer Levant.
Sod had leapt through that portal to escape from his captivity; Guest Gulkan had pursued him; and the unheroic Levant had fled after them to escape from a perceived threat to his own life.
Upon raging through the Door to the Monastic Treasury of Inner Adeer, Guest had been confronted by armed force in great superiority. And so, realizing he might have made an error, he had promptly jumped back through that Door, thinking in his confusion that by this means he could return to Alozay. But of course the Door was part of a Circle, so instead of returning to his point of departure, Guest had found himself advanced around that Circle, to Galsh Ebrek.
Sod had arrived in Galsh Ebrek fractionally before Guest Gulkan, for Sod had hoped to get as far as Chi'ash-lan (if that should prove at all possible) before someone in the mainrock
Pinnacle had wit sufficient to close the Door. Thayer Levant had fled after Guest. Levant had used Doors often, hence knew their nature well. Like Sod, Levant had a specific destination in mind.
He had hoped to get as far as the Bralsh of Dalar ken Halvar before the Circle was closed.
But the star-globe had been removed from its niche when these three adventurers had got no further than Galsh Ebrek, and so it came to pass that all three were stuck there. Guest was nimble-witted enough to realize in short order that he was truly trapped, and to swallow a certain ring before anyone thought to search him. This ring sustained a chipstone of ever- ice, and was the sole tool capable of opening and closing the time pods of Safrak's time prison. Later, when Sod happened to ask after that ring, Guest Gulkan averred that it had been torn from his possession during a brief scuffle in the Monastic Treasury of Inner Adeer – and Sod did not disbelieve this.
Thereafter, the Doors of the Circle were closed for a long passage, as Lord Onosh devoted himself to consolidating his command of Safrak – and, later, to dickering with Khmar's ambassadors.
For Banks and Bankers alike, the long closure of the Door was an agony. Particularly for Banker Sod – who was marooned in Galsh Ebrek with no better company than that of the barbarous Weaponmaster Guest Gulkan and the profoundly treacherous and untrustworthy knifeman Thayer Levant.
Galsh Ebrek, of course, is the ruling city of Wen Endex, homeland of the Yudonic Knights. It is notable also as the birthplace of the slug-chef Zozimus and the scholarly Sken-Pitilkin; and a telling commentary on the demerits of the place is that both slug-chef and scholar departed from its shores in early life, and never thereafter suffered nostalgia for the place.
The Bank of Galsh Ebrek was the Flesh Trader's Financial Association, so Sod, Levant and the Weaponmaster Guest found themselves in the precincts of this organization when the Doors of the Circle closed. The Flesh Trader's Financial Association quite refused to hold Guest and Levant as prisoners, since Sod had no cash with which to pay for their keep (and was refused credit by the local Bankers, who feared that any money lent to him would be lost forever if the Door refused to open again).
The local Bankers proposed the slaughter of Guest and Levant, thinking murder to be cheaper than imprisonment, and thinking too that such people could not be let loose in the world with the secret of the Doors.
But Sod was at pains to point out that these prisoners might be of great future importance. After all, Thayer Levant was a servant of Ulix of the Drum, and everyone knew how important he was! And Guest, why, he was the son of the Witchlord Onosh.
"And this Witchlord," said Sod, "he currently commands the star-globe which rules the Circle, so we may need his son as a hostage for future negotiations."
Furthermore, said Sod, the Witchlord was in a position to preach the secret of Circle and Doors to the entire world if he so chose. Therefore what point was there in trying to secure that secret by killing the Witchlord's son?
"After all," said Sod, "there is steady commercial intercourse between the islands of Safrak and the free city of Port Domax, and between Port Domax and Galsh Ebrek, which implies that any revelations made by Lord Onosh will in due course be common knowledge in Wen Endex."
All this made a degree of sense, so Guest and Levant were sworn to secrecy – swearing themselves readily when they understood that the alternative was death – and were released into the city of Galsh Ebrek on solemn parole. Their cover story was that they and Sod were part of a parcel of refugees from the fall of Safrak – refugees recently arrived by sea.
The Bankers of Galsh Ebrek still being too stingy to fund the refugees, they necessarily had to find work. Guest hoped to find employment as a swordsman, a bodyguard, a mercenary, a gladiator, a hacker-down-of-dragons and killer-of-bog-monsters, but Sod advised him against drawing attention to himself.
Thus counseled, Guest finished up as a barman at the Green Parrot. The owner of that establishment was one Anna Blaume, who was at first reluctant to employ any creature as ill-favored as Guest Gulkan. After all, he was patently a Yarglat barbarian, for he was marked as such by his high cheekbones and the great width of his nose. Furthermore, his extraordinary bat-wing ears made him look a proper fright, and Ms Blaume was mildly sensitive to cosmetic effect even though her customers typically were not.
But Guest appeased the proprietor of the Green Parrot by suggesting that she hold a piece of his property as a bond to secure his good behavior.
"What property?" asked she.
"This ring," said Guest, brandishing the ever-ice ring which he had earlier swallowed, but had subsequently recovered by means of a diligent daily investigation of his dung. "This is a lucky ring, for there is a star trapped inside it, not a red star or a green star, but one of the rare and precious white stars. You can wish on it thrice, and be sure that at least on one your wishes will be at least half-answered. Hold this as a bond, and if I misbehave myself you can keep it."
A bargain was struck on those grounds, and so Guest went to work at the Green Parrot.
It may be thought that the young Weaponmaster was over-casual in thus handing over a most precious and irreplaceable artefact, the sole ring of ever-ice known to the Safrak Islands. But he was friendless in a foreign country, and without cash, and therefore in urgent need of employment, for without employment he must surely starve. The ring was of no immediate use to him, and even its future use was problematical.
Suppose you were marooned as Guest was. Had you a ring which could give you a warm bed, hot soup, a dry roof and some morethan-occasional beers, would you not use it? I warrant that you would: and Guest, by using his ring as a good behavior bond, did likewise.
As a barman, Guest proved adequate, for, though his Toxteth was largely indifferent, it must be conceded that he had a vigorous grasp of the entire vocabulary of drinking. Furthermore, he was skilled in the application of armlocks and the breaking of noses, the blacking of eyes and the displacement of teeth, the cudgeling of heads and the kicking of crotches; and the Green Parrot was the kind of establishment where all those talents could at times find their proper employment. Guest secured employment at the same establishment for Thayer Levant. But since Levant lacked a competence in Toxteth, and also lacked a taste for brawling, he worked not in the bar but in the stables. He worked as a groom, and supplemented his wages by sharping the citizens of Galsh Ebrek at cards, for cards have their own language which works independent of the tongue, and Levant knew how to gloss that language to his own advantage.
It might be thought by the unthinking that Guest would be unhappy to be marooned in Galsh Ebrek as a barman. For he was an emperor's son, was he not?
But, actually, Guest was content.
After all, the young Weaponmaster was no stranger to bars or to brawling, for the doughty Rolf Thelemite had long ago indoctrinated him in both. And after the long rigors of campaigning, there was much to be said for pouring beer in the Parrot, and supping hot soup, and sharing on occasion the hospitality of Anna Blaume's decidedly uninhibited bed.
So Guest was content, or moderately so. And Thayer Levant endured.
But Sod – why, in those months of exile, poor Banker Sod suffered desolations of isolation. In all of Galsh Ebrek, only Thayer Levant came like Sod from Chi'ash-lan, and Levant quite lacked imagination sufficient to encompass any conception of the vast distances between themselves and Chi'ash-lan. Levant lacked any true conception of the depths of their geographical predicament, and so did not worry about it; and so was useless as a source of consolation for Sod in those days of trial.
Sod knew that eventually he must decide to set out for Chi'ash-lan or, assuming the Door did not open, reconcile himself to living out his days in Galsh Ebrek.
How could he get to Chi'ash-lan?
Well…
He could take passage on one of those ships which traded across the stormswept northern seas from Galsh Ebrek to Ashmolea.
The expense of travel in Ashmolea is fearful, for food, transport and lodgings are all at a premium. But if Sod could somehow finance his costs, then he could ship from Ashmolea to Asral; from Asral to the Ebrells; and from the Ebrells to the Inner Waters. The Drangsturm Road would then take him to the start of the Salt Road, the terminus of which is in Chi'ash-lan.
Such a journey is appalling in its length, danger and expense, and Sod would surely lose a couple of years of his life to such a trip, if he did not lose his life entire. But -
While Sod was still worrying over the buts, the ifs and the maybes, the Door opened at last, for Eljuk Gulkan's concerns for his brother Guest had persuaded Lord Onosh to at last enter into his necessary and inevitable confrontation with the Banks of the Circle.
A day after the Circle was opened, a messenger from the Flesh Trader's Financial Association summoned Sod from his lodgings in Galsh Ebrek. Guest Gulkan was also summoned – though he knew not why – and on being summoned was surprised to find himself mugged, and made prisoner, and hustled blindfolded through the Circle to a place which he was told was Chi'ash-lan – though where that was he had no idea.
It was of course Chi'ash-lan. There was no mistaking the Door at Chi'ash-lan, for it was set in a chamber which was decorated with hanging skeletons, and the door in and out of that chamber was guarded by the demon Ko, a twin to the demon of Safrak.
Still.
As far as Guest was concerned, it could have been anywhere.
The rapidity of these evolutions had left Guest totally disorientated, for he had been quite unprepared for anything to happen so fast. He knew little of the Banks of the Circle, which had evolved habits of surpassing speed during the long centuries of their operation.
Thanks to the Circle, a Banker could buy tea in Tang and sell it in Obooloo the same day (pretending, necessarily, that the tea in question had come from Chay). A sword of firelight steel could be bought in Stokos in the morning and retailed in Chi'ash-lan that very evening (with its price suitably inflated by the deceitful fiction which held that sword to have been brought the length of the Salt Road by horse, donkey or camel).
A Banker could borrow money in Quilth and lend out that same money in Voice, and lend it out at a far higher rate of interest; could buy furs in Safrak and onsell those furs to Chi'ash-lan; could buy chocolate in Dalar ken Halvar then retail that gourmet commodity in Tang; or buy from Galsh Ebrek the precious jade of the Qinjoks, onselling the stuff in Obooloo or Quilth.
And all these transactions took place at a dazzling speed, because the Partnership Banks maximized the efficiency of the Circle's use by imposing penalties for overuse on the Bankers themselves, so that a Banker must necessarily master the art of the hustle or be swiftly reduced to penury.
Furthermore, the Circle operated in secrecy, and hence was free from the laborious scrutiny, the injurious taxation, the obnoxious tarrifs and the pettifogging bureaucracy which governments traditionally impose upon the merchant. To preserve that secrecy, the Bankers had been forced to make themselves masters of deceit, maintaining a monstrous collective lie in the face of the governments of the world. Yet to smooth the efficiency of their own operations, the Bankers were also forced to trust each other, as bone trusts flesh and flesh trusts skin, for without such trust the commercial interplay of the various Doors of the Circle would have ground to a halt under the weight of encumbering paranoia.
Here let us compare the Bankers to warriors and to wizards.
Now warriors bind themselves to battle with dire oaths made solemnly, and made only after the most cumbrous process of muttering deliberation, accompanied by the furrowing of brows and the grinding of teeth, the clenching of fists and the flourishing of swords. As for wizards, why, every wizard is a lawyer, for one cannot become a full member of the Confederation of Wizards without obtaining a law degree as part of one's preliminary education; and so it is that your wizards cannot agree on the smallest point without five years of niggling debate, and when one wizard tries to buy a horse from another then the animal in question will typically die of old age before the conditions of the sale have been settled.
But – Bankers!
A Banker will see, think, decide, accept and settle, and all that in less time than it takes to snap your fingers, and will do so in any of the five favorite languages of your choosing. The Bankers keep no lawyers and little notation, and will trade in fortunes on the strength of the spoken word alone.
So it is that the Bankers of the Partnership Banks developed the fastest-moving, quickest-thinking and superlatively flexible organization in the entire civilized world, and made themselves masters of the adroit appraisal, the quick consensus and the snap decision. And it is only natural that Guest Gulkan was entirely lost, confused and bewildered when he found himself unexpectedly plunged into the vortex of the Banks' affairs, and whirlwinded into the foreign geography of an alien city, and dungeoned, and interrogated to purposes which were scarcely his to comprehend.
For we must remember always that Guest Gulkan was Yarglat born and Yarglat bred. The strength of his breeding was that he could hack at his father with a sturdy sword, or use the same sword to coerce a wizard of Skatzabratzumon into launching a mountain avalanche at his command, or subsist when necessary upon the blood of a horse – and none of these strengths were suited to a resolution of his present predicament.
We must remember, too, that Guest was only 17 years of age, having experienced his 17th birthday in Galsh Ebrek in the spring.
And here in summary, before our history sees Guest plunged into an uncertain future, let us take a brief moment to recap his past.
Our history picked up the boy when he was aged 14, and foolishly fought the Rovac warrior Thodric Jarl, contending for the posession of the woman Yerzerdayla – and thus offending his own father and securing his own exile to Alozay. On Alozay, Guest had his 15th birthday, and was tempted by the demon Iva-Italis, who offered him the chance to make himself a wizard. After such temptation, he sojourned upon Alozay for another year, attaining the age of 16. The young Weaponmaster was then whirlwinded by airship to the mountains of Ibsen-Iktus, from which he descended to the lowlands, only to be captured by his father's enemies.
Throwing in his lot with those enemies, Guest Gulkan dueled his father in a civil war, only to lose the entire Collosnon Empire to the invader Khmar. Father and son being united in defeat, the Weaponmaster Guest and the Witchlord Onosh retreated to Alozay, chiefest of the Safrak Islands. There Witchlord and Weaponmaster made themselves masters, overthrowing the Safrak Bank by a combination of guile and violence – only to have the sweetness of their victory upset when Sod took advantage of their momentary lapse from unity.
Pursuit of Sod made Guest a refugee in Galsh Ebrek, ruling city of Wen Endex, and so it was that Guest Gulkan saw out the winter in Wen Endex, survived his 17th birthday in the spring, and continued working as a barman in the Green Parrot while spring turned to summer.
Midsummer's Day marked the formal start of the rule of Khmar in the Collosnon Empire, and thus was the first day of the year Khmar 1; and it was the first year also of Alliance 4308 (and also, for those who have an interest in historical cross- reference, the third year of Talonsklavara, and the first year of the rule of Justina Thrug of Untunchilamon).
It was on Midsummer's Day that Eljuk Zala Gulkan reached Safrak, arriving in the company of the wizard Ontario Nol; and it was shortly afterwards that the Witchlord Onosh caused the Circle of the Partnership Banks to be reopened, thus unwittingly making his son Guest the focus of the full and unfriendly attention of all the surviving Banks.
So we find Guest entering into the greatest predicament of his life at the age of 17, and this is a boy's age. Since boys of 17 typically lack wives, and children, and households, and businesses, it has usually been found expedient to use such children as the meat of war; and the historically continuous slaughter of children has given rise to the conceit that a boy of 17 is fit for the adventures of adulthood.
However, this conceit is false, and Guest was certainly most woefully ill-equipped to face the unfriendly face of the world on his own.
To this, the casual reader of this history may object.
One can imagine the objections.
The young Guest Gulkan was a warrior! A hero! A leader of men! A master of revolutions! A lord of the avalanche! A victor in battle! Surely he was a man in his independence, and ready for the world!
Ah, but was he? Anyone who thinks that he was must have overlooked a supremely important fact: the fact being that Guest had ever been guided and supported by the wisdom of wizards.
Admittedly, one of those wizards was a mere slug-chef, an unemployed necromancer, a broken-down wizard of Xluzu unable to nerve himself any longer to the full employment of his wizardly powers. But the other wizard! Why, that other wizard was a scholar, and a sagacious scholar at that, and as learned in war as he was in the irregular verbs.
A close reading of this history will show that Guest was never far from the wizard Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin. It was Sken-Pitilkin who preserved the boy's life when he fought Thodric Jarl in Enskandalon Square; Sken-Pitilkin who accompanied the boy to Alozay; Sken-Pitilkin who ensured that the boy was kept well away from the demon Iva-Italis after that demon had first tempted him; Sken-Pitilkin who flew the boy from Ema-Urk when escape from that island was required. It was the sagacious wizard of Skatzabratzumon who then aided the boy in war, who helped both the boy and the boy's father escape from a wrathful Khmar, and who used his wizardly powers directly in the fight for Alozay.
Let the victories of the boy's childhood be placed where they belong: at the feet of the mighty Sken-Pitilkin! Guest, then, had lived as a child must live – ever guided, assisted, disciplined and educated by adults. And what could he have done without them? Why, nothing – for Guest on his own lacked the skill even to parse a verb or bake a hedgehog.
Even in Galsh Ebrek, Guest had been watched over by a diligent adulthood, for the callow ignorance of this primitive Yarglat barbarian had awakened the maternal sympathies of the worthy Anna Blaume, who had routinely kept him safe in her bed of nights, thus preserving him against the worst consequences of his own his native folly.
But now he was truly on his own; and was on his own at the worst of all possible times; and was beset by the jabber of incomprehensible languages; and was fed food which was strange to his tongue; and was dungeoned he knew not where; and was shocked and dislocated by the suddenness of his incomprehensible change of fortune.
But while Guest was bewildered, there is no need for this history to mimetically duplicate his bewilderment. Let his location then be stated with precision. He was held in Chi'ash- lan, a city in that region of ice and snow which is known as the Cold West. Chi'ash-lan lies at the western end of the Ravlish Lands, and it is a city mighty in war, a city ruled by a cruel and oppressive Bailiff. The Bailiff's unfortunate habits were matched by the like traits of the Morgrim Bank of Chi'ash-lan, in which Banker Sod of Safrak held high position; for, though nominally independent, Safrak's Bank had long been subordinate to the disciplines of the Morgrim Bank.
With the Circle open, and with Guest Gulkan a prisoner in Chi'ash-lan, and with Sod likewise restored to the freedoms of Chi'ash-lan, negotiations began between the Partnership Banks and the Witchlord Onosh – who naturally guarded his own Door in the mainrock Pinnacle with supreme care, making sure there could be no repeat invasion by murderous Zenjingu killers.
The Bankers invited Lord Onosh to come to Chi'ash-lan under flag of truce, telling him that his wizards were not included in this invitation. Sod had made it clear to the Partnership Banks that Lord Onosh had the support of two wizards, Pelagius Zozimus and Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin, and that both these wizards were dangerous.
Lord Onosh accepted the Partnership Banks' invitation, and ventured to Chi'ash-lan in the company of Ontario Nol – who was introduced as a Yarglat warlord, and who looked the part, for he was dressed in boots of felt and in a coat made out of an old solskin horseblanket. Thus garbed, and armed with a scalping knife at his side, the venerable wizard of the order of Itch looked every bit the bloodstained barbarian.
With Lord Onosh and Ontario Nol went Eljuk Zala, venturing around the Circle to the chamber of hanging skeletons which held the Door of Chi'ash-lan's Morgrim Bank. With some trepidation, they exited from that chamber, daring themselves past the demon Ko, which remained mute in their presence.
Then they were taken to one of the inner offices of the Morgrim Bank, where Guest Gulkan was brought before them.
"Know our price," said Banker Sod, speaking on behalf of the Partnership Banks. "We will let you have Guest if you will surrender to us the rule of Safrak."
"I cannot surrender Safrak," said Lord Onosh, "for I have already surrendered my empire to Khmar, hence have nowhere to go."
"You will be allowed to hold the island of Ema-Urk in fief," said Sod. "That will be your reward if you will only surrender."
"I was told on an earlier occasion that I would be allowed to hold the island of Im-skim-patorta in fief," said Lord Onosh.
"Solemn agreement to that affect was followed by your effort to murder me and mine."
"You call me murderer?" said Lord Sod. "You? When you smuggled weapons into the mainrock Pinnacle with murderous intent?"
"The weapons were solely for self-defense," said Lord Onosh.
"You must admit that not one blade was used against you until you had started to seize my men."
"But you intended murder," said Sod.
"Intent!" said Lord Onosh. "You speak for intent, do you?
Well, I speak for action!"
So the two men argued back and forth; and indeed argue was all they could do, for since each had betrayed the other once there was no firm basis on which they could come to an agreement.
But -
While Sod threatened and blustered, Guest Gulkan looked in such good health that Lord Onosh was hard put to credit any threat to his life. Surely – so thought the Witchlord – the Partnership Banks would have treated the Weaponmaster Guest harshly had they thought of him as anything other than a friend. Believing Guest to be in no serious danger, Lord Onosh decided to call the Bank's bluff.
"You cannot kill my young Weaponmaster," said the Witchlord Onosh to Banker Sod, "for if you kill the boy Guest then you will have no hostages left to barter with. I suggest that you hand him back and negotiate with me as equal to equal on terms of – well, friendship, if you could bring yourself to think of me as a friend."
"Kill him we will unless you come to your senses," said Banker Sod, "and we will give you an invitation to the killing."
Then the conference broke up, with the Witchlord Onosh returning to Alozay with Ontario Nol and Eljuk Zala, and with Guest being dragged away to the cell in which he was to languish until his death-day.
Very shortly, Lord Onosh was served with an invitation to that death-day, which he accepted, still thinking it a bluff.
As Guest Gulkan lay in the shadow-stink of a deathcell in Chi'ash-lan, he though himself forgotten and abandoned by the world. But in this he was deluded. For Guest Gulkan and the companions of his misfortune were a subject of intense discussion and speculation in places as far removed as Stokos and Tang.
"So he is to die in the arena," said Elch of Stokos, speaking of the young Guest Gulkan. "What does he think about that?"
"One doubts he does think," answered Ibstork. "He is after all a child of the Yarglat, and the Yarglat, if they have brains, have yet to demonstrate any of those behaviors which would prove it."
Elsewhere, in Quilth, Guest Gulkan was again the subject of discussion.
"His bowel motion was healthy," said Physician Floth of the Healer's Guild of Quilth.
He knew?
Of course he knew!
The most detailed bulletins of Guest Gulkan's health and conduct daily circulated through the realms of the Partnership Banks. Guest Gulkan was vitally important because he was the son of Lord Onosh, albeit a bastard son; and the Partnership Banks still thought that the Witchlord Onosh might intervene and concede the rule of Safrak in order to preserve his son's life.
But no such concession had been made when the day schedule for Guest Gulkan's death dawned.
On that day the Witchlord and a small party of observers and bodyguards came to Chi'ash-lan, and were escorted through its streets of snow to the arena of Chi'ash-lan.
It was then still summer in Safrak, so Lord Onosh was hard put to see how it could be winter in Chi'ash-lan. He asked of Sod the answer to this mystery, and was told that it was not winter in Chi'ash-lan but summer, but that the "Breathings" of the Cold West made it snow snow and ice ice even in the heartland of summer.
In the cold of that winter-frigid summer, Guest Gulkan sat in a cell, waiting to see what the lord of Safrak would do. Would the Witchlord Onosh surrender the rule of Alozay and liberate his much-beloved son? Or would he not?
Since the "not" was unthinkable, Guest Gulkan tended to concentrate on what he would do once he got back to Safrak.
He had been told that Thodric Jarl was gone. Good. That meant that Guest could make Yerzerdayla his forever. If he could find her.
Where was she, that woman of surpassing beauty? In Gendormargensis still – he presumed. Perhaps she could be bought from Khmar.
The young Weaponmaster focused on the image of Yerzerdayla, her breasts his bounty, her lips his pleasure, and her thighs -
His meditations came to an abrupt halt as the turnkey hammered on his cell door.
"Wake up, you in there!"Guest abrupted to his feet.
"Up against the wall!" said the turnkey, peering through the cell's spyhole. Guest flattened himself against the wall.
"Turn around!" yelled the turnkey. "Turn around! Turn and face the wall or I put a crossbow bolt through your backside!"
With some reluctance, Guest conceded his will to the voice.
Then the door was unlocked and thrown open, and muscle stormed forward and seized him.
"What's this, then?" said Guest, when he was out of the cell.
"What's happening? Where are we going?"
But nobody would answer him. Guest was beefed through the underground corridors by two guards, one a gigantic man whose shoulder overtopped Guest Gulkan's head, the other an iron-muscled dwarf with a grotesque acromegalic face. They brought him to the Door of Death and pushed him out into the snowlight. He fell, and went sprawling on the frozen dirt-curds of filthy snow which had hardened to ice.
Grazed and shaken, Guest Gulkan scrambled to his feet and looked around the arena of Chi'ash-lan, wincing at the brightpuzzle light of the sky. His enemy. Where was his enemy?
Nobody was waiting to fight. Instead the arena lay desolate under a low gray sky, scurfed with the sky's discards – heaps of snow and buckled ridges of ice. There must be an enemy here somewhere.
But where?
In the snow, of course! Guest Gulkan bootcrunched over frozen ice toward the most man-shaped of the snowdrifts and kicked at it. His boot uncovered a man, but the man was dead.
"To sword," said Guest, kicking the corpse.
The young Weaponmaster half-expected the corpse to rouse and resurrect, to haul itself up to the challenge and brute it out to the death. But the corpse remained in the snow, stolidly frozen.
This was the corpse of no gladiator but that of an alcoholic old man who had frozen to death after falling from the terraces.
Laughter from those terraces drew Guest Gulkan to survey his audience, which was paltry, for the terraces were almost empty.
The quantities of unswept snow which lay drifted on the stone ledges of the terraces indicated that they had been largely empty for days, if not for months; which is scarcely surprising, for the operation of a gladiatorial arena that even a place as rich as Chi'ash-lan can hardly hope to indulge in the more bloody forms of entertainment right through the year.
The Witchlord Onosh was up there, together with his entourage, but they were hidden behind the veils of the windows of a walled-in box, and Guest Gulkan could not see them, and was not aware of their presence.
"What's going on?" said Guest Gulkan, addressing his audience in the Galish, since that had been the language of his jailors.
By way of reply, the alcoholics in the audience laughed uproariously and hurled snowballs in Guest's direction. The snowballs fell short, for the arena was large and the alcoholics nearly incapably drunk on the dreadful rubbish they had been imbibing, which was a dire concoction fermented from the blubber of whales and the dung of dogs. Guest Gulkan scanned the rucked surface of the arena's snows for any further enemies who might have buried themselves in ambush, saw none, shivered, stamped his feet, and looked to the box reserved for Bailiff Vok, to which his attention was called by the pair of gilded dragons which flanked it. But Bailiff Vok's box was empty. At that time, the Malf of Chi'ash-lan had bankrupted themselves to buy the right to launch ten days of pogrom against the Zy. The Malf were making the most of it, and Bailiff Vok was doing likewise – patrolling his streets on foot to observe the burnings and lynchings, the tortures and rapes, the savagings and the lootings.
So Guest Gulkan stood desolate in the arena, wondering if he was to be allowed to shiver to death.
He was not.
For, with a scraping squeal of rust and reluctant timbers, a sally port opened, and out from that sally port there ventured a dozen athletes, each armed with a wooden staff. Black was their garb and black the masks which hid their faces. These were yet more of the dreaded Zenjingu warriors, the ultimate killers, the dreaded combat cult fanatics of Chi'ash-lan. It was known in Chi'ash-lan that the Zenjingu could kill with a touch, or a laugh, or a look. It was known in Chi'ash-lan that the Zenjingu could decapitate a man with an adroitly-thrown dinner plate, or eviscerate a stalwart warrior with a sharpened toothpick, or take a blacksmith by the foot and shake him till his spine dislocated and his liver fell out of his side.
But Guest knew none of this. So why then did his heart quail when he saw his enemies were a dozen in number? After all, he was a hero, was it not? And is it not written that any hero worthy of his salt can kill a dozen of his enemies single-handed? Here a mystery. But what is certain that Guest Gulkan did quail. But not for long. For shortly he was far too busy for any quailing. He was trying to defend himself – and he was failing.
The athletic Zenjingu ringed Guest Gulkan and began to whack him with their wooden staffs. He tried to grab one. And did! For a moment the Weaponmaster stood there tussling with a Zenjingu warrior, seeking to wrench the staff from his enemy's grip. Then another staff smashed his wrist. Guest Gulkan opened his mouth in soundless agony.
Obliterating pain.
A staff rammed him in the stomach and down he went. He retched, puking yellow bile to the snow. Hit around the head, he slumped, dazed and struggling. He rolled, kicked, got up on one knee, staggered half-upright. Then was felled by a blow to the kidneys. The alcoholics on the terraces screamed their approval.
The staffs rose and fell, smashing ribs and cracking other bones.
Then it seemed the Zenjingu were done, for nobody hit the Weaponmaster any more. Not that this improved his condition much.
To move hurt, to breathe hurt, to be hurt. He waited for someone to kill him properly. He waited to die.
But nobody came to give him the coup de grace.
Instead, there was some excited shouting in a language he did not understand. He was too wrecked to look around, and so did not see a cylindrical cage being dragged out into the middle of the arena. Once centrally positioned, the cage was anchored with cruel metal spikes which were driven deep into the frozen snow.
Then jailers came for Guest Gulkan, who was being pissed on by half a dozen Zenjingu warriors who were otherwise unemployed.
Once the fighting cult heroes had finished, Guest was dragged to his feet. He screamed in lacerated agony as bones rubbed against broken bones. He screamed again and again as he was bundled across the frozen snow then forced into the cage. Guest Gulkan was made to sit upon the iron bench which bisected the cage. The iron was so cold that, had his captors stripped him of his clothes, his skin would surely have frozen instantly to the metal. But the Zenjingu and the jailers had left the Weaponmaster with his garments. Humiliation was not what they had in mind.
Once seated, Guest was tied in place. His arms were tied so they stuck out of the cage at the elbow and his legs were tied so they stuck out of the cage at the knee. Then, after a little selfcongratulatory backslapping, the Zenjingu and the jailers withdrew, hooting with laughter as they went. Guest Gulkan sat.
In pain.
In gasping torments.
In wrenching agony too sharp to be delirium, there sat Guest Gulkan, shocked and shattered, too savaged by his torments to have any comprehension of what was going on. That "what" was nothing.
For nothing happened as Guest Gulkan sat, living from breath to breath, from pain to pain, a lifetime passing between each spasm of renewed excruciation.
How long he sat there, he did not know. Perhaps a lifetime, perhaps thrice longer.
Then he heard something.
It was soft but it was big. How big? He could not tell. Not precisely. But the thing was big enough to pad the air with silence, to change the world of sound with the muffling stupendousness of its presence. It was huge. It had to be. But what was it?
It was behind him.
A bigness, a prowling softness, a bulking appetite, a lode of deliberate purpose shifting and sensing, a hungering half-heard and half-felt. And then. It breathed upon him. Its breath was hot against his neck.
It leaned against the cage. But all its bulk was not sufficient to move that cage. Nevertheless, Guest felt the metal shudder with the strain.
Then.
Then.
It.
It licked his hand.
Its tongue was hot, and heavy, and then it bit.