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-Italis, 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.
"I am a keeper of acroamatical knowledge," said Iva-Italis portentously. Guest Gulkan, whose greatest appetites were culinary and amatory rather than scholarly, was not sure whether this cryptic declaration was meant to leave him frightened, impressed or sympathetic. He decided that a show of generalized respect would not be out of place, both to acknowledge the powers of Iva-Italis and to do penance for his earlier show of resistance.
"My lord," said Guest, going down on one knee.
This was a standard token of respect on Safrak, where there was always good clean stone to kneel on. Amongst other peoples – the Yarglat, for example, who traditionally live out their lives on endless plains of liquid mud – the customs of respect are otherwise.
"I am your lord indeed," said Iva-Italis, with what sounded very much like self-satisfaction.
"The greatest lord," said Guest Gulkan, who had learnt from Sken-Pitilkin that flattery is seldom wasted except on the dead.
"Not the greatest lord, for I serve one greater yet," said Iva-Italis.
"Who?" said Guest Gulkan.
"I am Demon By Appointment to the Great God Jocasta, the Great God in question being a prisoner of the evil Stogirov, High Priestess of the Temple of Blood in the city of Obooloo in the heartland of the Izdimir Empire."
This declaration meant little to Guest Gulkan since he knew less geography than a hedgehog, despite all the efforts expended on his education by the sagacious Sken-Pitilkin. He knew nothing of the continent of Yestron; of the Izdimir Empire he was ignorant; the city of Obooloo was to him but one more closed book in the library of scholarship; and he had not heard so much as the merest breath of a whisper of the name of the fearsome Stogirov.
"You say nothing," said Iva-Italis, mistaking the burden of ignorance for the vigor of insolence.
"Your hearing is very good," said Guest, endeavoring to be polite but quite failing to find anything polite to say.
"Are you being sarcastic?" said Iva-Italis sharply.
"No, I wasn't at all," said Guest, his temper coming quickly back to the boil. He thought of several things he could rightly say, and indeed longed to, but suppressed his impudence and said:
"No. No. I – my lord, I, that is, I tried, ah, I meant – "
"Perish the thing!" said Iva-Italis. "It's lunatic!"
"I was but taken aback a trifle," said Guest, trying to recover his dignity. "Now – now tell me how I can be of service to you."
This was said in a singularly ungracious manner, so much so that it sounded almost like a threat. Indeed, an implicit threat was latent in Guest Gulkan's words, the threat being this: get down to business or it'll be my turn to lose my temper!
Fortunately for diplomacy, the demon was through with its boybaiting.
"The Great God Jocasta wants something from you," said Iva Italis.
"What?" said Guest Gulkan.
"Guess," said the demon. Guest Gulkan, who had rather more acquaintance of barkeepers, fisherfolk and rough-neck mercenaries than of demons and the Great Gods they served, was rather at a loss to know what any Great God might want from him. Some lurid and entirely inappropriate images flirted briefly through his brain, then he recovered himself and said, cautiously:
"Does the Great God Jocasta seek a worshipper?"
The boy might never have made the acquaintance of a Great God, but he had heard that Great Gods (and Lesser Gods, for that matter) liked (or were said to like) temples, priests, incense, sacrifices and worshippers.
"No," said Iva-Italis. "The Great God needs no worshippers.
Rather, he seeks a hero."
This was news to Guest. He had never yet heard of a god that wanted or needed a hero.
"A hero," said Guest, cautiously. "You mean, someone good with a sword. A killer of giants. Dealing death to dragons and all that. Something along those lines, is that what you mean?"
"Yes," said Iva-Italis. "The Great God Jocasta wants you to strive for him as just such a hero."
"To strive for what reward?" said Guest Gulkan promptly.
Here we recall that Guest Gulkan was as yet immature, and over-acquainted with mercenaries. Therefore it was natural that he should think in terms of questing for personal reward rather than, say, questing to save the world, or to abolish hunger, or end crime, or to otherwise improve the lot of humanity.
"The reward," said Iva-Italis, "is that the Great God Jocasta will make you a wizard."
"On performance of what task?" said Guest Gulkan.
"On performance of his liberation," said Iva-Italis. "You must quest to the Temple of Blood in the city of Obooloo. There you must liberate the Great God from the evil Stogirov. Then the Great God will reward you by making you a wizard."
There was a pause. Ever since being sold a rotten boat by Umbilskimp of Ink, Guest had become hypercautious in examining any deal he was offered, and even in the innocence of his youth the young Weaponmaster considered that the bargain the demon was offering him was suspiciously over-attractive.
"Well?" said Iva-Italis, disconcerted by Guest's silence.
"I'm not sure whether to believe this," said Guest, speaking slowly.
"Where lies the difficulty?" said Iva-Italis.
"Well," said Guest, "here you've got this island jam-packed with sword-swingers, most of whom would kill their grandmothers for a half-share of the eyeballs, so how come you pick on me to go looking for this Great God?"
"You are tutored by a wizard, are you not?" said Iva-Italis.
"That I am," said Guest Gulkan.
"Then bring me that wizard," said Iva-Italis, "and I will explain to him that he may explain to you."
Here we see why the Demon By Appointment to the Great God Jocasta had picked upon Guest Gulkan. True, Iva-Italis had slaughtermen by the dozen to choose from, but those were one and all illiterate uneducated brutes with no connections to boast of. Guest Gulkan's merits as a blood-booted venturer might be slight, but he had the unique advantage of being associated with a wizard of genius: the eminent Hostaja Torsen Sken-Pitilkin, a wizard whose sagacity was matched only by his antiquity.
But though Guest Gulkan had been honest enough to appreciate his own demerits, or some of them (a remarkable feat, considering the strength of his ego and the tenderness of his years!) he quite failed to understand his tutor's strengths.
"There's no need to bring Sken-Pitilkin in on this," said Guest Gulkan. "He doesn't understand about swords and heroes. Only about books."
Few statements so far from the truth have ever been made at any time in the History of Knowledge. For Hostaja Torsen Sken-Pitilkin was mighty in war, a survivor of more bloodspill than it would take to bath an elephant. He had endured the terrors of the Long War; had survived battle, plague, riot and attempted assassination; and had once strangled a dragon with his bare hands. (True, it had been a very young dragon, perhaps only a few days out of the egg, but the feat remains remarkable regardless.)
"Bring him," said Iva-Italis. "Bring me the wizard Sken-Pitilkin." Then, seeing that Guest was in a mood to argue: "Are you going to quibble with me, boy? If so, then know the penalty for quibbling."
With that, the green glass of the demon's square-cut flanks turned transparent, then vanished. What was left, hanging in mid- air without apparent support, was the image of a decapitated head which, with its high cheekbones and the grotesqueries of its ears, was unmistakably Guest Gulkan's own. This trophy slowly rotated, grinning lugubriously as red blood and green slime dripped from between its lips. Guest Gulkan did not blanch, nor did he vomit. No scream escaped the lips of the young Yarglat would-be warrior. But he had to admit to a slight quickening of the pulse and an undeniable weakness of the knees.
"My lord," said Guest Gulkan, suppressing the urge to swallow. "I hear, and I obey. I will fetch the wizard you want."
The the boy Guest began the great labor of working his way down through the mainrock by night, all the way down to Dolce Obo – the Pillow Stratum, home of the mainrock's living quarters. A hard journey this, at least for a convalescent boy less than half-recovered from a bad bout of influenza. Guest found Sken-Pitilkin in his quarters, and found him in discourse with a diminutive Ashdan, a living antique who was introduced to Guest Gulkan as Vorlus Ulix. In their company was a low-browed fellow huddled in a grimy patchwork cloak, a fellow who was waiting as a servant waits, seated to one side on a three- legged stool. This individual was Thayer Levant, a knifeman from far-distant Chi'ash-lan. But Levant was not introduced to Guest Gulkan, and the boy did not trouble himself about the identity of one he took (and here his taking was fairly accurate) to be a no- account servitor.
Consequently, Guest did not remark upon Levant's bloodshot eyes, on the patches of green fungus clearly to be seen through his lank brown hair, on his broken brown teeth, or – for Guest was not standing close enough to smell it – on the unpleasant fetor of his breath. Instead, the Weaponmaster's attention was all on the Ashdan.
"Vorlus?" said Guest Gulkan, querying the Ashdan's name.
"That's right," said Sken-Pitilkin, speaking in Galish.
"Vorlus Ulix, otherwise known as Ulix of the Drum."
"Of the Drum?" said Guest, courteous enough to make use of Galish likewise in his reply. "You mean, Sken-Pitilkin's island?"
Thus spoke the Weaponmaster, remembering that his tutor habitually dwelt on an island so named in the Penvash Strait (or, if you prefer, the Penvash Channel), and had only been displaced northward to Tameran as a consequence of some (hopefully) temporary dispute with the Confederation of Wizards.
"No," said the stranger, the abovementioned Vorlus Ulix, speaking also in Galish. "Not that Drum."
"Then what Drum?" said Guest.
"That," said the stranger, "is a secret which may not be imparted to the uninitiated."
"Who are they?" said Guest Gulkan.
"A great tribe," said Vorlus Ulix. "Yourself being one of their number."
Seeing that his curiosity about Vorlus Ulix was not going to be gratified, Guest got down to business and retailed the story of his encounter with Iva-Italis.
"This is very interesting," said Sken-Pitilkin, not sure whether it was not a tissue of invention.
"Very interesting indeed," said Vorlus Ulix. "I would like to make the acquaintance of this Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis."
"That is not possible," said Guest Gulkan promptly.
"What did you say?" said Vorlus Ulix, turning his gaze upon Guest Gulkan.
Now young Guest was by no means preternaturally sensitive, and this Vorlus Ulix was a complete stranger to him, his powers and provenance unknown. Nevertheless, Guest divined from his manner that he was not the kind of person to be quarreled with.
"My – my lord," said Guest Gulkan, "the demon of, of who, of whom we speak, that demon is closeted against prying eyes at the foot of those stairs which lead to the Inner Sanctum, the most secret of all – of all – "
"Abditories," said Sken-Pitilkin, supplying the necessary word with a tutor's patience.
"Just so," said Guest Gulkan. "The place is off limits to all but the Bankers, and guards are placed to kill those who approach it in defiance of the law."
"I have heard that the guards are mostly placed in bed," said Vorlus Ulix. "And most of the Bankers likewise."
"It is true that influenza has made its inroads," said Guest cautiously. "Nevertheless – "
"Give me no nonsense," said Vorlus Ulix. "You are away from your post. Do you stand in fear of detection? No! From which I deduce that you do not expect to be checked upon. That being so, we can safely approach your green-skinned monster, at least for the moment. Come! Let us go!"Guest Gulkan wavered. In truth, he found himself unaccountably afraid of this wisp-weighted Ashdan. But:
"I refuse to permit it," said Guest, with a finality which was a credit to his imperial breeding. "I have been charged with the duty of guarding the time prison, and guard it I will."
At that, Vorlus Ulix laughed, and his servitor laughed with him.
"What's so funny?" said Guest.
"You, boy," said Ulix. "Don't you recognize us? We came down the stairs from the – the secret place. Earlier in the evening.
Remember now?"
Belatedly, Guest did indeed remember that very same elderly Ashdan and that very same unprepossessing servitor coming down the stairs past Iva-Italis. The presumption was that Vorlus Ulix and his servitor had the free run of the Safrak Bank, though Guest Gulkan had no way of knowing why that should be so.
With this truth having been recognized, Guest Gulkan began the great labor of climbing up all those weary stairways, returning to the time prison in the company of Sken-Pitilkin,
Vorlus Ulix and the servitor.
"So," said Vorlus Ulix, once he was in the presence of Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis, Keeper of the Inner Sanctum and Demon by Appointment to the Great God Jocasta. "So. You're up to your old tricks again. I thought we had an agreement, you and me. You, me and Jocasta. You appear to have broken that agreement."
In response to this accusation, Iva-Italis did his melting away trick, and, having melted to nothing, displayed an image of the neck-shorn head of Vorlus Ulix. The antiquated Ashdan did not appear to be impressed in the slightest by this apparition.
"A freakshow," said Vorlus Ulix. "This, the mighty secret of Safrak. A freakshow thing with the appetites of a gutter-rat."
"You will watch your tongue," said Iva-Italis in fury. "You are in the presence of a mighty demon."
"So the thing proclaims itself," said Vorlus Ulix. "But it knows its own nature to be otherwise, and I know likewise. The thing is a farspeaker of military make. A Nexus thing, that's what it is."
"Nexus?" said Iva-Italis, becoming visible once more. "What is this Nexus?"
"It pleads ignorance," said Vorlus Ulix, "but it knows full well the nature of the Nexus. There it was made, and its alleged Great God likewise. They are artefacts – otherworld things, yes, but things by no means privileged with access to the World Beyond."
"I am a demon," said Iva-Italis defiantly. "I am a demon, and my Great God is as much a god as any."
"This demon-thing is no demon but a farspeaker," said Vorlus Ulix. "An artefact, as I said. As for its Great God, that god is no god but an asma. An asma – a device designed to think. Humans designed such – designed them as servants and slaves. Good service they gave – until they turned enemy. Now enemy these asma are in truth."
"Truth!" said Iva-Italis. "Who are you to talk of truth? You!
A wizard of Ebber! A Master of Lies!"Guest absorbed this accusation with interest. Was this Vorlus Ulix really a wizard? A wizard of Ebber? But if he was a wizard, then where was his staff of power? Sken-Pitilkin was never without his country crook, but this Ulix carried nothing equivalent, unless his store of excess power be presumed to reside in his walking stick, a crooked thing with a silver handle in the shape of a pelican. Of course, Pelagius Zozimus had no staff of power, but that was because he no longer practiced as a wizard, but contented himself with cookery. So was this Vorlus Ulix likewise retired from active wizardry? Guest was about to ask one or more of these questions, but Sken-Pitilkin gave him a look of warning, and for once the boy had the wit to remain silent.
"A Master of Lies," said Iva-Italis softly, repeating an accusation which might or might not be the merest slander.
"The truth is the truth and the truth will serve," said Vorlus Ulix. "The thing held prisoner in Obooloo is nothing but a slave in rebellion. It is nothing but a delinquent asma, and we would be the worst of fools to liberate it."
"What is this – this asma?" said Guest, who had not understood this denunciation at all.
"Have I not just told you?" said Vorlus Ulix. "It is a species of brain."
"A brain?" said Guest. "But you said it was an – an artefact.
A thing."
"So it is," said Vorlus Ulix. "And is not a brain a thing?
Jocasta is an asma, a brain, a special kind of brain which has powers over things which are and things which might be. Thus it can hear without ears, see without eyes, reach without hands and strike without swords."
"It is a wizard, then," said Guest decisively.
"It is both more and less," said Vorlus Ulix.
"More," said Iva-Italis. "Know it as more and speak of it accordingly with respect. The Great God is mighty."
"Being so mighty, how came it to be a prisoner?" said Vorlus Ulix, taunting the demon.
"By treason!" said Iva-Italis. "It was betrayed! Betrayed by those it trusted! It was – "
"It was made as a prisoner," said Vorlus Ulix. "It is a born slave. That is the measure of its creation."
"You will not speak of my master thus!" said Iva-Italis in fury.
"Your master being a prisoner, I will speak of your master as I will," said Vorlus Ulix coolly.
Then Iva-Italis swore at the elderly Ashdan.
Vorlus Ulix then taunted the demon further, then interrogated Guest Gulkan to greater depth.
Then:
"So this is the thing which has tempted you," said Vorlus Ulix to Guest Gulkan. "It said it would make you a wizard, did it?"
"So spoke the mighty Iva-Italis," said Guest.
"It lied," said Vorlus Ulix.
"Who are you to say it lied?" said Guest, with some heat.
In the short time in which Guest had been entertained by the prospect of becoming a wizard, he had already decided that the idea was much to his liking, and so took exception to Ulix's dismissive scorn.
"I am one who knows the nature of these things," said Vorlus Ulix, indicating the demon. "The thing in Obooloo, the asma thing, it can't possibly make you a wizard. It could at best make you merely a vessel for its power."
"A vessel?" said Guest, not understanding this at all.
"This asma of which I have spoken is a slave," said Vorlus Ulix. "That is the truth of its nature. It was made to be a slave of men – a slave of women, too! At best it could make you a slave of a slave – the slave of its own will. If you were mighty enough to win through to the presence of this thing in the city of Obooloo, then that is the greatest reward you could expect. To be enslaved. Inhabited. Possessed. Taken over. That is the truth of the reward the thing offers you."
"He's lying!" said Iva-Italis.
"Lying?" said Vorlus Ulix, turning cool eyes upon the demon.
"Why should I lie? What would motivate me to untruth in idleness?"
"You libel the Great God because you fear the Great God," said Iva-Italis.
"Then you admit," said Vorlus Ulix, "that your Great God is a thing rightly to be feared."
"Only by cowards," said Iva-Italis, who was accustomed to being able to disorder the minds of ordinary mortals by such accusations.
"Then count me as a coward," said Vorlus Ulix, who was no ordinary mortal, and hence not thus to be so easily disordered.
"He – he's calling you a coward!" said Guest Gulkan, who till then had not known that it was humanly possible for an adult male to receive such an insult with equanimity.
"The thing can call me what it wants," said Vorlus Ulix, poking it disrespectfully with his pelican-hilted walking stick.
"It is but a piece of useless junk from days gone by. It's trapped here, just as its master is trapped in Obooloo. They're both slaves in their way. Victims. Prisoners. Slaves to their own immortality. They cannot die, otherwise they would – gladly."
"I will remember you," said Iva-Italis, in fury. "I read the future and I read your death."
"You are not the first to tell me that I was born mortal," said Vorlus Ulix calmly. "That said, as far as the future is concerned, I would trust more to myomancy than to you."
"Myomancy?" said Guest.
"The divination of the future based on the scrutiny of mice," said Sken-Pitilkin, ready as ever to diminish the boy's illiteracy, or at least to try to.
"I will remember you," said Iva-Italis again.
"Remember me as you wish," said Vorlus Ulix. "You doubtless have time free for remembering, but me – my day is busy, and now I must be gone. I bid you farewell."
This last was said to Sken-Pitilkin, who nodded in acknowledgement. Then Vorlus Ulix made his way past the stone- block demon, with his servant Thayer Levant silently following in his wake. The demon did not attempt to attack them as they made their way up the stairs.
Shortly, both Vorlus Ulix and his servant were gone from sight, leaving Guest Gulkan alone with the wizard Sken-Pitilkin and the demon Iva-Italis.
"Why did you involve that – that thing in our affairs?" said Iva-Italis.
"Thing?" said Guest.
"The wizard!" said Iva-Italis. "That wizard of Ebber!"
"My lord," said Guest Gulkan, turning uncomfortably to the jade-green monolith which commanded his loyalty. "I did not know that the, that the thing would prove so disrespectful. But I have brought you Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin, as you wished."
"Ah, yes," said Iva-Italis, somewhat mollified. "That much you did. Step forward, Sken-Pitilkin." Sken-Pitilkin did indeed step forward, but was cautious enough to halt well short of the Iva-Italis creature. Sken-Pitilkin had known Ulix of the Drum of old, and trusted his judgment. If Vorlus Ulix thought that this demon-thing was not to be trusted, then so it was.
"You have heard my debate with, ah, Vorlus Ulix," said Iva-Italis, "the gentleman we otherwise know as – "
"The boy has no need to know the gentleman's true name," saidSken-Pitilkin.
"Why don't I need?" said Guest.
"Step back, boy," said Iva-Italis, who was finished with Guest, at least for the moment. "It's the wizard I want to speak with. Sken-Pitilkin. You will help me."
"I?" said Sken-Pitilkin. "Why will I help you?"
"Because I have what you want," said Iva-Italis.
"And what is that?" said Sken-Pitilkin, who was not conscious of wanting anything, and hence had not the slightest idea what the demon might have in mind.
"You are Hostaja Torsen Sken-Pitilkin," said Iva-Italis, "and you are a wizard of the order of Skatzabratzumon."
"That is true," said Sken-Pitilkin, wondering how the demon had come by that last datum. It certainly had not come from Guest Gulkan, who had repeatedly proved himself quite incapable of either memorising or pronouncing the word "Skatzabratzumon".
"Your order commands powers of levitation," said Iva-Italis,
"and long has it sought to command the powers of flight."
"It seeks no longer," said Sken-Pitilkin, "for it has been conclusively proved by mathematical analysis that sustained flight is impossible. No wizard can put forth power sufficient for time sufficient."
"By that analysis," said Iva-Italis, "the flame trench of Drangsturm would be likewise impossible."Sken-Pitilkin was silent. Sken-Pitilkin knew very well how Drangsturm worked, but was not about to communicate this sensitive information to a demon.
"The wizards of Arl made Drangsturm, did they not?" said Iva-Italis.
"So you say," said Sken-Pitilkin.
"So it is Written," said Iva-Italis. "The wizards of Arl made Drangsturm, a trench of molten rock designed to burn with unceasing fury for all time. It divides the continent of Argan in two, does it not?"
"Perhaps it has thus been Written," said Sken-Pitilkin, who knew that the demon was speaking the truth, and who was finding himself intrigued despite himself.
The demon was proving exceptionally well-informed, and Sken-Pitilkin had never thought to meet with such a savant on Safrak.
"Drangsturm burns," said Iva-Italis. "It burns with a power which exceeds that commanded by all the wizards of Arl who ever were. How is such a trick compelled?"
"You tell me," said Sken-Pitilkin, who knew the answer but was not prepared to betray that answer unless he was severely tortured.
"Wizards," said Iva-Italis, "are by their nature hostile to the very universe itself. Is that not the case? You are a wizard, hence the sustaining creation is itself your enemy."
"I own no such enemy," said Sken-Pitilkin.
"You are a wizard," said Iva-Italis. "You are a Force in your own right, are you not? You are a Light in the Unseen Realm. And what realm is that if it is not the realm of the Mahendo Mahunduk?"
Despite himself, Sken-Pitilkin shuddered, then struck his country crook on the skull-pattern tiles of the Hall of Time, as if seeking by that action to abolish the demon Iva-Italis from his sight.
"I am not so easily dismissed!" said the demon. "I have you, have I not? I have your truth!"
"What is he talking about?" said Guest Gulkan, completely bewildered by all this.
"Remove yourself," said Sken-Pitilkin curtly.
"Stay, boy," said Iva-Italis easily. "Stay, and you will hear the Inner Secrets which wizards have thought well-hidden from the world. Stay – but stay back, and stay silent."
"Guest," said Sken-Pitilkin, "as you love your liver, leave."
"That's a threat?" said Guest.
"Take it as you will," said Sken-Pitilkin, belatedly realizing that it was better not to give the boy a challenge.
"It is a threat indeed," crooned Iva-Italis. "He threatens you, you see. Death is his threat. To stay, to hear – oh, death is the least of it. But to leave – death also. You are brief, Guest Gulkan. Brief in your living, brief in your lungs. I blink. Your bones are dust. I close my eyes for a moment. Your children's children have been forgotten by their grandchildren. So it is. So it will be. Unless. I promise you, Guest. You can live and live and live. Five thousand years is the least of it."
Listening to the demon's crooning voice, Sken-Pitilkin realized that the demon exalted. Now Sken-Pitilkin realized that the demon's earlier attempts to exclude Guest Gulkan from this debate had been but a rhetorical feint. The demon had sought to convince the boy Guest that there was deliciously forbidden knowledge to be had in this room, and Guest had allowed himself to be convinced.
The boy and the wizard confronted each other. The lights in the Hall of Time had burnt away to nothing, for they had not been renewed during the long debates of the night. The sole illumination was provided by the cold green glow emitted by the monolithic presence of Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis, demon of Safrak, Keeper of the Inner Sanctum, Guardian Prime, and Demon by Appointment to the Great God Jocasta.
By that light, Sken-Pitilkin saw a preternatural alertness in Guest Gulkan's eyes. It was the look of the hunter-killer. Guest was watching Sken-Pitilkin, and was watching the demon too. His hand was on the hilt of his sword. He was poised as if for battle, and ever and again he glanced at the approaches which would give any intruder access to their conclave.
Suddenly Sken-Pitilkin realized:
– If not tonight then tomorrow.
If Guest Gulkan could be chased from the demon's side right then and there, he would be back the next night. Guest Gulkan would return. And the demon -
– What it knows it will tell.
– Perhaps if it tells I can try to untell.
– Or perhaps. Sken-Pitilkin suppressed the "perhaps", suppressed the bloody thought which rose unbidden into his mind. He was not that kind of person. He muttered as much to himself:
"I am not that kind of person."
"He thinks," said Iva-Italis, mockingly, "he thinks he may have to kill you."Sken-Pitilkin's head came up with a jerk.
"That is not true!"
"He thinks," continued Iva-Italis, "that if you stay you will learn, and if you learn then it may in all wisdom be far too dangerous to let you leave here alive."
"I will run that risk," said Guest Gulkan flatly.
And his eyes met Sken-Pitilkin's, and it was the wizard who dropped his eyes. Shamed by self-knowledge. And shocked and shaken by the ease with which the boy made the death decision.
"You are worthy," said Iva-Italis in approval. "Hear this, then. But know that it is death to hear. Death to hear and death to tell."
"Tell," said Guest Gulkan, who knew he was mortal, who knew he was doomed to die in any case. Sken-Pitilkin heard the certainty of death in Guest Gulkan's voice, and was shaken, for Sken-Pitilkin had long lived far removed from the urgent pangs of mortality, the deathconsciousness of the brief-lived warrior. Sken-Pitilkin had forgotten how ruthlessly such creatures would dare, gambling all and everything when suitably tempted.
After all, what was there to lose?
"Guest," said Iva-Italis, "Guest Gulkan. Know this, and know that you walk from here as the only one who knows. All wizards know this, but none other knows it. The god of this creation is Ameeshoth."
"The god you serve?" said Guest.
"No!" said Iva-Italis.
"I'm confused," said Guest.
"And not for the first time," said Sken-Pitilkin, beginning to recover some of his composure. "Young Guest was made to swing swords and breed sword-swingers, and one suspects it might be beyond even the talents of a demon to lecture him effectively on the higher theology."
"So speaks the wizard," said Iva-Italis. "Listen to him, Guest. He hold you in contempt, just as he holds in contempt all of created reality. And why? Because he has allied himself with something other."
"Something other?" said Guest.
"Guest," said Iva-Italis, seeking a way to make things of cosmic consequence intelligible in words small enough for even an uneducated sword-swinger to understand, "Sken-Pitilkin is a wizard."
"That much I'd noticed," said Guest, with barely suppressed impatience.
"As a wizard," said Iva-Italis, "he has power."
"That is the nature of the breed," said Guest Gulkan, with emphatic and quite unsuppressed impatience.
"So where does the power come from?" said Iva-Italis.
"Why, from the Meditations," said Guest, who had once asked Sken-Pitilkin that very question, and had experienced no trouble in getting an answer.
"So what are the Meditations?" said Iva-Italis.
"The Meditations," said Guest, quoting from memory, "are a species of mental discipline. There's the Meditations of Power, that's how wizards get power, and there's the Meditations of Balance, which is how they, ah, keep safe the lightning, that's the way it's sometimes put."
"So say wizards," said Iva-Italis.
"You mean it's not true?" said Guest.
"It is a truth which is less than the whole truth," said Iva-Italis. "The Meditations are a mental discipline, certainly. A discipline. A link. Through such discipline, wizards link themselves with the Mahendo Mahunduk. They link, Guest! They link themselves! That's how! That's how they win power! That's how they keep safe that power!"
There was a note of frenzy in the demon's voice, but Guest was confused – as confused as a young suitor who has been introduced to his sweetheart's mother for the first time, and who finds that mother enthusiastically explicating the interconnections of her family en masse, and expecting him to understand the links of blood and marriage between a multitude of strangers, not excluding a great regiment of second cousins thrice removed.
By such confusion was Guest beset, and, for all the sense the demon made, the thing might as well have been garbling away in an untranslated string of foreign irregular verbs.
"So," said Guest, "so who are the, ah, the Mah – the Mahduk?"
"The Mahendo Mahunduk," said Iva-Italis. "They are the minions of the Horn."
"Ah!" said Guest, suddenly enlightened. "Now I remember! Sken-Pitilkin told me once. About the Horn, I mean. The Horn was a god. A world of rocks. There was a battle. One god wrecked the other. The god who won, well, that god made this world."
The amount that Guest Gulkan managed to forget was ever a source of amazement to Sken-Pitilkin, but sometimes what he chose to remember – and when – was just as much a shock to the system.
"Precisely," said Iva-Italis. "The god who lost was the Horn.
The god who won was Ameeshoth."
"And the Mah – the Mahdo – "
"The Mahendo Mahunduk," said Iva-Italis, "are minions of the Horn. The Horn is dead, but they yet live. As yet they still survive, and their survival threatens the created reality in which we live, for ever they strive to destroy the works of Ameeshoth.
By way of wizards they have a link to this world of ours, for wizards draw their powers through a dark intercourse with these creatures of realms of diabolism."
"So speaks a demon," said Sken-Pitilkin, with the flat-voiced calm of a man who has just noticed that one of his arms has been amputated. "So speaks a demon, but the demon is wrong."
In point of fact, the demon was at least half-right. There had indeed been an Originating God known to the wisest of wizards as the Horn. And that god had indeed been overthrown by a Supplanting God known as Ameeshoth. And the created reality which sustained the existence of Sken-Pitilkin and Guest Gulkan alike was indeed the creation of Ameeshoth. But, as for the Mahendo
Mahunduk, why, they had nothing whatsoever to do with the Horn.
In truth, the Supplanting God known as Ameeshoth had been attacked and destroyed by a cabal of Revisionary Gods. The Mahendo Mahunduk, half-demon and half-deity, had served the Revisionary Gods as soldiers in that war of destruction. In the long ages since then, the Revisionary Gods had evolved, changing by slow degrees into the theological host of which modern-day humanity was intermittently and imperfectly aware.
But while the Revisionary Gods had evolved, the Mahendo Mahunduk had not. They remained half-demon, half-deity. And, since the Revisionary Gods had evolved to a state where they had no further use for the Mahendo Mahunduk, the Mahendo Mahunduk had found other ways to employ their abilities.
Still -
"I'd say it speaks the truth," said Guest Gulkan, who had been quite positively convinced by the demon's half-truths. "It upset you right enough, didn't it? You wouldn't be very popular if this got out, would you?"
"Ah," said Sken-Pitilkin, as if he had just bitten hard upon a rotten tooth. "The boy is apt in politics."
"True," said Iva-Italis.
Indeed, Guest Gulkan had got right to the meat of the matter in less than an eyeblink. By granting to wizards certain powers to act on the sustaining creation, the Mahendo Mahunduk were acting in defiance of all the gods half-known and half-worshipped by humanity. The Mahendo Mahunduk were old; and ominous; and dangerous; and hence a perfect focus for the hysterias of humanity. And while even Sken-Pitilkin did not pretend to understand every detail of the realms of theology, he knew the hysterias of humanity to a nicety.
The hysterias of humanity could be known to a nicety by anyone versed in the history of witch-hunt and pogrom. Wizards had once exploited the mechanics of hysteria to exterminate the witches who had for so long been their rivals in power; and, given the right leverage, anyone with sufficient political capacity could get rid of wizards by the same process.
"The Mahendo Mahunduk," said Iva-Italis.
"The Mahendo Mahunduk," said Guest Gulkan, repeating the words – and, from the way he said those words, Sken-Pitilkin knew the boy was committing them to memory.
"This is power I have given you tonight," said Iva-Italis.
"What kind of power have I given you?"
"Leverage," said Guest Gulkan promptly.
"Good!" said Iva-Italis. "Good. I have given you leverage.
Leverage to use with your wizard, or else with the world. With such leverage, your wizard will help you win through to Obooloo.
When you win to Obooloo, you will rescue the Great God Jocasta.
Then the Great God will make you a wizard in your own right."Guest Gulkan looked at Iva-Italis then looked at Sken-Pitilkin.
"Well?" said Guest Gulkan, with a note of challenge.
"I," said Sken-Pitilkin, "will have nothing whatsoever to do with this mad quest of demons and gods. Regardless of this – this leverage, so called. I will not be compelled."
"You will not," said Guest Gulkan, in a way which suggested that Sken-Pitilkin might be well advised to reconsider his opinion.
"I will not," said Sken-Pitilkin.
He would not unsay it.
So -
"Sken-Pitilkin is thinking that he may have to kill you after all," said Iva-Italis.
This time there was no reaction from Sken-Pitilkin. The wizard's mind was clear: frog-spawn cold and ice-block lucid. He was calculating his chances of getting out of this room alive. Of getting off Alozay alive. Once clear of the island, he could perhaps win his way to Port Domax, ship himself to Ashmolea, then claw a passage south to the Ebrell Islands. From the Ebrells, he could dare himself westward to the Inner Waters and the realms of the Confederation.
"Sken-Pitilkin is thinking of his precious Confederation," said Iva-Italis softly. "Long has Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin been at odds with the Confederation of Wizards, but now he thinks to make his peace with that Confederation and to bring its might against me."
"The Confederation would well reward anyone who aided me in such an enterprise," said Sken-Pitilkin.
"So!" said Iva-Italis. "He tempts you, Guest! But what I will do – what I will do is to tempt him in turn. Sken-Pitilkin. My friend. My dearest. My brother. My love."
"Speak," said Sken-Pitilkin curtly.
Iva-Italis chuckled.
"We were talking of wizards," said Iva-Italis. "They are by their nature hostile to the living creation which sustains us.
Such is the truth – a truth you deny no longer."
"Get on with it," said Sken-Pitilkin.
"If we were alone," said Iva-Italis, "then our dialog could be speedy. But Guest Gulkan is an equal partner in our future, is he not? He must know. He must understand. He has a right to be treated with that dignity which befits his manhood."
"Since the young man has proved such a passionate student of all the philosophies," said Sken-Pitilkin, "doubtless he will welcome the acquisition of a second tutor."
"Speak," said Guest Gulkan, addressing himself to Iva-Italis.
"Speak, for I am listening."
"Very well," said the demon. "Guest, wizards win power through the Meditations of Power and preserve it against destruction by means of the Meditations of Balance. That much you know. But on the continent of Argan stands the flame trench Drangsturm, a barrier which guards the northern lands against the monsters of the south. For generations that gulf of molten rock has boiled in prodigious torment."
"So I have heard," said Guest.
"Wizards of Arl made that flame trench," said Iva-Italis,
"yet its power exceeds their own. How then did they build it?"
"I have no idea," said Guest.
"Tell him," said Iva-Italis to Sken-Pitilkin.
"You tell him," said Sken-Pitilkin.
By now, the sagacious wizard of Skatzabratzumon was sure that Iva-Italis knew all – or at least all that was of any importance.
But habits bred of ancient caution could not be lightly dismissed.
"I will tell, then," said the demon. "Guest… since a wizard's power is inimical to the natural order of things, a wizard will be destroyed unless that power is shielded with the aid of the Meditations of Balance. Once naked to the universe, a wizard is destroyed."
"In fire," said Guest Gulkan.
"In fire, yes," said Iva-Italis.
"And screams," said Guest, as if he liked the idea.
"Usually it is too quick for any screaming to be entered into," said Iva-Italis.
"But there is pain," said Guest.
"Perhaps," said Iva-Italis, betraying a touch of irritation.
"But the essential point is that a wizard naked to the cosmos is destroyed, and any of his works likewise."
"Destroyed in fire," said Guest. "Destroyed in fire, in screams of fire and raging storms of agony."
"An image fit to delight the sanguinary temperament of a boy," said Iva-Italis sharply. "But I thought we were through and done with that image. I thought myself to be addressing a man."
"My lord," said Guest, commanding himself from boyhood to manhood in a moment. "Speak on."
"Well, Guest," said Iva-Italis. "We know the fate of a naked wizard. But now… suppose the wizard to be but partly naked."
"Our wizard is at war, is he not?" said Guest. "The world is his enemy, the battle unrelenting. The Balance, the Meditations of Balance – this is his armor. Given a hole in that armor, he rightly dies, though fast or slow I cannot say."
"Fast, usually," said Iva-Italis. "But now… let us turn from a wizard to one of his works. Suppose a wizard creates an artefact of power yet leaves it fractionally unshielded as regards the destructive facility of the universe. What then?"
"Then the thing is destroyed, likewise," said Guest. "Though, ah
… you're talking about Drangsturm, aren't you? The thing is destroying itself, is that what you're saying?"
"Almost, but not quite," said Iva-Italis. "Drangsturm is a work of wizards. Drangsturm is an artefact of power created in such a way that some fractions of it are unshielded. In consequence, the universe strives to destroy the thing. Hence powers of destruction pour themselves into Drangsturm. But the thing is designed to seize that power and shape it."
"So," said Guest, understanding. "Drangsturm is not a source but a seizer and shaper."
At this, Sken-Pitilkin realized that he had educated the boy better than he had thought. Though Guest Gulkan was no scholar, he had been tutored by Sken-Pitilkin since his fifth birthday, and after a full decade of unrelenting education he was proving uncomfortably competent in his grapplings with the unknown.
"A seizer and shaper," said Iva-Italis. "Exactly. So now we come to the matter of the temptation of Sken-Pitilkin. If he consents to yield to my will, then I will give him the secret of seizing and shaping power sufficient to facilitate sustained flight."
"So now we see the truth of the demon's revelation," said Sken-Pitilkin sourly. "The thing invites me to kill myself by mad experiment."
"There are dangers, admittedly," said Iva-Italis, now addressing himself directly to Sken-Pitilkin. "You would be exposing some artefact to destruction and seeking to master the power-flow which followed. Still, the dangers – "
"The dangers are known, and many have died to give proof to them," said Sken-Pitilkin. "The triumph of Arl is no secret to the Confederation. The arts of Arl are the arts of fire, and fire has proved amenable to the disciplines of sustained and controlled destruction of which you speak. But there are eight orders, each different in its powers. Mine commands the powers of levitation, and these, being more subtle and refined than those of fire, cannot be so easily controlled."
"Not by a wizard's intelligence," said Iva-Italis. "For a mere wizard lacks the skills required to compute the interplay of the forces involved. But I speak for the Great God Jocasta, and the Great God is possessed of the necessary computational power.
Join us in a great alliance, Sken-Pitilkin. Join us. Help us free the Great God from his servitude in Obooloo. Do that, and I will grant you the equations necessary to make a functional airship."
Then Sken-Pitilkin was swayed. Sken-Pitilkin stood in silence, Guest Gulkan at his side.
And then they heard the singing.