'We expected to be able to cut it,' said Guest, starting to lose his temper. 'Iva-Italis told us that steel would be ample for the purpose.'
'And you believed my dear friend Italis?' said Ungular Scarth. 'Of course you did. For you are but a naive barbarian.
Italis has told me of you. Often. And in detail.'
'Naive!' said Guest. 'Why am I naive? Am I not your ally? I came to save the Great God!'
'Then save the Great God,' said Ungular Scarth.
'How?' said Guest. 'We have tried to cut the force field, but we cannot.'
'Of course you can't,' said Scarth. 'For your swords are not metal but wood.'
'Wood!' said Guest, in renewed fury. 'I'll show you what kind of wood this is!'
Then Guest chopped at the demon Ungular Scarth. But his blade bounced harmlessly from the demon's jade- green flanks.
'Cool yourself,' said Scrath. 'Cool and calm. Enough of jokes. If you would liberate the Great God Jocasta, then you must first secure a tool which is ample to your purpose. There is a kind of knife. Two specimens are known to me. One is carried by Anaconda Stogirov, the High Priestess of this temple. The other is in the possession of Aldarch the Third, the Mutilator of Yestron.
You will know these knives – '
'Knives!' said Guest. 'I was told that a sword – '
'Italis lied,' said Sken-Pitilkin. 'I suspected as much. I told you so.'
'True,' said Ungular Scarth. 'A sword is useless for the liberation of the Great God. To cut through the force field, you must first procure this special knife of which I have spoken.'
'There are two spheres of force,' said Guest. 'The outer blue and the inner red. Will one knife cut through both?'
'You need only cut through the outer,' said Ungular Scarth.
'The shell of blue-burning light was put there by Anaconda Stogirov. It keeps the Great God a prisoner. The inner shell of red light is a field of force which is generated by the Great God itself. That inner shell has preserved the Great God from all attack by the evil Stogirov.'
'So the inner shell is armor,' said Guest, 'and the outer shell a cage.'
'Precisely,' said Ungular Scarth. 'Now if you will but listen, then I will describe to you the knife which you must win to cut through the outer shell. The knife is small. It is curved.
It ends not with a point but with a bead. Stogirov has one, and the Mutilator has the other.'
'There are only two?' said Guest.
'There was once a third, a fourth and a fifth,' said Ungular Scarth. 'But three are lost, and only two remain.'
'Very well,' said Guest, with some bitterness, realizing he was so deeply embroiled in this adventure that there was no easy way out. 'Then tell me. Which of these knives is closest?'
'That which is closest is that which is carried by Anaconda Stogirov,' said the demon. 'For she dwells nearby.'
Then the demon directed Guest Gulkan to her chambers, and so to her chambers the adventurers went. They quit the octagonal chamber which was home to the Great God Jocasta, exiting from that chamber by means of an arch set in its northern wall. The arch admitted them to another black tunnel, a tunnel which terminated in a stairway. Up the stairway they went, expecting to find Stogirov's bedroom at the top.
But they were far from the top when Guest – who was in the lead – unexpectedly stepped on a man who was sleeping on the stairs. Guest tripped, and went down. The man awoke with a bellow, and his bellow woke a dozen of his fellows.
Were these sleeping men guards, petitioners or exhausted lovers of the evil Stogirov? Guest had no time to ask, for the men did not stand still for questioning. Rather, they drew weapons and attacked the adventurers.
Such was the disorder of the dark that the men who guarded the stairs were soon hacking at each other in their blindness, while the adventurers tumbled back down the stairs.
'I am wounded,' gasped the Witchlord Onosh.
And Guest Gulkan saw it was true. His father had been sorely wounded in the gut. Pain was clearly writ on his face, and Guest doubted him able to run.
'Guest,' said Zozimus, speaking with harsh directness. 'We must run. If your father cannot run with us, then you must make a choice.'
'You could choose to put him in a time pod,' said Thayer Levant.
'In a time pod?' said Guest, in amazement.
'Why not?' said Levant. 'He'll be perfectly safe there.'
'Your servant Levant speaks with good reason,' said the demon Ungular Scarth. 'Nobody in Obooloo has a ring apt for the opening and closing of these pods, not to my knowledge. Look! To your left! The pod nearest the exiting archway is empty!'
'It is best,' said Lord Onosh, scarcely able to speak because of the pain of his wound. 'I can hardly stand, far less walk.'
So Guest took the ring of ever-ice which hung from a chain round his father's neck, and with that ring he opened an empty time pod. Zozimus and Sken-Pitilkin helped the Witchlord into the pod, then Guest used the same ring to seal it.
Upon which the men who had surprised them on the stairs started to pour into the octagonal chamber.
'Scarth!' bellowed Guest. 'Kill them!'
So saying, Guest gestured dramatically at the men who were pouring into the chamber. Such was the drama of the Weaponmaster's gesture that the ring of ever-ice escaped his hand. Still strung on its metal chain, it flew through the air, clittered to the steel grille, slipped through, slished into the oily depths of pungent sewerage, and was gone.
'Pox!' swore Guest.
As if commanded by this Word, the demon Ungular Scarth lashed the air with tentacles of quick-slicing green. But the chamber was too large for the demon's tentacles to command the whole of it, and Guest and his companions were soon sorely oppressed by their attackers.
'Go!' yelled Ungular Scarth.
Taking the hint, the adventurers began to retreat down the tunnel by which they had first penetrated to the Great God's chamber. They retreated through the darkness to the central courtyard which contained the Burning Pit.
'Your airship!' said Guest to Sken-Pitilkin.
'It was not made for ascent,' said Sken-Pitilkin. 'It was but a crude device made to let us float downwards. We cannot escape.'
'Not by that means,' said Pelagius Zozimus. 'So let us try our strength in combat!'
'Which way to the Temple's outer gate?' said Guest.
'How would I know?' said Zozimus.
'The gate to the Temple of Blood is on the southern side,' said Thayer Levant.
Since a few lights shone atop the great rock Achaptipop, and since Guest Gulkan knew that great rock to lie to the north of the Temple of Blood, it was the work of a moment to determine which way was south.
An archway on the southern side of the Temple's central courtyard gave the adventurers access to yet another tunnel, and by dint of the speed of their feet and the bloody commitment of their swords, they shortly found themselves out on the streets of Obooloo.
'Which way now?' said Guest Gulkan.
'How would I know?' said Pelagius Zozimus in extreme irritation, somehow presuming that this generalized question had been addressed specifically to him.
'Now,' said Thayer Levant, 'we must make for Achaptipop. This way!'
Levant knew Obooloo intimately, since he had been there so often in the past with Plandruk Qinplaqus. And Guest Gulkan, who had initially thought Levant to be the most useless member of their party, was swiftly changing his opinion, and was now more inclined to think Levant likely the most useful of their number.
But the adventurers found the way to Achaptipop was barred against them. For alarm-trumpets blown on the
