Qinplaqus; for it must be understood that, while Untunchilamon is regularly visited by travelers bent on trade, the extreme isolation of that island means that news is only slowly disseminated from there to parts as far removed as the northern continent of Tameran and the southern continent of Parengarenga. Sken-Pitilkin explained as much to his companions.
'But,' said Guest Gulkan, 'you told me that you traveled the Circle of the Doors at length while you were acting as diplomat for my father Lord Onosh!'
'So I did, so I did,' said Sken-Pitilkin.
'Then,' said Guest, 'your travels must have taken you repeatedly to Obooloo, where it seems the story of Untunchilamon's wazirless state is well known! Therefore I find myself unable to understand why you did not learn what Obooloo knows all too well!'Sken-Pitilkin took this criticism hard, but at last admitted – and let this concession be seen as proof of his scholarly maturity! – that he had not inquired too closely into the affairs of Untunchilamon because he had been there once himself.
Admittedly, that personal visit had been a long time in the past; but the fact of having made such a visit had tricked Sken-Pitilkin into thinking himself an expert on Untunchilamon, and hence free from the duties of research.
Let this be a lesson to all travelers! The country you visited in your youth is no longer the same nation of which you have such fond recollections! For its government has changed, yes, and its laws, its customs, its currency, and maybe its very language and religion into the bargain!
So, if a moral is to be drawn from this book (and it is said, is it not, that all books should have morals, even if they be books of history like this one?) then let the moral be this: personal knowledge does not secure one's freedom from the burdens of research!
The Untunchilamon which Sken-Pitilkin had visited in his youth had been a well-ordered state ruled by a wazir loyal to the rulers of Obooloo. But the Untunchilamon in which he now found himself was a mutinous state in rebellion against the Izdimir Empire, that hegemonic power which was ruled from Obooloo by Aldarch the Third, Mutilator of Yestron.
Finding themselves in this disordered city, our heroes did the obvious. They pursued their business relentlessly! Using every power and device at their disposal, they strove mightily to win possession of the x-x-zix, the device known to Injiltaprajura as the wishstone.
But, since Sken-Pitilkin had been pitifully weakened by his encounter with the therapist Schoptomov; and since Guest Gulkan's strength proved quite unequal to the difficulties of the task; and since Pelagius Zozimus allowed himself to be shamefully distracted by the various career opportunities available to a master chef; and since Thayer Levant proved absolutely no help whatsoever; and since Injiltaprajura proved to be an uncommonly restless, dangerous, brutal, licentious and anarchic place, the bottom line is quite simple -
They failed.
Our heroes were now in a parlous position. They had quite failed to win control of the wishstone, the x-x-zix, the precious triakisoctahedron which would give them political leverage in the struggle for control of the Circle of the Partnership Banks.
Furthermore, they were marooned on Untunchilamon, which might at any day be invaded by the bloodthirsty armies of a victorious Mutilator. Sken-Pitilkin did the obvious.
He built another airship.
But, since Sken-Pitilkin's efforts to secure possession of the x-x-zix had made him many enemies on Untunchilamon, and since those enemies included certain sorcerers who were resident upon that island, Sken- Pitilkin's airship was promptly destroyed.
'This is not profiting us,' said Pelagius Zozimus. 'I vote that we build a boat.'
'I vote that we steal one,' said Guest Gulkan.
'I vote,' said Thayer Levant, in disregard of the fact that he was not strictly entitled to a vote, 'that we flee to Zolabrik and join Jal Japone.'
Jal Japone was an outlaw drug dealer who dwelt in the desert wastelands north of Injiltaprajura. His reputation naturally made him attractive to one with Thayer Levant's criminal propensities, but Levant's suggestion was vetoed out of hand.
'I'll tell you what we do,' said Sken-Pitilkin.
Then told. Sken-Pitilkin would build a decoy airship in public view and a real airship in secret. It would take time, but time they had – he hoped.
The days that then followed in Untunchilamon were tense and desperate. As Sken-Pitilkin labored to build his decoy airship and his true escape ship, the various factions on that fraught and troubled island manoeuvered for advantage. Ships arrived with the
Trade Winds, bringing confusing news, rumor, raiders, imposters, swindlers, cheats, refugees and free market entrepreneurs hellbent on making as many dragons as they could out of confusion and alarum.
And all these alarums ultimately culminated in a riot, in the course of which Guest Gulkan at last managed to secure the x-x-zix from Injiltaprajura's treasury, and to make his escape with the thing on a ship, in the company of Thayer Levant.
Now, one might think this a perfectly reasonable procedure.
For, after all, Levant and Guest Gulkan had come to Injiltaprajura to steal the x-x-zix, had they not? They had. But they had come, of course, in the company of the wizards Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin and Pelagius Zozimus.
And the really unfortunate thing is that, when riot arose,
Levant and Guest Gulkan seized a transitory opportunity to win the x-x-zix, and departed from Untunchilamon on a ship, leaving Sken-Pitilkin and Zozimus to make their way off the island as best they could.
This the two wizards eventually managed to do, for Sken-Pitilkin did in the end successfully build another airship. But the really unfortunate thing is that, by the time the wizards escaped from the island, Pelagius Zozimus had been turned into a hamster by a delinquent sorcerer of Injiltaprajura.
A hamster!?
The mighty slug-chef Zozimus, reduced to a hamster's estate?!
Sad but true!!
The details I would tell, but unfortunately it is a long story, which requires a book of its own, and cannot be fitted into this one. For this book concerns itself above all else with the history of the mighty Guest Gulkan, who got away from Untunchilamon by ship only to run into hideous danger before his ship had got all that terribly far.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Moana: the Great Ocean bounded by the continents of Tameran (to the north), Parengarenga (to the south), Yestron (to the east) and Argan (to the west). The southern shallows of Moana are known as the Green Sea, and local names have been given to several of its smaller fractions, so that for example the cold and stormy whale wastes of the north are known in Galsh Ebrek as the Winter Sea, and the more tropical waters east of the Stepping Stone Islands are commonly known as the Ocean of Cambria.
Injiltaprajura's riots saw the ships in its harbor flee – though most fled slowly, for they were heavily burdened by loot. Guest Gulkan fled initially on a ship commanded by one Troldot 'Heavy-Fist' Turbothot, who had personally looted from Injiltaprajura a female creature named Theodora, and who was intent on taking her home with him to the distant island of Hexagon. Since Hexagon was not on Guest's itinerary, both the Weaponmaster and Thayer Levant soon transferred to another ship, one which was making for Galsh Ebrek. Guest had fond memories of Galsh Ebrek, that city in Wen Endex where he had once worked for Anna Blaume as a barman. In Galsh Ebrek stood one of the Banks, the Flesh Traders Financial Association. By rights, Guest should be able to win admission to that Bank, and venture through its Circle of Doors to his home on Alozay.
If the Bank denied him the Door, well, even that would not be a disaster, for ships traveled intermittently between Galsh Ebrek and the Port Domax. Once at Port Domax, Guest could take the overland trade route which led from there to the Swelaway Sea; and, once he had reached the shores of the Swelaway Sea, a short journey by boat would take him home to Alozay.
One way or another, he would get there.
