Once Guest was safely home in the Safrak Islands, he would be able to bend his mind to the important tasks: to rescue his father from a time pod in the Temple of Blood; to liberate the Great God Jocasta; and to reclaim his wife Penelope from the tunnels of Cap Foz Para Lash in the city of Dalar ken Halvar.
But what of Pelagius Zozimus? And what of Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin?
Truth to tell, Guest Gulkan did not trouble his head about either of those dignitaries. They were wizards, were they not? Of course they were! Therefore it followed – did it not? – that they would be able to find their own way back to Alozay without any help from the Weaponmaster.
Thus thinking, Guest relaxed, and repeatedly congratulated himself on his success. He had dared himself to Injiltaprajura, and had wrested the x-x-zix from the treasury of that most perilous of cities. And he had got away scot-free!
Or so he thought.
Actually, he had not got away at all.
Though he did not know it, he was irrevocably trapped, and his doom was almost upon him. Guest was trapped because the fleet of which his ship was a part was making its way northward between the reefs of Untunchilamon's narrow lagoon; and, simultaneously, a fleet of ships loyal to the Mutilator of Yestron was making its way southward between those same reefs. It therefore followed that a collision was inevitable between the ships bearing the looters and those which were carrying the Mutilator's soldiers; and, in the fullness of time, this collision duly occurred.
As Guest was one day sunbathing himself – he was no fan of washing, but this business of bathing in the sun was much to his liking – the lookout of his current ship announced the sighting of ships coming from the north.
Those oncoming ships soon proved to be ships of war, ships which were flying banners which marked and identified them as the ships of Aldarch the Third, the dreaded Mutilator of Yestron.
Before venturing to Untunchilamon, Guest Gulkan had not been very clear as to the identity of Aldarch the Third. But the Mutilator had so dominated the imagination of the inhabitants of Injiltaprajura that Guest now felt he knew the fellow as a brother. Aldarch had initiated Talonsklavara, a seven-year civil war which had devastated the Izdimir Empire. The general presumption was that Aldarch had proved victorious in that civil war, and that he was going to celebrate his victory with an orgy of sanguinary destruction.
So Guest was not exactly happy when the lookout announced the approach of the Mutilator's ships. Indeed, he was so unhappy that he felt as if the world itself had been upset.
The sky above was the same blue sky as ever, and the sea the same green and coral-spiked sea. There was no change in the chop of the light which came brisking from the quick-flick waves which slapped and sundered against the ship's creaking sails. Yet all of existence had been subjected to an abrupt reversal; and, in token of this, the sails of Guest Gulkan's ship shuddered as the vessel hove to.
As the ships of the dreaded Mutilator closed with Guest Gulkan's barque, that ship remained hove to. Over its silence there soared a seabird, a white flash briefing away to the life of its own purpose.
With a pang of regret, Guest compared the bird's freedom to his own blighted state. The bird could wish itself away on a wing, free-flighting to anywhere the winds might take it, but Guest was hopelessly embroiled in the toils of his ambition. And after all he had been through, his father was still stranded in a time pod in Obooloo's Temple of Blood. And, if Guest was to be captured and stripped of the x-x-zix, then what profit would he have to show for his adventures in Injiltaprajura? Its horrors were still fresh in memory, and those horrors looked set to be his only reward for his pains.
With all sincerity, Guest wished he had settled for a quiet life – assuming such a thing as a quiet life to be truly possible in a world as disordered as the one we are doomed to live in.
As Guest was thus wishing, Thayer Levant came up to him, and addressed him thus:
'Master.'
'What do you want?' said Guest.
He strongly suspected that Levant wanted something which Guest would be in no mood to give, for Levant usually shunned formalities such as 'master', preferring an independent taciturnity to anything which might be construed as servility.
'Well?' said Guest.
'I want to help you,' said Levant.
'How?' said Guest, further disturbed by this prolonged indirectness.
'I have it in mind to protect your mazadath,' said Levant.
'That and the x-x-zix.'
'Protect!' said Guest. 'How could you protect them?'
'By hiding them,' said Levant. 'I believe myself equal to the task of concealment. I believe I could work my way back to Obooloo then take those treasures through the Door.'
'And?' said Guest.
'I could take them to Dalar ken Halvar,' said Levant. 'There,
Plandruk Qinplaqus could put the x-x-zix to work, to modify the weather of his capital city. Furthermore, he could hold in custody your mazadath, keeping it safe for your return.'
'If I return,' said Guest, who had no certainty of survival.
'Well,' said Levant, 'if you don't return, then the mazadath could go to your heirs.'
'I have no heirs!' said Guest, with some bitterness.
'Your brother Morsh has sons, has he not?' said Levant. 'If memory serves, he has sons in duplicate. Yurt and Iragana. May they not serve as your heirs? After all, they're your nephews.'
'That is true,' conceded Guest, somewhat comforted to think that he was an uncle even if he was not a father, and that he would always have a place in family tradition, even if he was doomed to be slaughtered by the mutilator's men. Guest considered Levant's plan.
It was true that Levant had a better chance of hiding the mazadath and the x-x-zix than did Guest Gulkan. For Guest had been too loud-mouthed and open in his dealings with the world. He had led something of a high-profile existence, so that there must by now be a thousand people on Untunchilamon who knew Guest Gulkan to be an emperor in exile. Within the fleet which was trying to escape from Injiltaprajura, and which looked to shortly fall prisoner to the Mutilator's men, there might be ten dozen people or more who knew Guest by face, name and mission, and who knew him to have seized control of the x-x-zix.
But Levant…
To Guest's knowledge, Thayer Levant spoke no language other than Galish, and so restricted his dealings with strangers to the business of sharping them at cards. Thayer Levant had the lowest of profiles imaginable; and, though many men must have marked him as Guest Gulkan's companion, he might escape attention thanks to his lowly status – for, after all, Levant was in all truth nothing but a ragged serving man.
'Why do you hesitate?' said Levant, as Guest puzzled thus through his options. 'The x-x-zix is no weapon of war.'
'That is true,' conceded Guest.
It was true indeed. The x-x-zix, the famous wishstone of Untunchilamon, granted no wishes to anyone, despite what rumor might say. It was but a heap of cubes and pyramids conglomerated into something approximating the dimensions of an orange; and, on Untunchilamon, its sole use had been ornamental, for it had long been reserved as a bauble set aside for the enhancement of the scepter wielded by whoever temporarily governed that island.
'As for your mazadath,' said Levant, 'what use is that?'Guest thought about it.
His mazadath had sentimental value, for it had been given to him by his purple-skinned Penelope, and in his exiled condition he found he missed the woman. Furthermore, the mazadath was doubtless a thing of Power. But what Power? Guest had tried to use the mazadath as a weapon against the therapist Schoptomov, but the therapist had simply laughed at the shining silver, and had knocked it from Guest Gulkan's hand. The wizards Sken-Pitilkin and Pelagius Zozimus had never thereafter remarked on the thing, a circumstance which suggested that, even if the mazadath were assumed to be possessed of Power, its Power was nothing which could be diagnosed by a wizard.
'I'm not sure,' said Guest.
'Of what do you lack certainty?' said Thayer Levant.
