world that he had not yet absorbed the full import of this business of stilt-walking, yet even to such a limited soul as Guest Gulkan it was obvious that something of importance was at foot, so in puzzled confusion he responded to the Mutilator by saying:
'I, ah… as a foreigner, I…'
'He says, my lord,' said the interpreter to Aldarch, 'that as a poor and ignorant foreign-born barbarian he did not see it fit to interfere in the internal affairs of the Izdimir Empire, hence did not murder the stilt-walkers for their impertinence. He further says that he thought such acts of murder would be to you a pleasure, and he had no wish to cheat you of such pleasure.'
'Well,' said Aldarch, who was pleased to receive this news,
'that was well-spoken. Suppose we pause for a moment to indulge ourselves in a lesser pleasure?'
The interpreter not demurring, Al'three gave a command; a woman entered with a tray; and cups from this tray were served to Mutilator, interpreter and prisoner. The cups were of bone china and in them was the warmth of a greenish fluid which Guest Gulkan tentatively identified as tea.
'You are familiar with this drink?' said the Mutilator.
Aldarch the Third once again spoke through the interpreter, since Weaponmaster and Mutilator had no language in common. Guest Gulkan was no linguist, and hence had not the slightest competence in any truly scholarly language. He could make himself known as Ordhar, the command language of the armies of the Collosnon Empire; he could speak Eparget, the native tongue of the Yarglat; and apart from that he could only use Toxteth and the Galish Trading Tongue. The various barbarous and primitive languages which were at the command of Guest Gulkan's tongue were virtually useless in the heartland of the Izdimir Empire. As for the Mutilator, why, he was a scholar great in learning, but his wisdom was exclusively restricted to Janjuladoola, the infinitely subtle and fiendishly complicated language of Yestron's master race.
'The drink,' said Guest, half-sure of its nature yet wary of committing himself to an error, 'the drink is… ah, something from Chay, perhaps?'
'No,' said the Mutilator. 'It is jade tea. The jade tea of Obooloo, much sought after both here and in foreign parts.' Guest did not think it healthy to be consuming hot drinks on such a sultry day, but drank without arguing about it.
'So,' said Aldarch, when Guest had drunk. 'You have been adventuring on Untunchilamon.'
'I have,' said Guest, who hoped they were not going to get back to the subject of stilts, because he could not in the least understand it. 'Would you like to hear more of it?'
'My interrogators did their work well,' said the Mutilator.
'And you have not been the only person to be interrogated.
Consequently, you have no secrets from me and mine.'Guest wondered if this meant that Thayer Levant had been caught and questioned. But he did not dare to ask. Simply to ask that question would be to betray Levant, who – if he was still at liberty – might still be trying to make his way back to Obooloo and escape to Dalar ken Halvar by way of the Door of the Bondsmans Guild. In any case, the Mutilator was still speaking.
'We know what you did in Injiltaprajura,' said the Mutilator.
'We know it in detail. Likewise, we know what you did earlier in this city of mine. You raided the Temple of Blood, and your father lies there yet, sheltered in a time pod to which we have no access.'Guest's interpreter had a little difficulty placing the words 'time pod' into the Toxteth tongue, but did the trick by calling it 'the egg which does not change'. Upon puzzling out the meaning of this phrase, Guest remembered the time pod, and remembered the day of the raid, and the ring of ever-ice which had fallen to the oily waters of the innermost sanctum of the Temple of Blood. He deduced that the ring had not been found.
Since the whereabouts of the ring had not been betrayed, this meant – surely – that the demon in the Temple of Blood had kept silent about it. So the demon Ungular Scarth was Guest's ally! This thought heartened the Weaponmaster greatly.
'It is true,' said Guest, 'that I came to the Temple. There is a Great God held prisoner in the Temple, a – '
'A demon,' said Aldarch. 'There are two things in the Temple, and both are demons. Both are old, old things, and dangerous. One is too big to move. The other – only a fool would seek its liberation. The high priestess of the Temple is Anaconda Stogirov.
She is – she is my friend. My only friend. She tells me much, and she has told me all about those demons.'
'Then,' said Guest, carefully, 'I congratulate you on the possession of such a knowledgeable friend.'
'Anaconda Stogirov has also confirmed to me the nature of the cornucopia, that device which features so largely in legend. Do you know of the cornucopia?'
'No,' said Guest.
A shameful confession, this! But, thanks to the derelictions of his scholarship, the young Weaponmaster was uncommonly ignorant of many things which apt to take for granted.
The ignorance of one's associates is not always painful, particularly not to those who derive a delicious sense of superiority by indulging in the act of enlightenment. Being enamoured of such indulgence, Aldarch the Third lectured Guest Gulkan at length, telling him all about the cornucopia, the horn of plenty which had for so long been lost in the Stench Caves of Logthok Norgos. The tale took quite some time, particularly as the Mutilator dwelt in detail upon the horrors that some unsuccessful questing heroes had spoken of as they died. The tale began -
But the reader is surely familiar with the tale of the cornucopia of Logthok Norgos, for that story is a part of everyone's basic education, and the sagacious Sken-Pitilkin had told it at least thrice to Guest Gulkan when the pair of them were respectively tutor and student back in the city of Gendormargensis.
Still, the Mutilator told the story in something close to its full detail, for the story was one of his favorites.
'You understand?' said the Mutilator, when he was done with telling his tale.
'My lord has been very clear,' said Guest. 'I understand.'
'Then know your duty,' said Aldarch. 'You will liberate your father from the time pod. Then you will quest to the Stench Caves in his company, and retrieve for me the cornucopia.'
'My lord,' said Guest, 'I cannot free my father since – there is a ring, and it is lost. I had a ring, but I lost it, and without the ring I can't open the pod.'
'If… if you speak the truth,' said Aldarch, 'then you… you may regret your limitations hereafter. Come. Bring your skin and your scalp to my bathroom, and I will… I will show you the something which will interest you.'
This was said very calmly, which disturbed Guest, who had expected to be ranted at, and had prepared himself accordingly. In absence of all rant, the Mutilator abandoned his throne and limped through the palace with Guest and his ever-shadowing interpreter trailing along behind.
The Mutilator led the way to his bathroom. This was not by any means a narrow chamber. No, it was a room so extensive that one could comfortably have drilled a company of armed men within its confines. It was a spacious chamber of bright-bathing light which played upon white marble bare of ornament. The light came in through the windows, which were open, and which afforded a view of the high mountains. Those mountains were white with snow, as they were all through the year, and upon their heights -
But let us not be distracted by scenery. Let us attend to those matters to which Guest attended. He attended first of all to the bath, which sat in one corner of the bathroom. It was an entirely regular and unremarkable bath made of three or four ox- weights of solid gold; and it was daily filled with warm water so that the Mutilator might perform his ablutions.
In the center of the room, however, was something not quite so conventional. It was not particularly startling, but it was odd. Under the circumstances, Guest Gulkan found anything odd to be ominous. The thing which had attracted his attention was a shallow rectangular well, square-cut, and of no great depth – for had it been filled with water (or with blood, or milk, or liquid honey) then Guest could have jumped into it without getting wet above the knees. For the moment, though, the well was entirely empty of all fluids, so Guest was able to see that its floor was pierced by many drainage holes.
In the center of that well there stood a brazier, which was lit; and above the brazier hung what appeared to be a coffin, suspended from the roof on metal chains. The coffin had the milky whiteness of porcelain.
'We have a man in the coffin,' said Aldarch.
'So,' said Guest, affecting a calm which he did not quite feel. 'So you're boiling him alive.'
'Oh no,' said the Mutilator. 'The brazier is… it's for his health, you could say. This room gets cold, especially at night.
