down. And before he could rise, his son was upon him. Guest felt his own hand wrench at his father's hair. Felt his own strength smash his father's face to the reeking urine. Felt his knotted fingers haul his father's face from the splash-puddle, then twist it, exposing to knife to the blade.
Then – compelled by the Great God Jocasta, which had him in firm possession – Guest Gulkan raised his knife for the slaughtering of his father.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Guest Gulkan: the Yarglat barbarian otherwise known as the Weaponmaster. Under the compulsion of hubristic ambition, he has dared his way into the Temple of Blood. There he has liberated the Great God Jocasta. By way of reward, he expected to be given the powers of the wizard. Instead, the Great God has taken possession of him. His father, the Witchlord Onosh, lies at his feet. And Guest is poised to kill his father. He does not want to, but he cannot help himself!
So there was Guest, about to slaughter his father, when with a whoosh a high-pressure flood of saliva came barrel-bursting from the cornucopia, knocking him down and rolling him over and over till he ended up in a thrashing heap against the temple wall. The Great God Jocasta lost control of Guest's body, for its contortions were too quick to be followed by the God's mechanism of control – and Guest abruptly found himself free.
Free from possession, Guest fought through a swiftly-rising flood-rush of foaming spittle, grappled with the pumping cornucopia, and brought it to the upright, thus cutting off the outflow of his father's spit – which otherwise would surely have continued pumping until it had digested the world.
This was no sooner done than Guest realized that the Great God Jocasta was moving in on Lord Onosh, humming ominously.
'Run!' said Guest.
But, even as he said it, a voice of thunder roared in outraged anger:
'HALT!'Guest momentarily thought it was the Great God Jocasta speaking, but it was not.
'HALT!' roared the wrath-thundering challenger. 'HALT! THROW DOWN
YOUR SWORD! OR YOU WILL BE ELIMINATED!'
For a moment, Guest was all confusion, then he saw the challenger who owned that voice which mountains would surely have envied. The loud-mouthed challenger was a woman who was dressed in an armor fashioned from the same painfully bright blue transparency which had imprisoned the Great God Jocasta. Guest had never seen this woman before, but he had heard the odd snippet of news about Obooloo while he had been incarcerated in the Mutilator's dungeons – and knew enough to surmise (with absolute accuracy, as it happened) that this was none other than Anaconda Stogirov, High Priestess of the Temple of Blood.
Stogirov had a weapon in her hand, a weapon of contorted metal which ended in a nozzle tipped with white light. Guest had barely caught sight of it when it spat flame.
The firebolt which jolted from Stogirov's alien weapon slammed into the Great God Jocasta. That blast of raw energy struck the Great God, sending the free-floating thing crashing backwards. The Great God was sent slamming into the rearward wall.
It caromed off the blank-faced stone, tumbled through the air, then steadied itself.
The Great God spat fire at Stogirov, who ducked.
She ducked too slowly!
She was hit!
But not vaporised – for her armor absorbed the fireshock.
Stogirov coolly leveled her own weapon and returned the Great God's fire. Guest acted.
He grabbed his father, who was in no condition for independent heroics, then he slung the unconscious man over his shoulder like a sack of severed heads and positively sprinted from the central courtyard.
Behind him, Stogirov and the Great God engaged in a firefight which the Great God lost – for Stogirov's weaponpower was greater.
So Jocasta followed Guest Gulkan's lead and fled, exiting from the Temple of Blood in the wake of the Witchlord-burdened Weaponmaster.
'COME BACK, YOU!' said Stogirov, firing yet once again at the retreating Great God.
The echoes of the amplified boom of Stogirov's voice died away, to be replaced by the truncheon-beat of her boots trampling over the heat-cracked rock as she moved in the pursuit of the fast-fleeing Great God. Out of the Temple of Blood went Anaconda Stogirov – out of the temple and into the streets of Obooloo. Guest Gulkan most naturally fled up Lobdoptiskop, that narrow street which winds its way uphill in the shadow of Achaptipop, the massive rock which sustains the Sanctuary of the Bondsman's Guild.
Up that street he labored, sweating under the burden of his father's weight. Then that burden began to gasp and croak. Hoping that if Lord Onosh was well enough to complain then he might be well enough to walk, Guest dumped the man down.
Panting and sweating, Guest Gulkan turned. And looked downhill. And saw. He saw a floating doughnut, which he knew immediately to be the Great God Jocasta. And in pursuit of that doughnut was a figure bulbous in blue- burning armor – the wrathful Anaconda Stogirov, High Priestess of the Temple of Blood! Guest, in his supreme innocence, had thought those two would happily spend the rest of the day fighting it out in the temple.
'Grief of gods!' said Lord Onosh, staggering to his feet.
'There's no way out for us now!'
But Guest still had the cornucopia.
Nearby was a cow which was fortuitously lifting its tail. As a great gush of urine gouted from its backside, Guest filled the cornucopia. Then he upended that horn of plenty. A limitless surge of bovine urine slammed forth from the cornucopia like a spout of water erupting from a hole at the base of a mighty dam.
In moments, the plunging street of Lopdoptiskop was being pillaged by a flood of drenching urine. Anaconda Stogirov clutched at a doorway but was knocked away. With a scream, she was swept downhill, vanishing in the millrace of the cow's multiplied bounty. But the Great God Jocasta floated clear of the jouncing flood. Guest abruptly brought the cornucopia upright. He held it firmly upright, to let the horn of plenty swallow what urine remained within it. Guest stowed the cornucopia, then father and son hurried on up the street to gain the gateway of the Sanctuary of the Bondsman's Guild.
'You can't come in here!' said a guard, addressing the pair in the Janjuladoola tongue, which language neither of them spoke.
Whereupon Guest Gulkan knocked him unconscious, and hurried into the Sanctuary with his father in his wake.
To penetrate the precincts of the Sanctuary had been easy, but to get into its Holy of Holies was (theoretically) rather more difficult. For that Holy of Holies was guarded by a jade-green block of stone, a block of stone which ate people who had not permission to pass. This monster was of course the demon Lob (in whose honor the street of Lobdoptiskop had been named).
Lob was but one of the far-scattered demons loyal to the Great God Jocasta, and of course Lob was under the impression that Guest Gulkan had set himself the task of rescuing that Great God.
So when Lob saw Guest approaching with Jocasta bobbing along behind, why, Lob naturally thought that Guest had fulfilled his mission of rescue (as he had) and that the Weaponmaster was now Jocasta's beloved friend (or slave).
So the man-eating demon let Witchlord and Weaponmaster pass, unwounded and unrestrained, and so they entered into the Holy of Holies where the Door of the Bondsman's Guild was kept safe from all prying eyes.
There was the Door!
The gate to the Circle of the Partnership Banks!
In all his life, Guest had seldom been so relieved as he was when he saw that metal archway standing on its
