marble plinth, and confirmed that the span of the archway was filled with a screen of shimmering, hard-humming silver.
In front of that archway stood a Banker, and he did not look happy to see Witchlord and Weaponmaster intruding on his domains.
He held up a single finger in a gesture of admonition. The Great God Jocasta fired a bolt of energy at the Banker, and it burnt off that upraised finger. The Banker looked at the roastmeat scar where his missing digit had been but a moment earlier, then he fainted clean away. He fell face forward. There was a solid crunch as his face smashed into the marble of the plinth, teeth splintering, jaw breaking.
Remorselessly, the Great God glided through the air toward the humming silver screen.
'No!' shouted Guest, horrorstruck.
But it was far too late for protest.
For the Great God slipped through that screen and was gone.
It had escaped! It had got away from Obooloo, going through the Door to – why, to Dalar ken Halvar, of course! For Dalar ken Halvar was the next place on the Circle of the Partnership Banks.
Witchlord and Weaponmaster did not hesitate. They scrambled up onto the plinth and hurried through the humming screen of vertical quicksilver, arriving instantly in the Bralsh, the Bank of Dalar ken Halvar. In the Bralsh there was a smell of scorched flesh and a scene of panic-stricken disarray. The Great God Jocasta was briefly glimpsed – vanishing out of the main exit.
'Guest Gulkan!'
So cried Yubi Das Finger, the leading Banker of the Bralsh.
But Guest had no time to spare for idle conversation. Instead,
Witchlord and Weaponmaster charged from the Bralsh, striving out into the hot sun of Dalar ken Halvar. Precisely what they hoped to accomplish is a mystery, for surely they must have known themselves to be unequal to the powers of a Great God.
But charge they did.
And got out into the streets of Childa Go, the fishing quarter of Dalar ken Halvar. There the Great God lurched to a halt, and turned to confront them. And, to his horror, Guest Gulkan felt his mind again slipping into the possession of his enemy.
Chapter Forty
Name: Paraban Senk (aka the Teacher of Control).
Birthplace: Charabanc.
Occupation: teacher.
Status: head of the Combat College of Dalar ken Halvar.
Description: disembodied entity which typically manifests itself as an olive-skinned face, male and of middle years.
Age: Senk claims an age in excess of 20,000 years.
Hobby: Senk personally schedules the entertainments which appear on the Eye of Delusions at Dalar ken Halvar, and this voluntary activity may be the nearest thing which Senk has to a hobby.
Quote: 'The Stormforce exists for the controlled application of force.'
'No!' shouted Guest Gulkan.
His voice was a wing-broken squawk of protest.
But it was too late for protest, for the Great God Jocasta was bent on taking over the Weaponmaster's mind, and was in no mood to argue about it. Yet Jocasta did not find the act of possession as effortlessly easy as before, since this time Guest was forewarned and fighting – and the Great God itself had been damaged in its battle with Stogirov.
There in the hot sun, Guest Gulkan felt bright-spark slivers of memory sharping out of his mind's darkness as Jocasta probed for a hold, a grip, a secure possession of the Weaponmaster's will. Cold. That was what Guest felt. Despite the heat of the day, he shivered, for Jocasta's probing had recalled to mind the frozen heights of the mountains of Ibsen-Iktus. Guest remembered -
The impossible clarity of the mountain heights. Breathless heights where every step is a staircase. Blue transparencies of sky. A drift of snow grown gray with wind-blown grit. A bridge of ice, humped across a river. The chickling trickle of melt-water sheeking and sharking beneath sheets of ice. A windless day with an unfelt wind high, high above blasting dragon-licks of snow from sky-scarp heights.
And he remembered -
Avalanche!
A roiling roll-roar of rocks went toiling in spuming plummets from the heights, causing the ground to shake beneath his feet. A real memory, this. Caught by the living life of that memory, Guest saw the wizard Sken-Pitilkin. There was blood on the wizard's forehead – blood beaded in drops. The wizard Sken-Pitilkin was literally sweating blood, and his face was pallid as unbaked dough. Guest remembered.
Under a swordpoint's compulsion, Sken-Pitilkin had sent an avalanche rolling downhill, and then had retched violently, bringing up green bile from an empty stomach.
'But I had to!' protested Guest.
And with that protest, the Weaponmaster was free from the Great God's efforts at possession.
The Great God Jocasta had tried to sound out Guest Gulkan's most potent memories, seeking thus to make an accurate index of the Weaponmaster's mind, and so to facilitate his possession. But Guest's most potent memories were memories of shameful deeds which he had later repudiated. Guest had invested a lifetime's effort in protecting himself from his own memories by suppressing them, justifying them or minimizing them. So when Jocasta probed Guest's deepest memories, the unfortunate Great God ran into defensive structures built up by a lifetime's effort. And so, weakened as it was by Stogirov's onslaughts, the Great God was unable to possess the Weaponmaster.
'You will yield,' said Jocasta, trying to sound convincing.
'Yield!' said Guest. 'The hell I will!'
Then the wrathful Weaponmaster grabbed a sword from a vacillating soldier who was trying – and failing – to figure out just what was going on here.
Having grabbed that sword (and accidentally breaking several of the soldier's teeth in the haste of his grabbing) Guest Gulkan attacked the Great God with that weapon. Guest attacked with all the vigor of a musician of Sung assailing that elephant-sized metal drum which is known as a klambakora. Steel clanged uselessly against the Great God's flanks. But Guest's defiance served to convince the Great God Jocasta that possessing the Weaponmaster was not a possibility, at least not for a shaken and battle- weakened Great God. Accordingly, Jocasta decided upon retreat.
Jocasta lurched through the air, bumped the Weaponmaster, hit him hard. Guest went down. Jocasta hesitated. Having been hit so heartily, might the Weaponmaster perhaps be weaker than before?
The Great God hung over its fallen prey, humming.
And Guest felt cold again.
Very cold.
The coldness solidified to actual ice, and he found himself back in the arena of Chi'ash-lan where once the Great Mink had torn off his arms and legs at the behest of Banker Sod. Once upon a time. But once upon a time was now! He screamed as the mauling strength savaged his perfections. The glunching bones broke slick and wet, smunch and crunch. Flesh to pulp, bone to slivers.
Then the image faded, and Guest found himself being bounced along the dirt under the harsh sun of Dalar ken Halvar. His father had him by the hair, and was dragging him away from the Great God Jocasta.
'Enough!' yelled Guest, as the pain of being hauled by his hair washed away the pain of the waking nightmare he had just endured. 'Let me go!'
So the Witchlord let go of the Weaponmaster, and Guest slumped to the ground. He felt a twinge of cold, a touch of frost, an insinuation of ice, as the Great God Jocasta again made a determined effort to seize control of
