The Weaponmaster did not notice this wizardly intrusion into the intimacies of his psyche, hence did not resist it; but, despite the lack of resistance, Qinplaqus got no profit from his adventure. For Guest's mind was a moiling confusion in which images of Penelope's nakedness were entangled with sharks, dungeons, coral reefs, fireflies, mosquitoes, monkeys, coconuts, the claws of a crab and the shadow of a bablobrokmadorni stick, the leering teeth of Bao Gahai and (sheer randomness, this) a memory of a long-ago day on the island of Spradley Rock, which had been converted to one gigantic scrub-bath by the invasion of a horde of Yarglat barbarians.
Only Guest himself could possibly be the equal of sorting out such a mess, so, Power having failed, Qinplaqus resorted to interrogation.
'The salient points,' said Qinplaqus 'Uh, myself and the wizards,' said Guest, 'we ventured to Untunchilamon.'
This brief preamble served to offend Thayer Levant, who considered that he had been an equal partner in that venture, and was aggrieved at being overlooked. Of course, Levant was being unrealistic, for a man does not say 'I and my servant went venturing' any more than he says 'I and my walking stick went venturing' – but his hurt was genuine, even if it was totally unreasonable.
'So,' said Qinplaqus, 'what did you find on Untunchilamon?'
'A therapist,' said Guest. 'A therapist, a dorgi, a Crab, a conjurer, a large number of bad-tempered sorcerers, the analytical engine, a madhouse, a slaughterhouse, a dosshouse… that's about it. Oh, and Shabble.'
'What about a Cockroach?' said Qinplaqus.
'A cockroach?' said Guest in puzzlement, wondering if the Silver Emperor was at last lapsing into outright senility.
'Yes, yes, a Cockroach!' said Qinplaqus. 'A Cockroach which commanded the worship of men, yes, and women too, and dogs cats and monkeys for all I know!'
'Oh,' said Guest, belatedly remembering. 'Yes, there was a Cockroach. It was a god, at least that's what Shabble said, and there were tax advantages – but that was long ago, and in a different country, and the insect must be dead by now.'
'It is not dead,' said Qinplaqus. 'It is an immortal god which successively reincarnates itself in a series of cockroach bodies.'
'Are you – are you then a worshipper?' said Guest, wondering if he had mortally offended the Ashdan's piety.
'No!' said Qinplaqus, hammering his pelican-headed walking stick against the floor. 'I have no time for this trifling nonsense! But the problem with nonsense is that it becomes serious when enough people believe in it. Shabble and Shabble's god have installed themselves on Alozay. And this – '
'A god!' said Lord Onosh, interrupting with intemperate force. 'Since when is a cockroach a god?'
'Oh, many things can be gods,' said Qinplaqus. 'Why, this walking stick of mine was once a god in its own right, though it is a god no longer. So. As I was saying, the world's worst nonsense must be taken seriously if enough people believe in it.
Shabble has set up a god upon Alozay, and we have no choice but to treat with this problem in a serious manner.'
Lord Onosh shook his head. He was still having trouble adjusting to the news. His home island – invaded by a cockroach!
The Witchlord Onosh had often feared that the Safrak Islands might be invaded by the Red Emperor, the fearsome Khmar, whose horsemen currently dominated the Collosnon Empire. He had feared, too, that he might be betrayed by the treachery of the Partnership Banks, or face an intemperate challenge from his son Guest. But never in his wildest dreams had he thought himself likely to suffer invasion from a talking ball and an immortal cockroach.
'You say that Shabble is installed upon Alozay,' said Guest.
'Do you mean that this Shabble-thing is there as a conqueror?'
'Not yet, not yet,' said Qinplaqus. 'At the moment, Shabble is but an uninvited guest. But I fear that it will be but a matter of time before Shabble declares itself the lord of Alozay, and the lord too of all the Doors of the Circle.'
The Plandruk Qinplaqus called for tea, for coffee, for wine, for chocolate, for sweetmeats, for roast polyps and boiled water, to afford them a break in which they could chew over their difficulties as they chewed over their food. Guest chewed with some anger.
The Weaponmaster had thought of Untunchilamon as a mere waystation in his life; and, though he had sojourned there for some considerable time, and though a great many things had there happened to him, he had never expected any of the strangers encountered on Untunchilamon to intrude into his future. Least of all on Alozay! After all, there was an entire ocean between Untunchilamon and Alozay.
While chewing, Guest suffered the most horrendous sense of overwhelming difficulties. As a hero whose multiple heroics had no precedent in myth, legend or affidavit, the Weaponmaster had dared unimaginable dangers (including the temptations of therapists and a great Flood of his father's saliva), and had succeeded where many had failed. In the face of all the odds, he had won the wishstone from Untunchilamon and had got it as far as Dalar ken Halvar – but now the wishstone didn't work, or not yet at any rate, and his return home was problematical.
During his earlier sojourn in Dalar ken Halvar, when he had spent four years convalescing from injuries, Guest had learnt something of the rise of the religion of Nu-chala-nuth, which was now the dominant faith in Parengarenga. If Shabble was intent on seizing the Circle of the Doors of the Partnership Banks and converting the world to the doctrines of the Holy Cockroach, then there was surely the potential for a horrific holy war when the adherents of the Cockroach clashed with the Nu-chala-nuth.
So, with a potential religious war added to his own problems, Guest felt positively depressed. And things were all the worse because he was facing his current difficulties without the help of his wizards.
So where exactly were those dignitaries?
When Guest had escaped from Untunchilamon by ship, he had left behind the wizards Pelagius Zozimus and Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin. At the time, Sken-Pitilkin had been trying to build another of his flying machines.
Assuming that he had succeeded…
'Is Sken-Pitilkin on Alozay?' said Guest, with a note of intense suspicion in his voice.
'Why, yes,' said Qinplaqus. 'I forgot to mention that. Sken-Pitilkin arrived with Shabble.'
'I knew it!' said Guest, speaking like a man who has just discovered a scorpion beneath his pillow. 'Only Sken-Pitilkin could have tempted that bubble to Alozay. Shabble could never have got there by accident, not ever! What would Shabble know of Alozay, Safrak, demons, Doors? It's Sken-Pitilkin, he's the one!'
'Yes,' said Lord Onosh, relieved to find they had an obvious target to blame for the mess they were in. 'I blame it all on Sken-Pitilkin. Him and his flying machines!'
'Yes,' said Guest, 'if he hadn't got into this business of flying, we'd never have been in this mess. I knew right from the start that those stickbirds of his was bad news. Why, back at Locontareth he wanted to build one especially to drop bombs.'
'Bombs?' said Lord Onosh.
'Those rock-things which fly from volcanoes,' said Guest. 'He wanted to build a stickbird to drop bombs. Drop them on peoples' heads.'
'No, no,' said his father. 'It was nothing to do with volcanoes. It was donkeys! He was going to load them up then – then drop them on people. He almost killed me with one of his infernal experiments. He dropped a donkey from a roof.'
'It might be,' said Plandruk Qinplaqus, 'that the donkey was a beast of burden which he intended to transport by air, and that its fall was an accident.'
'Nonsense!' said Lord Onosh. 'For we were preparing for war.
And – and there was an armchair on the donkey! One does not go to war with an armchair, not even if one is a sotted old wizard like that worthless Sken-Pitilkin.'
Then Guest remembered Sken-Pitilkin talking with the demon Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis about flight. Sken-Pitilkin's intensity had helped convince Guest that the demon was truly a creature of Power. Consequently, Guest was more than half-inclined to blame Sken-Pitilkin for all their subsequent disasters.
And had it not been Sken-Pitilkin who had been truly enthusiastic about questing to Untunchilamon for the x-
