'You are older, then,' said Guest.
'Older!' said the Lobos. 'Why, I was here before the Experimenters!'
Here Guest was at a loss, for he had forgotten what he had been told at Lex Chalis. Had Guest Gulkan been in the possession of a disciplined and scholarly memory, then he would have recalled that the Experimenters are a hypothetical race of creatures, lesser than gods but greater than anything human, who are thought by some to have influenced the shaping and the populating of worlds.
'So you're old,' said Guest, accepting this assertion without proof since he saw no point in arguing about it. 'Even so, old man, you should acknowledge authority when you find it. You stand in the presence of Guest Gulkan, the Weaponmaster himself, the conqueror of Safrak, the lord of the Collosnon Empire!'
This was the windiest of all possible rant, and, as the sound of his own voice died away to nothing, Guest became uncomfortably aware of that fact. For once, he felt embarrassed by his own empty boastfulness.
'So,' said the Lobos, speaking into the silence. 'You are like all of your kind. You are a most vulgar race of trivial creatures. A vulgar race of murderers.'
'Murder!' said Guest, seizing upon this unjust accusation.
'You speak of murder, do you? Well, know this. It was me who almost got murdered! It was wizards, you see, they were set to kill me. That's why I ran.'
'So,' said the Lobos. 'You came here for the most vulgar of all possible purposes. To preserve your miserable skin.'
'Why else would I come here?' said Guest.
'Most people,' said the Lobos heavily, 'come here in search of wisdom. Usually they have deep questions to ask of me. I do my best to answer them before they die.'Guest did not like this talk of death at all. He was about to ask how the rock's inquisitive visitors usually met their deaths, and why. But the rock was still talking.
'Even though you have proved yourself a vulgar and ignorant barbarian,' said the Lobos, 'I will still extend to you the customary courtesy. All is known to me. All things in the earth and under the earth. If you wish to know, then ask!'Guest Gulkan thought about it. He was not sure that there was really any question he needed to have answered. He had learnt much from his own experience; Sken-Pitilkin had ever been at pains to teach him more than he really wanted to know; and encounters with such knowledgeable creatures as Paraban Senk and Shabble had allowed him to answer just about every question he really wanted to have answered.
'Well?' said the Lobos. 'Do you have a question?'
'Okay,' said Guest, 'let's try this for size. I've got this ambition, a big one. I want to stage an orgy, okay, with, let's see, maybe a thousand women, men to match, some horses, and a few dead sheep for those who are truly perverted. I can see my way clear to getting hold of the flesh, but there's just one complication. I want the whole thing to take place in a big bowl of strawberries and cream. How do I go about that?'
The Lobos gave a very heavy sigh. Its every prejudice had been confirmed. Guest was just the barbarian he seemed to be.
'If you really wish to stage such an orgy,' said the Lobos,
'then you must begin by recruiting a caterer.'
'A what?' said Guest.
'A caterer,' said the Lobos. 'Don't you understand the word?
A caterer is someone whose profession is the provisioning of parties.' Guest Gulkan grappled with this concept, which was a new one to him. So far, the Weaponmaster had gone through his entire life without meeting a caterer, an interior designer or a hairdresser.
But the Lobos was quite patient, and explained the business of catering in detail.
'But,' said Guest, when he understood, 'there's a problem.
We, ah, we don't have caterers, not in Gendormargensis. Not that we're short of people, it's a big city, a hundred thousand people or more.'
'A hundred thousand,' said the Lobos. 'Is that your biggest city?'
'It's the biggest I know of,' said Guest.
'Then,' said the Lobos, 'if you are in search of that material wealth which a civilization requires to sustain a vigorous catering industry, I would earnestly suggest that you increase your population base.'
'Get more people, you mean,' said Guest.
'Yes.'
'How would I do that?'
'To begin with,' said the Lobos, 'make sure that all your people boil all their water and wash their hands every time they go to the toilet.' Guest Gulkan considered this eccentric advice, but was quite unable to make the connection between washing one's hands and staging a mass orgy with cream and strawberries. He concluded that the rock was quite mad.
'Is there anything else you want to know?' said the Lobos.
'Well,' said Guest, 'what do people usually ask?'
'They commonly ask how they can come by great wealth,' said the Lobos.
'That's easy,' said Guest. 'I can pick up my sword and take it.'
'You do not seem to be in possession of a sword,' said the Lobos.
'A temporary problem,' said Guest. 'What else do they ask?'
'They ask the secret of satisfaction,' said the Lobos.
'That's easy,' said Guest. 'Any pimp can help you.'
'For a wizard,' said the Lobos, 'things are not quite so – so impromptu.'
'I'm not a wizard,' said Guest.
'So I'd noticed,' said the Lobos. 'Most wizards ask after the secret of immortality.'
'Oh!' said Guest, 'Immortality! Well, now you mention it, what is the secret of immortality?'
'There is no true immortality,' said the Lobos. 'This is because of the inevitability of entropy. Do you wish me to explain entropy for you?'
'Not if it will delay my next meal unduly,' said Guest.
'It might delay your next meal considerably,' said the Lobos.
'If we leave aside the question of entropy in the interests of your stomach, know that you can make yourself temporarily immortal by putting yourself through an organic rectifier. That is a machine which can extend life indefinitely by inserting self- correcting codes into the genetic material. That is how you make yourself immortal. Of course, you would not have the slightest idea what an organic rectifier is, or where to find one.'Guest Gulkan, rather offended to have a rock speak to him in tones of insufferable intellectual superiority, was quick to rebut this claim.
'Yes I would,' said Guest. 'There was an organic rectifier on Untunchilamon.'
'There was?' said the Lobos dubiously.
'There was!' said Guest. 'It rectified a Crab.'
'A crab?' said the Lobos.
'Yes, yes, a crab,' said Guest. 'You know, one of those things that lives by the sea, it's got two claws and six legs, no, eight legs, eight legs and a pair of pinchers, there was a big one of Untunchilamon but the organic rectifier made it into an Ashdan, it called itself Codlugarthia.'
'You,' said the Lobos, on hearing this disjointed story, 'are quite mad.'
And the more Guest told, the more the Lobos thought him to be quite insane.
'Mad and a murderer,' said the Lobos sadly.
'A murderer?' said Guest. 'How so?'
'Why,' said the Lobos, 'the evidence of the murder is at your neck.'
Then Guest was moved to put a hand to his neck. He felt the dry warmth of his own skin, the lumpiness of his thyroid cartilage, and the thin chain which sustained the weight of the amulet he wore.
The amulet.
Of course.
'Are you talking about – about the mazadath?' said Guest.
'You see!' said the Lobos. 'You play ignorant, but you know the thing, and know it by its proper name.'
Now Guest began to understand. Slowly. Dimly. Partially. Guest Gulkan had always supposed his heavyweight silver amulet to be a device of Power, but until now he had never known what it might possibly be good for. It had
