As the Zenjingu charged around the flanks of the demon Ko, Sken-Pitilkin threw up his hands and cried out a Word.
The Zenjingu were scattered in all directions, seized by levitational energies and smashed against walls and against skeletons.
'Into the bottle!' said Sken-Pitilkin. 'In, and I'll have us out of here in instants!'
Then Guest made a grab for the silver rope which was trailing from the silver net which secured Shabble. But he missed, and Shabble promptly drifted out of reach.
'This is no time for bubble-hunting!' said Sken-Pitilkin.
'Get in the bottle! And stay there!'
With that, Guest turned the ring on his finger, and was again transported into the yellow bottle, thus leaving the responsibilities of initiative to Sken-Pitilkin.
Then Sken-Pitilkin exerted his Power and levitated himself, endeavoring to preserve a grave dignity as he did so. But it is an unfortunate fact that this business of levitation tends to be singularly ridiculous, particularly when one is wearing fisherman's skirts as Sken-Pitilkin was. For, while the skirt is a most practical form of dress, it is most definitely not one which is meant to be viewed from below.
Carrying the yellow bottle, Sken-Pitilkin drifted with due deliberation above the demon Ko, thus making his escape from the room which held the Door of the Morgrim Bank. Shabble confidently tried to follow. But the bubble of bounce had forgotten that it was trailing a rope of silver – and this the demon caught!
On hearing a wail of distress from Shabble, Sken-Pitilkin turned to see the demon dragging Shabble closer and closer toward its own cold green substance.
Then Sken-Pitilkin paid no more heed to Shabble, for he had other problems to worry about.
Need we give here an account of the manner in which Sken-Pitilkin fought his way free from the Morgrim Bank? Need we mention the arrows which were fired at him, and the supreme skill which he demonstrated in coping with their onslaught? Of course we need not! For it may be taken for granted that any wizard of the order of Skatzabratzumon is more than a match for a rabble of Zenjingu fighters. And, further, it would be injurious to Sken-Pitilkin's dignity to suggest that he had (or has) any need for history to take account of the splendidly satisfying manner in which he crunched bones, shattered flesh, and sent the bravest running in all directions in bawling terror.
Let it then merely be recorded that Sken-Pitilkin escaped from the Morgrim Bank, which is set in the approximate center of the city of Chi'ash-lan, and he was levitating toward the outskirts of the city when -
When a cloud formed in the air close at hand. Sken-Pitilkin had barely time sufficient to gape at the cloud before it configured itself as a Yarglat barbarian. Judging from the bigness of his ears, that barbarian was Guest Gulkan. And, on this occasion, the bigness of his ears was matched by the bigness of his mouth. For, when Guest emerged from the bottle to find himself poised in mid-air above the city, his jaw dropped in outright horror.
'The ring!' bawled Sken-Pitilkin.
But it was too late.
Guest was already falling, and by the time he had wit sufficient to turn the ring on his finger, he was too far removed from the yellow bottle for the ring to compel him within it. Thus he fell, with Sken-Pitilkin – his own power nearly exhausted by battle and flight – helpless to save him. Guest did not fall far.
After all, Sken-Pitilkin was no seagull, hence had not soared to any great height. Rather, he had been levitating – and not without difficulty, for it is a business far more tricky than it may appear to the uninitiated, this fine art of levitation – about four storeys above the ground. Guest fell but three storeys before his fall was intercepted by a roof. He crashed through the roof and disappeared from sight.
In the face of this disaster, Sken-Pitilkin did not have to make any fine ethical calculations. The best he could do was to ensure his own survival, so that was what he did. He got himself to the outskirts of the city, landed, and took to his heels and fled.
Need we give here an account of Sken-Pitilkin's escape? No, surely not. For it was only Zenjingu fighters who were pursuing him, and any fieldsman who cannot elude five thousand of the Zenjingu or more is not worthy of his bootleather.
While Sken-Pitilkin was a wizard, he was other things as well. Amongst other things, he was a fisherman. He had not adopted a fisherman's skirts as his customary attire by random choice! No, he had studied the Art of Arts for generations, and from its study he had learnt his fieldcraft thoroughly.
Thus Sken-Pitilkin was able to elude the Zenjingu, and get himself away from Chi'ash-lan – and, eventually, to improvise a stickbird of sorts and go limping back to the island of Drum.
A fine predicament, this!
For Sken-Pitilkin was still in possession of the yellow bottle, which he took with him all the way to his home island of Drum, but he did not have the ring which allowed one to enter or leave that bottle. The sole ring to command that bottle was in Guest Gulkan's possession, and, for all the wizard knew, Guest might well be dead.
Well.
We all have to die sometime.
But the truly tragic part was that Thayer Levant, Guest's long-serving, long-suffering and totally unappreciated servant, was trapped in the yellow bottle, unable to get out through his own exertions, and with Sken-Pitilkin (for all his undoubted sagacity) in no position to help him.
And suppose one to be trapped in a wizard-made bottle, as was Thayer Levant. What then will one have to drink? And what to eat?
As a rule, drink is no problem, for wizards take care to stock such bottles well with water. And food? Well, this yellow bottle had lately been used as a portable storehouse on a journey into the Shackle Mountains, so it contained rations sufficient to feed one person for a few months or so. But supposing those few months to pass, what then? Why, a prisoner trapped in a wizard- made bottle and beyond succor by outside forces must necessarily resort to the siege dust which is so commonly found in such bottles.
Of siege dust, it may be said in its favor that it can last for upwards of five thousand years while still remaining as good to eat as it was to start with. The problem is that, even to start with, siege dust is no more palatable than ordinary dust.
So Thayer Levant was doomed to suffer a cruel and unusual punishment, for his ordinary food must inevitably run out unless Guest could make it back to Drum in six months or less.
But six months passed and there was no sign of Guest. A year passed, and still there was no sign of Guest. Sken-Pitilkin had every right to presume to Weaponmaster to be dead – but, not content with taking such a position, the wizard of Skatzabratzumon had built a fully serviceable stickbird, and had several times flown it the full length of the Ravlish Lands in search of the Weaponmaster.
However, despite Sken-Pitilkin's exhausting and exhaustive endeavors on his account, Guest Gulkan had to do it all on his own. Having survived the fall through a roof – he had after all fallen a mere three storeys, and what is three storeys to a stoutly built Yarglat barbarian? – Guest escaped from Chi'ash-lan and fled east through the Ravlish Lands.
For a year and a day he fled, with the Zenjingu fighters ever close on his heels. And, a year and two days after Guest's intemperate materialization in the skies of Chi'ash-lan, the sea dragon Hobagamandrik came to Sken-Pitilkin with the news that a fishing boat had arrived from D'Waith, and that Guest Gulkan was a passenger on that fishing boat.
(Two Zenjingu fighters arrived the very next day, and were shortly thereafter eaten by Sken-Pitilkin's sea dragons, who pronounced them to be rather stringy, and of a flavor midway between that of cat and that of pig).
Thus Guest Gulkan returned to Drum, and was able to use his ring to liberate Thayer Levant from the yellow bottle. For all that time, Levant had preserved the star-globe, which Guest had left behind in the bottle when he had exited to the skies of Chi'ash-lan. Levant – rightly enraged by a year of imprisonment – declared that Guest could count himself supremely lucky that the star-globe had not got itself flushed down one of the vents which allowed wastes to exit from the yellow bottle.
In the light of what later happened, it may be seen in retrospect as being very unfortunate that Guest did not take the time to address Levant's complaints in depth and in detail, to soothe him with flattery and to balm him with promises. But instead, Guest belittled Levant's sufferings, saying they had all taken place indoors, free from
