the froth of unbreathing blood on Levant's lips told Sken-Pitilkin that the man's lungs had been pierced by those same cruel-edged bones.
Dead, dead, finished, doomed, beyond all chance of cure, beyond all chance of resurrection.
In the aftermath of the crisis, Sken-Pitilkin started to shudder. He felt weak. He felt his age. As he stood there in the clearing, rain began to fall, pattering on the leaves of the trees, splattering on the mud of the clearing. Amidst that rain, something large and yellow began to ooze out of the forest, and Sken-Pitilkin realized it was a slug. A huge slug. A slug as big as an ox. Behind it was another slug. And another. A veritable armada of the things was cruising through the trees. Sken-Pitilkin remembered stories told by some of the questing heroes who had ventured from Sung to Penvash. Those yellow slugs ate men.
But – before Sken-Pitilkin quit the clearing – where was the star-globe?
'You had it last,' said Sken-Pitilkin, addressing Levant's corpse.
Then Sken-Pitilkin hastily searched the corpse, for such was the importance of the treasure. But Levant did not have it, and the slugs were swift closing in on Sken-Pitilkin and his stickbird. Sken-Pitilkin used his Power to test the weight of one of the slugs. It was as heavy as it was huge. In a battle with such monsters, he must necessarily exhaust himself, and be swiftly overcome by their numbers.
Realizing this, Sken-Pitilkin hobbled to his stickbird, supporting himself with his country crook. He hauled himself into the stickbird and took to the skies, leaving behind him the clearing, the marble plinth, the steel archway of the Old City's Door, the slow-cruising yellow slugs, and the untenanted corpse of Thayer Levant.
Where was Guest? Sken-Pitilkin cruised backwards and forwards across the Old City, hunting for the Weaponmaster. But there was no sign of him.
And as there was likewise no sign of Shabble, Sken-Pitilkin deduced that in all probability the pair of them had gone through the Door. And as to where they might be now, he had no idea whatsoever.
Chapter Fifty-One
Guest Gulkan: the Yarglat barbarian otherwise known as the Weaponmaster. He dueled his father for possession of the Collosnon Empire – this civil war so weakening that empire that it was conquered by the interloper Khmar. Guest Gulkan then united with his father to fight Khmar – but lost.
Retreating in defeat, father and son sought refuge on the island of Alozay, which they were constrained to conquer. Conquest of Alozay made them masters of one of the Doors of the Circle of the Partnership Banks, embroiling them in an unrelenting struggle for the mastery of that Circle.
The latest entity to enter this struggle is Shabble, the miniature sun which has lately made an alliance with those demons which serve the Great God Jocasta. Shabble itself is a servant of the Holy Cockroach, is determined to conquer the world for that Cockroach, and wishes to use the Circle of the Partnership Banks to expedite this conquest.
For Guest Gulkan, the flight from Drum to the Old City was terrifying. He was bucked across the sky without the slightest hope of controlling his own destiny, and in hot pursuit was the outraged Shabble.
The Old City came into sight below them. Sken-Pitilkin sent his stickbird hurtling down out of the skies. As they slammed into the earth, Guest Gulkan threw himself out of the stickbird and raced for the Door. He slammed the star-globe into the socket of the marble plinth on which stood the steel arch of the Door. The archway filled with humming mercury. Guest Gulkan bounded up onto the plinth, drew his sword, then leapt through the Door, with his sword braced to strike down whatever enemy confronted him. He found himself alone in a hot and insect-humming eucalyptus forest. Without tarrying for further inspection, he dared his way through the Door again.
Of course he did not return to the Old City, for the Door was not like one which opens into a bar or a brothel. Rather, it is best construed as a series of one-way valves arranged in a Circle, and by bearing this model in mind one can easily understand the Weaponmaster's progress.
On leaping through that Door a second time, leaving the eucalyptus forest behind him, Guest emerged onto a sunstruck desolation of sand. He mistook it for desert – then blinked at the sundazzling sea, and realized it was beach. Beach? A quick scan proved it to be an island. Guest Gulkan had time for no more than that one quick scan, for Shabble came bursting through the humming screen of the Door before he could engage in a more elaborate survey of his surroundings.
'Maraka daga dok?' said the seething Shabble. Guest knew Shabble to be fast-striking, able to outpace a human in any martial endeavor. Yet if he could somehow distract the impetuous bubble of wrath, then perhaps he could plunge back through the Door and made his escape.
As Guest was so thinking, that Door snapped out of existence.
The shimmering silver screen in the metal archway vanished, and was replaced with hot and cloudless sky.
'Daga!' demanded Shabble. 'Daga dok!'
'What?' said Guest, afraid for his life and so striving mightily for comprehension.
'I said,' said Shabble, reverting to Toxteth, 'Where is my toy?' Guest Gulkan was quite out of the habit of speaking Toxteth, so it took him a disconcerting interval to comprehend even this simplicity. But with comprehension achieved, Guest gladly explained that the star-globe was – most naturally! – back in the Old City of Penvash.
'And you,' said Guest, 'should be heading for that Old City immediately, for obviously the globe has been taken out of its pocket, and every moment you waste here sees the thing slip further from your grasp.'
'I can still spare a moment to burn you alive!' said the wrathful Shabble.
'If I am to be firewood,' said Guest, 'then burn away.'
In answer, Shabble stung the Weaponmaster with a bolt of singing fire. It burnt a smoking hole in his skin. The stench of burnt flesh and singed hairs rose hot to his nostrils. For a moment, Guest gaped at his wound. Then the pain hit hard, driving him into the sea. But all the waters of Moana were not sufficient to quench the pain of that wound. As Guest soaked it, Shabble hummed round his head like a mutant wasp. The buzzing globe of malevolence bobbed and bounced, hitting the water repeatedly, sending stinging spray in all directions.
But Guest paid no heed to Shabble because his pain was so great. Indeed, the Weaponmaster was in such palpable agony that Shabble backed off somewhat. Guest, divining that the bubble might have realized it had gone further than it truly wanted to, began to recover a degree of self-possession. As he began to master his pain, he took advantage of his recovering self-possession to stage deliberate theatricals of ever-intensifying agony.
'Are you hurt?' said Shabble anxiously. Guest responded with groans, as if the Great Mink itself was in the process of tearing off his toes one by one.
'Are you really really hurt?' said Shabble. Guest fell to sand and thrashed in an agony which was nine- tenths simulated. All the while he watched Shabble covertly from the corner of his eye.
The response surprised even the Weaponmaster For, after a bare ten breaths and a heartbeat, Shabble lost interest in the Weaponmaster's prolonged suffering, and went to investigate the sea, disappearing from sight beneath the waters.
This stunned Guest, who did not quite follow Shabble's reasoning. Shabble saw that Guest appeared to be in grievous pain; and, knowing humans in such condition were no fun at all, Shabble had gone to look at the coral and play with the fishes. Shabble's earlier anxiety had not been feigned. But Guest had been wrong to assume that anxiety to be symptomatic of vast reserves of empathy.
Shabble had been designed and built as a toy, and so had the emotional resources appropriate to the nursery rather than those befitting grand opera.
While Guest did not quite realize how and why his tactics had failed, he did see that his operatic performance was getting him nowhere. So he gave up his groaning and sat on the sand clutching his arm – which still hurt like hell.
Then Guest waited.
He waited for Shabble to emerge from the waters.
But Shabble did not emerge. Guest was profoundly puzzled by this, for Shabble's behavior was contrary to human experience. A human, on arriving abruptly on a coral island in the company of a grievously wounded companion, does not proceed immediately to extended underwater tourism. But, again, Shabble's performance
