onward journey, Guest visited Cap Foz Para Lash himself, and paid his respects to Paraban Senk, the disembodied entity which commanded that trogloditic realm.
Inside Cap Foz Para Lash, Paraban Senk organized running repairs on the Weaponmaster's teeth. His teeth were treated in the same room of miracles which had secured the regrowth of his arms and legs after his long- ago mauling by the Great Mink of Chi'ash- lan. That same room of miracles cured the Weaponmaster of threadworm, roundworm and ringworm, treated him for dandruff then sampled his blood.
After his blood had been sampled, Guest Gulkan was told he had been infected by yaws, a tropical disease transmitted by the contact of skin with skin. If left untreated, it would – or so he was told – it would deform his bones and damage his joints. But treatment was offered to him in the form of a dose of chemicals, and this he took.
He was told also -
But enough is enough!
It would be wrong to intrude upon the Weaponmaster's privacy by itemizing the various diseases with which he had infected himself in the course of his travels. Let us remark only that, while many questing heroes have died by the sword, and an equal number have fallen to dragons, a far greater proportion of such creatures have been ultimately struck down by syphilis, or by other diseases similarly acquired and yet more fearsome in their operation.
With this visit to Cap Foz Para Lash having come to its conclusion, Guest was ready to leave. Or, not exactly ready – for he was daunted by the difficulty of the task which yet awaited him. But there was nothing more to be secured by lingering further in Dalar ken Halvar.
Plandruk Qinplaqus organized Guest's transport as far as the realms of Drangsturm. A military convoy escorted him from Dalar ken Halvar to the seaport city of Estro Sex. From there, an imperial ship took him to the Ebrell Islands, then through the Stepping Stone Islands to the Inner Waters, landing him in due course at the Castle of Ultimate Peace, the stronghold which guarded the eastern flank of Drangsturm. Guest landed with some trepidation.
For, as far as the Confederation of Wizards was aware, Guest Gulkan had died in the Cave of the Warp in the Shackle Mountains, when he had ventured beyond the Veils of Fire. There was a danger, then, that he would be recognized; that recognition would lead to arrest; that arrest would lead to torture; and that, having been rigorously tortured for his secrets, he would be handed over to a cabal of wizardly ethnologists for lethal dissection.
Yet, as Guest knew well from his earlier sojourn in the realms of Drangsturm, the management of trade along the Drangsturm Road (the road between the Castle of Controlling Peace and the Castle of Controlling Power) was routinely controlled by the soldiers of the Landguard. Since Guest was presumed to be dead, no member of that garrison force would be on the lookout for him, so he thought the danger of his capture was minimal.
In practice, Guest proved right in this. He was able to travel the Drangsturm Road unmolested, thus reaching the Salt Road which ran up Argan's western seaboard. Guest headed toward Narba, feeling rather more hopeful now he had negotiated the dangers of Drangsturm. But, en route to Narba, he began to hear the most troubling news from the north. There were wild rumors of war; of dragons; of a Power which turned the living to stone; of battles of wizards; of the overthrow of cities; of a wholesale piracy which looted entire provinces; of plague; of mad dogs; of living rainbows; of werewolves; of outbreaks of contagious vampirism; of blasphemy; of revolution; of treason; of treachery; of floods; of orcs and ogres; and (ah! fearsome threat!) of rates of inflation running at a thousand percentage points per day.
Giving support to the probability of threat was the fact that the roads were clogged with refugees; and, on reaching Narba, Guest found that many of the people there were sailors and merchants customarily based in Androlmarphos, people who had been away from that city when it was struck by war, and were unable to return there because the city had fallen to an alliance of pirates.
From what Guest could make out, it seemed that the city of Androlmarphos had been invaded by pirates from the Greater Teeth.
The Harvest Plains, the nation which owned the seaport of Androlmarphos, was arming for war – seeking to displace the pirates from their seaport. In the Rice Empire, the armies were likewise arming for war, and – if rumor was to be believe – Lord Regan of the Rice Empire hoped to profit from disturbance in the Harvest Plains by launching an invasion of those Plains.
This gave Guest a problem.
How was he to go north in the face of such a concatenation of difficulties? And if he did go north, how was he to preserve himself against being mistaken for a spy, or for a pirate, or for a bandit?
Fortunately, an easy solution to Guest Gulkan's difficulties was at hand. Narba had long traded with the pirates of the Greater Teeth; and, now that those pirates had ambitiously seized the city of Androlmarphos, Narba continued to provide them with every facility they could pay for. So pirate recruiters were working freely in Narba, recruiting mercenaries, and pouring out the treasure of Androlmarphos to build an army which could contend against the might of the Harvest Plains.
So Guest volunteered himself for war, and thus was shortly shipped north to Androlmarphos, so avoiding the dangers posed by whatever part of rumor could be substantiated by fact.
Thus it came to pass that the Weaponmaster was in the city of Androlmarphos when that city was assailed by the armies of the Harvest Plains. Since the forces of ordered civilization triumphed on this occasion over the lawless forces of piracy, the Harvest Plains reclaimed Androlmarphos; the pirates retreated north to the Greater Teeth; and Guest Gulkan found himself very well advanced on his journey to the Old City of Penvash.
At this stage, an inexperienced adventurer would have incontinently flung himself into a direct assault on the Old City itself. Guest could have done as much. He could have stolen a boat, and shipped himself from the islands of the Greater Teeth to the shores of Argan. From there, he could – if all else failed – have simply walked north to the Old City.
But the Weaponmaster doubted very much that the star-globe which had been used to control the Door in the Old City in Penvash was still to be found in those ancient ruins. After all, during Guest's sojourn in Dalar ken Halvar the Circle of Doors which was based in Penvash had not been reopened. The Door in Dalar ken Halvar's Grand Arena had been diligently watched by the Silver Emperor's minions, and not once had it shown the slightest flicker of life. Guest presumed, then, that the bandits who had won possession of the star-globe had carried their treasure away from the Old City. He presumed, further, that they would naturally seek to recruit the aid of a prince, a king or an emperor before they attempted to reopen the Circle which was based in Penvash.
For, if you find yourself in possession of a device which can open Doors to places as dangerous and as various as a battlefield and a Grand Arena, then it necessarily follows that you must be rather more than a bandit to successfully exploit such a device in defiance of the lords of the territories to which such Doors open.
Hence Guest suspected that those who currently held the starglobe would be seeking to enlist the support of some territorial power in or near Penvash. Thus thinking, the Weaponmaster ventured no footsore journey to the Old City, but, instead, set about the business of suborning a territorial power for his own purposes.
To this end, Guest set himself the job of getting close to the leader of the defeated pirates, a Rovac-born warlord by the name of Elkor Alish. Being jealous of the secret of star-globe and Doors, Guest did not immediately reveal all to Alish. Indeed, he revealed nothing. Guest thought he should first learn the temper of this man, and assess the degree to which his oath was trustworthy, and should only then suggest to him an alliance of purpose.
So Guest sought audience with the black-bearded Elkor Alish, he of the elegant dress, the bright-gleaming jewels. On being granted audience, Guest sought employment as a bodyguard.
'Explain yourself,' said Elkor Alish.
Upon which the Weaponmaster gave a heavily circumscribed account of his own life. He declared himself to be the son of Onosh Gulkan, the ruler who had been overthrown so many years ago by the barbarous Khmar.
'My childhood was spent in Gendormargensis,' said Guest,
'where I was tutored exclusively by Rovac warriors. Thus I learnt the manners of the Rovac, and something of their tongue. After my father lost his empire, I was exiled into the world. Thereafter, I put my sword at the service of the world, until I wandered too near Drangsturm and fell victim to the Ethnologists who dominate the castles of wizardry.'
'The Ethnologists?' said Alish. 'I have long studied the Confederation of Wizards, for I count that Confederation
