Guest would grow older – that much was certain. But the Weaponmaster's ultimate acquisition of wisdom was strictly problematical.
And so, after thinking long and hard about the acroamatical revelations made by the demon Iva-Italis, Sken- Pitilkin started actively considering trying an experiment along the lines which the demon had suggested. Create a magical artefact. Expose some part of that artefact to the destructive normalizing forces of the universe. Then control the resulting destruction, trapping the destructive forces and using them for the purposes of flight.
Doubtless there would be dangers in such an experiment: but surely the potential rewards amply justified the risks.
Consider what it would mean were we able to fly.
Given the power of flight, we could transport goods with ease, high above the ravenous mountains and those over-fertile oceans so prodigious in their production of krakens and sea serpents. The sundry races of the world would be united by an undreamt-of ease of travel, and on close acquaintance would grow to know each other better, old hatreds dying as new friendships blossomed. The death of suspicion would mean an end to war. Better still, the greatest experts of all the world would be free to travel the globe resolving the sundry problems of humanity, thus ending the present Age of Darkness and ushering in a golden Age of Light.
Do not think, then, that Sken-Pitilkin was possessed of a reckless hubris when he decided to dare the construction of an airship. He knew the dangers. But here was an opportunity to to restructure the world and save all of humanity from its lesser nature.
Hence Sken-Pitilkin began to build small-scale model airships, designing these with a view to perfecting the art of sustained and controlled destruction. Sken-Pitilkin's experiments were not an unqualified success.
Upon his experiments he lavished the sap-days of the spring, the heat of summer and the fruitfullness of autumn. But, while he secured plenty of destruction, he was less than successful in the controlled management of that destruction. Finally, as winter was setting in, the eminent wizard of the order of Skatzabratzumon was summoned into the presence of Banker Sod.
'Sken-Pitilkin!' said Sod. 'Sit!'
The wizard sat.
'Tell me,' said Sod, 'why do you think I've called you here?'
'Why,' said Sken-Pitilkin, with guilty uneasiness, 'I suppose, ah, to have me spy Guest's letters, perhaps. He got another epistle from Bao Gahai only yesterday. His brother Morsh is walking and riding, so says the letter, and as the boy was laid up last winter with a broken leg – '
'Don't toy with me!' barked Sod. 'Sken-Pitilkin! I want to know! Are you responsible for the outbreak of explosions, tornados, waterspouts, hurtling debris and other such poltergeist- like activity which has of late vexed, troubled and disturbed our peace?' Sken-Pitilkin thought about it, then said:
'No.'
It was, after all, Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis who had suggested that the secret of flight lay in the mastery of sustained and controlled destruction, therefore the demon Iva-Italis was (at least in Sken-Pitilkin's opinion) responsibly for the consequences of Sken-Pitilkin's experiments in that direction.
'No?' said Banker Sod.
'I have said it once,' said Sken-Pitilkin, 'and that should be sufficient.'
Banker Sod looked at Sken-Pitilkin very hard, meanwhile drumming his black-nailed fingers on his desk. Then Sod came to a decision. He stopped drumming, and said:
'Very well. I accept your denial. You are not responsible for the recent incidents. But – I am making you responsible for making sure that they stop!' Sken-Pitilkin got the message, and the incidents ceased.
So peace came to the island of Alozay, though not to the world at large – for unrest was increasing in the Collosnon Empire, the tax revolt in Locontareth was gathering strength, and the empire was moving slowly but inevitably toward a state of civil war.
Chapter Seven
Alozay: Safrak's ruling island. Its Grand Palace occupies the mainrock Pinnacle, the prodigious upthrust of rock which overshadows the city of Molothair. Molothair itself lies on a tongue of low-lying land. Alozay has two sets of docks on Alozay: the Palace Docks, serving the mainrock Pinnacle, and the Molothair Docks, serving the low-lying city itself.
Early in the spring of the year Alliance 4306 – a few days after Guest Gulkan's 16th birthday and a full year after Guest Gulkan's introduction to the demon Iva-Italis – the Rovac warrior Thodric Jarl came to Safrak to recall Guest Gulkan to Gendormargensis.
While the Collosnon Empire had been told that Guest was on Alozay as a hostage, Jarl knew otherwise, and knew that there would be no trouble in recovering the boy from Safrak. In Gendormargensis, it was thought by the uninitiated that the Safrak
Bank regularly demanded hostages from the Collosnon Empire.
However, while it is certainly true that selected individuals were on occasion sent to Alozay as 'hostages', the Safrak Bank never demanded any such prisoners, and in fact was paid good gold for safeguarding them.
The Emperor Onosh was a Yarglat barbarian, true, but he had dwelt in Gendormargensis for so long that he was perilously close to being civilized. In Gendormargensis, Lord Onosh had been guided by selected advisors of Sharla ancestry – the Sharla being the sophisticated people who had owned the Collosnon Empire before the Yarglat took it from them in the Wars of Dominion. Aided by his Sharla advisors, and by the subtlety of his dralkosh Bao Gahai,
Lord Onosh had learnt some nimble tricks of politics, and had gone some distance toward mastering the art of blaming all of one's cruel, self-serving and unpopular actions upon some other agency.
In a truly sophisticated civilization, the art of the abdication of responsibility is brought to such a high pitch of perfection that no government ever admits to wanting to do anything which is in the least bit cruel, self-serving or unpopular. The political praxis of such states consists of one long exercise in the avoidance of responsibility. Typically, the government of a sophisticated state presents itself as kind, thoughtful and humane.
But -
But the kind, thoughtful and human administrations of sophisticated states are guides by a network of committees, subcommittees, research groups, panels, outside experts and other such similar functionaries who can be relied upon to produce a string of recommendations which are typically cruel, vicious, short-sighted and barbarous in effect.
And, since it is one of the conceits of high civilization that no government is competent to decide the rights and wrongs of any question through the application of its own wisdom, it follows that the kindest and most diligently popular of all enlightened governments can practice a cruel, self-serving and unpopular brand of politics by the simple expedient of bowing to the wisdom of its advisers – and can do this in good conscience.
Since the Collosnon Empire was a comparatively primitive organization, it had not yet constructed such a comprehensive apparatus of systematized intellectual dishonesty. Hence Lord Onosh had to bear personal responsibility for at least some of his own actions. Nevertheless, the emperor was slowly learning that it was best if his misdeeds be blamed on other people, and he was becoming pretty good at placing the responsibility for his most unpopular actions on either his enemies or his allies.
Safrak accommodated the Witchlord's needs by allowing him to send prisoners to Alozay as 'hostages'. This let him exile selected dissidents, sending them into distant custody while protesting his love for them, and blaming their fate on the hostage-demanding land of Safrak.
A nice trick, this. It had allowed the Witchlord to exile his son from Gendormargensis without appearing to be cruel, capricious or arbitrary – and allowed him to recall the boy at his pleasure by simply telling Gendormargensis that Safrak had chosen to relinquish its hostage.
So it was that in the spring of the year Alliance 4306 – ah, but the date has been given already! Repetition, repetition, there is no point to it, no need for it. The parchment holds the ink, and holds it for all time. So if the date be lost in the first reading, then it will be found in the second.
A second reading!?!
