for a cannibal feast. That being so, we cannot waste them casually, but must content ourselves with chickens.'
'That contentment will be more than sufficient,' said the elf-armored Pelagius Zozimus, surveying the feast with a professional eye, and asking himself fresh questions as to timing.
How had such a formidable meal been prepared at such short notice? One thing is for certain: a village of such manifest poverty never killed chickens except for the most especial occasions. It has been Written that wizards of Itch can build bells which can be rung thereafter from a distance of several leagues. So perhaps Nol had covertly used such a bell to signal the approach of himself and his guests; though, as Sken-Pitilkin and Zozimus were both exhausted, neither asked him about this, and neither thought to ask of it thereafter. Instead, they sat themselves down and set themselves to eat.
Over breakfast, Ontario Nol discussed in detail and depth the problems which Lord Onosh had experienced in collecting taxes from Locontareth, and suggested that the Witchlord Onosh was experiencing such difficulties because the people of that city and region derived no benefit from the taxes.
'You must give them something back,' said Nol, 'just as a farmer gives back something to his fields when he plows manure into the soil.'
'I don't think they'd thank us for dumping them in manure,' said Guest, meaning the revolutionaries of Locontareth.
'No, no,' said Nol. 'You misunderstand me.'
Then Nol explained the matter all over again, in depth and in detail, though Sken-Pitilkin could have told him that the effort was futile.
'Well,' said Guest, when he thought he understood as much of this theory as he was ever going to understand, 'that's very nice of you, I mean, the ideas and all, and, ah, hospitality. Maybe my father can thank you for helping us.'
'I need no thanks from your father,' said Nol. 'You yourself can help me.'
'How?' said Guest.
'By sending me your brother.'
'Morsh?' said Guest, remembering their conversation about Morsh Bataar's recently acquired habit of swimming. 'You want Morsh? What on earth for? To teach you the art of the fish, is it?'
'It's not Morsh Bataar that I want,' said Nol. 'I want the other one. Eljuk Zala.'
'But what would you want him for?' said Guest, who lacked the wit to guess.
'Eljuk will know,' said Nol. 'If he matches your description of him, he'll know immediately. Bring him to me!'
'Well, I would,' said Guest, not particularly caring whether Ontario Nol wanted his brother for purposes of buggery or as sacrificial banquet-meat. 'But it's a bit difficult. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, you can have him. But my father wouldn't like the idea at all. Eljuk's the imperial heir, that's his business, he's supposed to inherit.'
'Put it to your father,' said Nol. 'Speak to Eljuk, then to your father, then tell me what the pair of them decide.'
And, once Guest Gulkan had agreed to do that, Ontario Nol began to discuss the route which would allow Guest and his fellow air adventurers to exchange the unfamiliar dangers of the valley of Ul-donlok for the comforting certainties of the Collosnon Empire and its large-looming civil war.
Chapter Twelve
Yolantarath River: river which runs south-south-east from Gendormargensis to Locontareth by way of Babaroth. After passing Locontareth the river tends toward the north-east, and eventually the leisure of its flatland wending brings it to the seaport of Stranagor and the chilly waters of the Hauma Sea.
Ontario Nol cautioned the air-wrecked adventurers not to venture through the realms of King Igpatan, since that monarch was of a very uncertain temper, and often celebrated his birthday by torturing to death a randomly- chosen stranger. As King Igpatan honored each of his fifty previous incarnations with a separate birthday, his kingdom was not an attractive tourist destination.
The dwarf Glambrax suggested that they fly out. Rolf Thelemite professed himself game for such an adventure – though his lower lip trembled and his gold-snake earring shook as he said it – but all the others denounced the proposition.
'I'd sooner swim through pigshit,' said Thodric Jarl, 'or drink my way through a world of menstruation.'
'And I,' said Guest, 'I'd sooner be dorked by an iceman or kissed by a dwarf.'
So spoke the Weaponmaster, then had to fight off a vigorous attack from a kiss-inclined Glambrax.
The key to any further air adventures was of course Sken-Pitilkin: and he declared himself strenuously opposed to the construction of any more airships. He was still having nightmares about the journey which had seen them slammed from Ema-Urk to the heights of Ibsen-Iktus, and was in no hurry to risk his life again in such folly.
Accordingly, when a vote was taken – Sken-Pitilkin being so opposed to the construction of an airship that he gladly joined in this piratical Rovac-favored form of decision-making by brute force of numbers, since he was sure it would give him the answer he wanted – all were in favor of exiting from Ul-donlok by venturing over the mountains. The decision was unanimous, Thodric Jarl having used a few words of threat to talk Rolf Thelemite out of his airbent-folly.
Unanimous? Well, almost. To be precise, there was one abstention, for Glambrax abstained on account of the fact that Guest was sitting on him when the vote was taken.
So it was that weight of numbers carried the day, and it cannot be denied that at least on this occasion the decision thus arrived at represented the full force of wisdom.
After the air adventurers had spent a full fourteen days resting and acclimatizing, first at the village and then at Qonsajara itself, Ontario Nol pronounced them fit to proceed. The venerable wizard of Itch chose to personally guide the travelers through the mountains. He saw to their provisioning, procured them three mules, and dosed Thodric Jarl with a potent medicine which suppressed the pain of his bone-breakages and thus enabled him to tackle the trek.
The medicine given to Jarl also had the effect of reducing him to a stuporous zombie-like condition in which he heard little, saw less, and lacked the intellectual agility to wonder at his own diminished mental competence. Thus did Ontario Nol insure himself against attempted murder.
Protected by such insurance, Nol led the air adventurers from the monastery of Qonsajara, and guided them to the high pass of Zomara at the western end of the valley of Ul-donlok.
'Gods!' said Glambrax, as they labored toward the heights of that high pass, 'I'd want my own weight in gold before I'd chance this climb again!'
Such were the rigors of the journey that none of his companions picked up the conversational opening, and all the obvious sallies about the height, weight and worth of a dwarf's chancing and climbing went unsaid.
Truly, it was a brutal ascent.
It was cold upon the heights, and no living thing grew there saving the blue-green lichen. The touch of the wind was a razor and the sun a laceration to the eyes. Upon the heights, Guest Gulkan found his head reeling as if he were drunk; and several times the Weaponmaster stumbled and almost fell as he descended with his companions to the valley of Yox.
As for Thodric Jarl, why, he in his drugged condition was so helpless that he had to be roped between Rolf Thelemite and the dwarf Glambrax; and he was so dead to the world that he was quite oblivious to the donkey- jokes which the wizards made at his expense. For, regardless of the demands of the journey, the drug- disabled Thodric Jarl was too rich a target to neglect.
'A very pet lamb in his feebleness,' observed Ontario Nol, with the greatest of satisfaction.
And Sken-Pitilkin said -
But let us not record here the delicious witticisms which were ventured by the scholarly Sken-Pitilkin, for the Rovac have cause for rage sufficient already, and there is no point in nourishing that breed of pirates fresh with
