recovered by means of a diligent daily investigation of his dung. 'This is a lucky ring, for there is a star trapped inside it, not a red star or a green star, but one of the rare and precious white stars. You can wish on it thrice, and be sure that at least on one your wishes will be at least half-answered. Hold this as a bond, and if I misbehave myself you can keep it.'
A bargain was struck on those grounds, and so Guest went to work at the Green Parrot.
It may be thought that the young Weaponmaster was over-casual in thus handing over a most precious and irreplaceable artefact, the sole ring of ever-ice known to the Safrak Islands. But he was friendless in a foreign country, and without cash, and therefore in urgent need of employment, for without employment he must surely starve. The ring was of no immediate use to him, and even its future use was problematical.
Suppose you were marooned as Guest was. Had you a ring which could give you a warm bed, hot soup, a dry roof and some morethan-occasional beers, would you not use it? I warrant that you would: and Guest, by using his ring as a good behavior bond, did likewise.
As a barman, Guest proved adequate, for, though his Toxteth was largely indifferent, it must be conceded that he had a vigorous grasp of the entire vocabulary of drinking. Furthermore, he was skilled in the application of armlocks and the breaking of noses, the blacking of eyes and the displacement of teeth, the cudgeling of heads and the kicking of crotches; and the Green Parrot was the kind of establishment where all those talents could at times find their proper employment. Guest secured employment at the same establishment for Thayer Levant. But since Levant lacked a competence in Toxteth, and also lacked a taste for brawling, he worked not in the bar but in the stables. He worked as a groom, and supplemented his wages by sharping the citizens of Galsh Ebrek at cards, for cards have their own language which works independent of the tongue, and Levant knew how to gloss that language to his own advantage.
It might be thought by the unthinking that Guest would be unhappy to be marooned in Galsh Ebrek as a barman. For he was an emperor's son, was he not?
But, actually, Guest was content.
After all, the young Weaponmaster was no stranger to bars or to brawling, for the doughty Rolf Thelemite had long ago indoctrinated him in both. And after the long rigors of campaigning, there was much to be said for pouring beer in the Parrot, and supping hot soup, and sharing on occasion the hospitality of Anna Blaume's decidedly uninhibited bed.
So Guest was content, or moderately so. And Thayer Levant endured.
But Sod – why, in those months of exile, poor Banker Sod suffered desolations of isolation. In all of Galsh Ebrek, only Thayer Levant came like Sod from Chi'ash-lan, and Levant quite lacked imagination sufficient to encompass any conception of the vast distances between themselves and Chi'ash-lan. Levant lacked any true conception of the depths of their geographical predicament, and so did not worry about it; and so was useless as a source of consolation for Sod in those days of trial.
Sod knew that eventually he must decide to set out for Chi'ash-lan or, assuming the Door did not open, reconcile himself to living out his days in Galsh Ebrek.
How could he get to Chi'ash-lan?
Well…
He could take passage on one of those ships which traded across the stormswept northern seas from Galsh Ebrek to Ashmolea.
The expense of travel in Ashmolea is fearful, for food, transport and lodgings are all at a premium. But if Sod could somehow finance his costs, then he could ship from Ashmolea to Asral; from Asral to the Ebrells; and from the Ebrells to the Inner Waters. The Drangsturm Road would then take him to the start of the Salt Road, the terminus of which is in Chi'ash-lan.
Such a journey is appalling in its length, danger and expense, and Sod would surely lose a couple of years of his life to such a trip, if he did not lose his life entire. But -
While Sod was still worrying over the buts, the ifs and the maybes, the Door opened at last, for Eljuk Gulkan's concerns for his brother Guest had persuaded Lord Onosh to at last enter into his necessary and inevitable confrontation with the Banks of the Circle.
A day after the Circle was opened, a messenger from the Flesh Trader's Financial Association summoned Sod from his lodgings in Galsh Ebrek. Guest Gulkan was also summoned – though he knew not why – and on being summoned was surprised to find himself mugged, and made prisoner, and hustled blindfolded through the Circle to a place which he was told was Chi'ash-lan – though where that was he had no idea.
It was of course Chi'ash-lan. There was no mistaking the Door at Chi'ash-lan, for it was set in a chamber which was decorated with hanging skeletons, and the door in and out of that chamber was guarded by the demon Ko, a twin to the demon of Safrak.
Still.
As far as Guest was concerned, it could have been anywhere.
The rapidity of these evolutions had left Guest totally disorientated, for he had been quite unprepared for anything to happen so fast. He knew little of the Banks of the Circle, which had evolved habits of surpassing speed during the long centuries of their operation.
Thanks to the Circle, a Banker could buy tea in Tang and sell it in Obooloo the same day (pretending, necessarily, that the tea in question had come from Chay). A sword of firelight steel could be bought in Stokos in the morning and retailed in Chi'ash-lan that very evening (with its price suitably inflated by the deceitful fiction which held that sword to have been brought the length of the Salt Road by horse, donkey or camel).
A Banker could borrow money in Quilth and lend out that same money in Voice, and lend it out at a far higher rate of interest; could buy furs in Safrak and onsell those furs to Chi'ash-lan; could buy chocolate in Dalar ken Halvar then retail that gourmet commodity in Tang; or buy from Galsh Ebrek the precious jade of the Qinjoks, onselling the stuff in Obooloo or Quilth.
And all these transactions took place at a dazzling speed, because the Partnership Banks maximized the efficiency of the Circle's use by imposing penalties for overuse on the Bankers themselves, so that a Banker must necessarily master the art of the hustle or be swiftly reduced to penury.
Furthermore, the Circle operated in secrecy, and hence was free from the laborious scrutiny, the injurious taxation, the obnoxious tarrifs and the pettifogging bureaucracy which governments traditionally impose upon the merchant. To preserve that secrecy, the Bankers had been forced to make themselves masters of deceit, maintaining a monstrous collective lie in the face of the governments of the world. Yet to smooth the efficiency of their own operations, the Bankers were also forced to trust each other, as bone trusts flesh and flesh trusts skin, for without such trust the commercial interplay of the various Doors of the Circle would have ground to a halt under the weight of encumbering paranoia.
Here let us compare the Bankers to warriors and to wizards.
Now warriors bind themselves to battle with dire oaths made solemnly, and made only after the most cumbrous process of muttering deliberation, accompanied by the furrowing of brows and the grinding of teeth, the clenching of fists and the flourishing of swords. As for wizards, why, every wizard is a lawyer, for one cannot become a full member of the Confederation of Wizards without obtaining a law degree as part of one's preliminary education; and so it is that your wizards cannot agree on the smallest point without five years of niggling debate, and when one wizard tries to buy a horse from another then the animal in question will typically die of old age before the conditions of the sale have been settled.
But – Bankers!
A Banker will see, think, decide, accept and settle, and all that in less time than it takes to snap your fingers, and will do so in any of the five favorite languages of your choosing. The Bankers keep no lawyers and little notation, and will trade in fortunes on the strength of the spoken word alone.
So it is that the Bankers of the Partnership Banks developed the fastest-moving, quickest-thinking and superlatively flexible organization in the entire civilized world, and made themselves masters of the adroit appraisal, the quick consensus and the snap decision. And it is only natural that Guest Gulkan was entirely lost, confused and bewildered when he found himself unexpectedly plunged into the vortex of the Banks' affairs, and whirlwinded into the foreign geography of an alien city, and dungeoned, and interrogated to purposes which were scarcely his to comprehend.
For we must remember always that Guest Gulkan was Yarglat born and Yarglat bred. The strength of his breeding was that he could hack at his father with a sturdy sword, or use the same sword to coerce a wizard of
