'Questing,' said Guest Gulkan.
'Verily,' said Sken-Pitilkin.
'And now,' said Guest Gulkan, 'as you launch yourself upon the years of your senility, you wish to take up that quest again.'
'Of senility I know not,' said Sken-Pitilkin. 'But my resolve is certain, and certainly a quest is a part of it.'
Then Sken-Pitilkin explained the nature of the x-x-zix, which was a device capable of controlling the Breathings of the Cold West, which were the ancient weather machines which made that region so abominably cold.
'Our good friend Plandruk Qinplaqus desires the use of the xx-zix also,' said Sken-Pitilkin, 'and long has he sought it, for Dalar ken Halvar has Breathings of its own, these Breathings being those which make the climate hereabouts so infernally hot.'
Then Sken-Pitilkin tutored Guest Gulkan further, explaining that use of the x-x-zix would allow the climates of both Dalar ken Halvar and Chi'ash-lan to be moderated to something close enough to the sensible.
Therefore Sken-Pitilkin proposed that Guest Gulkan join him in questing to Untunchilamon in alliance with the wizard Zozimus, then return with that treasure to Dalar ken Halvar. There the wizard Plandruk Qinplaqus, he who was otherwise known as Ulix of the Drum, would make use of the x-x-zix to remedy the climate of his own city.
'And then,' said Sken-Pitilkin, 'he will help us bring the Circle of the Partnership Banks to heel.'
'How?' said Guest.
'Why, it is obvious,' said Sken-Pitilkin. 'The Banks exist to make money, and a greening of the icelands of Chi'ash-lan would make more money than you could shake a stick at. If you have the strength of the x-x-zix in your hand and the wisdom of wizards to support you, then you can make yourself master of the Circle of the Partnership Banks. Or so I believe.'
'It would help me also,' said Guest, shaking off his sluggishness with a rapidity which was consequent upon his upbringing in the household of a ruling warlord, 'if I could make myself a wizard in my own right.'
'Why, doubtless it would so help you,' said Sken-Pitilkin.
'But to make you a wizard would take a lifetime.'
'Not so,' said Guest. 'For there is in the city of Obooloo the Great God Jocasta, who has sworn to make me a wizard, powerful and immortal, if I do but liberate the thing from cruel imprisonment at the hands of one Anaconda Stogirov, priestess of the Temple of Blood.'
'So you have told me you have been told,' said Sken-Pitilkin,
'but it is a nonsense.'
And it was a nonsense.
Of this Sken-Pitilkin was certain.
Nevertheless, the sagacious wizard of Skatzabratzumon was hard put to dissuade the Emperor in Exile from this folly, and so called for assistance from Paraban Senk, the Teacher of Control who ruled the Combat College in which Guest had been so long a patient.
'Is this going to be a short lecture or a long one?' said Guest, once he was settled with Sken-Pitilkin in front of one of the screens which Senk used to communicate with mere mortals such as wizards and warriors.
'That depends on you,' said Paraban Senk, manifesting his chosen face upon the screen. 'Tell me, Guest Gulkan, what on earth has persuaded you to this foolishness.'
'Foolishness?' said Guest. 'What foolishness?'
'Your intended quest to Obooloo,' said the olive-skinned Teacher of Control. 'That is what I refer to when I speak of foolishness. Explain yourself!'
By now, Guest had long been accustomed to treating this faceon-a-screen with the dignity due to a person-in- the-flesh, and so responded to this command with due gravity.
'When I was 14,' said Guest, 'My father went hunting bandits in the mountains near Gendormargensis.'
This was ever the Yarglat way of telling a tale – to start way back in the distant past with the egg of its genesis. The Teacher of Control was lucky that the Yarglat barbarian had not started earlier still – with a detailed account of his family's genealogy, say, or with a founding reference to the Yarglat creation myths.
'I asked nothing about you at the age of 14,' said Senk, who came from a culture which lacked all fireside patience, and thus restricted its storytelling to an account of proximate cause, crisis and consequence.
By brute interrogation, Paraban Senk extracted the meat of Guest Gulkan's story in record time. In a time of crisis, a time when Witchlord and Weaponmaster were fighting for their lives on Safrak, Guest Gulkan had parleyed with the Great God Jocasta through the mediumship of the demon Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis, had won a victory against his enemies thanks to the Great God's intervention, and so was bound to fulfill his pledge to the Great God.
'In proof of my honor,' said Guest, 'I must quest to Obooloo to liberate the Great God. Besides – without Jocasta's help, how can I win a wizard's powers?'
Paraban Senk heard this out to the finish then said:
'I think you bound to no quest, for I think Jocasta has lied to you. There are many kinds of god and many kinds of demon, but Jocasta is no god, demon, devil or hero. Jocasta is only a machine, and Iva-Italis likewise. Iva-Italis is a farspeaker designed for use in war, and Jocasta is a thinking machine which once proved delinquent in the exercise of its will. Both are devices of delinquency – fraudulent, scheming, power-crazed and treacherous.'
'I think,' said Guest, his response so instantaneous as to make it very improbable that any thinking had gone into the framing of it, 'that you don't like me and you don't want me to be a wizard.'
'The wizards of this world,' said Paraban Senk, 'have gained their powers by making an alliance with entities of the World Beyond. Since the machine which calls itself Jocasta is no such entity, it cannot make you a wizard. It can however make you a slave. Jocasta can build a web through your body, a web through your brain. With such a web once built, Jocasta can control you, body and brain alike, and project power through you, albeit at a risk to your health.' Guest frowned.
'What web do you speak of?' said Guest. 'Is Jocasta a kind of spider?'
'Jocasta,' said Senk, 'could conjure in your flesh and bone a web of nerves of cunning design. With your body thus adapted to a new pattern, Jocasta could make you flesh of its flesh, mind of its mind. At a distance you would be safe, but if ever near the Great God then you would be its slave. It could control you likewise if you were ever near a farspeaker such as the demon Iva-Italis.'
'I don't understand,' said Guest, still frowning. 'I don't understand this – this web.'
'Do you expect to understand?' said Senk, who really thought it over-optimistic to expect a Yarglat barbarian like Guest to understand so much as basic arithmetic, far less the greater mysteries of the world.
'If you'd stop talking in riddles and talk sense for once,' said Guest, 'then I'd understand soon enough.'
'All right, then,' said Senk. 'Supposing you have a ball of string which is knotted and raveled. Can you talk to it? Or with it?'
'That's a nonsense question,' said Guest. 'String can't talk.
It's not in the nature of string to talk.'
'Isn't it?' said Senk.
'Of course it isn't!' said Guest.
'Have the Yarglat no music? Have you never seen a harp?'
Since the making of music was not one of the strong points of Yarglat culture, harpists had not exactly been thick on the ground in Gendormargensis. But Guest knew of the instrument, and, sensing that for some obscure reason any denial of harp knowledge might be though of as a demerit, he staunchly said:
'We Yarglat are mighty in harpwork. We are famous for it.'
'So,' said Senk. 'What is the harp if not a string which talks?'
'But that's a trick!' said Guest. 'The riddle wasn't fair!'
'Whoever said we were playing at riddles?' said Senk. 'I speak of no riddles but of facts. String in combination with the simplest of devices can talk as a harp, or hear the wind as a windchime, or pull a fish from the sea, or kill a man by triggering a trap, or weave itself to art in the game of cat's cradle. Your body is one knotted, raveled, snarled-up ball of string, and Jocasta is the weaver who can shape it to a new pattern, then play that pattern with the skills of harpist and fisherman.'
'Jocasta is then a thing mighty in power, then,' said Guest.
'You admit it!'
