'Is there no sense to be got out of this thing?' said Senk, in an exasperation which echoed that of the learned Sken-Pitilkin in one of his more frustrated moments.
'I'll take no talk of sense from a schoolteacher, which is all you are,' said Guest. 'I'm an emperor's son and heir to an empire myself. I'm oath-bound to rescue Jocasta, and so I will.'
'You are not oath-bound at all,' said Senk. 'You are not oath-bound because Jocasta lied to you. The thing cannot make you a wizard. It can only control you, possess you, seize you, subject you. Use you as a tool, a thing.'
'But it bound itself to me in honor,' said Guest.
'It has no honor!' said Senk. 'honor is – how can I put this? You're mortal, you die, you seek significance in the face of mortality, you seek a meaning. The oath-culture is quest for precisely that: significance in the face of mortality. The honor of a man's death is the meaning of that death. Jocasta shares no such fear of death, hence needs the support of no such culture, hence cannot be trusted to hold to an oath. Do you understand?'
'You are a schoolmaster,' said Guest, 'hence have an ethnological temperament. But a thing – you're like Sken-Pitilkin.
What's it all about, that's what you say. Then you riddle out a meaning, then you say because it's got a meaning it's got no meaning. First you shape the thing in words, then you say the thing's only words so it's nothing. But things are things despite any number of words, and a thing is good in itself. My horse, my woman, my honor, my sword. My honor – '
'Your honor is not a thing,' said Senk, with crushing force.
'You confuse categories. You confuse your horse with your honor when your horse is a flesh-and-blood animal with mass, weight and an appetite for hay, whereas your honor is a cultural construct, which is something quite different.'
'Yes, well,' said Guest, not appreciating that he had just been crushed under one of the heavier hammers in the intellectual toolbox, 'you're talking categories, but that's just like breaking up a bit of bread, you get big bits and small bits but it's all bread when you're finished with it.'
Though Guest had been tutored by the wizard Sken-Pitilkin since the age of five, he had nevertheless ever preserved a sturdy independence of intellect, reinforced by a close observation of a world in which brightsparking intellects (such as that of Eljuk
Zala) tended to lose out to solid-muscled swordarms (such as that of Guest Gulkan).
Paraban Senk protracted the argument for another three days, until at last in the despair of reason he recognized the Weaponmaster's implacable resolve, and began to counsel Guest as to how he might (just possibly) be able to bring his mission to a successful conclusion.
This complicated Sken-Pitilkin's plan to quest to the island of Untunchilamon to rescue the x-x-zix: for Guest was determined to first dare to Obooloo, penetrate the Temple of Blood, rescue the Great God Jocasta, and (by way of reward) win the powers of a full-fledged wizard.
'We could manage such a mission,' said Sken-Pitilkin at last,
'but there is one thing which must be done first.'
'What?' said Guest.
'First we must recover the ring of ever-ice which you won from Banker Sod,' said Sken-Pitilkin. 'For, if you die in Obooloo without revealing its whereabouts, then it will be lost to the world forever.' Guest, who had preserved the secret of this ring's whereabouts as much as an act of independence as anything else – for, as an invalid, what other sphere of independent action had been left to him? – declared the thing to be in the care of one Anna Blaume, proprietor of the Green Parrot, an establishment in Galsh Ebrek. Sken-Pitilkin then undertook the tricky business of recovering this ring, which he handed over to the Witchlord Onosh.
Lord Onosh then used the ring to open one of the pods in Alozay's Hall of Time, and to incarcerate within that pod the woman Yerzerdayla.
Lord Onosh then directed Sken-Pitilkin to make one last attempt to dissuade Guest Gulkan from the folly of his planned onslaught on Obooloo: and Sken-Pitilkin reluctantly accepted this commission.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Obooloo: capital of the Izdimir Empire. Lies amidst mountains in the province of Ang in the heartland of the continent of Yestron.
In the end, Guest Gulkan could not be dissuaded from his madcap plan to venture to Obooloo to liberate the Great God Jocasta. Furthermore, he sought to implicate and involve his father in this plan; and the Witchlord Onosh, who was consumed with guilt because he felt himself partly to blame for Guest's mauling in the arena of Chi'ash-lan, felt constrained to agree to commit his own strength to the raid on Obooloo.
So Guest said goodbye to Penelope, telling her that he was going to fly away on Sken-Pitilkin's stickbird, the airborne contraption which had so lately terrorized the skies above Dalar ken Halvar.
This was a blatant lie, since Guest was actually going to travel to Obooloo by way of the Doors of the Circle of the Partnership Banks; but the Weaponmaster had told his wife nothing of that Circle or those Doors, and did not intend to.
'When will you be back?' said Penelope.
'As soon as I can be,' said Guest, speaking in perfect honesty.
For, though her womb had proved barren, Guest was generally satisfied with his wife, and had no thought to abandon her on a permanent basis. Rather, he wished her to do what the wives of heroes have always done: to wait.
'You'll be back?' said Penelope, seeking confirmation of the Weaponmaster's pledge.
It would not be true to say that the purple-skinned Penelope was passionately in love with Guest Gulkan. Nevertheless, he had been tolerably civil and attentive to her during four long years which she had spent as a refugee in the tunnels of Cap Foz Para Lash, sheltering from the wrath of her home city, which had given itself to the madness of the religion known as Nu-chala-nuth.
Indeed, Penelope would surely have fallen in love with Guest entirely, had she not already pledged her heart to another. That other was a valorous Ebrell Islander, Lupus Lon Oliver by name. To tell the truth, Penelope had once been married to the valorous Lupus, and had never gone through the formality of getting a divorce. The red- skinned Lupus Lon Oliver was currently in insurrection against the city of Dalar ken Halvar and the religion of Nu- chala-nuth. He was leading a wild life in Parengarenga's deserts, fighting with a band of doomed but undaunted revolutionaries led by a female of the Pang, a woman warrior named Shona.
In the absence of Lupus Lon Oliver, her true love, Penelope had developed a strong affection for Guest Gulkan, hence sought his return.
'I'll be back,' confirmed Guest.
'Then,' said Penelope, 'take this.'
And, with that, she took from her neck the bright-metal chain which she customarily wore, and passed the chain and its pendant to the Weaponmaster.
'Thank you,' said Guest, taking the chain and the amulet which served as its pendant.
This object he had seen often enough, for Penelope wore it always, whether she was clothed or naked. He knew already that the pendant burnt with its own light, and was not surprised by this.
But – the weight!
The amulet was small enough for Guest to conceal in his fist, yet it was so uncommonly heavy that he wondered at its weight.
Over the last four years, it had been so much a part of his everyday existence that he had ceased to notice it. But now he looked at it closely. The webbing and weaving of half a thousand filigree threads created the oval of the amulet. The wire of which this work had been fashioned appeared at first glance to be silver, but it was not, for it glistened with a shimmering light like the moon itself made liquid and mixed with mercury.
'What is it?' said Guest.
'It is luck,' said Penelope.
Then she kissed him.
