So Guest Gulkan departed from the minor mountain of Cap Foz Para Lash, taking with him a mazadath, an amulet of Nexus make.
This mazadath – the pendant which Penelope had given to her Weaponmaster – had once been part of a dorgi. And the dorgi was a formidable brute of animated metal which had once guarded the tunnels inside Cap Foz Para Lash.
(At any rate, this is what Paraban Senk told Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin, for that disembodied demon, on realizing that Penelope had given her amulet to the Weaponmaster, and that the amulet was about the depart from Cap Foz Para Lash, was loathe to see the thing go; and, speaking privily to Sken-Pitilkin, Senk requested that the wizard relieve the Weaponmaster of his burden. Something Sken-Pitilkin declined to do, for life was difficult enough already without gratuitously enhancing its difficulties by trying to steal a love-charm from a Yarglat barbarian).
So it was that Guest Gulkan took his leave from his wife
Penelope, exited from Cap Foz Para Lash, and made his way through the city of Dalar ken Halvar to the Bralsh – the building which housed the Door of Dalar ken Halvar's Door.
According to their plans, Weaponmaster would unite with Witchlord on Alozay, then together they would venture to Obooloo to liberate the Great God Jocasta. By now, Guest was fired up with a great enthusiasm for his mission, and for the quest for the x-x- zix which would follow it.
Witchlord and Weaponmaster would not be venturing alone, for the wizards Pelagius Zozimus and Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin would be daring the dangers with them, together with the knifeman Thayer Levant. The last-named, Levant, was undoubtedly sent by Plandruk
Qinplaqus to spy on the others, but they did not resent such scrutiny, since a cheating of the Silver Emperor formed no part of their plans.
Plandruk Qinplaqus came in person to the Bralsh to see them off.
'One last thing,' said Qinplaqus, once all their arrangements had been confirmed and reconfirmed for one last time.
'What?' said Guest 'Good luck,' said Qinplaqus.
That benediction meant a lot to Guest, and it warmed him mightily as he ventured through the Circle of the Partnership Banks, passing from Dalar ken Halvar to Tang, from Tang to Quilth, and then to Stokos, to Chi'ash-lan, and then to Alozay.
On Alozay, the ruling island of the Safrak Islands, Guest Gulkan was greeted by his brother Morsh Bataar, who brought him dire tidings of disease.
'Our father is ill,' said Morsh.
'Ill?' said Guest, in startlement.
This was the last thing which Guest had expected!
'You speak as if you doubt my word,' said Morsh. 'But it is true. As a horse has hair, so our father has an ailment. He cannot quest with you, not yet, for his doctors have pronounced him too sick to stir from his bed.'
'What's wrong with him, then?' said Guest.
'He has a cold,' said Morsh.
'A cold!' said Guest, scandalized.
They were heroes, were they not? Questing heroes! Truly heroic heroes, their deeds and avowals proportioned like the greatest of those of legend. How then could they be held up by a trifling matter like a cold? Guest demanded to be shown into the presence of his father, and found Lord Onosh laid up in bed with a bad headcold, which he was endeavoring to treat with a medicinal concoction compounded of lemons, hot water and something strongly alcoholic. As a consequence of the side-effects of the alcoholic component of this medicine, Lord Onosh had reached a stage of pronounced incoherence.
This did not please the Weaponmaster at all, who in his anger was threatening to scalp the Witchlord when the Witch herself appeared. Bao Gahai hustled Guest out of the sickroom, interrogated him at length about all of his doings, then at last consented to leave him in peace.
In the moody solitude of his disappointed brooding, Guest
Gulkan took himself off to the Hall of Time. This was guarded by men with spears, and by solid doors which a blacksmith had closed with chains. Both the men and the doors resisted the Weaponmaster's will, but Guest at length succeeded in subduing the men and having the doors broken down.
Then Guest Gulkan stalked into the Hall of Time, expecting to find it a place of dust and cobwebs. It was and it wasn't. True, there were cobwebs in plenty sprawled across the time prison pods.
But there was precious little dust, for the open slit windows of the Hall of Time ventilated the place as a draughty cave is ventilated. Guest Gulkan came to a halt in front of the jade-green monolith known to him as Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis, demon of Safrak and Guardian Prime. At first, the demon did not consent to acknowledge his presence. But at last it spoke.
'Greetings,' said the demon.
'And to you, greetings,' said Guest.
'You have come by a mazadath,' said the demon. 'Where did you win such a prize?'
'A mazadath?' said Guest. 'What's that?'
'The thing which you have about your neck,' said the demon.
'This?' said Guest, lifting his heavyweight amulet from its concealment.
'That,' confirmed Italis. 'Where did you get it?'
'It was a present,' said Guest. 'A present from my wife.'
'So,' said Iva-Italis. 'So you are married. Have you children?'
'Not yet,' said Guest.
'Your brother Morsh has children,' said Iva-Italis.
'Has he?' said Guest, most surprised at this intelligence; for nobody had even suggested to him that his brother Morsh had so much as a woman, far less a child.
'He has,' said Iva-Italis. 'He has two sons, Yurt and Iragana.'
'So you say,' said Guest. 'But you have been locked in here for years, far beyond any breath of rumor. So how could you rightly claim to know such a thing?'
'I am in communication with demons elsewhere,' said Iva-Italis. 'Have you not been told of this? I communicated, to name but one, with Koblathakatoria, he who is commonly known as Ko. You know him? Koblathakatoria is the demon of Chi'ash-lan. There is no scrap of gossip about Safrak which does not reach Chi'ash-lan, and usually sooner rather than later.'
'So,' said Guest. 'They spy on us.'
'The mere collection of gossip is scarcely a matter of espionage,' said Iva-Italis. 'Are your matings and breedings a matter of state secrecy? If they are, then all I can say is that you do not act in accordance with any such doctrine. It is a matter of public record that your brother Morsh Bataar maintains a wife on the island of Ema-Urk, and that she has given him two sons. Yurt is aged two, and Iragana is but one year of age.'
'This is news to me!' said Guest.
'So,' said Iva-Italis. 'But I doubt that you have any news for me.'
'You didn't know about the – the maza,' said Guest.
'The mazadath,' said Iva-Italis. 'Maz-a-dath. No, I didn't know about that. But I take it to be a recent acquisition. The rest of your past I know. I have followed the saga of your recovery in the city of Dalar ken Halvar. I know, too, that you are now determined to venture to Obooloo.'
'They speak of this in Chi'ash-lan?' said Guest.
'Of course they do,' said Iva-Italis. 'For Sod is held hostage in this very mainrock in which we now stand. Sod's brother rules in Chi'ash-lan, and fears that Sod will be murdered when your father's minions hear of your father's death.'
'My father is not dead!' said Guest. 'He's got a cold, that's all!'
'Yes,' said Iva-Italis, 'but soon you and your father will both be venturing to Obooloo. In Chi'ash-lan, they think both Witchlord and Weaponmaster will die in that venture, and that Sod will be murdered once the pair of you are dead.'
'And will we die?' said Guest.
'That is for you to say, not me,' said Iva-Italis. 'Tell me how you are going to rescue the Great God Jocasta,
