Name: Paraban Senk (aka the Teacher of Control).
        Birthplace: Charabanc.
        Occupation: teacher.
        Status: head of the Combat College of Dalar ken Halvar.
        Description: disembodied entity which typically manifests
itself as an olive-skinned face, male and of middle years.
        Age: Senk claims an age in excess of 20,000 years.
        Hobby: Senk personally schedules the entertainments which
appear on the Eye of Delusions at Dalar ken Halvar, and this
voluntary activity may be the nearest thing which Senk has to a
hobby.
        Quote: "The Stormforce exists for the controlled application
of force."

                                                 * * *

        "No!" shouted Guest Gulkan.
        His voice was a wing-broken squawk of protest.
        But it was too late for protest, for the Great God Jocasta
was bent on taking over the Weaponmaster's mind, and was in no
mood to argue about it. Yet Jocasta did not find the act of
possession as effortlessly easy as before, since this time Guest
was forewarned and fighting - and the Great God itself had been
damaged in its battle with Stogirov.
        There in the hot sun, Guest Gulkan felt bright-spark slivers
of memory sharping out of his mind's darkness as Jocasta probed
for a hold, a grip, a secure possession of the Weaponmaster's
will. Cold. That was what Guest felt. Despite the heat of the day,
he shivered, for Jocasta's probing had recalled to mind the frozen
heights of the mountains of Ibsen-Iktus. Guest remembered -
        The impossible clarity of the mountain heights. Breathless
heights where every step is a staircase. Blue transparencies of
sky. A drift of snow grown gray with wind-blown grit. A bridge of
ice, humped across a river. The chickling trickle of melt-water
sheeking and sharking beneath sheets of ice. A windless day with
an unfelt wind high, high above blasting dragon-licks of snow from
sky-scarp heights.
        And he remembered -
        Avalanche!
        A roiling roll-roar of rocks went toiling in spuming plummets
from the heights, causing the ground to shake beneath his feet. A
real memory, this. Caught by the living life of that memory, Guest
saw the wizard Sken-Pitilkin. There was blood on the wizard's
forehead - blood beaded in drops. The wizard Sken-Pitilkin was
literally sweating blood, and his face was pallid as unbaked
dough.
        Guest remembered.
        Under a swordpoint's compulsion, Sken-Pitilkin had sent an
avalanche rolling downhill, and then had retched violently,
bringing up green bile from an empty stomach.
        "But I had to!" protested Guest.
        And with that protest, the Weaponmaster was free from the
Great God's efforts at possession.
        The Great God Jocasta had tried to sound out Guest Gulkan's
most potent memories, seeking thus to make an accurate index of
the Weaponmaster's mind, and so to facilitate his possession. But
Guest's most potent memories were memories of shameful deeds which
he had later repudiated.
        Guest had invested a lifetime's effort in protecting himself
from his own memories by suppressing them, justifying them or
minimizing them. So when Jocasta probed Guest's deepest memories,
the unfortunate Great God ran into defensive structures built up
by a lifetime's effort. And so, weakened as it was by Stogirov's
onslaughts, the Great God was unable to possess the Weaponmaster.
        "You will yield," said Jocasta, trying to sound convincing.
        "Yield!" said Guest. "The hell I will!"
        Then the wrathful Weaponmaster grabbed a sword from a
vacillating soldier who was trying - and failing - to figure out
just what was going on here.
        Having grabbed that sword (and accidentally breaking several
of the soldier's teeth in the haste of his grabbing) Guest Gulkan
attacked the Great God with that weapon. Guest attacked with all
the vigor of a musician of Sung assailing that elephant-sized
metal drum which is known as a klambakora. Steel clanged uselessly
against the Great God's flanks. But Guest's defiance served to
convince the Great God Jocasta that possessing the Weaponmaster
was not a possibility, at least not for a shaken and battle-
weakened Great God. Accordingly, Jocasta decided upon retreat.
        Jocasta lurched through the air, bumped the Weaponmaster, hit
him hard. Guest went down. Jocasta hesitated. Having been hit so
heartily, might the Weaponmaster perhaps be weaker than before?
The Great God hung over its fallen prey, humming.
        And Guest felt cold again.
        Very cold.
        The coldness solidified to actual ice, and he found himself
back in the arena of Chi'ash-lan where once the Great Mink had
torn off his arms and legs at the behest of Banker Sod. Once upon
a time. But once upon a time was now! He screamed as the mauling
strength savaged his perfections. The glunching bones broke slick
and wet, smunch and crunch. Flesh to pulp, bone to slivers.
        Then the image faded, and Guest found himself being bounced
along the dirt under the harsh sun of Dalar ken Halvar. His father
had him by the hair, and was dragging him away from the Great God
Jocasta.
        "Enough!" yelled Guest, as the pain of being hauled by his
hair washed away the pain of the waking nightmare he had just
endured. "Let me go!"
        So the Witchlord let go of the Weaponmaster, and Guest
slumped to the ground. He felt a twinge of cold, a touch of frost,
an insinuation of ice, as the Great God Jocasta again made a
determined effort to seize control of his mind.
        "You won't," said Guest grimly, recovering his fallen sword
and getting to his feet. "You can't."
        But before Guest Gulkan could mount yet another fatuous
attack on the Great god Jocasta, Yubi Das Finger came out of the
Bralsh. A striking figure was Yubi Das Finger! For this Banker was
dressed in motley, with the motley being rigorously littered with
shiny ceramic animals, his whole outfit being topped off by a
damaged face and a golden skullcap fringed with tiny glass beads.
Yet Guest spared him only the briefest of glances - for he had
encountered the man before in his various sparse yet informative
dealings with the Banks. Rather, Guest concentrated his attention
on those who were following on behind Yubi.
        The honorable Das Finger was leading a dozen sweating slaves
who were carrying a huge black cauldron, a cauldron which looked
to be one of the orking pots of Galsh Ebrek. On Yubi's command,
they upended the pot and dropped it over the Great God.
        "We have it," said Yubi, with satisfaction.
        Guest gaped.
        It had never occurred to the Weaponmaster that something as
mighty as a Great God could be secured and imprisoned by any
expedient so simple as dropping a pot on top of it. But of course
the Great God Jocasta had been direly injured by the firebolt
weapon so generously employed against it by Anaconda Stogirov, and
Yubi Das Finger's tactic appeared to be working.
        For Jocasta strove against the pot, trying to lift it
directly upwards. But the Great God could not raise it from the
ground by more than a fingerlength. Next, Jocasta tried to burn a
hole in the black iron. The metal grew red hot, but it did not
melt or yield.
        Yubi Das Finger spat on the glowing iron. His saliva sizzled
into silence.
        "Let me out!" roared Jocasta, using the Galish Trading
Tongue.
        Yubi knew that language, but made no reply. Instead, the
scar-faced Banker giggled manically.
        Thwarted, Jocasta lifted the iron pot clear of the ground -
only a fingerlength clear, but a fingerlength was sufficient - and
began to carry that burden on an erratic course of retreat which
sent the iron pot caroming into a succession of ox carts and
bamboo huts.
        "It's getting away!" said Guest in alarm.
        "Yes, my friend," said Yubi Das Finger. "The thing is getting
away from us. So tell us, little friend - what is it, exactly? A
friend of yours? You brought it through the Door, didn't you?"
        Yubi Das Finger had spoken of the Door! Admittedly, he had
spoken in the Galish, which few people in Dalar ken Halvar were
likely to know. But even so! A Banker does not speak of Doors or
of Circles in public, and Yubi was a Banker born and bred. The
error was a measure of the extreme stress of the moment.
        "The - the thing is a god," said Guest. "A Great God, that's,
that's what it says, it alleges. But we didn't bring it here, it,
it followed us!"
        "A god, is it?" said Yubi dubiously.
        Yubi Das Finger was no theologian, but he thought it most
unlikely that any god of any description could be confined under
an upturned orking pot for even as short a time as half a
heartbeat. He presumed, therefore, that the thing under the pot
was an artefact of some description, possibly a weapon of war left
over from the Days of Wrath or from some conflict more ancient
yet. That then was how Yubi described it to the public.
        "It's a mad machine," said Yubi, to all who wanted to know.
"A mad machine, which we'll have to destroy."
        Whereupon assorted heroes did their best to kill the thing,
or at least to disconcert it. They beat its iron pot with the
butts of spears, setting up a great racket. The pot lurched,
crushing a soldier against an ox cart. As he screamed piteously,
the pot continued on its way, navigating hazard by hazard through
the streets of Childa Go.
        Childa Go, Dalar ken Halvar's fishing-shack quarter, was
heavy with the smell of drying fish. As Guest plodded along behind
the iron pot, keeping at a respectful distance - for he had no
wish to be burnt or crushed himself - the smells awakened strong
memories of his past adventures in Dalar ken Halvar. He heard a
sharp explosion as a piece of bamboo burst in a cooking fire, and
remembered the excited hubbub of Dog Day festivities, when the
city was one uproarious turmoil of competitive confusion.
        He remembered other things, too.
        His legs kept remembering the injuries they had suffered on
that terrible day in Chi'ash-lan: the day of the Great Mink. Those
memories were idle folly, for Guest's legs were new legs, grown
for him in the minor mountain known as Cap Foz Para Lash. Still,
he remembered what he remember. He could not deny it.
        The procession of people trooping after the Great God
steadily swelled. Guest realized they were skirting the slopes of
Cap Ogo Botch, the minor mountain atop which stood the palace of
Na Sashimoko. The imperial palace - for Dalar ken Halvar was the
capital of the Empire of Greater Parengarenga. Who ruled now in
Dalar ken Halvar? Thanks to his embroilment in the affairs of
Untunchilamon and Obooloo, Guest's knowledge of current affairs
was years out of date - a failing which could be potentially
fatal.
        As Guest was worrying about it, the Great God Jocasta slipped
through the streets, making its way between the Grand Arena and
Cap Uba. It gained Scuffling Road. The broad avenue was just as
Guest remembered it - still lined for the most part with the
impoverished bamboo buildings which typified Dalar ken Halvar. It
was still unpaved, surfaced with the soft red dust of the Plain of
Jars. Guest remembered often, often making his way through red
dust rutted with cart tracks, going on crutches to the Yamoda
River or to Lake Shalasheen to swim, back in those long-ago days
when his new-growing legs had been too weak to sustain him.
        In those years, his home base had been the underground
stronghold within the minor mountain known as Cap Foz Para Lash,
so after his swim he had always returned to that place. And Guest
realized that - whether by accident or design - the Great God
Jocasta was making a similar journey.
        At the end of Scuffling Road was the kinema, the natural
amphitheater outside the lockway. The lockway, with its twin doors
of kaleidoscope, guarded the way into Cap Foz Para Lash. Guest had
the uneasy suspicion that the Great God knew where it was going,
and intended to link up with Paraban Senk, the formidable demon
who ruled the depths Cap Foz Para Lash.
        Was Senk then a friend of Jocasta?
        Certainly the demons of Guest's acquaintance seemed to have
the ability to talk to each other at a distance, silently
communicating across oceans and continents. The demon Iva-Italis
on Alozay maintained relationships with Lob in Obooloo and Ko in
Chi'ash-lan. So - was Paraban Senk a member of this strange and
long-enduring partnership?
        By now, a very considerable procession was trailing after the
Great God Jocasta. It was joined by a company of armed and
armored men moving at a pace which had them gasping in the heat
of the day. The leader of those men was a Frangoni giant who
challenged the Weaponmaster by name:
        "Guest Gulkan!"
        "My lord," said Guest, speaking in the Galish.
        Yubi Das Finger, who had been keeping pace with Guest,
translated and elaborated that courtesy.
        Meantime, Guest summed the stranger, who had muscles of a
hugeness indicative of a fondness for pumping iron rather than
water, who wore robes of flowing purple, and whose uncut hair was
most curiously heaped on top of his head to further amplify his
height. A Frangoni warrior. A tall, big, purple-skinned Frangoni
warrior. An impressive figure, certainly, but to Guest they all
looked alike, these Frangoni.
        Then the Frangoni warrior said - and Yubi Das Finger
translated, for Guest and the purple-skinned stranger had no
language in common:
        "What's going on here?"
        "My lord," said Guest. "We're chasing a Great God."
        This Yubi Das Finger translated, deadpan.
        The Frangoni was more learned in theology than was Guest
Gulkan, and so, like others before him, the purple-skinned warrior
decided that whatever was lurching along under the iron orking pot
was most definitely not a god. Possibly it was a turtle, or a
large crab, or an injured Shabble, or a low-powered Sword, or a
bad-tempered dwarf of prodigious strength. But a god? Never!
        "Stop it!" said the Frangoni.
        In response to his order, his men surrounded the orking pot,
and braced their shields against it, and tried to sweat it to a
halt in a scrum. While they sweated and strained, Guest used his
Galish to ask a discrete question of Yubi Das Finger:
        "Who is the - the big one?"
        "The big one, as you so nicely put it," said Yubi Das Finger,
"why, that is Asodo Hatch. If memory serves, you were once married
to his sister Joma."
        Now that Hatch had been named, Guest felt foolish for not
having recognized him, for they had met often enough in the past.
Guest's failure to recognize the Frangoni was surely an index of
his fatigue, his disorientation, and the pounding he had suffered
during his long wanderings. But Guest was not troubled by this
hint of mental deterioration. Rather, he was troubled to hear Yubi
say that he had been "once married". For was he not married now?
        "Joma?" said Guest. "Why, I have a wife, big, yes, tall and
purple, but her name - "
        "Penelope," said Das Finger. "That was the other name. You
may have known here as that, but now we call her Joma, for she -
but never mind that."
        "What?" said Guest. "Never mind what? Why? And - and where
is she?"
        Guest was sorely alarmed, for during his entire absence -
which had involved him in a trip to Alozay, a preliminary raid on
Obooloo, a journey across Moana, prolonged difficulties on
Untunchilamon, imprisonment in Obooloo and the hazards of his
venture into the Stench Caves - he had imagined Penelope to be
faithfully waiting for his return. It had never occurred to him
that the woman might have an independent existence, a life which
could be separated from his own wants and desires. So he was
shocked to hear Yubi use a form of words which suggested the
possibility that his long-anticipated reunification with his
purple-skinned true-heart might not proceed with automatic ease.
        "There is no time for the first question," said Das Finger,
who was unwilling to waste time on lecturing Guest in ethnology.
"And as for the second question, why, I suspect it one better
answered by Asodo Hatch himself."
        But the Frangoni warrior Asodo Hatch was too busy to be free
for such questions, since he was playing referee, overseeing the
duel between his soldiers and the runaway orking pot. The pot,
which had once more grown red-hot as Jocasta filled it with flames
of wrath, was driven into a bamboo house. The house caught fire,
and Hatch's men were driven back, leaving the pot to blunder
blindly in the flames.
        Asodo Hatch had the house surrounded. His men tore down its
pitiful bamboo fence, giving access to the back yard. Guest Gulkan
was close to the fore, and almost accidentally buried himself in
the yard's copious rubbish pit, which was mired with festering
unpleasantness.
        As the burning house collapsed, the god-driven orking pot
emerged from it uncertainly. Somewhere a woman was screaming. The
pot wobbled, then thrust its way toward the waiting soldiers. They
made a wall of shields and stood ready to receive the pot.
But the rubbish pit lay between the soldiers and the pot.
        The pot hovered over the pit -
        Then halted.
        It settled.
        It was half-over and half-off the rubbish pit.
        The Great God Jocasta promptly dropped down into the bottom
of the pit and escaped upward through the uncovered portion of
that pit.
        Asodo Hatch gave a curt order, and a hail of spears assailed
the Great God. Most missed, and sent murder hurtling into the
crowd of over-eager spectators. Some clanged home, bouncing off
the Great God in a demonstration of futility.
        The Great God hung in the air, humming.
        Asodo Hatch held his ground, and challenged the thing in all
the languages he spoke. Guest Gulkan understood none of them, and
had to tug at Yubi Das Finger's sleeve to get a translation. Had
the Weaponmaster been more diligent in his linguistic studies, he
would have known most of those languages - such as the Code Seven
of the Nexus.
        It is widely believed in Dalar ken Halvar that many of the
greatest artefacts available to our own age were sourced in the
Nexus. This "Nexus" is said to have been a grouping of interlinked
worlds, an association comprised of more worlds than this world
has fingers to count. It is believed in Dalar ken Halvar that the
stars of those worlds are not green, red, blue and yellow like the
stars of our own sky, but, rather, burn with a cold and uncanny
ice-chip white. Under such stars - this at least is Dalar ken
Halvar's ruling superstition - metal beasts such as the dorgi were
once made.
        Asodo Hatch, presuming the Great God Jocasta to be a creature
from just such a world, challenged Jocasta in the Code Seven which
Dalar ken Halvar believes to have been spoken by the Nexus.
        "You!" said Asodo Hatch, bellowing like a water buffalo as he
endeavored to imitate that dreaded Nexus monster known as a
dorgi. "You! You! Halt! Halt right there! Or I will eliminate
you!"
        "You have no idea who I am, or what," said the Great God
Jocasta, responding to Asodo Hatch in the same Code Seven in which
Hatch's challenge had been phrased. "Know that I am a god, and a
Great God at that. Many are my servants. Their number is legion. I
command heavens of ice and hells of living needles. You will bow
down and worship me. Here! Now! Or you will end up in hell, where
you will be constrained to burn your own liver as a sacrifice to
the Lesser Slime Toad."
        "I know precisely who you are, and what," said Hatch, who had
no patience with such nonsense. "You are a delinquent asma from
Gorbograd. If you are who I think you are, then you were employed
in Gorbograd as a person in charge of cart parks."
        This is what Hatch said, or at least the sense of what he
said, for his words cannot be translated precisely into any of the
languages of our world. For example, the "carts" of which he spoke
were not precisely carts as we understand them, for they had no
wheels. Rather, they hovered. But in their hovering they were not
like birds or butterflies. The "carts" of which Hatch spoke were
more like ghosts than vehicles made of actual wood and actual
leather, for these "carts" could dissolve themselves, and could
travel in a state of dissolution through stone and through steel,
later coagulating themselves out of the thin smoke of their
ghosthood to come to rest in the ordinary domains of the physical
world. Even so, they could carry humans, or take water from place
to place, just like the carts of our world.
        This at least is what was believed by Asodo Hatch, and by
many others in Dalar ken Halvar. And it was believed, too, that
the Nexus had so many of these carts that, even though they could
not jam the roads as do the carts of our own world, they caused
appalling city-blighting traffic jams whenever a great number of
them tried to simultaneously come to rest in the same place.
        Hatch's slander was that Jocasta's function in the world of
the Nexus had been to supervise the "parking" of these "carts". At
least, one gathers that it was a slander, though why this should
be so is not clear. After all, in our own world we think the
pilot's art to be a great and worthy one. A ship's pilot who
supervises the docking of ships is surely discharging a function
similar to that of one who is in the cart-parking business; and
the pilot has ever been saluted as one of civilization's most
useful minor functionaries.
        Yet on being likened to such a pilot, Jocasta declared:
        "Slander! Slander!"
        Then spat fire at Asodo Hatch - though weakly, for the Great
God had exhausted its strength in the struggle with the orking
pot.
        Seeing the weakness of the flame spat by the Great God, Hatch
ordered his men to seize clothing from civilians, and to use it to
manhandle the still-hot orking pot. But even as those futile
efforts at capture got underway, the Great God Jocasta began to
escape by air, and all Hatch's efforts to hold it firm by engaging
it in debate were ignored.
        Jocasta fled down Scuffling Road, reached the doors of
kaleidoscope which led into Cap Foz Para Lash, and uttered a high-
pitched command which caused those doors to dissolve away to
nothing. With the way thus clear, Jocasta fled into the tunnels of
the mountain, with the barriers of kaleidoscope reforming in its
wake.
        Asodo Hatch came to those doors. They opened for him. Hatch
entered, and the doors closed behind him.
        Guest Gulkan did not know whether he himself still retained
any right to enter that mountain, the place which had sheltered
him during four long years of convalescence. Would the doors open
for him? Hard on the heels of Asodo Hatch, Guest approached the
first of the barriers of kaleidoscope. It dissolved away to
nothing, admitting him to the interior of the mountain. The inner
door then followed suit.
        Once past the double doors of kaleidoscope which guarded the
interior of Cap Foz Para Lash against unrestrained intrusion,
Guest Gulkan swiftly caught up with Asodo Hatch, and the pair
hunted down the mountain tunnels in the wake of the Great God
Jocasta.
        The Great God made its way to Forum Three, a lecture theater
with a roof layered thickly with kaleidoscope. The Yarglat
barbarian Guest Gulkan and the purple-skinned Frangoni warrior
Asodo Hatch followed in hot pursuit.
        "Halt!" said Guest, doing his best to imitate the
wrathfulness of a dorgi or a Stogirov.
        But the Great God paid him no heed.
        Instead, it rose to the roof, buried itself in the
kaleidoscope above their heads, and disappeared.
        "Senk!" roared Asodo Hatch.
        There was a pause, then Senk's features appeared on the
screen which dominated Forum Three.
        Guest noticed that Paraban Senk, the demon who ruled the
mountain of Cap Foz Para Lash, chose to paint that magical screen
with a face of features olive-skinned. On their first encounter,
when Guest had been a legless and armless patient of the demon's
clinic, Guest had thought how very unusual those olive-skinned
features will.
        Now, on reacquaintance, that skin-shade reminded Guest very
much of two individuals he had encountered on Untunchilamon: Ivan
Pokrov (the master of an analytical engine which had been housed
on a minor island in the harbor of Injiltaprajura) and Odolo
(a conjurer in the service of one Justina Thrug, who had been
Untunchilamon's de facto ruler at the time when Guest had been
questing in that territory). Guest was inclined to think there
might be some more than spurious relationship linking the olive-
skinned Senk to the equally olive-skinned Pokrov and Odolo.
        But a relationship of what kind?
        Somehow, this hardly seemed to be the time to ask.
        "Greetings, Guest Gulkan," said Senk.
        While Guest had been away from Dalar ken Halvar long enough
to have had trouble recognizing such a personage as Asodo Hatch,
Paraban Senk instantly recognized Guest Gulkan. Like Yubi Das
Finger and other such sharp-minded personages, Senk never forgot.
        Senk addressed the Weaponmaster in the Galish. On this
occasion, Senk's linguistic mastery reminded the Weaponmaster
uncomfortably of Schoptomov, the therapist based Downstairs in
Injiltaprajura. Just like that therapist, Paraban Senk had dwelt
underground for generation upon generation, gathering wisdom - and
gathering evil with it? Guest's long prejudice against scholarship
had been reinforced by his encounter with the therapist Schoptomov,
and made him cautious in his renewed dealings with Paraban Senk.
        "And to you, greetings," said Guest formally. "I am here in
pursuit of my enemy, who has violated your neutrality by taking
refuge here."
        As he spoke, Guest was aware of an unobtrusive sound-source
speaking in a language which he took to be Frangoni. Paraban Senk
was giving Asodo Hatch a simultaneous translation of Guest's
comments. Guest was familiar with Senk's tricks, since a similar
convenience had allowed the Weaponmaster to argue with his wife
Penelope when they lacked all common language. Still, on this
occasion he found such facility positively sinister.
        "I have noticed the intrusion of your enemy," said Senk, "but
think you owe me a full explanation."
        Then Guest Gulkan and Asodo Hatch collaborated on that full
explanation. So Senk learnt that Guest Gulkan had assaulted the
Mutilator of Yestron, thus winning the specialized knife needed to
cut the Great God Jocasta free from imprisonment; that Guest had
duly freed the Great God; that the Great God had tried to take
possession of the Guest's mind; that the intrusion of Anaconda
Stogirov had saved Guest from possession; that the Great God had
fled through the Circle of the Partnership Banks, leaving Obooloo
to come to Dalar ken Halvar; and that both Guest and Hatch wanted
Senk to collaborate in the thing's destruction.
        "I would gladly help you," said Senk, "but help is beyond my
power."
        "But you are the ruler here!" said Guest, with explosive
anger.
        "Ruler?" said Senk. "I long ago had to concede true mastery
here to Asodo Hatch. For all my functions are failing. I need the
help of human agency if I am to fulfill the most basic of my
missions."
        "But," said Asodo Hatch, "you can at least cause this ceiling
of kaleidoscope to dissolve itself. I recall you doing just that
during a riot."
        "I could," said Senk. "But it would not help you. The
thickness of the ceiling's kaleidoscope conceals privileged
tunnels likewise packed with kaleidoscope. Jocasta has fled down
those tunnels, penetrating to the innards of the mountain."
        Then Senk explained to Guest that the realms within the
mountain were only partly given over to human domination. Large
parts of those underground domains were reserved for mobile
artefacts such as Jocasta. Without the aid of allied artefacts,
Senk could not hunt Jocasta out of hiding.
        "The thing will shelter there," said Senk, "repairing the
damage done to it by Stogirov. Only then will it venture forth
again."
        "Only then?" said Guest. "But when will that be? A day? Two
days? Three?"
        "Twenty or thirty days, perhaps," said Senk. "Or twenty or
thirty years. Or maybe longer. The thing has been grievously
injured, otherwise you would not have been able to force it to
run."
        So spoke Senk.
        Naturally, neither Guest Gulkan not Asodo Hatch were easily
satisfied, for both found this outcome of their conflict with
Jocasta to be intensely unsatisfying. But Senk had no cure for
their dissatisfaction, so in the end there was no help for it. They
had to concede defeat, and to leave the Great God Jocasta uncaught
and unkilled.
        "Then," said Guest, "if we can leave aside the question of
Jocasta's fate, perhaps you can tell me the fate of my wife. Where
is Penelope?"
        "Penelope?" said Senk. "Oh, her! No, I can't tell you what
happened to her. She left here a year ago, and I've had no news of
her since."
        Meanwhile ....
        While Guest Gulkan was pursing the Great God through the
tunnels inside Cap Foz Para Lash, his father allowed himself to be
seated in the kinema and tended to by Yubi Das Finger. Lord Onosh
was feeling his age, and was feeling the effects of the battering
of disorientations and disconcertments which he had so recently
endured.
        So Lord Onosh seated himself, and was fed by Yubi Das Finger,
who had bowls of soup and polyps brought for him, and fried
locusts as well, and curried worms served on thin slices of
unleavened bread, and other things that were likewise good for the
belly and comforting to the psyche.
        While the Witchlord ate his soup, his polyps, his locusts,
his curried worms and his unleavened bread, he watched the
entertainments being shown on the Eye of Delusions. That great
Eye, set above the lockway, was proof that the Nexus (presuming it
to have truly existed) must have known of one or more barbarian
tribes very like the Yarglat. For the Eye showed repeated scenes
of scalping, of disembowelling, of axe-blade battles and outright
cannibalism.
        Watching such familiar scenes, Lord Onosh was comforted, for
they reminded him of his youth, his homeland, his people. He began
muttering to himself in Eparget for the sheer pleasure of hearing
the Yarglat tongue, and he was muttering still when Guest Gulkan
at last emerged from the mountain to rejoin him.
        Asodo Hatch came forth from the mountain with Guest Gulkan,
and hustled Witchlord and Weaponmaster away from the kinema.
        "Where are we going?" asked Guest of Yubi Das Finger, who was
keeping pace with them so he could do duty as an interpreter.
        "To the palace," said Yubi. "To Na Sashimoko."
        "Then," said Guest, "I would like to know who rules from that
palace."
        So Guest began an interrogation of Yubi Das Finger, trying to
get a grip on what had happened in Dalar ken Halvar during the
years in which he had been adventuring in Untunchilamon or
enduring imprisonment in Obooloo.
        "Things are much as they were," said Yubi, "except that Nu-
chala-nuth gathers strength by the year."
        "That," said Guest, "is nothing to me. So much for Dalar ken
Halvar. What of Safrak?"
        "Bao Gahai rules it still in the Witchlord's absence," said
Yubi Das Finger. "Or so I have heard."
        Guest had learnt little more by the time they reached Na
Sashimoko and were shown into the presence of Plandruk Qinplaqus.
        Though Guest had at first had trouble in recognizing Asodo
Hatch, he had no such trouble in identifying Qinplaqus. For, after
all, Qinplaqus was firmly seated on his throne with the Princess
Nuboltipon upon his knees, hence the elderly Ashdan could scarcely
be mistaken for one of his own servants.
        Besides, the Silver Emperor still had at his side the same
pelican-headed walking stick which he had been carrying when Guest
had first met him, back in the days when Plandruk Qinplaqus had
been in the habit of traveling the Circle of the Doors of the
Partnership Banks, his identity disguised by his traveling name:
Ulix of the Drum.
        (Ulix of what Drum? After all these years, Guest finally
realized that the name had been designed simply to mislead, and
that there was no literal drum to be identified with the name. A
small discovery, but a certain one - and the Yarglat barbarian
felt quite pleased at working it out).
        "Greetings, Guest," said Qinplaqus.
        "Greetings, my lord," said Guest, pleased to be recognized.
        But, just as Guest Gulkan had no trouble in recognizing
Plandruk Qinplaqus, so Qinplaqus had no trouble in turn in
recognizing him. For, after all, how many Yarglat barbarians were
there in Dalar ken Halvar? A definitive answer to this question
cannot be given, but it is reasonable to presume that precious few
such savages soiled their feet with the red dust of the Plain of
Jars from one generation to the next. And, besides that, there was
the matter of Guest's ears. Even amongst the Yarglat, his ears
were of such a largeness that they would have been considered
unique had not his father been similarly disfigured.
        Even though Plandruk Qinplaqus these days allowed Asodo Hatch
to have practical day-to-day control over the management of the
Empire of Greater Parengarenga, Qinplaqus remained the ultimate
power in Dalar ken Halvar. He dismissed Hatch, and Hatch went,
departing without complaint.
        Qinplaqus similarly dismissed Yubi Das Finger, sent Lord
Onosh away to a bedroom for some much-needed rest, then set about
interrogating Guest Gulkan.
        For Guest to tell of his adventures was no easy matter, and
it was evening before he was finished even a fraction of it.
        "You have not mentioned Untunchilamon," said Qinplaqus at
length.
        "Haven't I?" said Guest. "I must have!"
        "Well," said Qinplaqus, "you may have said one or two words
about it, but I think there's more to tell. Still. It grows late.
The rest can wait till tomorrow. Meanwhile - have you any pressing
questions of your own?"
        "The x-x-zix," said Guest. "I left it with Thayer Levant.
Have you had word of him?"
        "Yes," said Qinplaqus. "He reached my palace with that very
device barely three months ago."
        Then Plandruk Qinplaqus explained that all the skill of Dalar
ken Halvar had not yet proved able to compel the x-x-zix to its
proper purpose, which was to control the Breathings which made the
weather of Parengarenga so fearsomely hot.
        "But," said Qinplaqus, "Hatch has some people working on the
problem, and we hope to crack it within the year. Once we have our
own Breathings under control, the device will be yours to use
against the Cold West."
        "I'm glad to hear it," said Guest cordially, doing his best
to conceal his mounting distress.
        Guest Gulkan had always presumed that the x-x-zix, the fabled
wishstone of Untunchilamon, was a magical device of some
description which could merely be waved at a Breathing to change
its weather. The idea that ancillary machinery was necessary, and
would take a year to build, was upsetting. Guest hoped to use the
x-x-zix to persuade the Partnership Banks to his will - or, at a
minimum, to win control of the city of Chi'ash-lan. After his long
exile and the many difficulties of his wandering, he was in no
mood to wait.
        "I would do things quicker," said Qinplaqus, seeing something
of Guest's distress, "but speed is not in my power. Unfortunately
there is, ah, a shortage of people apt for the construction of the
devices which Hatch is supervising."
        What Plandruk Qinplaqus did not say was that he himself had
for generations compelled the murder of all "mad scientists", that
is to say all people who were prepared to put to some practical
use the knowledge they won from Paraban Senk and the mountain of
Cap Foz Para Lash. After long generations of diligent murder,
Qinplaqus was at last prepared to admit that he might have made a
mistake - but the effects of his bloodthirsty predations could not
be easily reversed.
        "It can't be faster?" said Guest.
        "It can't," said Qinplaqus.
        Now Plandruk Qinplaqus was a wizard of Ebber, and there are
many men who will not trust such a wizard, fearing any hint of
trust to be a proof that the wizard himself is dabbling with the
contents of their minds. But, to Guest's knowledge, this wizard
had never played him false. So the Weaponmaster said:
        "I trust you."
        "Any more questions?" said Plandruk Qinplaqus.
        "One," said Guest. "Where is Penelope?"
        "Penelope?" said Qinplaqus blankly.
        "Yes," said Guest, "Penelope, Penelope, you remember! A
Frangoni woman. Tall. Purple. She was married to me. She was my
wife. Where is she?"
        "I would presume that she is where you left her," said
Qinplaqus.
        Guest was offended at this bland dismissal of his concerns.
True, Plandruk Qinplaqus was an emperor, so the domestic affairs
of a wandering swordsman were unlikely to be prominent amongst his
concerns. Yet Guest - who felt himself a ranking emperor in his
own right, albeit an emperor temporarily displaced from his realms
- considered that he was being slighted.
        "I left her here," said Guest. "I left her here in Dalar ken
Halvar when I went questing to Untunchilamon. Yet Senk tells me
she's gone."
        "But you went away ages ago!" said Qinplaqus. "A woman isn't
something you can leave like a lump of gold you buried in a
dungheap, charting its burials with maps and plans. In any case,
the governance of an empire is our concern, not matters of
marriage and such."
        With this rebuke, Qinplaqus dismissed the Weaponmaster.
Guest's sole consolation was that the mazadath was delivered
to his quarters in the evening. It was delivered by a servant who
spoke no language which Guest could understand, but, in the
absence of explanations, Guest supposed that Thayer Levant had
brought that amulet to Dalar ken Halvar just as he had brought the
x-x-zix.
        So thinking, Guest put on the mazadath, vowing never to take
it off again, for it had been given to him by his wife Penelope -
whose perceived value had been increased tenfold by their long
separation. But where was Penelope? This was all most
unsatisfactory!
        We need but turn our backs and the world changes. Guest had
done far more than turn his back, and he passed a night in
nightmares, for the distress of the world's transitions came home
to him in full force during the night.
        The next day, Guest was reunited with his father, who proved
to be in possession of the cornucopia - which Guest had succeeded
in forgetting about during the upsets of the previous day.
        "Where did you get that?" said Guest.
        "You dropped it," said his father, making no move to give it
back. "Your dropped it in the dust."
        "But where?"
        "Outside the Bank."
        "Dalar ken Halvar's Bank?" said Guest.
        "The same," said the Witchlord.
        Guest had indeed dropped the horn of plenty in the dust
outside the Bralsh while dueling with the Great God Jocasta. But
he had been so badly upset by attempted possession, by battle, by
a disconcerting adventure into Cap Foz Para Lash and by Penelope's
disappearance that - surprising as it seemed to him in the calm of
the new day - he had entirely overlooked the cornucopia's loss.
        "What about the ring?" said the Witchlord.
        "The ring?" said Guest. "Oh, the ring!"
        The ring of ever-ice which Guest had taken from the Mutilator
was still on his finger. But the knife -
        There was no sign of the Mutilator's knife. After thinking
about it, Witchlord and Weaponmaster realized that Guest must have
lost it in the inner courtyard of the Temple of Blood when
grappling with the saliva-spitting cornucopia. Guest counted this
a sore loss. Still, better to lose such a knife than suffer the
loss of the entire world to a great Flood of his father's
digesting spittle.
        Guest said exactly that to Plandruk Qinplaqus when that
wizard put in his appearance, and suggested that the cornucopia
might make a potent weapon.
        "For," said Guest, "were we to threaten to digest the whole
world with spittle, or, better still, with hot acids taken direct
from the stomach itself, might we not compel the whole world to
obedience to our power?"
        "One suspects," said Plandruk Qinplaqus, "that the world is
larger than has been computed by your mathematics. One would take
longer than a lifetime to flood the world, even with such a thing
as a cornucopia. Besides, there may be a limit to its production.
And, further, just as there exists something which can produce, so
too may there be something which can swallow."
        As the wizard was thus denting Guest's pretensions to Power,
Thayer Levant arrived, expecting to be overwhelmed by the
Weaponmaster's gratitude. For, in obedience to his master, Levant
had ventured all the way from Untunchilamon to Dalar ken Halvar -
in the face of hardship, danger and difficulty - and had brought
both the wishstone and the mazadath safely to the palace of Na
Sashimoko.
        "Now that we are all here," said Plandruk Qinplaqus, who took
more cognisance of Levant's arrival than did Witchlord and
Weaponmaster, "let us turn to the problem which confronts us."
        "Yes," said Guest, "Penelope."
        "Penelope?" said his father.
        "My wife!" said Guest. "She's missing!"
        "Your wife?" said his father.
        "Yes, wife, wife," said Guest. "We were married, in love, we
were - "
        "In love?" said Lord Onosh. "I think it lust."
        But the Witchlord was wrong. Guest Gulkan's concern for
Penelope's whereabouts was no mere matter of lust. After the
rigors of his journeys, his imprisonments, his battles and his
knife-edge struggles, the young Weaponmaster was not feeling
particularly lustful. Rather, he was feeling lonely, isolated, and
nostalgic for the past.
        Penelope was very much a part of the Weaponmaster's past, for
she had comforted him over four long years of convalescence. She
had been his woman when he had been scarcely a man, having no arms
and no legs. He had plans for her, plans which involved a proper
life - family, home, security, stability, and an end to this mad
and maddening wandering.
        Hence Guest was very much concerned to find out where
Penelope was, and what had happened to her. But Plandruk Qinplaqus
was entirely unmoved by Guest's concerns.
        "Penelope is of no account," said Qinplaqus. "We have greater
matters to worry about."
        "Yes!" said Guest, with a flash of animation. "The business
of the Banks! Now that we have the x-x-zix - "
        "We're not yet ready to take on the Banks," said Qinplaqus.
        "But," protested Guest, "you said, you promised - "
        "Guest," said his father, trying to shut him up.
        "No," said Qinplaqus. "Our young friend is right to press his
case. The Banks have sorely offended him, just as they have
offended me."
        Guest was momentarily hard put to think what offence the
Banks might have given Qinplaqus. Then he recalled that Banker Sod
had imprisoned Qinplaqus in a time pod on Alozay, meantime
fomenting revolution in Dalar ken Halvar in the hope of adding
that city to his own possessions. But - what was a trifling matter
of imprisonment compared to the far greater damage which Guest had
suffered?
        "You acknowledge my rights," said Guest, "but I'm not sure
that you acknowledge my impatience."
        "In this case," said Qinplaqus, "remedy may not lie in my
province, even if acknowledgement does."
        "What are you riddling about?" said Guest.
        "Have you heard," said Qinplaqus, "of an entity known as
Shabble?"
        "Shabble?" said Guest. "Why, yes, I have heard of, uh,
Shabble. But - here? Is Shabble here, here in - in - "
        In his stumble-tongued confusion, Guest found he had
temporarily mislaid the very name of the city in which he was
presently stationed. An unlikely mishap, one might think! But when
one travels the Doors of a Circle, one can skip continents in an
instant, and it sometimes happens that the mind is left behind in
one city while the body is in another.
        "No," said Qinplaqus. "Shabble is not here in Dalar ken
Halvar. Shabble is on Alozay."
        And Guest almost fell from his chair with the shock of sheer
surprise.