Shackle Mountains: a range of mountains on Argan's eastern
seaboard, inland from the Breach and the Bitterwater Coast. In
these mountains is the Warp which apprentice wizards enter to
endure the Trials which will decided whether they graduate (or
whether they die). In the Warp itself lie the Veils of Fire, and
no person has ever penetrated beyond those Veils and returned to
tell the tale. Accordingly, the wizards of the Confederation
believe that the enigmatic but doubtlessly dangerous Shabble can
be destroyed by being taken beyond those Veils.

                                                 * * *

        It would be a long and weary business to give an account of
the process of appeal whereby Sken-Pitilkin sought to challenge
his conviction for high treason. The case dragged on for years.
        During that time, Ontario Nol was at liberty, since no crime
could be proved out against him. He had led a blameless life,
first at the monastery of Qonsajara in the mountains of Ibsen-
Iktus, and later on the island of Alozay. His long but voluntary
exile was regarded as eccentric, but not criminal. So Nol was
assigned quarters in the Castle of Controlling Power, the great
stronghold at the western end of the flame trench Drangsturm, and
was allotted that portion of the Confederation's profits to which
he was rightfully entitled.
        Sheltered and sustained by Nol's benevolent patronage, Guest
Gulkan, Thayer Levant and Eljuk Zala lived out the years in the
same Castle. There was yet a hope that Sken-Pitilkin might win his
case and be set at liberty; and, sustained by that hope, Guest
Gulkan was reluctant to venture to Chi'ash-lan on his own account
to mount a solitary challenge against Banker Sod and the might of
the Partnership Banks.
        But at last Sken-Pitilkin's final appeal failed, and the
effective death sentence against him was confirmed.
        By this time, Eljuk Zala Gulkan had progressed so far in his
studies under Ontario Nol that he was ready to enter the Warp and
endure the Trials which would see him graduate as a full-fledged
wizard (if he survived!)
        So it was that Eljuk Zala and his master Ontario Nol joined
Sken-Pitilkin on the journey eastward from the Castle of
Controlling Power. With them went Guest Gulkan and Thayer Levant;
for Guest still hoped to somehow liberate Sken-Pitilkin during the
journey, even though Ontario Nol had warned him that in all
probability this would be impossible.
        At the eastern end of the flame trench Drangsturm, the party
took passage on a ship which set forth from the Castle of Ultimate
Peace and began to cruise eastward in the direction of the
Stepping Stone Islands and the Ocean of Cambria.
        Once the ship was past the Stepping Stone Islands, its
eastward course took it into the waters of the Ocean of Cambria.
On that voyage, Guest Gulkan was granted a second look at the
Chameleon's Tongue, that hook of beach-fringed land on which he
had once made a landing when Sken-Pitilkin had botched the job of
navigating to Untunchilamon.
        To Guest's disappointment, nobody was much interested in the
view. Sken-Pitilkin was incarcerated in the yellow bottle,
brooding on the certainty of his death, and was in no mood to
trifle with memories. Thayer Levant had taken up residence in that
same bottle, where he passed his time by practicing knife
fighting, and proved uninterested in reminiscence. As for Shabble
- why, to Shabble, flight was a way of life, so the bouncing
bubble could scarcely be expected to be impressed by Guest's
recollections of his aerial voyage across Moana. Meantime, Ontario
Nol was busy soothing Eljuk's nerves, and giving him some last-
ditch tutoring, and had no time to play tourist.
        This might seem a small matter, but it left Guest singularly
disgruntled to find himself reduced to such a marginal role that
he could find nobody willing to take an interest in his
reminiscences of the past.
        Once the ship was eastward of the Elbow, it turned for the
north, taking care to stand well off shore.
        As the ship sailed north, the west was landmarked by the
jagged stubble of the Lizard Crest Rises, blue-toned by distance.
The ship was so far from shore that it was impossible for
uninitiated landlubbers to tell when they were passing Seagate,
the entrance to the Sponge Sea. But thereafter the mountains to
the west became more formidable - great slab-sided thunderbolts of
rock rising to crags which were peaked with patent snow.
        The eastern coast of Argan - that coast which now lay to the
west of the ship - is a mix of the lightly populated and the
entirely desolate. Even from a distance, and even to such a poor
geographer as the Yarglat barbarian Guest Gulkan, those mountains
effortlessly clarified the demographical dynamics which had
populated the west while leaving the east to the woodlouse and the
bumble bee.
        It is commonly said that the great geographical determinant
is water, and by and large this is true. Any large city must be
built by water; and those rulers who have commanded construction
in defiance of this imperative are usually forced to abandon the
works of their ego shortly thereafter. But, while water is the one
great essential, the lie of the land must not be overlooked.
        The sagacious Sken-Pitilkin, though doomed to death, was
still a compulsive pedagog. Therefore, when Guest Gulkan entered
the yellow bottle in which Sken-Pitilkin was held captive, and
there reported on the view, Sken-Pitilkin took advantage of the
report to lecture Guest Gulkan on the Demographic Theory of
Contours, and was lecturing still when their ship sailed into the
Breach, ending its voyage by the Shores of Glass which lie on the
dawnside of the Shackle Mountains.
        The shore was made of billows of glass in blue and yellow.
Hard glass it was, and great heat was required to melt it, and
sundry scratchings near the shore gave evidence of the efforts of
generations of over-optimistic entrepreneurs who had bankrupted
themselves by trying to mine the stuff.
        It is true that a profit could be made from the Shores of
Glass were they to be located near any center of civilization,
despite the hardness of the substance and the difficulties of
smelting it. But the dangers, isolation and barrenness of the
Breach increased all expenses unreasonably.
        There was no water, hence all must be imported; there was no
food, and the waters of the Breach were unaccountably impoverished
from a fisherman's point of view; there were storms in winter;
there was a danger of dragons all through the year; and the Malud
marauders from Asral were so rapacious in their plunderings of the
sea-trade that no ship that made passage through the Ocean of
Cambria could possibly get insurance for its voyage.
        Hence the wizards of the Confederation naturally expected to
find the Shores of Glass deserted, and were disconcerted to find a
small colony of purple-skinned Frangoni warriors established by
the sea. These Frangoni were from the Ebrell Islands, and to a man
they were sages who had chosen to devote themselves to dith-zora-
ka-mako, the Mystical Way of the Nu-chala-nuth.
        In any religion there is typically a triple dynamic at work.
There is the dynamic of political power, which attracts those who
infiltrate religious organizations with the motives of cold-
blooded careerists. These will typically be found advising Banks,
Bankers, emperors, warlords and kings. Then there is the pastoral
dynamic, which attracts those who, as a solution to their personal
inadequacies, seek to bring into their own lives (or into the
lives of men in general - and, sometimes, the lives of women also,
although this is usually optional) - the light of such Living Gods
as the Great Frog, the Holy Goat-Rapist, the Smock-Smock and the
Vodo Man.
        Then there is religion of the third kind.
        Religion of the third kind is the mystical religion which
concerns itself with the burning moment when heart and mind are
consumed by an incandescence which cannot be captured in words -
or when, in the peace of a raindrop, a rock becomes a rock and a
tree becomes a tree, each known in the fullness of its own nature.
        The Frangoni from the Ebrells were bent on practicing that
third kind of religion, but their theory and praxis meant but
little to the wizards. The entire religion of Nu-chala-nuth
counted as nothing as far as the Confederation of Wizards was
concerned.
        Still, the traveling wizards admired the dedication with
which these ascetic Frangoni mystics were building their colony.
They had made small hutches for themselves by gluing together
fragments of glass. With enormous labors, they were wresting
further fragments from the local terrain, with a view to
constructing an enormous monastery; and, judging by the size of
the foundation-lines which had been scratched out on the ground,
if ever completed this monastery would be one of the wonders of
the world.
        By cunning employment of solar stills, the religious
colonists provided themselves with fresh, clean, potable water.
Already they had piled up great heaps of byproduct salt; and,
since the Confederation of Wizards is, amongst other things, a
commercial operation, it was entirely natural for the travelers
to dicker with the mystics, trading olives and oranges for sacks
of salt which could be sold elsewhere for enormous profit. Thus a
dozen days passed in preparations and barter. But at last trade
was finished and the expedition was ready to set forth.
        This business of trade was entirely logical, moral and
unobjectionable, yet it infuriated Guest Gulkan beyond measure. He
believed (this was the rationalization by which he sustained his
own ego against the buffeting of misfortune) that his life was
heading toward some culminating crisis; and he took it as a
personal affront to find the wizards so casual as to postpone this
crisis by a whole twelve days of mercantile dickering.
        At last, leaving behind a strong contingent to guard their
ship, the wizards went inland on foot, bearing great stocks of
food, water and firewood in the yellow bottle in which both
Shabble and Sken-Pitilkin were still held as prisoners. Thayer
Levant chose to keep Shabble and Sken-Pitilkin company, for the
knifeman had absolutely no interest in tramping at great length
through the mountains. But, compelled by pride, and by a rational
soldierly interest in maintaining his own fitness, Guest Gulkan
chose to march the long leagues rather than ride them out in the
bottle.
        The wizards marched to the north-west corner of the Breach,
where the blue and yellow billows of the Shores of Glass gave way
to honest rock. From there, they followed a steep and ancient
train marked with cairns and with ancient gray-white banners
mounted on bamboo poles.
        The trail climbed precipitous slopes by means of stairways a
league or more in height. They crossed engulfing gorges by ancient
bridges. In places, Eljuk had to be blindfolded and led with a
piece of rope, for he was too terror-stricken to proceed with his
eyes open. Some of the paths, after all, consisted of nothing up
flags of rock inserted into man-made slots in a sheer cliff face.
        Eljuk's brother Guest was more disturbed by the long tunnels
which pierced entire mountains, and which were a necessary and
unavoidable part of the route. In those sometimes-humming
sometimes-hot wormways through the living rock, Guest experienced
grim intimations of doom, particularly when passing certain great
iron doors which were sealed against intrusion.
        The more lengthy and many-branched tunnels reminded Guest of
the mazeways Downstairs, the labyrinth beneath the city of
Injiltaprajura on the far-distant island of Untunchilamon. At
times - when black grass was growing underfoot and cold green
lights were burning overhead - the resemblance was so close that
he more than half-expected to encounter a dorgi or a therapist.
        But every venture through the long succession of such
complexes delivered them again to the sky, and each time the sky
was higher, and colder, and more beset by wind.
        In the dry and wind-ravaged heights of the Shackle Mountains,
environmental stress - the height, the dryness, the grinding wind,
the poor food and the labor of travel - began to take their toll
on Eljuk Zala. Under the influence of that stress, cold sores
broke out, and their crusted presence added a further
disfigurement to the purple birthstains which marred his lips.
Spreading beyond those lips, the sores took hold on his cheeks.
        Eljuk had to be reminded not to touch those sores, with Sken-
Pitilkin doing the reminding repeatedly when Eljuk entered the
yellow bottle in the evenings to study irregular verbs and
origami. If the hands wander from lips to eyes, then the disease
can endanger the sight, as Sken-Pitilkin had learnt during those
years of his youth in which he had practiced as a pox doctor.
        "He saved our brother Morsh," said Guest Gulkan, reminding
Eljuk of the manner in which Sken-Pitilkin had secured a cure for
Morsh Bataar when that young man's leg had been grievously broken,
"so you should trust to his counsel."
        Guest was solicitous of Eljuk's health, and tried to convince
him that he should travel inside the yellow bottle. But Eljuk
would not. Since his brother Guest chose to march the mountains,
Eljuk was determined to do likewise. Besides, the bottle was
claustrophobic, and from previous confinement Eljuk had grown to
hate the thing.
        Once, when Shabble was busy chasing shadows in the depths of
the yellow bottle, and when Eljuk had fallen asleep in the middle
of construing a particularly irregular verb - the verb trizon,
which varies according to astrological influences - Guest ventured
to share with Sken-Pitilkin his concerns for Eljuk's safety.
        "He's - he's got these Trials to face, hasn't he?" said
Guest. "He has to go into this, this Warp thing. Maybe he'll die."
        "Maybe he will," said Sken-Pitilkin.
        "Well," said Guest, "isn't there any way I can help him?
Maybe I could persuade him to rest, you know, to gather his
strength."
        "I didn't know you to be so tender of your brother," said
Sken-Pitilkin.
        "Why," said Guest in surprise, "but I saved him from drowning
at the risk of my own life."
        "Eljuk?" said Sken-Pitilkin.
        "You remember!" said Guest. "The battle, you know, down by
the Yolantarath. Oh, but you weren't there. It was Zozimus, that's
right, he was all dressed up in his armor, he had a falcon, you
were back in Gendormargensis. Anyway. Eljuk was in the water, he
was crying out for help, so I raced down to the river, I jumped in
and pulled him out."
        Guest was emphatic in his account. Clearly the Weaponmaster
believed himself to be telling the truth. But Sken-Pitilkin, even
though he had not been there on the day, knew otherwise. For Guest
had confessed the full story in drunken reminiscence with the
Rovac warrior Rolf Thelemite and the dwarf Glambrax, and Sken-
Pitilkin had overheard some of those drunken confessions.
        True, Guest had jumped into the Yolantarath River to save a
man. But - Eljuk? Sken-Pitilkin had a very distinct memory of
Guest saying:
        "Eljuk! I'd not so much as sponge my face for Eljuk!"
        Furthermore, though Guest plainly retained no memory of the
occasion, the Weaponmaster had once made a sober confession to
Sken-Pitilkin, admitting to a precognitive vision in which he had
seen his father drown in the Yolantarath. In consequence of that
vision, when Guest had seen someone floundering in the river he
had naturally thought it to be his father - and, identifying the
man thus on the strength of his vision, had risked his life to
save the poor fellow who was in difficulties, only to find to his
disgust that it was actually Eljuk.
        Guest Gulkan had confessed the whole truth of the matter to
Sken-Pitilkin on an evening when he had sat at the confluence of
the Pig and the Yolantarath, waxing sentimental about the fate of
some men he had hung some days earlier.
        Sken-Pitilkin was interested to observe how systematically
Guest misremembered his own past - not wilfully, but entirely
unconsciously. We are often the least reliable witnesses to our
own lives, for so much in memory later changes as we reconfigure
ourselves in the light of future experience.
        "You saved your brother once," said Sken-Pitilkin, who saw no
point in challenging Guest's misremembering of the past, "but now
he must save himself. There is nothing you can do to help your
brother face his Trials. The Trials are as much a test of will as
anything. Your brotherly solicitude can scarcely help strengthen
his will."
        "I'm afraid he's going to die," said Guest.
        "I know for a fact that I am most definitely going to die,"
said Sken-Pitilkin pointedly.
        This forced Guest to face up to a fact which he was most
reluctant to acknowledge: the fact that he was in the presence of
one who had been sentenced to death.
        "Couldn't you escape?" said Guest. "I mean, they've got to
let you out of this bottle when we get to this Warp. You can't
take the bottle into the Warp if you're still inside it."
        "Some of these wizards are wizards of Arl," said Sken-
Pitilkin. "When I'm let out of this bottle, they'll be watching
me. One false move, and I'll be crisped to a cinder."
        Guest Gulkan accepted this.
        In the arrogance of his early youth, the Weaponmaster would
never have accepted such a gloomy prognosis. For, in his extreme
youth, the Weaponmaster had thought himself equal of anything the
world could bring about him. But, ever since being mauled by the
Great Mink, Guest had been unable to muster up the same invincible
confidence.
        So the trek continued, with each day taking Guest Gulkan and
his traveling companions higher and higher into the Shackle
Mountains. The heights were cold, and silent. The lichen of long
centuries grew on cairns where dirt-gray banners hung from gray
bamboo. The path crossed slopes where rock had once run liquid.
Eljuk began to turn inward, no longer responding to his
brother. In the face of his silence, Guest sought advice from
Ontario Nol.
        "Is he sick?" said Guest Gulkan.
        "Sick?" said Nol.
        "You know," said Guest. "Like all of us were at Ibsen-Iktus,
you know, the first night in Qonsajara."
        "Your sickness was caused by climbing too high too fast,"
said Nol. "Here we have gone slowly, hence height is not a
problem."
        "But Eljuk's so quiet," said Guest.
        "What would you expect?" said Nol somberly. "Of course he's
quiet! He's preparing himself for tomorrow."
        "Tomorrow?" said Guest.
        "We should be there tomorrow!" said Nol. "At the Warp. At the
Place of Testing. Then - Guest, many try, but few succeed."
        "Why?" said Guest. "What happens? These, these Tests, what
makes them kill people?"
        "That is not for you to know," said Nol.
        And the eminent wizard of Itch quite refused to talk about it
any further.
        That evening, Guest Gulkan tried to discuss the matter of
Eljuk's Tests with Sken-Pitilkin.
        "It's those - those Mahendo Mahunduk things," said Guest.
"That's what it is, isn't it? They'll kill him!"
        "Quiet!" said Sken-Pitilkin, in shock. "Quiet, lest a wizard
hear, and kill you!"
        It had now been so long since Sken-Pitilkin had heard Guest
speak of the Mahendo Mahunduk that he had hoped the Weaponmaster
to have forgotten all about them. The Mahendo Mahunduk, the
sometime soldiers of the Revisionary Gods, were creatures of
destruction who were half-demon and half-deity. Their old masters
were dead, or else had evolved, since evolution is one of the
fatal flaws to which the gods are prone; and so the Mahendo
Mahunduk were at liberty to make alliances with wizards.
        As a slave can enter the service of an emperor, and gain a
measure of power and protection from his association with such a
dignitary, so too can a wizard make an alliance with one of the
Mahendo Mahunduk. But, just as a cruel and demanding emperor may
subject a candidate slave to a potentially destructive test of
will, so too do the Mahendo Mahunduk test all candidate wizards.
To make contact with the Mahendo Mahunduk, a candidate wizard
must enter the Warp in the Shackle Mountains; and this, as Sken-
Pitilkin painstakingly explained to Guest, exposed the
Confederation to danger.
        "For," said Sken-Pitilkin, "to maintain its strength, the
Confederation needs an infusion of new blood. Were anyone to use
armed force to close the road to the Place of Testing, then the
Confederation would have no means to replenish its strength. Hence
the secrets of the Warp are exceptionally sensitive."
        "But," objected Guest, "it is widely known that wizards make
pilgrimage to the Shackle Mountains."
        "Perhaps," said Sken-Pitilkin. "But further publicity will be
less than welcome. If you preach to the world of the Mahendo
Mahunduk then the Confederation will kill you."
        "I was hardly preaching!" protested Guest.
        "Be deaf, dumb and mute," said Sken-Pitilkin. "Else you will
be die in these mountains, and soon."
        Guest Gulkan obeyed.
        But the Weaponmaster was far from happy at being told to shut
up and do nothing. While Guest Gulkan had stoically endured the
long journey from Drum to Drangsturm, his subsequent interrogation
by ethnologists and the longeurs of Sken-Pitilkin's trial, the
cumulative effects of these insults to his autonomy had bred in
his breast a savage frustration.
        Guest Gulkan had desired to make himself the conqueror of the
Circle of the Partnership Banks, or at least of some small portion
of that Circle. To that end, he had quested for the x-x-zix, had
dared himself into the Stench Caves, had gone head-to-head with
Aldarch the Third and Anaconda Stogirov, had contended against
Great Gods and demons, and had put himself through more torment
than most people endure in a lifetime.
        And what was the end result of all this?
        Why, the end result of this was the total perversion of all
his expectations - so that, rather than ruling an empire, he found
himself tagging along behind a band of wizards, a refugee
dependent on the charity of Ontario Nol, a ragged swordsman
without power or authority or status or recognition.
        And now, as a crisis neared, as his brother Eljuk looked
likely to die, as Sken-Pitilkin looked certain to die, as Shabble
was to be wastefully consigned to whatever destruction waited
behind the Veils of Fire, why, Guest Gulkan's sole role was
apparently to be a gawking spectator.
        Now Guest no longer had the confidence to believe that he
could successfully challenge the strength of a parcel of wizards
armed and ready for action - but, as his frustration mounted to a
head, he began to think himself ready to take on the world
regardless, even if his certain doom was to be the result.
        The next day, with Guest still brooding darkly on the
collapse of his hopes and the many insults which had been done to
his dignity, the travelers labored to the top of a sharp ridge,
and found themselves looking across a steep but narrow valley.
        "On the other side of this valley," said Ontario Nol, "is the
Cave of the Warp."
        Guest Gulkan looked across the valley and saw not one cave
but an array of gaping holes opening to realms of darkest shadow.
        "It looks like a perfect lair for dragons," said the
Weaponmaster.
        "Dragons would not live here," said Ontario Nol. "They must
live near their food. Hence you will find them near the sea, where
they can fish for the whale; or close to our cities, where their
food runs two-legged; or else living near volcanoes or similar,
for they can diet upon sulphur at a pinch."
        Having received that intelligence, Guest Gulkan studied the
prospect further, then said:
        "These caves have been artificed by the hands of men."
        "What makes you think that?" said Ontario Nol.
        "The spacing is regular," said Guest, holding out his hand
and measuring the gap between each cavemouth with his fingers.
        "Nothing in nature is so regular of formation."
        "The caves were made," acknowledged Ontario Nol. "But I would
not say that they were necessarily made by men."
        "By who, then?" said Guest. "Gods? Demons?"
        "I cannot say," said Nol.
        "Why not?" said Guest.
        "Because," said Nol, "I do not know."
        And, with that, the wizard of Itch headed downward into the
valley.
        By evening, the travelers had reached the cave of the Warp,
which proved singularly disappointing. It was a big cave, true,
but no monsters lurked in the velvety blue-black of its shadows.
Instead, at the far end of the cave - some fifty paces from the
opening, in Guest's judgment - there was a wall of interwoven
rainbow. This twisted slowly, sinuously, throwing off occasional
sprays of lights.
        "That," said Ontario Nol, in portentous tones, "is the Veils
of Fire. Many have ventured beyond those Veils, but none have
returned to tell the tale. Tomorrow, Sken-Pitilkin will take
Shabble beyond those Veils, and both will die."
        "So you say," said Guest, who was effortlessly unimpressed by
this cave and its Veils.
        "I say it because it is the truth," said Nol. "Now come away.
And stay well away from this cave, for sometimes the denizens of
these shadows have reached out to kill those who idly outside by
the entrance."
        "Is that so?" said Guest.
        "It is so," affirmed Nol, and drew Guest away from the cave,
and compelled him to the campsite which the wizards were setting
up a stone's throw distant from that cavern.
        By this time, Guest was more than half-convinced that the
wizards were the victims of a communal hallucination; and that, if
anyone had truly died inside that cave, then their deaths had more
to do with autosuggestion than with the Mahendo Mahunduk or any
similar creatures.
        That night, Guest Gulkan did not sleep. Neither did most of
the rest of the adventurers. The wizards for the most part sat
muttering through their Meditations. For them, the Cave of the
Warp was a place of the utmost significance, whatever Guest might
think of it, and to be in its presence awakened old dedications,
old ambitions, so that the most slovenly amongst them was
compelled to fresh endeavor.
        Eljuk sat apart, keeping a solitary vigil, and when Guest
approached him Ontario Nol was quick to head him off.
        "Eljuk needs to be by himself tonight," said Nol.
        "But I'm his brother!" protested Guest.
        "Eljuk is a wizard now," said Nol. "Or will be if he survives
tomorrow."
        After this uncompromising brush-off, Guest wandered away from
the campsite and sat sulking in the dark of the upland night. But
it was too cold to sit sulking for long, so he was soon on his
feet again.
        Natural curiosity, combined with a childish desire to defy
Ontario Nol, soon drew guest back to the Cave of the Warp. In that
Cave, the rainbow-flickering Veils of Fire still burnt in silence.
        Guest stood outside, looking in.
        Inside this cave, or so he was told, apprentice wizards
struggled with the Mahendo Mahunduk, and died if they were not
equal to the struggle. To step over the threshold of that cave
was to precipitate such a struggle.
        So he was told.
        Guest was strongly inclined to doubt the truth of any of
this. The cave simply did not look dangerous. Rather, it looked
spectacularly empty.
        "I am the Weaponmaster, am I not?"
        So muttered Guest. Then he hesitated.
        Then -
        Then stepped inside.
        Once inside, Guest shuddered at his own audacity. But, with
shuddering done, he felt no different. He ventured another step.
Where was the danger? Where was the challenge? This was but an
empty cave. There was no murkbeast inside, no simulcrum of the
Great Mink, no dorgi, no therapist.
        "Anyone home?" said Guest.
        Not even an echo answered him.
        Gaining confidence, Guest boldly ventured all the way to the
Veils of Fire, where he again hesitated. Now this, this wall of
cold-burning rainbow, this was most definitely something new. But
was it dangerous?
        As Guest was wondering, the rainbow lashed out. It coiled
around his feet and spun in threads of kaleidoscopic lightning,
accelerating upward in wreathing coils until his whole body was
alive with multicolored light. Wreathed in that light, he felt
buoyant, exhilarated - even a little drunk.
        Alarmed to find himself growing slightly lightheaded, Guest
backed off, and the coils of light relinquished their grip and
sank back.
        "So," muttered Guest.
        So what? What was he to make of this?
        Guest had dared himself into a cave which wizards thought of
a place of death and terror. And inside he had found - well,
really, precisely nothing.
        "Weirdness," said Guest.
        Then made his way back to the cavemouth, and made his exit.
        Guest had barely exited when he was challenged by Ontario
Nol, who was advancing on the cave from the direction of the
campsite.
        "What are you doing here?" said Nol, when he recognized
Guest, whose face was lit by the cold-burning veils of rainbow
located fifty paces away, deep in the depths of the cave.
        "Investigating," said Guest.
        "Investigating?" said Nol. "What are you talking about?"
        "Investigating these caves of yours," said Guest. "I don't
think much of them. I went right inside, but - "
        "Inside!" said Nol. "Enough of your nonsense!"
        "It is not nonsense," insisted Guest. "I went inside! Look,
I'll show you, I - "
        With that, Guest made as if to enter the cave. But Ontario
Nol gripped him with fingers which could have demolished stone,
and, trapped by Nol's invincible strength, Guest had no option but
to bend to the wizard's will.
        "Go back to bed!" said Nol.
        "I don't have a bed to go to," said Guest.
        "There's comfort sufficient inside the yellow bottle," said
Nol. "Come. We'll go there."
        And such was the insistence of the wizard of Itch that Guest
Gulkan was compelled to enter the yellow bottle, where he found
that Sken-Pitilkin was already soundly asleep, dreaming opium
dreams thanks to the chemical benediction which had been provided
to him by a fellow wizard.
        Guest was much disgusted by Sken-Pitilkin's stuporous state,
and found he could not sleep. In the end, he spent the night
talking with Shabble, who seemed unfussed at the prospect of
imminent destruction. The truth was, Shabble quite frankly did not
believe in the existence of this Warp, or its Veils of Fire, and
was perfectly confident of surviving the morrow.
        "Perhaps you will," said Guest. "But, one way or another,
these wizards will destroy you, because they've set their hearts
on your destruction."
        "No they won't," said Shabble. "They like me too much."
        "They like you!" said Guest.
        "Eljuk likes me," said Shabble. "I taught him paper dragons,
he likes that. Oh, and the ethnologists like me. I was months and
months teaching them sex customs."
        "Ethnologists are always in the market for sex customs," said
Guest grimly. "But that doesn't stop them being a bunch of cold-
blooded vivisectionists."
        But Shabble would not believe a word of it.
        As for Levant, he was asleep, and protested strenuously when
Guest tried to wake him for a tactical discussion.
        All in all, Guest Gulkan began to get the impression that he
was the only person who was capable of making a sane and rational
response to the demands of the moment. Sken-Pitilkin, who had
retreated to the unpardonable comfort of a drug-stupor, had
resigned himself to death with disgraceful ease. Eljuk, with his
uninterruptable vigil, had chosen a like-minded retreat into
mystical silence. Shabble was fecklessly unconcerned with the
future, and Ontario Nol quite flatly refused to accept the results
of Guest's Investigations into the Cave of the Warp.
        And Levant! Well, Levant had proved his nature with a
vengeance. Useless, useless, dead weight and ballast.
        So thinking, Guest at last got to sleep, and endured a few
brief and troubled dreams before he was roused for the morning's
ceremonies.
        On the rocky ground outside the Cave of the Warp, those who
had made the pilgrimage to these inland heights assembled, with a
fair amount of coughing, scratching, hawking and yawning. Guest
looked around, and saw that Levant was missing. Thayer Levant, who
had no interest whatsoever in Eljuk's Trials or Sken-Pitilkin's
execution, had chosen to stay in the depths of the yellow bottle
and sleep in late.
        But everyone else was there.
        Sken-Pitilkin was most definitely there, looking much the
worse for wear. Indeed, the sagacious wizard of Skatzabratzumon
looked almost as shattered as he had at times on Untunchilamon -
particularly after the encounter with the therapist Schoptomov, in
which Sken-Pitilkin had almost killed himself by over-exertion.
Seeing the state Sken-Pitilkin was in, Guest saw at once that the
wizard would be no use in a battle.
        As for Shabble, why, given freedom, Shabble could have
incinerated all the wizards with a single blast of fire. But the
bubble of bounce was still caught in a web of silver, and tethered
by a chain of silver, and whatever the nature of this restraint it
most certainly prevented Shabble from throwing any fire
whatsoever.
        In the cold light of morning, Shabble hummed softly, doing a
gentle imitation of the skavamareen.
        As Guest surveyed the scene, one of the wizards began to
speak. Unfortunately, his entire discourse was in the High Speech
of wizards, of which Guest knew not a word; and nobody was in the
mood to provide the Weaponmaster with a translation.
        After a long and supremely tedious speech, the wizard
beckoned to Eljuk, who stepped toward the Cave of the Warp. Eljuk
stumbled even before he entered the cave. But enter he did. He
took one step, two, three - and Guest began to feel faint.
        Realizing he was holding his breath, Guest Gulkan forced
himself to breathe. Even as he did so, Eljuk shrieked. Eljuk
screamed as if he was being nailed with needles. He collapsed.
Then, to Guest's belief, Eljuk's body began to float upward from
the floor of the cave. White fire began to flicker around Eljuk's
limbs.
        From the somber, funereal silence of the watching wizards,
Guest deduced that Eljuk had failed his Trials, and was going to
die.
        "Well," said Guest staunchly. "That's what you think, but - "
        Then, abandoning speech for action, the Weaponmaster pushed
through the wizards and strode into the cave.
        "Guest!" yelled Nol.
        Heedless on the cry from Ontario Nol, Guest Gulkan walked
right into the cave. As he touched his brother, the white fire
which had been flickering along Eljuk's limbs abruptly died away
to nothing. Whatever force had been levitating Eljuk's body ceased
to operate, and the full weight of it fell into Guest's arms.
Guest grunted as he took the weight.
        "Eljuk?" he said.
        Eljuk was still breathing, but he was unconscious.
        So Guest quite naturally carried him out of the cave.
        As Guest exited from the Cave of the Warp, the wizards fell
back before him, regarding him with horror. He was no wizard, but
he had ventured into the Warp! He had ventured, and had emerged
unscathed! Could he then be human?
        Guest stood before them, an inscrutable Yarglat barbarian, a
creature with huge ears and painfully high cheekbones, the
embodiment of alien mystery. He had done what nobody else in
recorded history had ever succeeded in doing: he had ventured into
the Cave of the Warp without a wizard's training to support him,
and had come out alive.
        As Guest stood there, a voice of thunder boomed:
        "I am Lorzunduk, lord of the Mahendo Mahunduk! Behold! And
know your doom!"
        The voice cried thus in the High Speech of wizards. On
hearing the cry, Sken-Pitilkin promptly collapsed.
        "See!" said the thunder. "The evil Sken-Pitilkin has been
killed! You likewise will die!"
        Under the circumstances, this seemed so probable, so easily
believable, that the wizards broke and ran. Even Ontario Nol fell
back before this combination of inexplicable mystery and patent
threat.
        One wizard ran too slowly, for Guest grabbed and smashed the
wizard who was carrying the yellow bottle - knocked him senseless
with fist and elbow, tore the bottle from his possession, then
wrested from his finger the ring which allowed one to enter and
leave the bottle.
        Guest lowered Eljuk to the ground.
        "Shabble!" said Guest.
        The bubble of bounce, which had so recently scattered the
wizards with a threat couched in the High Speech of wizards - for
of course it was Shabble, the world's most reckless ventriloquist,
who had breached the morning with a voice of thunder - came
drifting toward Guest Gulkan.
        Shabble was free-floating in the air, the silver-braided
tethering rope having been dropped by the wizard who had been
holding it. Shabble responded to the Weaponmaster's summons
because long and amicable acquaintance had led the shining bubble
to think of Guest Gulkan as a friend.
        Guest promptly grabbed the tethering rope. Then he strode to
Sken-Pitilkin and seized the wizard by the scruff of the neck. The
wizard was not dead at all - merely unconscious. Guest twisted the
ring on his finger, and was carried into the yellow bottle in
company with Sken-Pitilkin and Shabble. With no time to waste, the
Weaponmaster released the bubble and let the wizard fall, then
used the ring to make a solo return to the outside air.
In that outside air, the wizards were already beginning to
rally, with Ontario Nol shouting:
        "It was Shabble! It was Shabble who shouted! There's no god,
no demon, just Shabble!"
        Seeing the wizards were no longer running, Guest did a swift
calculation. He had hoped to bundle his brother Eljuk into the
yellow bottle then head for the hills. But the wizards were no
longer running in panic, so Guest could not help to flee across
the mountains.
        And he had no time to pick up Eljuk.
        "Guest!" yelled Nol. "Drop the bottle! Drop the bottle, or
you're a dead man!"
        So.
        So Nol had chosen to throw in his lot with the Confederation.
        Well.
        He'd have to try something better than threats if he wanted
to catch Guest Gulkan!
        So thinking, Guest began to back into the Cave of the Warp,
carrying with him the yellow bottle which contained Sken-Pitilkin
and Shabble (and, presumably, the shamefully oversleeping Thayer
Levant).
        "Guest," said Nol, advancing to the mouth of the cave. "Come
out of there. I don't know why you're still alive, but I don't
expect you to live much longer. It's dangerous in there!"
        Guest thought this a singularly futile threat, since he was
surely a dead man if he came out of that cave to face the wrath of
the wizards.
        So thinking, Guest retreated to the very end of the cave, to
the rainbow wall which the wizards knew as the Veils of Fire.
        "Guest!" yelled Nol, as rainbow-weaving coils of cold fire
began to weave around Guest Gulkan's limbs. "Guest! Guest! Come
out of there!"
        But, instead, Guest took a single step backwards.
        And vanished right through the Veils of Fire.
        "Blood of a goat," said Ontario Nol in disbelief. "Now I've
seen everything."
        Those wizards who had been quick enough in the recovery of
their courage to have witnessed Guest Gulkan's departure joined
him in his disbelief.
        Then one, at last accepting the evidence of his eyes, hawked,
and spat, and said:
        "Well. It's over. He's dead of a certainty."
        And, the destruction of Guest Gulkan, Sken-Pitilkin, Shabble
and the bottle now being entirely assured, nothing remained for
the wizards but to pack up and make their return to Drangsturm -
and there to report the death of the inscrutable Shabble and the
terminal disposition of the renegade wizard Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin.