Lord Onosh: the Witchlord, the sometime lord of the Collosnon
Empire who retreated to Alozay after his defeat at the hands of
the Red Emperor Khmar. On Alozay, Lord Onosh made himself master
of the Safrak Bank. His regime suffered a setback when Shabble
temporarily usurped his authority; but, when Shabble left Alozay,
Lord Onosh was easily able to restore his authority, and has
governed the Safrak Islands and the Safrak Bank ever since.

                                                 * * *

        Of Guest Gulkan's return to Alozay, there is no need to give
a detailed account.
        Lord Onosh had long been separated from Guest, the most
warlike of his sons. So, when Witchlord was reunited with
Weaponmaster, the celebrations were considerable. Horses were
slaughtered, and their meat cooked in great barbecues. A babble of
storytelling was followed by bout upon bout of drunken
boisterousness.
        The celebrations went on for a full ten days; the hangovers
lasted a further three; and it was not until the fourteenth day
after Guest's return to Alozay that a council of war was held to
consider the reopening of the Circle of the Doors.
        "After all I have endured," said Guest, "I will settle for
nothing less than the rule of the Circle."
        "That may be difficult," said his father.
        "Nevertheless," said Guest, "it is what I have set my heart
on."
        "Then," said Sken-Pitilkin, "perhaps our first move should be
to talk with the resident demon of the Hall of Time."
Guest was most reluctant to do this. But he knew the
importance of the demons to the Banks. Had it not been for these
silent, ever-watchful jade-green monsters, then Bank security
would have been a much more difficult proposition. The Circle of
the Banks could still be run - and perhaps dominated - without the
assistance of such monsters. But their co-operation would make
Guest's schemes of conquest infinitely easier.
        "But," said Guest, "what can I offer them?"
        "You can offer," said Sken-Pitilkin, "to give material
assistance to the Great God Jocasta when that dignitary eventually
emerges from the tunnels of Cap Foz Para Lash."
        "I can what?!" said Guest.
        "You heard me," said Sken-Pitilkin.
        Then they began to argue the rights and the wrongs of
offering to aid the Great God Jocasta, the delinquent controller-
of-carts which was currently sheltering inside one of the minor
mountains of Dalar ken Halvar.
        During this debate, Sken-Pitilkin reminded both Witchlord and
Weaponmaster of some uncomfortable facts. Both were Yarglat born
and Yarglat bred, but they were cut off from their own people. Few
of the Yarglat had followed Lord Onosh to Alozay, most choosing
instead to desert to the Red Emperor Khmar. Lord Onosh had won the
rule of Alozay with a rabble of mercenaries, slaves and other such
underlings.
        "You have no natural constituency on Alozay," said Sken-
Pitilkin. "You have no natural constituency in the Safrak Islands.
The society you rule has no internal cohesion. It is not unified
by language, or by race, or by religion. By personal strength, by
studied alliance, by careful management and with the assistance of
a fair measure of luck, you have managed to reach an accommodation
with the Partnership Banks in the past."
        "With difficulty," said Lord Onosh, remembering the many
vicissitudes of his relationship with those Banks.
        "Yes," said Sken-Pitilkin. "You know the Bankers can be
cunning, treacherous, and totally ruthless in the application of
power. Your own resources have served to let you deal with them.
But if you and your son are resolved to conquer them, why, then
you must have something greater to stand behind you in support. If
you can win the aid of the demons of the Circle by promising
support to the Great God, then you have that something."
        "But what do we do then when this Great God comes forth from
the hiding place where it is licking its wounds?" said Guest.
        "The licking of those wounds may take generations," said
Sken-Pitilkin. "Don't worry about it."
        Here Sken-Pitilkin showed his great wisdom, for he no longer
sought perfect solutions. If Guest Gulkan was determined to make
himself master of the Circle, then he might have to settle for a
regrettably imperfect alliance with a treacherous Great God. Even
such a flawed solution would be safer than trying to challenge the
might of the Banks single-handed - and Sken-Pitilkin knew full
well that it was useless to suggest that Guest might care to
abandon thoughts of such challenge and make his retreat to a
monastery.
        Sken-Pitilkin said as much, and at length. After long
deliberation, the wizard's wisdom prevailed, and so Guest and his
father went in Sken-Pitilkin's company to the Hall of Time, where
they bearded the demon Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis.
        Guest Gulkan did the talking. He made a frank confession of
his desire to conquer the Circle of the Banks; he declared his
intention to seek an alliance with the demons of the Circle, using
their brute strength and intelligence to his advantage; he offered
in return to declare himself for the Great God Jocasta; and then
he asked, quite openly, how long it would be before Jocasta
returned to the world of daylight.
        "The Great God Jocasta will come forth from the tunnels of
Cap Foz Para Lash in due course," said Iva-Italis. "But the Great
God's renaissance will not take place for many years yet. The
Great God was grievously injured by the evil Stogirov in the
Temple of Blood."
        "I'm sorry to hear that," said Guest, who was not sorry at
all, and wished upon Jocasta a thousand years of painful
convalescence.
        "However," said Iva-Italis, "while Jocasta will not be seen
by the sun for many years yet, there is work to be done even now.
Should we conclude a satisfactory alliance, then there would be
much for you to do in preparation for the Great God's renaissance.
There are for example many machines which should be built -
machines designed to aid comfort supplement and support the Great
God in its endeavors. The contrivance of such mechanisms is not
easy. You would have to build lesser machines to construct greater
machines, and even with guidance from myself and my colleagues,
this task could not be accomplished in anything less than two or
three generations."
        Then Iva-Italis paused.
        Guest Gulkan promptly answered the unstated but implicit
question, which was this: can you, mere mortal, make any
meaningful commitment to a task which may well last generations?
        "My brother Morsh Bataar has bred sons on the island of Ema-
Urk," said Guest. "Though my brother Morsh is slow in his wits,
his sons by all accounts have proved worthy of their grandfather.
I have sired no dynasty myself, but will pledge myself to the
support of Morsh Bataar's sons. Yurt and Iragana can be the
founders of a dynasty which would see your machines constructed as
you wish."
        "Very good," said Iva-Italis, positively purring. "Very
good."
        Sken-Pitilkin was almost inclined to purr himself. This was
all going very well. Guest Gulkan had spoken with uncommon
reasonableness, and the demon had matched him in that.
        But there was more to come:-
        "I have conferred with the Great God Jocasta," said Italis.
"That was quick!" said Guest.
        "It is over a year since you stole the star-globe from the
Morgrim Bank," said Italis. "We have had a full thirteen moons to
consider the possibilities. Where would you come to if not to
here? We have had a year to talk this matter out in full - and to
discuss it with Shabble."
        At that, Guest and Sken-Pitilkin exchanged glances. It is
significant that Sken-Pitilkin should look to his former tutor
rather than to his father. Despite the rapturous reception which
Lord Onosh had given his long-lost son, the plain fact was that
Guest had spent much more of his adult life in Sken-Pitilkin's
company than he had in his father's house, and wizard and
Weaponmaster knew each other to a nicety, whereas Guest had
inevitably become something of a stranger to his father.
        "What are you talking about?" said Lord Onosh, addressing his
question to Italis. "What's this about Shabble?"
        Guest and Sken-Pitilkin had already realized what Italis was
going to propose, and had acknowledged the realization to each
other by no more than a wordless glance. But then, both Guest and
Sken-Pitilkin had endured long and deep acquaintance with Shabble,
who had been to Lord Onosh but a transitory phenomenon briefly
encountered and thereafter unknown.
        "We feel," said Italis, "and here by we I mean both the Great
God Jocasta and the conference of demons which serves that god -
we feel we need an immediate deity under which the Circle can be
united."
        "Shabble, you mean?" said Lord Onosh. "If that's how you
feel, why do you come by the notion now? Now and not formerly?"
        "Formerly," said Italis, "we did not have the pleasure of
Shabble's company. Shabble has only kept us company for the last
year or so. It is Shabble who now forms the focus of our plans.
Let me make it clear that your offer of dynastic support for the
Great God Jocasta is not sufficient to tempt us to support you in
a conquest of the Circle."
        Translation: you are mortal, we are not. You will be gone in
a hundred years, whereas we will be here in a thousand.
        "In addition to your dynastic support," said Italis, "we feel
we need an immediate deity. The peoples of the Circle are wedded
to the superstitious worship of that which they can see, touch,
hear and feel. They are not yet ready to bow down and worship
Jocasta, who is distant, and wounded, and temporarily unavailable
to worshippers. We need a god."
        "The Yarglat have gods," said Lord Onosh. "There is the horse
god, Noth. Would Noth suit hour purposes?"
        "I have another god in mind," said Iva-Italis. "This god was
born upon Untunchilamon."
        Guest knew what was coming. But, fearing his father was going
to make a fool of himself by an undue display of ignorance, Guest
intervened with a preemptive question.
        "You're not talking about, uh, a certain Cockroach, are you?"
said Guest.
        "But what else?" said Italis. "What else would I be talking
about? You know it, you know it all, even if your father does
not."
        By that response, Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis, demon of Safrak,
showed the intimacy with which it knew Guest Gulkan. The thing had
divined the reason for his slow-on-the-uptake question. Just as
Guest and Sken-Pitilkin could confirm shared perceptions with no
more than a glance, so too the demon Italis could as good as read
Guest Gulkan's mind.
        Intimacy was the key to this skill.
        Sken-Pitilkin, Italis, Guest Gulkan - they had shared so much
of the recent years that they had no secrets from each other.
Guest certainly had very few secrets from the demon Italis, for,
while formerly incarcerated in the yellow bottle with Shabble,
Guest had shared many intimacies with that ever-talkative bubble,
and the demons of the Circle had had a full year and more extract
the history of those intimacies from Shabble.
        In a way, Guest Gulkan could not help but be gratified by the
manner in which the demon Italis understood him. For Guest, the
mainrock Pinnacle had become a place of stability, and his easy
familiarity with the demon Italis was an index of that stability.
The demon had prevailed, unmoved, unchanging, while the rest of
existence had shifted beyond recognition.
        One of the terrors of human existence is that, as we get
older, the world loses the solidity and stability which it
possessed of during childhood, when the existing order seemed
absolute. Indeed, to a wizard, the world seems at times a sheer
phantasmagoria, in which empires shift, deform, and melt like fog
in the sun, and in which the very gods themselves change the faces
which they show to humanity as they endure their evolution.
        While Guest had yet to suffer that terror which a wizard
suffers when he first realizes that all of living creation, saving
he alone, has forgotten the names and genesis of his parents, he
had nevertheless seen so much change, evolve or perish that he had
lost any confidence in the stability of the existing order.
        In many ways, the demon Italis had become a foundation stone
of Guest's existence; and, though he half-hated the thing, and
feared it more than a fraction, he nevertheless felt an inevitable
dependency upon it. For if the demon Italis were to cease to
exist, then who but for Sken-Pitilkin would truly know, recognize
and understand the Weaponmaster?
        "The demon," said Lord Onosh, taking Guest by the shoulder.
"It says you know something. What is it you know?"
        "You remember Shabble," said Guest.
        "Of course," said Lord Onosh. "Of course I remember. Shabble,
the Cockroach, that rabble of piratical filibusters - how could I
forget?"
        "Well," said Guest, "our good friend Iva-Italis has plans for
Shabble, and for that Cockroach."
        By this stage, Guest Gulkan, Sken-Pitilkin and the demon
Italis understood exactly what was on the agenda, but to bring the
Witchlord Onosh to the same state of understanding was the work of
a full week.
        Lord Onosh, like a diligent student of the higher
peevishness, seemed perversely reluctant to understand the
obvious; and Guest, his mind sharpened by matching wits with Crabs
and inquisitors, with wizards and ethnologists, with Great Gods
and demons, and with the very Lobos itself.
        Despite the Witchlord's reluctance to concede that he
understood, the facts were simple. After long millennia of
imprisonment, the Great God Jocasta had at last been liberated
from the Temple of Blood in Obooloo: and, even though the Great
God was temporarily recuperating from battle-damage inside a
mountain in Dalar ken Halvar, Jocasta would eventually be able to
sally out to assume the rule of the world.
        To prepare the way for the Great God, the demons of the
Circle of the Partnership Banks were willing to help Guest Gulkan
seize control of that Circle - if he would pledge to use it for
the benefit of the Great God.
        As Guest would probably be dead of old age by the time the
Great God completed its recuperation, he was more or less prepared
to assent to such a deal. But there was a hitch. The demons wished
to enslave the populations of the cities of the Circle by imposing
upon them a new god: the Holy Cockroach. In the name of the Cult
of Cockroach, the peoples of the Circle would build the new
technologies which the Great God Jocasta would (in the fullness of
times) painlessly inherit.
        At last Lord Onosh conceded his understanding, after which he
debated the matter with Guest and Sken-Pitilkin.
It was Guest who was given the task of delivering their
decision to the demon Italis.
        "We thought about your proposition," said Guest, "and we have
decided that your notion of inflicting this Cult of Cockroach upon
the world is intolerable."
        "But," said Italis, "you will surely need our help if you are
to conquer the Circle. Mere possession of a single Door and a
single star-globe is nothing in itself."
        "Quite right," said Guest. "But we have thought it through,
and we have decided that, if the Cult of Cockroach is to be the
price for victory, then we will not attempt any such conquest. All
things considered, we would rather not reopen Alozay's Door. We
would rather live out our lives in the modest contentment of these
our Safrak Islands."
        "But what is your objection?" said Italis. "I did not know
you to be in possession of a religion. If you are not a religious
person, then why does it matter to you what god is or is not
worshipped?"
        "If the peoples of the world wish to worship rocks, trees,
stones or toads, then let them," said Guest. "It's nothing to me.
At least, not in itself! But, in the city of Dalar ken Halvar, a
city of the Circle, the militant religion of Nu-chala-nuth holds
sway. If you are bent on forcing the Cult of Cockroach upon all
the world, then you will spark a religious war, when Cockroach
clashes with Nu-chala-nuth. I have been in that city, I have met
that religion, and I think it better for the world if the
doctrines of Nu-chala-nuth be confined to the wastelands of
Parengarenga."
        "You fear this religion?" said Italis.
        "You know as much of it as I do," said Guest, "and probably
much more.
        "Ah," said Italis, "but has this Nu-chala-nuth a bubble which
speaks, which squeaks, which flies, which burns with a fire as
bright as the sun, which can blast towers and maim cities at a
firestroke?"
        "No," said Guest, "but - "
        "So it is mere superstition!" said Italis. "Whereas the
Cockroach is fact, a proven god, with living hellfire ready to
strike down his enemies! Holy holy holy! Holy is the Cockroach!
Unholy are his enemies! They will burn! Their flesh with blister,
will char, will crisp! The smoke of their burning will be as
incense unto the nostrils of heaven!"
        Much more in the same vein followed. To which Guest responded
thus:-
        "You can and will defeat the forces of Nu-chala-nuth in a
clash of war. But to defeat this religion in war will be to
scatter it, for the refugees of war will carry it to every
horizon. Once scattered, it is sown. As you sow, so shall you
reap. I think to use a vicious war as an instrument to sow the
seeds of Nu-chala-nuth broadcast through the world would be - in
time! - to reap the whirlwind."
        "Brave rhetoric," said Italis. "But the rhetoric veers from
the truths of your Yarglat birth, your Yarglat upbringing. The
Yarglat say nothing of sowing and reaping. They are a nation of
hunters, and you a hunter in the manner of your kind. For all your
crop-planting rhetoric, I cannot imaginatively configure you as a
farmer. For all your rhetoric, I cannot imagine you much concerned
if Dalar ken Halvar were to run awash with blood and every person
in Parengarenga be slaughtered by religious war."
        This was perceptive, though not uncommonly so.
        In the course of his life, Guest Gulkan had not shown himself
to be any great humanitarian. His true fear - which he had shared
with Sken-Pitilkin, though he had no intention of sharing it with
the demon Italis - was the dilution of his own authority.
        Long exile, defeat and disappointment, combined with fear,
suffering and grueling endurance tests of all descriptions, had
hardened and strengthened the Weaponmaster's will to power. His
ambitions had become focused on the overthrow of his enemies and
the mastery of the Door. He had no wish to share such mastery with
a priesthood in the service of the Cockroach, or with a Shabble;
and he saw that a Conference of Demons allied to such a priesthood
and to such a Shabble would find it the easiest thing in the world
to push aside a mere Yarglat barbarian once he had outworn his
use.
        "Come," said Italis, as Guest remained silent. "My terms are
surely reasonable. After all, you're offering me nothing, but I'm
offering you the rule of the world."
        "Out of the goodness of your heart," said Guest.
        "I would choose you as my instrument rather than anyone
else," said Italis, "for I know you better than I know any other.
I would rather give employment to an old friend than to a
stranger. But you must understand that I speak of a whim. It's
not, after all, as if you had anything I want."
        "On the contrary," said Guest. "We must have something you
need, else you would not have bothered talking with us."
        "What, then?" said Italis. "What is it you have that I need?"
        "We have Sken-Pitilkin's power of flight," said Guest. "That
and the yellow bottle, yes, and the ring which commands that
bottle. In the bottle we can carry an army, and Sken-Pitilkin can
fly it anywhere at will. With Shabble's strength combined with
your own, and with that strength matched with the ability to ship
an army by air, we can in combination bring the Bankers to their
knees."
        "If we have to," said Italis, "then we can rule the Circle in
our own right with assistance from Shabble alone."
        "Shabble is not reliable," said Guest.
        The Weaponmaster did not think that even demons such as Ko of
Chi'ash-lan and Italis of Alozay could succeed in bending Shabble
to their will on a permanent basis. True, it seemed that the
demons had had Shabble as a prisoner for a year. Much could have
been done in that time to make the bubble amenable to their
discipline.
        But, as Guest had learnt from the side-chatter of
Untunchilamon, and from long conversations with Shabble itself, a
thousand attempts at ruling Shabble had been made in the past, and
all had come to disaster in the end. Shabble could not be
permanently coerced by threats, promises, oaths, temptations, for
Shabble was one of nature's born delinquents, and Shabble's only
ultimate allegiance was to a creed of self-indulgent anarchy.
        "Shabble might not prove permanently reliable," conceded
Italis, "but a priesthood of the Cockroach would be. Us demons,
we'd be the high priests. The rest follows naturally."
        "I will think about it," said Guest.
        And with that, the Weaponmaster withdrew.
        There then followed a long and tense conference between
Witchlord and Weaponmaster, with Sken-Pitilkin in attendance.
        "We've faced this problem before," said Lord Onosh.
        They had indeed.
        On fleeing Untunchilamon with Sken-Pitilkin and others,
Shabble had come to the island of Alozay, and had made a brief-
lived effort to install upon that island the rule of the Cult of
Cockroach.
        But Guest and Sken-Pitilkin had defeated such efforts by
stealing the star-globe. Shabble had chased after the stolen star-
globe, and, on venturing to the island of Drum in pursuit of it,
had been captured by certain wizards of the Confederation who had
long maintained a vigil there, hoping for Sken-Pitilkin to fall to
their snares.
        "That net thing," said Guest Gulkan, referring to the silver
net with which the wizards of the Confederation had restrained
Shabble. "How did that work?"
        "I've no idea," said Sken-Pitilkin. "But most things of
wizard make can be destroyed by application of brute force, if the
force is sufficient. We must assume that the prodigious strength
of the demon Ko would surely have been adequate to destroy that
net and liberate the Shining One for flamethrowing, regardless of
the make of that net."
        "So," said Lord Onosh, "if the demons have truly suborned
Shabble to their service, if only temporarily, then they may send
the bubble against us to coerce us to their service."
        "That is a strong probability," said Sken-Pitilkin.
        "Then," said Lord Onosh, "we must seek to apply the same
remedy that we applied before. We must send the star-globe away
from here so that the Circle of the Doors remains closed. Once
deprived of all possibility of playing with these toys, Shabble
may well seek amusement elsewhere."
        "Shabble may well," said Sken-Pitilkin.
        "But," said Guest, dismayed at the prospect of further exile,
further wandering, further hazard and suffering, "this will take
years!"
        "What alternative is there?" said Lord Onosh. "I am no
wizard, and I have not wandered the world as widely as you have,
but I think I know enough of Italis and such similar demons to
know that they cannot in any way be trusted."
        With Guest coming to reluctant agreement, preparations were
made for the Weaponmaster to depart once more with his tutelary
wizard. Thayer Levant agreed - with some considerable reluctance -
to accompany the Weaponmaster once again. The yellow bottle was
heavily provisioned. The demon Italis was placed under interdict
once more, with the doors to the Hall of Time being sealed and
guarded. Sken-Pitilkin took charge of the star-globe.
        All these arrangements took no more than the length of a day.
And, on an evening of fog and low cloud, Guest and Sken-Pitilkin
took to the skies, accompanied by a somewhat surly Levant.
        They had flown no great distance from Alozay when the
darkening mists behind them were torn apart by rupturing fire.
Either a dragon was assailing Alozay, or else the mainrock
Pinnacle was coming under attack from a very, very angry Shabble.
        "We got away only just in time," said Guest, soberly.
        "We are not away yet," said Sken-Pitilkin, "for we have yet
to reach a place of refuge."
        And, with that, the wizard of Skatzabratzumon guided his
stickbird through the night, wondering just how much damage
Shabble might have done on Alozay, and just how much more damage
Shabble might do in the future, and what manner of place might
give the refugees some kind of reliable sanctuary.