Name: Thodric Jarl.
        Birthplace: Rovac.
        Occupation: mercenary.
        Status: imperial bodyguard.
        Description: blunt and decidedly unplayful Rovac warrior,
gray of eye and gray of beard, though he is as yet far from the
years of his full maturity - for he is but 24 years of age.
        Hobby: cultivating the intimate acquaintance of young women
of surpassing beauty (and here note that Jarl is no gluttonous
greedpig but, rather, a connoisseur who will kill for the best
while ignoring anything which does not meet his rigorous standards
of perfection).
        Quote: "I would that each was a wizard, for then our victory
would be all the sweeter." (Said in the Cold West before he led a
thousand men to battle against an enemy which outnumbered his own
forces by four to one. Despite the promise of victory implicit in
his boast, on that occasion he was defeated, and nine in ten of
his men were slaughtered or enslaved.)

                                                 * * *

        Shall we say something about Thodric Jarl? Shall we speak of
the color of his eye and the tint of his beard? Shall we tell of
his history and his hobbies, or quote him in his rhetoric?
        No.
        Suffice it simply to say that Jarl was of the Rovac, that the
Rovac are as primitive a bunch of blood-letting savages as you are
likely to cross swords with, and that Jarl was true to his kind.
        Hence Guest Gulkan feared him.
        Or should have feared him!
        Time flies like an arrow, as the proverb has it, and before
midwinter Guest Gulkan returned to Gendormargensis and announced
his intention to meet Thodric Jarl in single combat.
        The wizard Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin shortly came to see Guest
Gulkan and counseled him to flee the city.
        "Why in the name of a dog's green vomit should I do a thing like
that?" said Guest.
        Guest had then lately entered upon a phase where he spent a
great deal of his spare time in devising new and especially
barbarous oaths, and "a dog's greem vomit" is typical of these. Sken-
Pitilkin resisted the temptation to abrade the boy on account of
his uncouth neologisms, and instead dedicated himself to giving
good counsel.
        "You must flee from Gendormargensis," said Sken-Pitilkin,
"because, unless you flee the city, you'll have to hack it out
face to face with Thodric Jarl."
        "I should worry?" said Guest.
        "Of course you should worry!"
        "Why?" said Guest. "Because I'll get blood on my clothes?"
        "Because the blood will be your own," said Sken-Pitilkin.
"You have a choice. Bribe up big to buy off Jarl. Or flee. That's
the limit of the choices you have at your own disposal, though Bao
Gahai may have others."
        This Bao Gahai was a dralkosh, a witch, whose devices had
helped the Witchlord Onosh secure power and keep it. Rumor had it
that Bao Gahai's strength was faltering, but many feared her
still.
        "Bao Gahai?" said Guest. "I'll not be seeking help from her."
        "Yet she may give it," said Sken-Pitilkin. "She desires your
presence, now, today, and to tell you as much is the greater part
of my reason for coming here. Well. Are you ready to go?"
        "I'm not going to see her!" said Guest.
        But Sken-Pitilkin was persistent, and told the boy that Lord
Onosh himself wished Guest to consult with Bao Gahai. So at length
the young Weaponmaster allowed himself to be persuaded into the
presence of the dralkosh who for so long had aided and counseled
his father.
        The audience took place in Bao Gahai's bedroom, which smelt
of camphor, of cats, and of antiquity. Bao Gahai was sitting
up in bed with a cheeseboard on her knees. On the cheeseboard was
an assortment of nuts - she never ate cheese, for she was allergic
to it, just as she was allergic to catmeat and the eggs of
seagulls - and throughout the audience she occupied herself by
opening those nuts with the aid of a hammer, a chisel and an
autoptical brain-hook. By profession she was a pathologist, and
though she no longer dissected dead flesh - excitement always got
the better of her, and she invariably moved from the dead to the
living - she was still possessed by the scarcely controllable urge
to dissect something. Hence the nuts.
        "As a mark of my favor," said Bao Gahai, once she was alone
with the young Weaponmaster, "I have persuaded your father to let
the Rovac warrior Rolf Thelemite remain as your bodyguard, for all
that he has recently led you into folly by the way of gambling."
        "As a mark of your favor, if I truly have your favor," said
Guest, astonished by his own boldness even as he spoke, "you might
see to the cancellation of my gambling debts - and Rolf's."
        "It's the cancellation of your life that should concern you,"
said Bao Gahai. "Not the cancellation of debt."
        "You think me dead at the hand of Thodric Jarl?" said Guest,
alluding to the duel to which he was doomed.
        "I think that a strong likelihood, unless you leave the
city," said Bao Gahai. "I suggest an extended journey of
exploration in the Eastern Marches."
        "That would be one way of thwarting Jarl's bloodlust," agreed
Guest, with an entirely unwonted cheerfullness.
        "You're not thinking of poisoning him, are you?" said Bao
Gahai sharply.
        "No," said Guest. "Of fighting him merely. Of killing him."
        "You," said Bao Gahai, flicking a piece of walnut shell in
Guest's direction, "have been taking opium."
        "Opium?" said Guest.
        "Yes, yes," said Bao Gahai. "You have been taking opium. Or
else you have a fever."
        "A fever? No? Why would you think so?"
        "Because," said Bao Gahai, "there is never any way under any
of the seventy suns of the fifty thousand hells of Bancharoth that
you will ever kill Thodric Jarl in single combat."
        "My sword has slaughtered down a multiple of men in combat,"
said the Weaponmaster staunchly, "and I have trained long and hard
since my last slaughter."
        "You?" said Bao Gahai, with a laugh barely to be
distinguished from the sound of nutshells snappling. "You? You
have trained? With whom? With Rolf Thelemite, maybe?"
        "The very man," said Guest. "And he is a Rovac warrior, is he
not?"
        "For sure," said Bao Gahai. "Rolf Thelemite is a warrior, as
a sparrow is a bird. But I think the gray-bearded Jarl to be a
very eagle in his pride, and I think the sharpness of his talons a
fit complement to that pride."
        Then Bao Gahai started to laugh.
        She laughed and she laughed. Her full-fledged throttling was
hideous, sounding for all the world like a man being strangled.
        Guest Gulkan took Bao Gahai's laughter as a cue to leave, and
swiftly made his escape. But Bao Gahai sent Sken-Pitilkin to
persecute young Guest with books, and with papers, and with
irregular verbs; and to divine his intentions if this should prove
remotely possible. The dralkosh did not believe for one moment
that Guest actually intended dueling Jarl, so presumed he had a
secret plan in hatching.
        But Sken-Pitilkin found no hint of the existence of any such
plan; and found, too, that the boy Guest was decidedly reluctant
to settle to his lessons, for his sword seemed to have fascinated
him like a bewitching love.
        A date for Guest Gulkan's duel with Thodric Jarl had been
fixed, and on morning before that day of destiny - to be precise,
on a morning some ten days after the Weaponmaster's return to
Gendormargensis - Sken-Pitilkin came to Guest's quarters and found
the boy busily sharpening the long razorblade of his sword's
cutting edge.
        "It is written," said Sken-Pitilkin, shivering in the
unheated coldness of Guest Gulkan's room, "that an icicle is but a
poor room-mate. Blood, boy! Why don't you heat the room?"
        "I am hardening myself body and soul," said Guest, with a
studied seriousness which appeared devoid of any hint of irony. "I
am hardening myself to meet with Thodric Jarl. Besides, the
exercise of the sword warms me to a sufficiency."
        "But I am old," said Sken-Pitilkin, "and my bones chilled
with my age. It is written that the old should not suffer from the
folly of the young."
        "Where is that written?" said Guest. "In a book?"
        "Where else?" said Sken-Pitilkin.
        "Books truth nothing," said Guest, studying his swordblade by
the winterlight which shivered through the open window. "Anyone
can write anything in a book."
        "So they can," said Sken-Pitilkin, settling himself of a
chair and pulling Guest's best solskin horseblanket around him.
"The date of your death, for example. In the books of the city's
best bookmakers, that date is written as tomorrow. But there are
other things well-written in the books of the world. Irregular
verbs, for instance. What say you leave that sword, and make some
verbs mere chopmeat with the razor of your intellect."
        As scholars have always known, languages should ever be the
first learning of the man who may be destined to hold great power.
recognizing this truth, the unscholarly Lord Onosh had ordered
Sken-Pitilkin to labor young Guest into a linguist. But Guest
hated the foreign tongues, their hookworm alphabets and their
irregular verbs; and, failing to recognize their imposition as a
sign of his father's love for him, he reacted as if Lord Onosh had
personally invented all foreign syllabaries for the express
purpose of torturing an unscholarly boy.
        "Your passion for verbs is obscene," said Guest, momentarily
laying aside his sword.
        "Obscene?" said Sken-Pitilkin.
        "Surely," said Guest, sliding shut the translucent paper
screens designed to exclude the winter air from his quarters.
"You lust for them. You lust like a very antelope. Irregular
verbs! To grope, squeeze, suck and horsewhip such! A sick passion!
As for me, I'd rather kiss a toad. I'd think that
the lesser perversion."
        "Then that's unfortunate," said Sken-Pitilkin, "for your
father wishes me to corrupt you with the choicests of my
passions."
        "Then let's at least leave the irregular verbs till I have
killed myself my man," said Guest, again picking up his sword.
"Before battle, I must purify myself, and abstain from all
perversions, irregular verbs included."
        By way of reply, Sken-Pitilkin reached beneath the
horseblanket which he had snugged across his knees, and took a
book from beneath his skirt. These skirts were a foreign fashion,
and Guest thought they must be desperately cold, though he was
wrong in his thinking, for they were exceptionally practical and
comfortable, and Sken-Pitilkin ever demonstrated great wisdom by
wearing them. Having retrieved the book, Sken-Pitilkin began to
unwrap its layers of waterproofing oil-cloth.
        Guest Gulkan pretended to ignore the book in favor of the
admiration of his own reflection in his swordblade. By
manipulating the blade he could screen out the greatness of his
ears - and concentrate instead on eyes and lips. The young
Weaponmaster twisted his lips into a ferocious sneer then rolled
his eyes in imitation of a horse gone mad.
        All of which severely tempted Sken-Pitilkin, who sorely
longed to fetch Guest a sharp crack with his country crook. But, of
course, the boy had long since outgrown such convenient
discipline.
        "If you will not light a brazier," said Sken-Pitilkin,
cool even though he was snugged beneath the horseblanket, "at
least pass me a little wine to warm my veins."
        "What makes you think I've got wine on hand?" said Guest.
        "When are you ever without it?" said Sken-Pitilkin.
        This was a telling point, and Guest shortly uncovered some
wine, and a block of rather grubby cheese to go with it. Knowing
Bao Gahai to be allergic to cheese, Guest had acquired a great
store of it, thinking to devise some plan for her poisoning. But
he had failed in this enterprise, and so was put to the trouble of
eating the stuff.
        "Careful," said Guest, as Sken-Pitilkin helped himself to
wine and cheese. "Be careful, lest you spill your drink on that
precious book of yours."
        "The book is mine," said Sken-Pitilkin, studying the cheese
from several different angles, as if suspecting that it might be
poisoned, "so let me do the worrying."
        "I worry for my father's sake," said Guest. "For that book is
the chiefest of his torturers. Should it die in the bloodflow of
your downspilt wine, he'd be ten years searching for an instrument
of equal punishment."
        "This book is not torture but love," said Sken-Pitilkin,
wiping the cheese on the horseblanket, "as I've told you not one
time but fifty. Sit! Squat yourself down, boy, then let us begin."
        Guest Gulkan sat, and squared himself to face the book,
looking for all the world like an inexperienced gladiator forced
to do battle against a dragon with a toothpick as his sole
armament. The book, of course, was Strogloth's Compendium of
Delights.
        The eminent Strogloth - and who he is is unknown, which is
just as well, as there is many a young scholar who would dearly
like to murder him - had searched great heaps of grammars for
their irregular verbs, working in the spirit of one of those
pornographers who reads immense libraries of law and religion with
the sole purpose of extracting nuggets of brutal licentiousness.
        The result? Spectacular!
        "We will begin," said Sken-Pitilkin, chewing on the cheese,
which was not too bad, "with the conjugation of the verb porp.
Which means...? Guest? Guest, what is meant by the word porp?"
        "You tell me," said Guest, "for the irregular verbs are your
perversion, not mine."
        "A perversion, yes," agreed Sken-Pitilkin, speaking with
great self-restraint. Then, feeling the boy had had things all his
own way for just a little too long: "But are you not a pervert? Is
not the killing of men and the taking of their scalps a perversion
of sorts?"
        "It is culturally appropriate," said Guest. "You told me so
yourself when we studied ethnology."
        "Ah, ethnology," said Sken-Pitilkin. "A mistake."
        Here it must be conceded that Sken-Pitilkin had indeed made a
grievous error when he introduced young Guest to the science of
ethnology; for Sken-Pitilkin had forgotten how much of that
science deals in great and enthusiastic detail with vivisection,
cannibalism, head hunting, ritual murder, torture, louche
initiation rites, and, above all, with sex customs.
        "An ethnologist would say," said Guest, gaining enthusiasm as
he saw he had the advantage, "that hunting men and killing them
for their scalps is a vital part of my cultural heritage. For you
as an uitlander scholar to criticize or condemn this practice
would represent intolerable interference in the internal affairs
of the Collosnon Empire."
        "No," said Sken-Pitilkin, "you are wrong, for now you have
confounded a theorem of ethnology with a practical political
doctrine."
        "I have not!" said Guest.
        But he had, and Sken-Pitilkin explained his error to him in
excruciating detail.
        "You understand?" said Sken-Pitilkin. "No! Of course you
don't! Never mind. Let us proceed to delight, for the irregular
verbs yet await us."
        "Irregular verbs!" sneered Guest. "My praxis is combat, not
scholarship. My destiny is to do battle, to kill men, to drink
their blood and take their scalps."
        "Perhaps, perhaps," said Sken-Pitilkin. "But I rule this
particular battlefield, so you will conduct yourself like a
prisoner of war and obey me as the chiefest of your jailors. The
verbs!"
        "The verbs have awaited us for years already," said Guest.
"Let them wait till tomorrow for, with my man as yet to kill, I'm
in no mood for study today."
        "Words are weapons," said Sken-Pitilkin. "And tools. If you
aspire to be surgeon to the body politic, then you should look to
your armamentarium."
        "Swords are weapons far better," said Guest. "For language
cannot chop heads."
        Sken-Pitilkin studied the young man carefully, for he was
sober yet spoke with a drunkard's enthusiasm. He was drugged. Or
somehow intoxicated. Perhaps, just perhaps, he was intoxicated by
his own over-enterprising ambition. Certainly he looked far, far
too buoyant, considering that he was due to shortly face the
murderous Thodric Jarl in a duel he was certain to lose.
Sken-Pitilkin wondered if Guest had any true conception of
the true nature of his own predicament.
        "You know, my boy," said Sken-Pitilkin, "it would be very
easy for you to make your peace with Thodric Jarl, if you did but
humble yourself before him. Your life is full of so much promise
that it would be foolish for you to do otherwise."
        "My life," said Guest, "has no promise whatsoever."
        "No promise?" said Sken-Pitilkin in surprise. "But don't you
realize that you're surely going to end up with the imperial
throne? That's your fate of a certainty, as long as you can master
your temper and learn up a little diplomacy, and just a fragment
of self-control to match it."
        "You do but fantasize," said Guest, "for I am but a motherless
boy with no future here or elsewhere, as all the world is at pains
to tell me, thrice five times a day between dawning and darkness.
But even though I must live here as a worthless bastard with all
the world leagued in scorn against me, I will not surrender my
pride by crawling to Thodric Jarl, no, nor by bribing him either."
        So spoke Guest Gulkan, revealing depths of resentment which
surprised Sken-Pitilkin, who cast about for some form of words
which might improve the boy's self-confidence.
        "You lie so smoothly I wish I'd taught you the skill myself,"
said Sken-Pitilkin, failing to find the words he sought. "Very
well. Since your mastery has already encompassed the art of the
lie, and since today finds you lacking the courage to tackle the
smallest of the irregular verbs, though it be a naked verb, and
hairless, and feeble in its antiquity - then, that being so, let
us turn our minds to the study of geography."
        "Not if that means maps," said Guest.
        "You are in luck," said Sken-Pitilkin, "for all my maps are
back in my own quarters."
        "All right then," said Guest. "Geography it is."
        He was relieved that they were to abandon verbs for
geography. For geography was not quite so very bad, at least when
there were no maps to be studied. Sken-Pitilkin had trunkloads of
maps, charts and plans showing the margins of earth and sea, the
sewer systems of foreign cities, the whims of the wind, the
fruiting of the harvests, key infestations of dragons and the
geographical range of the platypus. But while Guest knew the
theory of maps, he had yet to master the art of conjuring truth
from a scrabblework of isograms. Usually, when given a mapwork
problem, he would stare at the parchment all day and get precisely
nowhere.
        Guest Gulkan had such difficulties partly because so many
things on Sken-Pitilkin's maps were entirely alien to his
experience. The sea, for instance. He was exasperated by
geographical figurations which suggested that in places the sea
ran on for thousands of leagues without interruption, because
surely the existence of such an immensity of water was contrary to
both reason and sheer probability.
        And a shortage of illustrations made it difficult to match
these alien places with their flora and fauna. The elephant and
the platypus were both delineated explicitly in Sken-Pitilkin's
Book of Beasts, the one being a very large mouse with deformed
teeth and a nose of surpassing length, and the other being a rat
in the form of a duck.
        But what of the quokka? And the jellyfish?
        Of these Guest Gulkan was unable to form any clear conception.
Yet he hoped never to meet such a monster as a jellyfish in
the flesh, for it had been described to him as a translucent beast
in the form of a blob from which depended a million fine-stranded
tentacles which stung and killed. The monster was alleged to be
otherwise without features, possessed of no eyes, nose, ears,
arms, head, neck, trunk or external organs of generation. Guest
Gulkan had met with the jellyfish twice already in nightmare, and
on neither occasion had he been able to argue the brute out of
killing him. On no account did he want to meet the thing a third
time in the world of the real.
        He said as much.
        "Fear not the jellyfish," said Sken-Pitilkin. "A far more
dangerous creature is the woman. Far many more men have been
killed on account of women than ever met their deaths in the
tentacles of a jellyfish. You in your own flesh look to become one
of them."
        "It's not come to killing," said Guest. "Not yet."
        Though the young Yarglat barbarian knew there would almost
certainly be a killing when he met with Jarl on the morrow, he had
no appetite for argument with his tutor.
        "Then don't let it!" said Sken-Pitilkin. "Pay out your gold!
Bribe the Rovac! Buy yourself a victory! For it won't be Jarl who
dies. Oh no. If it's blades in earnest, it's you who dies. And
you're running out of time to do something about it."
        "You underestimate me," said Guest. "I have my sword, and
I've spent my life training in its use."
        "Your life!" said his tutor. "Boy, you're still wet from the
egg! If you don't trust me, then trust the city. All over
Gendormargensis, men are placing bets, and the odds predict your
speedy death in battle."
        "When we fight," said Guest, tempted into the heat of
argument despite himself, "it won't be me who does the dying. I've
killed men and, and I've trained for killing more, and what's Jarl
so special about?"
        "A man is a man," said Sken-Pitilkin. "And a boy a boy."
        "I'm no boy!" said Guest in fury, though of course at the age
of 14 he was very much a boy.
        "A boy, verily, to be so easily provoked," said Sken-Pitilkin
calmly. "Why, you're as irregular in your humors as one of the
Akromian verbs."
        "Jarl will be boy enough to bury when I'm through with him,"
said Guest. "You want to be rich? Then bet on my fortunes!"
        "I'm not a gambling man," said Sken-Pitilkin. "But as soon as
our lesson is over, I'm going to wager a month's salary on your
early death. I'd be a fool to pass up a chance of profit so
certain."
        "Certain!" said Guest, rising to his feet. "I'll show you
what's certain!"
        With that battle-smash threat, the young Weaponmaster boiled
out of his room, driven by the steam generated by the heat of his
anger. However, once having boiled in such an impressive fashion,
he found his wrath evaporating almost as swiftly as it had been
generated.
        So where to now?
        In the harshness of its winter, Gendormargensis was no place
for idling out of doors. Its bleakness was ruled by the wind-slam
rain which slushed the streets to a turgid muck, the frigidity of
which beaked eagerly through the cracks and chasms in the
Weaponmaster's filthy boots. Though Guest was an emperor's son,
the congenital disorder of his gear ever made him look like an
impoverished refugee from six years of mountain-path campaigning.
        Ever so slowly, the young Weaponmaster began to feel ever so
slightly stupid. Should he go back inside? And lose face by
apologizing? Never! Even so ... he half-wished Sken-Pitilkin would
exert his authority and order him back inside. But his elderly
tutor appeared to have given up on him, at least for the moment.
        Guest Gulkan summed his options, and quickly, the weather
being a disincentive to extended meditation. He could quest to
Rolf Thelemite's sickbed and seek to rouse the man from his
convalescence. Or he could at last yield to the advice of his
betters, seek out Thodric Jarl, and bribe that Rovac mercenary to
throw their fight in Enskandalon Square. Or, if still bent on
dueling Jarl to the death, he could practice those sword-skills
which he had been honing for so long.
        Or -
        But here Guest Gulkan left off thinking, for an oncoming
messenger was hailing him.
        "Ho! Gulkan my man!"
        It was the dwarf Glambrax, his pet dwarf and his father's
favorite fool.
        "Ho!" said Guest.
        "Ho-ha!" said Glambrax.
        "Ho-ha-ho-ho!" said Guest.
        This went on for some time, the pair bawling at each other in
the strumpeting wind like a couple of madmen, for this was a
nonsense-game they had brought to perfection in the last year or
so. But at last Glambrax swapped nonsense for sense.
        "Zelafona, my man," said Glambrax, thus venting to the winter
air the name of the witch who had mothered him.
        "If I'm to be Zelafona," said Guest, "then I'm naturally
woman, not man, though I doubt I'd be woman of yours."
        "Zelafona," said Glambrax, ignoring this sally in favor of
his business. "She wishes to see you."
        But Guest had no wish whatsoever to see Glambrax's mother,
who, after all, was Bao Gahai's sister. Doubtless she had good
advice for him, but he was brim-full to the ears with good advice
already, was drowning in the stuff, considered it noxious, said as
much, and proposed that he detoxify himself with some hard spirits
in the nearest tavern of convenience.
        "With Rolf," said Glambrax.
        "Oh, if we can liberate him, then yes," said Guest. "By all
means with Rolf."
        So they took themselves off to the infirmary where the
convalescent Rovac warrior was laid up in bed, recovering from the
aftermath of an attack of scarlet fever. They found Eljuk Zala
seated by Rolf Thelemite, reading to him from one of Sken-
Pitilkin's books of geography.
        Guest Gulkan and Glambrax wrested the book from Eljuk Zala
and pitched it into a half-full chamber pot, then swept the
invalid and his nursemaid away to the nearest tavern. There Guest
got very drunk, his companions got almost as intoxicated, and
Guest in his bravado told all the world how he would hack Jarl to
pieces on the morrow, then take the fair Yerzerdayla as his own,
and bed her with all the ferocity of strength at his disposal.
        When the next day blurred to life, Guest Gulkan woke but
slowly. He was sullen and hungover as he made his way through the
dull morning light to Enskandalon Square, where he was scheduled
to meet Jarl in combat.
        Lord Onosh was there already, waiting for his son. With Lord
Onosh was the dralkosh Bao Gahai, in company with her sister
Zelafona and Zelafona's dwarf-son Glambrax. Others were there
also: a full two hundred assorted warriors, servants, tribesmen
and beggars, together with vendors selling hot chestnuts and cups
of warmed-up horseblood diluted with hard liquor.
        Present amongst that gathering was Eljuk Zala, and there too
were the wizards Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin and Pelagius Zozimus.
Conspicuous by his absence was Rolf Thelemite, who was spending
that morning in his bed in the infirmary, dead to the world as a
consequences of his over-indulgences of the night before.
        On arriving at Enskandalon Square, Guest Gulkan did not
address his father, but instead ignored him entirely as he
stripped off his furs and began practicing some swordstrokes. It
was immediately obvious to the Witchlord Onosh that Guest Gulkan
had been training intensely while encamped by the Yolantarath. But
it was also painfully obvious to Lord Onosh - and to most other
onlookers - that the boy's improvements fell far short of making
him battle-worthy against such a formidable opponent as Jarl.
We must remember that Guest Gulkan was still a boy of 14, and
though his stature could be mistaken for that of a man, he was a
very child in his folly when he thought to match himself against
the battle-hardened brutality of a grown man a full ten years
older that himself.
        When Guest was done with his swordpractice, he at last turned
to his father and grinned.
        Then the Witchlord Onosh saw that his son Guest had no plans
of dying that day, but instead thought he would hack down Thodric
Jarl and walk from that place in triumph. Unfortunately the young
Guest Gulkan had become over-confident in battle through his
success in killing bandits - poor wretches who were usually half-
starved and often half-mad and leprous into the bargain. His
over-confidence had been boosted by the marked improvement he had
lately made through his training.
        "Father," said Eljuk Zala, tugging at the Witchlord's sleeve
to win his attention.
        "Eljuk," said Lord Onosh, acknowledging the presence of his
favorite son.
        "He thinks he can win, doesn't he?" said Eljuk.
        "It would seem so from the grin," said Lord Onosh.
        The Witchlord's voice was measured. It was not easy for him
to stand here waiting for a Rovac warrior to come forth to hack
down his son. But one does not win an empire through softness of
spirit, nor can an empire be held by one who fears to do the hard
things, or to have them done on his account.
        "But," said Eljuk, "but he's going to die. Isn't he?"
        "We are all of us going to die," said Lord Onosh. "The only
question is, when."
        "I - I don't want Guest to die," said Eljuk.
        The plaintive tone of Eljuk's voice made Lord Onosh turn and
look at him. The Witchlord's scrutiny revealed to him a surprising
fact: Eljuk had been crying.
        "You really want him to live?" said Lord Onosh.
        "But of course," said Eljuk, as if it was obvious. "Of course
I want him to live. What else would I want?"
        The innocence of that response almost made Lord Onosh weep.
As Lord Onosh knew full well, if Guest survived this day of
testing then he must necessarily and inevitably kill his brother
Eljuk. Guest had the will to power and the bloody resolution
necessary to seize and hold an empire, whereas Eljuk -
        Poor Eljuk.
        "You've never denied me before," said Eljuk.
        "No," said Lord Onosh. "I haven't."
        Lord Onosh had never been able to deny the boy anything. Not
since he had sentenced the boy to die.
        Character shows itself early, and when Eljuk had been but a
small boy his father had seen that Eljuk would never be emperor.
He was too conciliatory, too sentimental and far too self-
effacing. Whereas Guest had a will to power and a violence to
match it, and hence could definitely be emperor, though in all
probability a bad one.
        Possibly: a very bad one.
        When Lord Onosh had realized the strength and ferocity of
Guest Gulkan's bloody temper, he had seen that everything possible
must be done to postpone the boy's ascension to the imperial
throne, in the hope that the passage of years would mature him and
mellow him. So Lord Onosh had named Eljuk as his heir, thus
dooming Eljuk to die. It is one of the invariable rules of human
affairs that power always ends up in the hands of those who want
it most; and so, since Eljuk had the misfortune to lack all taste
for dominance, it was a foregone conclusion that he would
inevitably be murdered, if not by his brother then by some other.
        Eljuk might - might! - have survived as ruler of some
trifling little peacetime principality where he could have been
played as a puppet by wise and remorseless councilors. But life
amongst the Yarglat did not facilitate charades of puppetry. In
seeking to rule the Yarglat, Eljuk must surely die, and Eljuk -
Eljuk did not realize that he had been sentenced to death,
and that was the measure of his folly, a measure of his total
unsuitability to hold the throne.
        "Eljuk," said Lord Onosh, "when I am dead ... "
        "May you never die," said Eljuk piously.
        "Birth is death," said Lord Onosh harshly. "As I was born, so
must I die. Then - Eljuk, when I'm dead, there won't be anyone to
stand between you and the world."
        "There'll be Guest," said Eljuk.
        "Guest, yes," said Lord Onosh. "So what if - Eljuk, brothers
quarrel. Two brothers, one kingdom. The story plays a thousand
times in history. It never has a happy ending."
        There was a stir amongst those gathered in Enskandalon
Square. Thodric Jarl had arrived.
        "Save Guest," said Eljuk. "Then - then write it down for me.
Don't tell him, but write it down. Write that - that I asked you.
Then when I'm emperor I'll show him what you wrote. Then he'll
know I saved him. A debt, you see."
        Lord Onosh doubted very seriously that any such posthumous
revelation would could for much when an empire was at stake.
        Still.
        What else could he do?
        Eljuk would never be able to hold the empire. He was too ...
too innocent. Too nice. Whereas Guest ... well, Guest was a fool,
a brash and ignorant over-confident fool. He drank too much, kept
bad company, piled up gambling debts, was rude to powerful people
such as Bao Gahai, and according to Sken-Pitilkin's account he was
a scholar of truly grotesque incompetence.
        But despite all these defects the young Weaponmaster had
demonstrated a ruthless resolution that his brother Eljuk lacked.
He had set his heart on hacking down Thodric Jarl; he had trained
for the purpose; he had avoided all temptation to escape from the
duel by bribery; and here he was today, bent on consummating his
folly.
        Lord Onosh summoned Sken-Pitilkin with a finger and made his
wishes known.
        "My lord," said Sken-Pitilkin, once he understood what his
emperor wanted.
        "You won't do it?" said Lord Onosh, detecting a note of
resentful resistance in Sken-Pitilkin's voice.
        "My lord, this - this boy Guest, he's, in his impetuosity he
pitched a book to a chamber-pot."
        "It was your book, I suppose," said Lord Onosh, suppressing
his extreme irritation at finding his tame wizard bothering him
with such a triviality on such an occasion.
        "It was, my lord. It was - "
        "Give me your bill and I'll pay it," said Lord Onosh.
        At which Sken-Pitilkin gave up all hope of making the
Witchlord Onosh understand the gravity of Guest Gulkan's crime.
For the book which had fallen to the chamber pot had been a book
of geography; and ancient; and stocked full of wisdom; and
decorated in its margins with a multitude of irregular verbs; and
it had been ruined entirely by its drenching, and was
quite irreplaceable, for gold would not serve as its replacement,
no, nor ivory either, nor silver, nor any measure of shimmering
silks and unbroken hymens.
        "My lord," said Sken-Pitilkin remotely. "I hear, and to hear
is to obey."
        "Good, good," said Lord Onosh testily. "Then get on with it!"
        Thus commanded, Sken-Pitilkin positioned himself near the
fighters, and prepared to put his powers of levitation to work.
This he did discretely, without anyone in the audience realizing
what was happening. So, when combat was joined, Thodric Jarl's
feet were hooked from under him by the arts of Sken-Pitilkin's
magic, and down went Jarl in the snow and slush. Guest Gulkan
promptly tried to hack off Jarl's head, whereupon Sken-Pitilkin
secured the sideways deflection of the Weaponmaster's sword,
ensuring that it did but hack a bloodline in Jarl's gray-haired
scalp.
        There was supreme art in that studied deflection, but not one
person in the audience understood that art. To the audience, it
seemed merely that Jarl had slipped, and that Guest had blundered
away his chance to decapitate the fallen Rovac warrior.
        Thodric Jarl was down on the ground, bleeding profusely from
the cut in his scalp. Blood poured from his head, sluiced through
his hair, teemed down his face in rivulets then clogged in the
gray of his beard. The Witchlord Onosh promptly declared that Jarl
had been defeated, and that Yerzerdayla was therefore Guest
Gulkan's prize.
        "But," said Lord Onosh, "as the boy Guest has recently been
guilty of a scandalizing delinquency, it is fitting that his
possession of Yerzerdayla be tied to his punishment for that
delinquency."
        Then the Witchlord Onosh publicly denounced the boy Guest on
account of the fact that he had seen fit to dunk one of Sken-
Pitilkin's codicological treasures in a chamber pot. The emperor
announced Guest's punishment:
        "On account of his delinquency, the boy is not be permitted
to take possession of the woman Yerzerdayla until he is 18 years
of age."
        Lord Onosh declared that Yerzerdayla would meanwhile "reside
in chastity" under his own roof.
        The Witchlord Onosh felt that he had resolved things rather
nicely, winning a margin of four years or so in which to arrange
for Guest to discretely surrender Yerzerdayla to Thodric Jarl. But
in the interim, he must move quickly to separate Guest and Jarl,
lest they find some excuse for a rematch.
        Accordingly, that evening the young Guest Gulkan was summoned
into his father's presence. There he found Zelafona, the aged but
elegant sister of Bao Gahai, and her dwarf-son Glambrax.
        "Guest," said Lord Onosh. "You are leaving Gendormargensis.
Tonight. Glambrax and Zelafona are going with you."
        "Leaving?" said Guest. "But why?"
        "Because," said Lord Onosh, "Thodric Jarl has sworn a bloody
oath to kill both you and Sken-Pitilkin. In fact, unless my spies
misheard him, he swore to butcher every wizard in the world."
        "Then," said Guest calmly, "you would be well within your
rights to chop him into dogmeat, for every wizard in
Gendormargensis lives in your protection."
        "So they do, so they do," said Lord Onosh. "So, for their
protection, my wizards are joining you in exile."
        "Exile?" said Guest in alarm. "What are you talking about?"
        "I'm sending you out of the empire," said Lord Onosh. "Have
you heard of a place called Alozay? Have you heard of Molothair?"
        "No," said Guest.
        "Sken-Pitilkin swears he has taught you of both," said Lord
Onosh. "And in detail. Molothair is a city, and Alozay an island.
The city of Molothair sits on the island of Alozay, and serves as
the capital of that archipelago known as Safrak. You can place
Safrak on a map, I trust?"
        "I can place anything on a map," said Guest. "A cup, a plate,
a pot or a branding iron. Give Molothair or Safrak into my hand
and I will place them on any map of your choosing."
        "Come," said Lord Onosh impatiently, "you must know the
places which we're talking of, for Safrak - oh, never mind! Sken-
Pitilkin's the geographer, let him then lesson you. You'll have
plenty of time for lessons on your journey."
        And with that Guest Gulkan was dismissed, and was sent away
to pack up for his journey into exile.

                                                 * * *

        Name: Guest Gulkan.
        Birthplace: Stranagor.
        Occupation: student.
        Status: barbarian-in-training.
        Description: aggressive Yarglat male who lives his life as if
determined to play the role of barbarian to the bloody hilt.
        Hobby: the tasting of beer (often, and in bulk).
        Quote: "It wasn't me and I didn't really mean to do it, and
anyway the bitch bit me." (Said at the age of eleven, when he was
caught barbecuing Viranessa, the silky-haired lap-dog which had
long been the prize possession of his brother Eljuk Zala.)

                                                 * * *

        So it was that Guest Gulkan departed from Gendormargensis in
the depths of winter and made the arduous journey to the islands
of Safrak. He did not go alone but was accompanied by two wizards,
a witch, a dwarf and a bodyguard - the people in question being
the wizard of Xluzu named Pelagius Zozimus, the wizard of
Skatzabratzumon named Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin, the aged but elegant
dralkosh named Zelafona, the dwarf Glambrax and the doughty Rovac
warrior named Rolf Thelemite.
        Though Rolf was not properly recovered from his attack of
scarlet fever, they nevertheless made good time on their journey
out of the Collosnon Empire.
        From Gendormargensis they traveled, making the journey down
the frozen Yolantarath River on a sleigh drawn by the fur-dogs
known as ubeks. Some 200 leagues south-west of Gendormargensis,
and just downstream from the trading town of Babaroth, the
Yolantarath is intersected by the Pig River. Guest Gulkan and his
companions pushed their way up the Pig. "Push" is very much the
operative word, for the winter-frozen river was pocked with tree
trunks and derelict rocks, and the clearness of its ice was rutted
by the journeying of many traders.
        Yet the difficulties of the journey did not depress the
Weaponmaster. Rather, Guest Gulkan began to lighten up, his mood
becoming buoyant - then weightless. The elevation of his spirits
was scarcely surprising when one considers the claustrophobic
tensions the boy had long endured in the imperial court of
Gendormargensis.
        The family history was not a happy one.
        To seize power and secure it, the Witchlord Onosh had been
put to the trouble of killing his father, his mother, his paternal
grandfather, his twin sisters and his solitary brother, two
uncles, four cousins, an aunt and five imperial concubines; and he
had also secured the death of a nephew and the nephew's favorite
horse.
        All this was par for the course as far as the Yarglat were
concerned - except for the gratuitous murder of the horse, which
was generally considered to be excessive, and indicative of a
streak of mean-spirited vindictiveness unbecoming in a warrior.
        But Guest -
        Perhaps there was an unexpected streak of mercy in Guest
Gulkan's soul, for he had long been troubled by the possibility
that he might one day be forced to inherit his father's bloody
responsibilities, and to secure the empire yet again with a fresh
set of blood-slaughter murders.
        The journey the Weaponmaster was presently making was
steadily taking him away from all possibility of any such
conflicts, and so he was full of jokes and levity as he and his
companions traveled up the Pig, arriving at last at the village
of Ink on the shores of the Swelaway Sea.
        There Guest gazed to his full upon the Swelaway Sea. He took
so long about it that you might have thought him busy trying to
drink it entire, rather than merely look at it.
        At last he knelt by the waters, tasted them, then rose with a
regretful sigh.
        "What is it?" said Rolf Thelemite.
        "It is but water," said Guest regretfully. "If only it were
liquor, then there might be some use for it."
        Guest was trying to deny the obvious effect that the sight of this massive body of water had had on him. For Guest at that age was very full of himself, and held in very poor esteem those minor parts of the universe which lay outside his own hard-striving corpus. Yet the Swelaway Sea, by the very act of its own existence, indicated by its vast indifference that there was more to the cosmic order than the blood and bones of one Guest Gulkan, and was uncomfortably suggestive of the possibility that the boy Guest might ultimately be but one utterly trifling and inconsequential part of a larger whole too vast to be comfortably contemplated.
        With the Swelaway Sea having thus been encountered (yes, and
do you remember the first time that you in your own person
encountered the immensity of the sea, whether salt sea or fresh?)
the travelers walked into Ink and addressed themselves to the
question of the acquisition of a boat.
        At Ink, a place much to be noted for the barking of its dogs
and the smell of its dead fish, for the multiplicity of its turds
and the squaloring of its five billion trouserless children, the
adventurers were (this at least was the plan) to trade their
sleigh, their fur-dogs and their gold for a small fishing boat.
        The Witchlord Onosh in his mercy and his wisdom had provided
the travelers with gold in plenty - certainly enough, in
combination with their other discardable possessions, to buy them
a boat for the passage to Safrak. Unfortunately, Rolf Thelemite
persuaded the Weaponmaster Guest to join him in the pursuit of a
bargain and save their cash for pleasure rather than transit.
Fortunately, the sagacious Sken-Pitilkin vetoed the purchase of
any bargain, and they spent their gold on an expensive but
seaworthy boat.
        The boat, which was named the Lathmish, was sold to them by a
man named Umbilskimp, an old man who suffered bitterly from
chilblains and emphysema. It came with a money-back warranty which
guaranteed it to be good for five years or fifty return trips
across the Swelaway Sea. Both Zozimus and Sken-Pitilkin checked
the wording of the warranty, and checked it closely - and, on
being satisfied, they herded Guest and Rolf aboard the boat, and
set to sea.
        But when the travelers were well launched upon the cold gray
chop of the Swelaway Sea, the boat began to leak; and before they
were so much as half-way to Alozay they found their craft was
leaking like a fish hacked open by a landing hook.
        Fortunately, the travelers managed to get their leaking
wreck of a boat as far as the island of Ema-Urk before it actually
sank. Once the thing had been grounded, an inspection of the hull
proved it to be one spongy mass of sodden rot, which the boat
salesman must have known.
        "He is a murderer!" said Guest, denouncing the venial
Umbilskimp. "And if I get him in my power then I will hang him!"
        "An excellent sentiment," said Sken-Pitilkin, who usually
deplored violence, but who on this occasion found himself in total
agreement with Guest's vow of vengeance. "Let us report the man as
soon as we get to Alozay, and perhaps they will have the grace to
give us satisfaction."
        And when a passing boat had at length given them passage to
Alozay, they did just that - reporting the delinquent Umbilskimp
to Banker Sod himself.
        But Vernon Brigadoon Sod, the man of iceman race who headed
the Safrak Bank and dominated the island of Alozay, declared the
affairs of Ink to be no concern of his.
        "In Safrak," said Sod, "we see our law as being concerned
with the rule of the Safrak Islands. No more, no less."
        "Then who rules Ink?" said Guest.
        "Nobody," said Sod. "Ink is a free village, just as Port
Domax is a free city. If you must have vengeance upon this fellow
Um - Umbik - "
        "Umbilskimp," supplied Guest, who had vowed never to forget
the man until the man was dead.
        "If you must have your vengeance," said Sod, "then you must
secure it for yourself, and you will not be securing it while you
are resident upon Alozay."
        So Guest arrived upon Alozay, Safrak's ruling island and the
site of the capital city of Molothair, and his arrival was marred
by the fact that he was cheated of his legitimate revenge upon the
salesman who had almost encompassed his murder.
        He vowed again that he would not forget the fellow.
        Meantime, back in Gendormargensis, the Witchlord Onosh sat
closeted with Thodric Jarl and Eljuk Zala, trying to work out how
to deal with the problems in Locontareth.
        The city of Locontareth had long been a c entre of unrest, and
there were rumors which suggested that one Sham Cham of that city
was exercising his talents in stirring up a tax revolt. Acting on
Thodric Jarl's suggestion, Lord Onosh had tried to dispose of the
matter with the minimum of fuss, by sending killers to ensure that
Sham Cham passed away quietly in his sleep.
        Lord Onosh had just lately received news that the killers had
been killed in their turn, and that a very lively and decidedly
unkilled Sham Cham now slept with half a dozen man-eating guard
dogs in his room.
        "It looks," said Lord Onosh gloomily, "as if this will be
Stranagor all over again."
        "Stranagor?" said Eljuk Zala. "What's that got to do with
it?"
        "My, ah, my - how did I phrase it? - my Provision for the
Permanent Abolition of Riverside Vermin," said the Witchlord
Onosh. "That was it. The vermin being the Geflung. It was a
revolt, a tax revolt. You don't remember?"
        Eljuk Zala confessed that he had no recollection of ever
reading or hearing about any such revolt.
        This disturbed the Witchlord greatly, for nobody could be
ignorant of the late and lamentable tax revolt in Stranagor unless
they were ignorant of the affairs of the empire as a whole, and
such ignorance was dangerous in the empire's anointed heir.
        Nevertheless, the Witchlord Onosh did his best to conceal his
disappointment as he explained.
        "In the country around Stranagor," said Lord Onosh, "live the
Geflung, who - "
        As the Witchlord began to explain things to Eljuk Zala,
Thodric Jarl turned his own attention to a map of the Collosnon
Empire and began planning a war against Locontareth, something he
was sure the empire would find itself engaged in before too
terribly long - if not in the coming year, then in the year after.