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.