Alozay: ruling island of the Safrak archipelago of the
Swelaway Sea. On Alozay stands the mainrock Pinnacle, home to the
Door of the Safrak Bank. This Bank was formerly ruled by Lord Sod,
who is now a hostage on Alozay, which has been ruled by the
dralkosh Bao Gahai in the absence of the Witchlord Onosh. Also
in residence on Alozay is Guest Gulkan's scholarly brother, Eljuk
Zala Gulkan, he who is disfigured by a birthmark which dribbles
from the corners of his mouth then spills to a merging at his
neck; and Ontario Nol, a wizard of the order of Itch, who has long
been Eljuk's tutor.
                                                 * * *

        Through the Door came Witchlord and Weaponmaster, with Thayer
Levant trailing but a footfall behind them, and there they found
Shabble waiting for them.
        Lord Onosh was so disconcerted that he almost turned and fled
back through that Door. For, though Guest had by this time
described Shabble often and at length, the Witchlord was hard put
to maintain his composure when he found that the truth of this
flying ball lived to the tale which Guest had told.
        "Hello," said Shabble, speaking in the Toxteth which was used
by so many of Alozay's inhabitants.
        But Lord Onosh made no reply.
        Shabble drifted through the air toward the Witchlord. The
fist-sized bubble pressed itself against the Witchlord's cheek,
rolled up the Witchlord's face, bumped over the ridges of the
Witchlord's slanting forehead, shone a tightly-focused beam of
light into the mysterious recesses of the Witchlord's bat-wing
ears, then rolled down his back, ducked between his legs, and slid
upward through the air till they were (so to speak) face to face
once more.
        "Welcome to my island," said Shabble. "I welcome you. You and
my son."
        Then Shabble turned on Guest Gulkan.
        Shabble drifted through the air to hang hot and humming by
the Weaponmaster's ear. Shabble was warm, warm as a cat's yawn, a
bath-sponge sea. The warmth was suggestive of magma. Guest thought
of scar tissue, of welted burns, of buckled flesh, of molten
distortion, of hot-poker pain.
        "You have a ring on your finger."
        "A ring?" said Guest.
        "A pretty ring," said Shabble. "Light within and light
without. I have heard of this ring. Yilda!"
        At that, one of Shabble's people approached. A woman. A hard-
bitten woman named Yilda, whom Guest had last seen on
Untunchilamon. At that time, he had scarcely remarked her face,
for he had not thought her made for great destiny. But obviously
he had been wrong.
        "Give her the ring," said Shabble. "Do not - do not! -
swallow it. The corpse master Uckermark is somewhere in this rock,
and his skill is ample for dissection."
        Guest knew this Uckermark also. The thus-named corpse master
had been another of the denizens of Untunchilamon, another of
those people whom Guest had never expected to see ever again in
his entire life.
        Guest handed over the ring of ever-ice, the ring which could
open and close time pods.
        Yilda slipped it on her own finger.
        Guest then expected Shabble to ask for the mazadath, the
silver-gleaming amulet which hung round Guest's neck, against his
skin and hidden from the world.
        "Guest," said Shabble, singing the name with lilting
sweetness. "Guest. There is something else."
        "Is there?" said Guest.
        He was very conscious of the mazadath's weight. He did not
want to give it up. Why? He knew of no certain use for it. But if
he could only retain its possession, concealing it from this
Shabble, then he would feel he had won a victory of a kind, if
only a moral victory.
        "Guest, Guest," crooned Shabble. "My dear friend Guest. The
wishstone. You had it. Where is it?"
        "Did I have it?" said Guest.
        "You did!" said Shabble. "And the Cockroach has need of it!"
        "Then," said Guest, "you'll have to ask Thayer Levant where
it got to, because he was the one who had it last!"
        "Levant?" said Shabble.
        Guest indicated the ever-faithful Thayer Levant. Shabble sang
out for guards, and Levant was taken away for interrogation -
while Witchlord and Weaponmaster were escorted to the lower depths
of the mainrock Pinnacle.
        Guest and his father fully expected to be promptly thrown
into a prison cell. But, instead, they were shown to the best of
all available quarters, and were told that they were to be guests
of honor at a banquet.
        And, that very evening, Guest Gulkan and his father dined in
the banquet hall which was such a prominent feature of Dolce Obo,
the Pillow Stratum of the Grand Palace of Alozay. Guest was
surprised to find the bounty of the autumn harvest gracing the
banquet table, for the Weaponmaster had been chronologically
disorientated by the pressure of recent events, and by his rapid
translation between the differing climates of Obooloo, Dalar ken
Halvar and Alozay.
        But autumn it was.
        Guest Gulkan had spent so much time adventuring in
Untunchilamon and counting the shadows in a dungeon in Obooloo
that the Witchlord Onosh had not been liberated from his time pod
in the Temple of Blood until that Midsummer's Day which had been
the first day of the Third Year of Peace in the Izdimir Empire.
        That day was now three months in the past; the season had
turned from summer to autumn; and Alozay was feeding on all which
came to the Safrak archipelago from the lands surrounding the
Swelaway Sea. Plums, pumpkin, apples, cucumber ... Guest lost
track of the number of fresh good things laid out to eat.
        Yet the Weaponmaster found he wished to satisfy his appetite
for conversation more urgently than he wished to appease any
demands made by his belly.
        At the banquet table he could see his brother Eljuk, and
after their long separation Guest found himself longing to talk
with Eljuk. Eljuk had stayed on Alozay when Witchlord and
Weaponmaster had departed, meaning to raid Obooloo and rescue the
Great God Jocasta from Anaconda Stogirov's Temple of Blood.
        While Guest had been adventuring, Eljuk had remained on
Alozay, studying under the tutelage of Ontario Nol, the wizard of
Itch to whom he was apprenticed. Guest found the thought of such a
quiet, steady and uneventful life quite incredible, for it seemed
to him that the whole world had been the scene of unrelenting
alarums for years on end.
        Yet the truth is that the world had been a fairly peaceful
place in the last few years. At least, the part of the world
inhabited by Eljuk had been peaceful. After the departure of
Witchlord and Weaponmaster, Bao Gahai had ruled Alozay with an
iron hand, managing the affairs of the Safrak Bank efficiently,
and managing too the matter of Alozay's relationships with the
other Partnership Banks.
        To Guest, Eljuk represented - amongst other things - the
confidence and security of the life he had enjoyed before becoming
entangled in the world of gods and demons. So he longed to talked
with his brother. But he was denied opportunity for such
conversation, for he was seated between the wizard Sken-Pitilkin
and Sod's daughter Damsel. Damsel, who had once perched upon the
Weaponmaster, squealing like a wounded mouse as she crested to her
ecstasy, spent the whole meal practicing her seductive wiles on
the corpse master Uckermark, who was seated on her left. So Guest
was left at the mercy of Sken-Pitilkin.
        While both Witchlord and Weaponmaster had come to Alozay with
the idea of administering a degree of discipline to that wizard of
Skatzabratzumon (with Lord Onosh being determined to remove his
head, while Guest was more inclined to think the cropping of his
ears would be sufficient) they had both now set aside thoughts of
such punishment. For both had focused their thoughts firmly on
their true enemy: Shabble.
        Shabble the usurper!
        In any case, it soon became clear that the suspicions of
Witchlord and Weaponmaster were unfounded, and that Sken-Pitilkin
had not wilfully conspired to bring Shabble to Alozay. This became
particularly clear to Guest at that banquet, for, speaking with
all the zeal of a born lecturer, Sken-Pitilkin took the
Weaponmaster through a full account of the vicissitudes of his
recent life.
        After fleeing from Untunchilamon, the sagacious Sken-Pitilkin
had eventually arrived at Port Domax with Shabble. No easy
journey, that! For, just as Guest had suffered unanticipated
complications to his journey from Injiltaprajura to Dalar ken
Halvar, so too had Sken-Pitilkin endured a number of the most
perilous and extraordinary embroilments imaginable. And the wizard
told the Weaponmaster of all of these embroilments - and told of
them at full length.
        At last, however, Sken-Pitilkin had reached Port Domax, the
famous free port on the southern shores of Tameran. There, Shabble
had founded a Temple of Cockroach, a temple to be presided over by
two natives of Untunchilamon, a young man named Chegory Guy and a
young woman named Olivia Qasaba.
        Thereafter, Shabble had taken to exploring the surroundings,
eventually venturing as far as Safrak.
        "It may well be," said Sken-Pitilkin, "that Shabble knew of
this place from earlier encounter. But in any case, little can be
hidden from a bubble so versatile in its curiosity. The fact is
that Shabble won every secret of the Safrak Bank, and then
prevailed upon Bao Gahai to establish a branch of the Cult of
Cockroach upon Alozay."
        Adroitly blackmailed by Shabble - who threatened to expose
the secret of the Doors of the Circle of the Partnership Banks to
the whole world - Bao Gahai had conceded the Cockroach a temple.
The dralkosh had hoped that Shabble would be content with that,
but by slow and remorseless degrees Shabble had built up an
organization on Alozay and had taken all power on that island into
(so to speak) its own hands.
        "Well," said Guest, when Sken-Pitilkin's story was finished.
"This is all much different than what we were led to expect by
Plandruk Qinplaqus."
        "Dalar ken Halvar cannot hope to have any certain knowledge
of Safrak," said Sken-Pitilkin, "for Shabble has not allowed the
Banks any unrestricted use of the Door. The bouncing bubble is
feckless when its attention wanders, but right now it is flushed
with the first enthusiasm of a new toy. I think the Circle will
hold its full attention for some time to come, and it will be hard
for anyone to distract it. These days, Shabble spends the daylight
with the Door, examining all those who come through it, and sleeps
by night with the star-globe on the floor beside it."
        "You mean," said Guest, "that the Door is closed by night?"
        "I do," said Sken-Pitilkin.
        The wizard needed to say no more on that subject, because
Guest could imagine how such nightly closure would distress the
Banks, which were accustomed to make full and never-ceasing use of
the Circle of Doors to shift their merchandise from one place to
another.
        "Have you more to tell?" said Guest, still unclear as to
whether or not Sken-Pitilkin had thrown in his lot with Shabble.
        "No," said Sken-Pitilkin. "That's it. That's the story of our
lives since last we met. Your own story, I hazard, is more of a
saga in its shaping."
        "So it is," said Guest. "But before I tell it, pray tell me
this - where is our friend Zozimus?"
        "Why," said Sken-Pitilkin, "he is still in Port Domax, still
the pet of the sweet Olivia, since he is still incarcerated in the
flesh of a hamster."
        "Still!" said Guest.
        "I fear," said Sken-Pitilkin solemnly, "that his
transformation may be permanent."
        "So," said Guest Gulkan, "Zozimus is doomed to serve a
hamster's flesh, and we in our turn are doomed to be slaves in
the service of Shabble."
        "You have truthed about Zozimus," said Sken-Pitilkin, "but
declare your own fate in error. You will be no slaves for Shabble.
Rather, you are far likelier to be emperors, since Shabble plans
nothing less than the conquest of the world. The smallest part of
Shabble's domains will then be an empire, and each of you likely
to have charge of such."
        Though Guest had feared that Shabble might have designs on
the very world itself, it was one thing to fear as much and quite
another to hear it stated of a certainty.
        "You spoke of the Circle!" said Guest, in unconcealed alarm.
        "You said nothing of the world!"
        "No," said Sken-Pitilkin, "but I am saying it now. Shabble,
my friend, in truth plans nothing more or less than the conquest
of the world."
        "Who told you that?" said Guest, wondering if the wizard had
perhaps been reading his mind.
        "Why, Shabble, of course!" said Sken-Pitilkin - who, as a
wizard of the order of Skatzabratzumon, had absolutely no mind-
reading powers whatsoever.
        Then Sken-Pitilkin elaborated Shabble's plans. The bubble of
bounce planned to use the Circle of the Partnership Banks to
spread the Cult of Cockroach throughout the whole world.
Guest did not like this idea one little bit, because he was
unwilling to bow to a bubble. Or to propitiate Cockroach! He was
still not sure where Sken-Pitilkin stood - so took a risk, and
made his displeasure plain.
        "I would rather see the world burn than see it fall to
Shabble's possession," said Guest.
        Sken-Pitilkin looked around the banquet hall to see where
Shabble was. Shabble was chasing in and out of the smoke-rings
which were being blown by a pipe-smoking Yilda. Safrak's banquet
hall was dominated by the braying hubbub of a heavy-drinking
dinner in its bone-picking phase. Sken-Pitilkin looked around to
make sure no servant was standing behind him, then masked his
mouth with a wineglass full of red, then leaned close to the
Weaponmaster and said:
        "If you wish to overthrow Shabble," said Sken-Pitilkin, "then
you will need allies for the purpose. I suggest you speak to your
tutelary demon to see how that dignitary views our bubble."
        Guest Gulkan did not like this idea at all, but after some
persuading by Sken-Pitilkin he left the banquet early and took
himself off to the Hall of Time. Thus did the lordly Weaponmaster
come once more into the presence of Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis,
Demon by Appointment to the Great God Jocasta.
        The jade-green monolith of cold-glowing stone stood exactly
where Guest had left it - at the eastern end of the Hall of Time.
Little had changed in that Hall. It was larger than Guest
remembered, for his recent past was so tainted by dungeon
confinements and underground endurance tests that his memories of
the entire world had been claustrophobically squeezed. Yet the
oval Hall cut in the granite of the mainrock Pinnacle had
undergone no such crushing, and was still its full hundred paces
in length, its full three dozen paces in width. And the jade-block
demon was still its original height, which was twice Guest
Gulkan's own.
        "So," said Iva-Italis, when Guest presented himself. "It's
you. Have you come to beg forgiveness of my lord and master?"
        The demon addressed Guest in Eparget - a courtesy which was
much appreciated. In many ways, Guest had found the worst and most
effortful part of his travels to be the weary business of
dickering with strangers in languages of which he lacked a perfect
comprehension. To be addressed in the Eparget of his Yarglat
upbringing was a great relief, and Guest felt a surge of positive
gratitude. Even so, he did his best to hide that emotion.
        "No," said Guest staunchly. "I have not come to beg
forgiveness. It's you who should be begging me. And I wouldn't
forgive you even if you did. You never told me I needed a knife!"
        By this remark, Guest was referring to the special knife he
had needed to cut the Great God Jocasta free from force-field
imprisonment - the knife which he had been forced to win from the
Mutilator of Yestron in battle.
        The knife which - he did not like to remember it! - he had
subsequently lost in the Temple of Blood.
        But, though the need for such a knife had not been explicated
to Guest before his first venture to the Temple of Blood, and
though Guest had suffered much at the hands of the Great God
Jocasta since then, the demon Iva-Italis did not so much as bother
to acknowledge the Weaponmaster's discontent.
        "If you are not here to beg forgiveness," said Iva-Italis,
"then what are you here for?"
        Guest, seeing that the demon was quite shameless about the
way in which it had misled him about the nature of the task it had
wanted him to perform in Obooloo, dropped the subject and got down
to business immediately.
        "I have come to seek your aid against Shabble," said Guest.
"I don't know if you've heard, but Shabble has seized Safrak.
Shabble's a ball, a ball which flies. It throws fire, too, and
speaks in prophecy of the teachings of a Cockroach."
        "I know of Shabble," said Iva-Italis. "And I know of
Shabble's recent doings. Do not trouble your head about Shabble,
dear friend, for Shabble is but a toy, a thing of trifles."
        "A toy!" said Guest.
        "Just so," said Iva-Italis approvingly.
        "This ... this toy of which you speak so lightly, this toy
has set its heart on global conquest, a feat one thinks within its
powers."
        "Undoubtedly," said Iva-Italis, entirely unperturbed by this
probability. "So Shabble seizes. So Shabble conquers. But, having
seized, will Shabble hold?"
        "I don't see what can stop the thing," said Guest.
        "It's not a question of stopping," said Iva-Italis. "The
thing is a toy, as I have said. It is trifling in its nature. It
has fads, fashions, passing fancies. The preaching of religion,
the conquest of the world - Guest, the thing is but a bubble. It
will tire of its games. Come back to me when Shabble is gone, and
then we will talk business."
        Privately, Guest thought as did Iva-Italis. Shabble would
tire of the game of world conquest sooner or later. But it had by
now occurred to Guest that the people Shabble had been installing
on Alozay - many of them piratical refugees who had fled from
Untunchilamon and had arrived by diverse paths at the Temple of
Cockroach which had been founded in Port Domax - would not tire so
readily.
        By the time Shabble abandoned the Circle of the Partnership
Banks to find new toys elsewhere, Shabble's followers might have
consolidated a regime which could rule the world with or without
the bubble of bounce - a regime which would have precious little
use for Guest Gulkan, and precious little time for his pretensions
to power.
        So Guest wanted Shabble abolished - and now!
        Guest had expected Iva-Italis to be angry rather than calm;
and, finding the demon not angry, Guest presumed the thing to be
ignorant of the fate of its master Jocasta, and hence vulnerable
to bluff.
        "My lord," said Guest, seeking some way to bend Iva-Italis to
his will. "You may not have heard, but your master Jocasta is in
desperate peril in Obooloo. Shabble has chosen to close the Door
which gives us access to Obooloo from Alozay. If we could but
reopen that Door, and promptly, then - "
        "You are a liar," said Iva-Italis calmly.
        "A liar?" said Guest, effecting surprise. "Me? My lord, the
Yarglat are noted for their honor."
        "You," said Iva-Italis, "are noted for the weight of your
turds and the bigness of your ears. I am in daily contact with the
Great God Jocasta. Even now, that Great God languishes in Dalar
ken Halvar, recovering its strength after an encounter with the
evil Anaconda Stogirov."
        "So you will not help me," said Guest.
        "I will do nothing precipitate," said Iva-Italis. "If you
cannot control your suicidal urge to over-hasty action, then you
must find your death in your own time, in your own way, and
without any help from me."
        Rebuffed, Guest Gulkan withdrew, and began to brood his way
around the Hall of Time, pacing a slow and steady track around its
echoing oval. While he tried to think of a way to coerce Iva-
Italis to his service, he began an idle inspection of the
timepods, smearing away the dust and spiders to gaze on the
visages inside.
        Most were unchanged from the first inspection he had made of
this facility - long, long ago, in the years when he had been but
a boy hostage on Alozay.
        But to his surprise, when he had scarcely begun his
inspection, Guest found someone who was - was it? - yes! - it was
her! Yerzerdayla! Yerzerdayla, yes, the woman whom he had won from
Thodric Jarl in combat! Yerzerdayla the fair, locked in her
timeprison!
        Guest Gulkan thought this the greatest of all imaginable
mysteries, for he had long been under the impression that
Yerzerdayla had been left in Gendormargensis when Witchlord and
Weaponmaster had gone to war with each other. As the interloper
Khmar had taken advantage of that civil war to conquer first
Gendormargensis then the entire Collosnon Empire, Guest believed
that Yerzerdayla had surely fallen to Khmar's possession. He had
heard, after all, that Thodric Jarl had chosen to enter Khmar's
service specifically so he could reclaim the luscious Yerzerdayla.
        So how had Yerzerdayla come to be on Alozay?
        A great, great mystery!
        Of course it was really no mystery at all. For the simple
fact was that the Witchlord Onosh, insulted to find Thodric Jarl
leaving his service on account of a woman, had arranged by secret
treaty for Yerzerdayla to be covertly brought to Safrak.
        The Weaponmaster - who had entirely forgotten about his
beloved Penelope now that he had sight of Yerzerdayla - caught
himself licking his lips.
        He broke away from the time prison pod, since staring at the
stasis-frozen woman was getting him nowhere. From past experience
he knew full well that the pods could not be broken by brute force
- they could only be opened or closed by application of ever-ice.
And the sole chip of ever-ice on Alozay was in the ring which had
fallen to Yilda's possession!
        Well.
        Guest Gulkan was not about to confess his need for that ring,
since such confession would give Yilda a hold over him, and give
Shabble a hold too.
        As Guest turned away from Yerzerdayla, a thought occurred to
him. He returned to the ever-patient block of jade which
represented the corporeal form of Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis.
        "My good lord Italis," said Guest.
        "Iva-Italis," said the demon, as fond of its proper name as
any person-in-the-flesh.
        "Iva-Italis," said Guest. "Can you ... have you any idea how
long Shabble usually maintains an interest in ... in a new sport?"
        "Shabble," said Iva-Italis, "never maintains an interest in
anything for more than half a thousand years at a time."
        Half a thousand years!
        That prospect was enough to push Guest into swift and
decisive action, and soon afterwards a gathering of seven met in
conspiracy. Those seven were Vernon Brigadoon Sod, Onosh Gulkan,
Guest Gulkan, Eljuk Zala Gulkan, Thayer Levant, Ontario Nol and
Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin.
        "Half a thousand years!" said Sod, when he knew the worst.
        "One suspects," said Lord Onosh, "that it is but the blink of
an eye to a demon."
        "An eyeblink!" said Sod. "I have been on Alozay far too long
to suffer another eyelash of it!"
        Banker Sod had of course been taken hostage before Witchlord
and Weaponmaster went questing for the x-x-zix. Sod had expected
his hostagehood to be brief, but instead it had stretched out
almost to eternity.
        "So the demon will wait," said Ontario Nol. "It will wait
rather than help us. Very well. Then we must wait likewise. Or
else we must steel ourselves to action, and tackle this Shabble on
our own. However ... do we have the power to destroy this Shabble?
One doubts it."
        "The thing can be broken," said Sken-Pitilkin.
        "Surely," said Guest Gulkan, remembering back to his
adventures on Untunchilamon, and a crisis of combat in the
wormways deep beneath the equatorial city of Injiltaprajura. "It
can be broken, and knows it, and fears its own breakage."
        "How do you know that?" said Eljuk Zala, he who in his
prideful days as a wizard's apprentice was inclined to doubt very
much that his warworthy but ignorant brother Guest could be an
authority on anything as arcane as a Shabble.
        "We fought this Shabble on Untunchilamon," said Guest. "There
was an iron dog, underneath the city. A dorgi. The iron dog, the
dorgi, the dorgi made the bubble run. Later, there was a demon."
        "Like Iva-Italis?" said Eljuk.
        "No," said Guest, glad to be able to lecture his scholarly
brother for once, instead of enduring the reverse position. "The
demon on Untunchilamon was greater by far. Not a rock but a
spirit. It's name was Binchinminfin."
        Then Guest indulged himself by giving his wide-mouthed
brother Eljuk a terse but melodramatic account of the doings of
the demon Binchinminfin on the island of Untunchilamon.
        "We were underground when the demon raided Untunchilamon,"
said Guest. "We were held prisoner by Shabble. But by the time
Shabble got us to the surface, why, this demon Binchinminfin had
seized the island's ruling palace. So we decided to attack it.
Shabble set us at liberty, and we launched ourselves on an assault
of the palace."
        "And?" said Eljuk.
        "And we were lucky not to be killed!" said Guest. "The demon
was mightier than any of us! It almost killed Shabble! There was a
firefight, Shabble and the demon. Then Shabble ran, because the
bubble was too scare to fight with Binchinminfin any further."
        "So what did you do then?" said Eljuk.
        "Why," said Guest, "we left the demon in possession of the
palace. Then we went downhill and we all got drunk."
        This was the truth, but it was not at all what Eljuk had
expected to hear. He had expected to hear that his warworthy
brother had somehow challenged the demon and defeated it - though
the sorry truth was that the mastery of Binchinminfin had proved
beyond Guest Gulkan's means, and in the end it the task of getting
rid of it had been accomplished by an Ebrell Islander named
Chegory Guy, whose later destiny had been to serve the Cockroach
in a temple in Port Domax.
        Seeing that he was in danger of losing some large fraction of
his brother's esteem, Guest hurried past the subject of getting
drunk in the face of a demon's danger.
        "Anyway," said Guest, "enough of Binchinminfin! Suffice it to
say that the demon, why, it could take people in possession then
change their form to whatever monstrosity suited its purposes.
That demon - why, that one made Shabble run."
        "How?" said Eljuk, wishing that he himself had been
privileged to see the doings of Binchinminfin on Untunchilamon.
        "I don't know," said Guest. "Maybe Iva-Italis could tell us,
after all, Italis is a demon of sorts, but Italis doesn't want to
help."
        With a brute force confrontation being eventually ruled out
by careful debate, the conspiracy then discussed the character of
Shabble's trusted associates, and in particular the character of
Yilda and Uckermark.
        "Uckermark is a corpse master," said the Weaponmaster. "He's
a pillager and a pirate to boot. A booty-hunter with the morals of
a mosquito. If we can bribe him to our purpose, then he'll turn
from Shabble's service sharply enough."
        "But Shabble is bent on world conquest," said Lord Onosh.
"What could we offer Uckermark which would over-shadow the
potential rewards of association with a world-conqueror?"
        "I think," said Eljuk Zala. "I think - "
        "About time, young man," said Sken-Pitilkin. "I always
thought you had some thinking in you, if you would but give
yourself a chance. Tell us now, what do you think?"
        "We may perhaps lack the slaughtering of this Shabble," said
Eljuk. "But I think its displacement still within our power."
        "Displacement?" said Guest, who knew not that word in its
Galish incarnation.
        "Maybe he means we could kick it," said Thayer Levant.
        "I have," said Eljuk Zala carefully, "something very close to
that in mind."
        Then Eljuk explained what he had in mind.