The Song of Phaid the Gambler

by Mick Farren

  Much to Phaid's dismay, he saw that Dreen was standing at the desk talking to the clerk. Phaid was relieved, though, to see that he paid no attention to them. Solchaim was once again swathed in his cape and had his hat pulled down over his eyes. Dreen seemed to have swallowed the explanation that Solchaim was a deformed human. For his part, the elaihi appeared not to have detected Phaid's anxious thoughts. They walked across the lobby. Phaid, who was leading the way, was about to open the door when a voice stopped him cold.

  'Master, don't go!'

  It was the sound of a lost soul. Phaid spun around. The wind crazy kid was moving like a zombie towards Sol­chaim with one pleading, clawlike hand outstretched.

  'Don't leave me, master, please don't leave me. With you here I can see again, I can know again. I don't have to be crazy.'

  The presence of human insanity seemed to have halted Solchaim in his tracks. The tall shrouded figure was suddenly incapable of movement. The two women stood waiting to see what was going to happen. Dreen had turned and was looking at them curiously. The wind crazy kid tottered forward, reaching for Solchaim. His voice was a supplicating, demented coo.

  'Maaster, maaster, m-a-a-ster,'

  Phaid's first idea was to burn the crazy and run. Edelline-Lan, however, still had his blaster. Also, he couldn't quite believe that one mad kid could throw off the elaihi's control. Dreen was now watching open mouthed. Edelline-Lan touched Phaid on the arm.

  'What the hell is going on?'

  Phaid quickly shook his head.

  'I don't know but I sure as hell don't like it.'

  He could feel the stinger clinging to his throat. The wind crazy kid was almost up to Solchaim. The elaihi jerked. Phaid cringed from the mental blast. Everyone in the room must have felt it, quite possibly everyone in the town. The wind crazy was blasted backwards but he managed to hook his fingers in Solchaim's cape. Solchaim was spun round as the cape fell away. His hat fell off. The story of him being a deformed human was exposed as a lie. He could be nothing other than an elaihi.

  Phaid found himself looking directly at Dreen. The priest's face was frozen in horror. He clearly knew who and what Solchaim was.

  'What have you done? Is there nothing you wouldn't stoop to?'

  'I had no choice.'

  He was fumbling in the pockets of his black robe. Phaid knew he was going for the stinger control. Phaid leapt towards him.

  'For Lords' sake don't kill me!'

  Solchaim loosed another angry mind blast. He seemed furious that the crazy had attempted to touch him. The kid took the full brunt of it. He was slammed against the wall. Edelline-Lan and Chrystiana-Nex were thrown to their knees. Phaid stumbled into preen. A third blast swept the room. The crazy was screaming.

  'NOOOOOOOO!!'

  The stinger control rolled out of Dreen's hand. Phaid made a grab for it but Solchaim was nearer and he scooped it up without effort. He grinned fiendishly.

  'Now what, Phaid? Deals with the priests?'

  Phaid reeled from horror to horror.

  'You wouldn't.'

  There was a moment of terrible pause as Solchaim held up the small silver sphere between his long bony index finger and his nonhuman thumb. The gesture was taunt­ing, then he tossed it to Phaid as though he was giving a treat to a pet.

  'Of course I wouldn't.'

  Phaid twisted it to neutral with shaking hands. The spider section dropped from his throat. It homed back to the sphere. Its legs folded as the two were rejoined. Phaid was about to drop the thing into his pocket when he saw Dreen out of the corner of his eye. The priest was coming off the floor with a small compact blaster in his hand. In the first instant Phaid thought that the priest was going after Solchaim, but then he realised that he was the target. For the second time that day he reached for a weapon that wasn't there; Edelline-Lan still had it. He raised the stinger.

  'Don't do it, Dreen!'

  The blaster was coming up. Phaid let the stinger go. It stuck on Dreen's cheek. The blaster was pointed straight at Phaid. The priest was looking at him with an expression of pure hatred.

  'How could you be capable of such betrayal?'

  Phaid held up the sphere.

  'I don't want to do this.'

  'You sold out to that creature. You sold out your own species.'

  'It wasn't like that.'

  Dreen's grip on the blaster tightened.

  'I'm going to kill you.'

  Phaid shut his eyes and activated the stinger. The blast he expected never came. When he opened his eyes again, Dreen was lying on his back. His eyes were blank and his face contorted. One leg twitched convulsively. The lobby was suddenly calm. Solchaim was helping Chrystiana-Nex to her feet. The wind crazy was sobbing in a foetal position. Edelline-Lan was looking around with a dazed expression and Phaid's blaster in her hand. The clerk was flat on his face behind the desk, either stunned, dead or hiding. Nobody bothered to find out which. Solchaim gathered his three humans together.

  'We still have our boat to catch.'

  Despite his apparent calm, Phaid sensed that things had gone badly wrong. He suspected that the wind crazy had not been a part of the elaihi's plan. Phaid picked up Dreen's blaster.

  'It's possible that there'll be some who won't want to let us leave.'

  'Then we'll have to use our powers to persuade them otherwise.'

  They advanced out the door. Phaid and Edelline-Lan flanked Solchaim with drawn weapons. He walked in the middle with an arm around Chrystiana-Nex. The single underground street was unnaturally quiet. Although a large number of people thronged the sidewalk and peered from windows, nobody approached them. It felt as though an invisible shield of energy cracked around the elaihi and his three humans, making them the only ones who were permitted to move. Phaid knew that Solchaim must be stretched to his limits to control so many people.

  They made it to the elevators. As the doors closed behind them, Solchaim sagged visibly. Phaid had never seen him lapse so badly. For a moment, it looked like the elaihi might have actually taken on too much and was in danger of coming apart. Then he recovered himself. Phaid did his best to cloak his mind. It was something he would not have thought possible a few hours earlier.

  At the top of the elevator they took a different route from the one by which they'd come. Instead of going out by the flipper hangar, they went into the glassite walk tube that snaked out to the end of the dock. Through its ice covered roof Phaid had a first, distorted glimpse of the iceboat Valentine. The hull was a plain cylinder that tapered to a point at each end. The only opening in the thick riveted steel was the port through which they and the cargo entered. An iceboat had no need of windows or portholes. In the frozen, howling gale, it could only run on echo sensor and probes. The hull was completely dwarfed by the towering metal airscoops. In port, they were tightly furled, each between its pair of steel masts. These masts, although each was as wide in cross section as a man was tall, hummed and sang in the peripheral winds. When the boat got underway and began to slide out across the plain, the scoops would unfurl like the wings of monstrous insects. The masts would bend almost double in the force of the gale rocketing the vessel across the ice on its multiple skids.

  Just inside the big circular port, the master of the Valentine was watching the cargo come in on a conveyor. He was a swarthy, well built man with a hook nose, thick gold earrings and a belly that hung over his greasy canvas breeches. He looked questioningly at Phaid and the others as they climbed from the tube down on to the deck.

  'And where do you think you're going?'

  Edelline-Lan took the initiative and stepped forward. She proffered the passage vouchers.

  'We are your passengers.'

  'Passengers, are you?'

  The master made no attempt to examine the vouchers. Instead, he looked at each of the party in turn. He saved Solchaim for last.

  'You say that you're passengers.'

  Edelline-Lan regarded him with an even gaze.

  'That's right. We've pa
id our fares and I can think of no reason why you shouldn't take us.'

  The master's finger jabbed out at Solchaim.

  'What's that supposed to be?'

  Phaid moved up beside Edelline-Lan.

  'It's a passenger.'

  The master shook his head.

  'I'm not taking that.'

  'The elaihi has paid his fare. You are compelled to take him.'

  'Listen, lady, I'm not compelled to do anything.'

  Some of the crew had moved in to watch the exchange. They were starting to mass behind the master. The situation was taking on an air of the ugly. Glares were being directed at Solchaim and one of the crew was slowly pulling a leather covered sap from his pocket. The elaihi had provoked instant, kneejerk hostility among the boat­men but then, just as instantly, it melted away. A pleasant numbness drifted through the area of the port. The crew relaxed. Stupid grins crept over their faces. The master shrugged and handed back the vouchers.

  'What the hell. What do I care? Anyone can ride on this bucket.' He gestured into the interior of the boat. 'Get yourself assigned to a cabin. Have a good trip.'

  Phaid looked easily at the master and then at Solchaim. He wondered how long the elaihi could keep up the screen of phoney goodwill. He prayed that it would last all the way across the ice. The four of them turned out to be the only passengers on the Valentine. Dreen would have made five. Their quarters were two cramped, low ceilinged cabins sandwiched between the crew's mess and cargo holds. The actual departure of the boat was heralded by the screaming of tortured metal as the scoops were spread. A throbbing impulse engine pushed the boat slowly away from the dock, sliding ponderously on pro­testing skids. Then the scoops caught the wind and the whole boat groaned from the impact. The Valentine started to pick up speed.

  At this moment of departure the whole ship was infused by a sense of excitement, adrenalin was flowing. It was the start of a journey that, despite all the precautions that men could take, was always hazardous and unpredictable. The stories of the iceboat crews were filled with lost craft, spectacular disasters and men driven mad by the winds. The initial, edgy elation didn't last, however. Everything quickly settled down into a tedious, uncomfortable routine. Phaid had forgotten just how incredibly dreadful a journey by iceboat could be. The freezing winds smashed into the armoured body of the craft, causing its very framework to contort and protest. They tore at the airscoops, the masts and the spars. The runners vibrated on the ice with a sound like thunder. Inside the small passenger compartment the noise was deafening. The noise wasn't the worst of it, though. There was also the non-stop nerve jangling, bone jolting vibration. The three human passengers had little choice but to cling to their bunks and pray for the journey to be over. Within two hours of starting from Bluehaven, all three were violently sick and even Solchaim stuck strictly to his bunk. Despite the prices that they had paid, the master and crew of the Valentine paid scant attention to them. Now and then a crewman might happen to clean up the worst of the mess and to check that nobody had died, fallen out of their bunk or otherwise injured themselves. For the remainder of the time they were left alone with the noise, the motion and the smell of their own sickness. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Phaid fell into a delirious and fitful sleep that seemed to dip in and out of an eerie parade of bizarre and disturbing dreams.

  At first he thought that the blade buzzing next to his throat was a dream. The air in the cabin was hot and the only light came from a dim lantern. It shone on a sweaty, unshaven face that was pressed close to his. Outside on the plain, the winds howled at the intruding boat but the garlic breath voice was right in his ear and there was no mistaking what it was saying.

  'Don't move a muscle or your throat is slit for sure.'

  Chapter 30

  It was worse than any nightmare. The boat lurched and bucked and the gale screamed beyond the hull. A crew­man crouched threateningly over each passenger with a weapon pressed to his or her throat. The master stood in the cabin doorway with his legs braced against the bounc­ing and rolling. The lantern he was holding swayed and cast weird darting shadows as he struggled to keep his balance. The master's face was a picture of black fury. His voice was hard and cold as though he was making a near impossible effort to control his rage.

  'What the hell dp you think you've been doing to me, you monsterous thing? What have you been doing to me and my crew? You think you can play your unclean games with our heads? You think you can get away with your wicked shit right here on my boat? My boat? You've gone too far with this, monster! You've gone too far with this!'

  Phaid lay scarcely daring to breath. The humming and slightly luminous blade was just a fraction away from the skin of his adam's apple. The crew was in much the same mood as its master and Phaid suspected that, if he as much as swallowed, the one with the bad breath would plunge it into his throat. He could understand their grim anger. He could all too clearly remember his own horror and rage when he first realised that the elaihim had the power to violate his mind. He knew that these boatmen would be hard pressed to put their shock and revulsion into words, but he doubted that they would have any trouble translat­ing it into very painful action. The boatman probably started out with a similar set of prejudices to those of the veebe drovers. Now they would assume they had ample proof of their rightness, the Lords on their side and justification for terrible revenge.

  Phaid was clearly bracketed along with Solchaim. The knife told him that it was likely he would share whatever fate the master had devised for the elaihi. Phaid couldn't believe that he had let go of his control so easily. Had he fallen asleep? Had exhaustion finally claimed him? Surely now he was awake again, why didn't he do something? Phaid tried to communicate these silent questions to Solchaim but no reply came back. The master swung into the cabin from handhold to handhold and the boat bucked and shuddered. He held the light close to Solchaim's face. The elaihi skin was waxen. He looked like a corpse. The master's eyes were fixed on his.

  'You're going, monster. You're going over the side and out. I'm putting you off my boat so you'll never be able to play your tricks again. You and your cohorts are going out on to the ice. We'll see if your devil powers can save you from the gales. Do you have anything to say to that, monster?'

  Solchaim didn't move. There was no indication that he had even heard what was being said to him. The master turned away with a look of disgust and gestured to the four crewmen.

  'Get them out. Get them out of my sight. Take them aft and drop them through the stern dumper lock.'

  The crewmen acted as though they had been waiting for these orders. Edelline-Lan and Chrystiana-Nex were hauled to their feet and pushed out of the cabin. Garlic Breath got an armlock on Phaid and held the tip of the blade just behind his right ear.

  'You try anything and it goes straight in.'

  Phaid made himself as limp and passive as possible while he racked his brains for a way out. He was damned if he was going to die for the elaihim.

  'Listen, this is all a mistake . . .'

  'Shut your mouth and move.'

  Walking half bent with his arm twisted behind him, Phaid was marched out of the cabin and down one of the Valentine's narrow companion-ways. It wasn't the easiest thing to do in a pitching boat and he and his bad breath captor continually stumbled and crashed into walls and bulkheads. Phaid was afraid that the blade would go into him by accident. He twisted around to look at the man he could only think of as Garlic Breath.

  'You're going to kill us both before we even get aft.'

  Garlic Breath snarled.

  'Let me worry about that.'

  At the same moment, the boat gave a particularly vicious lurch. Phaid grabbed for a handhold, couldn't make it and found himself sprawled on his hands and knees. Garlic Breath kicked him to his feet and pushed him on. When they reached the stern, others of the crew were already undogging the fastenings on the inner door of the dumper lock. The two women looked on, white faced with fear. Phaid had n
o reason to believe that he was appearing any more defiant. Solchaim was being brought down the companion-way. He looked like a corpse, totally drained, as though he'd lost all will to resist.

  Two crewmen hauled open the heavy cover. The one holding Edelline-Lan nodded towards the hole in the deck.

  'In!'

  Edelline-Lan put a hand to her mouth and silently shook her head.

  'You can either climb in or we throw you in. It don't make no difference to us.'

  Edelline-Lan looked briefly at Phaid and then she squatted down on the edge of the port and extended one leg into the hole. She was about to jump down into the chamber between the inner and outer doors when a very peculiar thing happened. The blade that was still being held in front of Phaid's face abruptly drooped, like a melting stick of wax. At the same time another of the crew cursed and dropped his blaster. He hopped around shak­ing his hand as though it had been burned. Phaid twisted around and looked at Solchaim, but the elaihi was still devoid of expression.

  Then a confined kind of hell broke loose around the dumper lock. Two crewmen were slammed forcibly into each other. Another dived headfirst into a solid bulkhead. Two more blasted each other from point blank range. Violence crackled in the air with such intensity that Phaid felt stunned. The elaihi grinned fiercely at his handiwork strewn about the deck. Edelline-Lan scrambled from the lock.

  'You really left it to the last minute, didn't you.'

  Solchaim appeared to have no time to chat with humans. His orders were direct and brisk.

  'The bridge, we go to the bridge.'

  They had no choice but to follow in his long-legged wake. When they reached the bridge it was some while before their presence was noticed. The boat had started to vibrate really badly and everyone on duty, both human and android, clung on for dear life as, at the same time, they stared intently at the sensor screens or watched illuminated read-outs and displays that showed the stres­ses on various sections of the hull, mast and rigging. Braced in the bulky and imposing command chair, the master presided over the room. Solchaim made a motion that Phaid and the two women should keep back in the shadows to the rear of the bridge. The master was bellowing orders at his helmsman and oblivious to any­thing but the plight of his ship.