by Hugh Cook
"Peace," said Togura, speaking in a low, even tone; he didn't want anyone getting over-excited and attacking him. "My name's Togura Poulaan. I'm here to tell you about a plot to kill Elkor Alish. It's Draven who wants to kill him. Draven's waiting close at hand. You can grab him now. Chop his head off – that's what I'd do. Do you understand?"
The Rovac warriors didn't seem to. The bodyguards who had carried Alish away from Draven's cave house had gone off duty; this was a new set of guards, and it seemed none of them spoke Galish.
"This is very important," said Togura, speaking urgently. "Elkor Alish, understand? Killing. Chop chop!"
The guards looked at each other, and conferred in their alien tongue. They saw the harp; a couple of them recognised Togura from the banquet. Finally one of them gestured: he was free to enter Alish's quarters.
"No, no," said Togura. "That's not what I want! I want – "
The guard grew impatient, and gave him a push.
He went sprawling, losing his grip on harp and oil lamp. The lamp went out. One of the guards, a bit of a bully, gave him a kick in the backside. Togura snatched up his harp and went bundling through some heavy door hangings, entering Alish's quarters.
The first room, a windowless cube hewn out of solid rock, was lit by a single long-burning candle. It was a living room; there were some sheepskin rugs on the floor, a couple of leather-padded chairs, a couch, some cushions, a couple of low-slung tables, and, set in niches around the walls, a collection of tobacco-coloured shrunken heads.
More heavy door hangings barred the way into the next room. Togura, breathing heavily, made his mind up. He would wake Elkor Alish. If Alish was too heavily drugged to wake, then he would sit up – all night, if necessary – until Alish did wake. Alish spoke Galish. Alish would have Draven's head chopped off.
That was the only reasonable thing to do. Togura, after his near-drownings, his illnesses, his bone breakages, his captivities and his throat-shaving escapes, was acutely aware of the fragility of his own existence. The Rovac warriors frightened him from nerve ends to bone marrow; the very last thing he wanted was to bring down the wrath of the Rovac nation on his own head.
Boldly, he went into the inner chamber.
Elkor Alish was sleeping in a narrow bed, his body covered with a wolf skin.
"Alish," said Togura, trembling, stepping toward him.
Then someone touched him from behind. Shocked, he whirled, slamming an uppercut into his assailant's jaw. His attacker fell, knocked unconscious. It was a she! And she was naked!
Now what had he done?
He had over-reacted, knocking out Alish's bedtime playmate.
There was a grunt from the bed.
Togura turned to see Alish throwing aside the wolf skin. He had been put to bed armed and fully dressed. He started lugging his sword out of its sheath.
Togura smatched up a small table. As Alish lurched toward him, he threw it. Smashed by the table, the Rovac warrior went down.
Togura felt sick.
What a mess!
Was Alish dead?
No – despite the drug Draven had fed him, and a heavy blow from the table, he was still breathing. But he had taken a hard crack on the head. Exploring the warrior's skull, Togura's fingers detected a massive bruise already forming.
He was horrified.
Should he wait and see if Alish recovered consciousness? A nice idea indeed – one of the guards outside might come in to check on his leader. And then what would happen? It would be head-in-lap time for Togura Poulaan.
He had to get away.
He had to get out of here. And off the island. He would have to ask Draven to help him. But Draven would be after his blood if he came back without the death-stone. And the rings. And the bottles.
Togura looked around, desperately. He saw a small bottle decorated with green glaze. That must be one of the magic bottles which people spoke about – bottles in which an army could hide. Now – the rings. He looked at Alish's hands. Finding one ring only. Where was the other one? Where was the red bottle? And where was the death-stone?
He searched, swiftly, but did not find what he sought. One ring, then. He took it off Alish's hand, with difficulty, for it was a tight fit. A ring and a bottle. How was he going to get them out of here?
He stuffed the bottle under his clothing, but it made an obscene, bulbous lump. There was no way to crush it down so it would lie flat and inconspicuous. In the end he hid it under his clohtes, but jammed up into his armpit. That was where it was least conspicuous, though he had to keep an arm in close to his body to hold it in place. Now – the ring. Simple! He popped it into his mouth for safe keeping.
Then left, harp in hand, bottle under arm.
From the inner chamber he went to the outer chamber, and from the outer chamber he went to the tunnel beyond. There, the guards grabbed him. He was so startled that he swallowed the ring.
One of the Rovac guards, speaking incomprehensible foreign words, asked him something.
"Do you want me to explain myself all over again?" said Togura, catching the note of interrogation in the man's words. "Well, the long and the short of it is that I've raided Elkor Alish's quarters. I've taken a bash at his resident sex toy. I've smashed the man himself – he'll possibly die tonight. I've taken his green bottle, which is this goiterous lump under my arm which I hope none of you are looking at. And I've just swallowed the magic ring which commands that bottle. That was your fault. You startled me. Now let me go!"
And he pulled himself free.
One of the guards grunted, and gave him a kic, and he set off down the tunnel at a sedate walk.
Draven met him.
"Did you get the goodies?"
"One bottle only," said Togura. "No death-stone. No rings."
"Did you search his clothing? His bedding?"
"No, but – "
"Fool! He'll have them in bed with him, or next to his skin. Give me that bottle! Give it! That's better. Now go back for the rest. Now! This instant!"
"But – "
"No buts, or my slice will unsplice you. Back! Back!"
Togura took a few hesitant steps back the way he had come. Then he heard shouts of anger, rage and alarm coming from the direction of Alish's chamber.
"Draven," he said, "I think we're in trouble."
And they fled.
Chapter 41
Draven and Togura escaped from the wrath of the Rovac by putting to sea in a dinghy. They didn't go far. Dawn found them in a sheltered cliff-walled inlet.
"Strip!" said Draven.
"What?"
"Take your clothes off."
"Are you mad?"
"Do what I say!"
Togura, reluctantly, obeyed. Draven searched him and his clothes minutely.
"So you haven't got it," said Draven, disappointed.
"I haven't got what?"
"The death-stone. What else? You let me down, you useless heap of turdshit. You failed me. After all I've done for you! We could have ruled the universe. I should cut you up for sharkmeat!"
Draven, angry, thwarted and vengeful, seemed to be working himself up to a killing rage. Togura, eager to make amends for his failings, almost blurted out the truth about the missing ring to command the green bottle. Then restrained himself, suspecting that Draven might cut to his gut to be sure of getting his hands on it. As Draven drew his knife, Togura cried:
"It's the dralkosh! Yen Olass Ampadara! The evil one! She's making you do this! You're still under her spell!"
"What?" said Draven, amazed.
"Yes," said Togura, desperately. "You told me all about her. She killed you. She chopped you up. She resurrected you."
"Oh… that," said Draven.
The pirate was, for some reason, suddenly acutely embarrassed. All the rant and rage drained out of him; looking rather shamefaced, he sheathed his knife.
"Get dressed," said Draven, speaking roughly, as if harsh words could dispell his embarrassment. Then, in a more
conciliatory tone: "I was wrong to draw on you. That was my failing. You were right to remind me of the Ampadara woman. But speak no more of it – the subject is painful."
"I'll never mention it again," said Togura, dressing.
Conjuring with the name of Ampadara had been a desperate ploy. It had worked. So there really had been a woman in Tameran by the name of Ampadara, who had had dealings with Draven. Togura was starting to suspect that the history of Draven and Ampadara was not quite as the pirate had told it, but he also suspected that he would never be sure of the truth, and that the matter of Ampadara would be an unsolved mystery for as long as he lived – which, if the Rovac caught him, would not be long.
By this time, the sinking caves had uncovered a fraction of a deep-tunnelling cave. Draven pointed to it.
"That's where we're going to hide."
"In there?"
"That's what I said."
"Well… hadn't we better wait for the water to go down a bit more?"
"This is as low as it gets."
It was impossible to row into the cave, for the edges of the rock almost scraped the edges of the dinghy. Togura and Draven had to lie flat on their backs in the oar-boat, and walk it into the cave, bracing against the roof with their boots.
Within, the cave opened up into a vast chasm, half water, half air. Flaws in the rock above pierced upward to the sky, but the wan light which filtered through those flaws was scarcely as strong as sunlight.
"My father found this cave," said Draven. "He never told a soul, save me and my brothers."
"What if your brothers betray you?"
"One drowned when diving for gaplax. One fell off a cliff. One died of the plague in the year of two comets. One's a slave in Chi'ash-lan – if he's alive at all. One's the king of Chenameg, or used to be. One went trading east of Ashmolea – for all I know, he's in Yestron. There's none to betray us."
"So we're safe then."
"For the moment."
The moment steadily lengthened. They camped on a rock ledge above water level. They drank from a slow-dripping seepage filtering through the rocks, but they had no food. Togura whiled away the darkness by playing his triple-harp, softly, softly.
And waited.
He was constipated. He remembered his father, Baron Chan Poulaan, quoting a common little maxim on the subject:
"If you don't eat you don't shit, and if you don't shit you die!"
However, on the third day, when Draven was sleeping, Togura obtained relief. Prospecting for treasure he found it; he cleaned the ring then hid it away in the toe of his left boot. By now, having listened to Draven lamenting his loss often enough, Togura knew how to use the ring. He only had to put it on his finger, and turn it, and he would be inside the green bottle which he had stolen from Elkor Alish.
Togura was tempted to experiment, but did not. Though he was very, very hungry by now, and knew there might well be food inside the green bottle, his priorities were simple: Safety first.
Chapter 42
They waited in hiding for three days, then slipped back to an unsuspecting harbour and stole food, some barrels of water and a two-masted sealing boat.
As they toiled north in the open sealing-boat, Togura learnt more about sailing than he'd ever wanted to know. He learnt under the worst possible conditions. The boat was too big for two men to handle easily. It leaked. The seas were rough. It rained. An autumn storm beat them about like milk in a butter-churn. They lost their water-barrles overboard. They ran out of food.
And Draven, impatient, bad-tempered, screamed, shouted, cursed and roared abuse. Togura, sleeping between lurches of the sea, sometimes had nightmares in which Draven – swollen to the size of a giant – roared at him:
"Gazzen the hull-skit! Batten the lee! Clabber the gasts, the legs are slipping! Sheet the wind, you spittle-spawned moron! Dirk up the kneecaps!"
And he would wake to find Draven screaming at him in some half-coherent sea-jabber; sometimes, stumbling about the boat with the seas washing around his ankles, he found it hard to say when Draven's talk ended and the dreamtalk of nightmare began.
The sea was endless.
The sea was a windstalking wasteland where waves ate each other and hungered for the bones of men. It was empty, empty, empty. No place to sleep; no place to lie down. They were always cold, they were always wet, they were always tired, they were always hungry. Heartsick, sea sick, sick of the roiling waves and the slathering spray, Togura longed for land.
"Turn east," he said, when the weather favoured them with a sunrise.
He knew the coast of Argan lay to the east. They could make land easily, and swiftly. But Draven kept them driving for the north.
"We need to make Sung," said Draven.
"Why Sung?" said Togura.
It was his homeland, true, but all he wanted now was some land which wouldn't buckle under him from moment to moment.
"Log Jaris is the man to help us now."
"Log who?"
"You know. You met him. The man at D'Waith with the head and the horns of a bull."
"Oh, him!" said Togura. "I thought I'd imagined him."
"Dream on. And while you're about it – bail."
He did bail.
He bailed the boat dry.
It rained.
"Good," he said, drinking.
"Very good," said Draven, slaking his own thirst. And then, to the sky: "Okay, that's enough now! You can give it a shake and put it away!"
But if this advice was meant to stop the rain, it failed. The rain grew worse. So did the wind. Soon the boat was thrashing about in a regular storm.
Night, at last, fell, and with the coming of night the storm abated somewhat. Soon it was dying, then dead.
"You steer," said Draven, yielding te tiller to Togura. "I'm going to sleep."
"Which way do I steer?" said Togura.
"I don't know where we are or where the hell we're going," said Draven, completely disorientated by the shifting stormwinds. "So just keep the winds behind us."
"But what if we're going the wrong way?"
Draven, weary, almost too tired to think, scanned the sky for stars, finding none. Sunrise would give them direction. Till then…
"You're right," said Draven. "Let's haul down the sail and we'll lie ahull."
That they did, and were soon sleeping sweetly while the boat drifted through the night. Much later, they woke, almost simultaneously, to the sound of surf breaking on rocks.
"Braunch out!" screamed Draven.
"What?" cried Togura.
"Zelch the pringles!"
Togura, not knowing what a pringle was, or how to zelch it, stood there wringing his hands. The next moment he was flung face-first to the deck as they went surfing into the rocks. Timbers grunched, graunched, despaired and tore open. Smash-batter waves pummelled their way into the boat. Draven, with a cry, was swept overboard. Togura heard his screams jousting with the surf, then – silence.
Silence, at least, from Draven. The wood-wave cacophony continued. With a dreadful sound of rending timbers, the boat broke apart. Togura clung to a piece of wreckage. He was swept into the sea.
Where was the green bottle?
With Draven.
Wet, cold, shivering, frightened, Togura clung to his bit of wreckage, swearing and sobbing, cursing sea, waves, wind, water, pirates, quests and adventures in general.
Incautiously, he let his feet drift down.
He touched something underfoot.
He screamed:
"Gaaaa!"
And wrenched his feet up, in case the sea serpent below felt them and bit them off. The waves knocked him around a bit, but he was so terrified that he hardly felt them.
For a while he floated around in a state of helpless funk, then, slowly, logic began to assert itself. They had ripped the boat apart on some rocks. He had now been swept past those rocks, but, still… rocks suggested land. So…
Togura put his feet down again, and touched bottom. He wh
ooped with triumph. A wave smashed him in the face. Blinking away water, he peered through the night, and saw a line of white breaking in the distance. Slowly, he began to wade toward it, and eventually dragged himself up on a sandy beach.
The sky was growing light.
Togura, shivering, shuddering, warmed himself as best he could, dancing round on the beach, singing, slapping his thighs, shouting. He was still at it when Draven, stumbling along the beach, found him.
"Ho, madman!" said Draven.
"You!"
"None other," said Draven. "Have you got the green bottle?"
"No, I thought you had it."
"Pox and piles!" said Draven. "It's lost!"
They spent half the morning beachcombing, and, at last, found it. But what now? They were, in all probability, on the Lesser Teeth.
"No other coast in these parts has such long, sandy beaches," said Draven, distinctly gloomy.
Togura did not need to be told that, if the people of the Lesser Teeth got hold of a genuine pirate like Draven, he would probably come to a sticky end.
So there they were, marooned on a hostile foreign shore, with wet clothes, no food, no water, no tinder box, no shelter, and precious little hope of a friendly reception from the natives. It was, without a doubt, time to use the magic ring and get into the green bottle, no matter what the dangers.
Togura took both his boots off, retrieved the ring, massaged his feet, wrung out his socks, put socks and boots back on, and, by the time he had gone through that rigmarole, had nerved himself up to act. Draven would doubtless be furious to find that Togura had kept the capture of the ring secret from him, but the green bottle was alleged to have all kinds of food and other good things inside, and that, with luck, would mollify the angry pirate.
"Draven," said Togura.
"What?" said the pirate.
"I've got something to show you," said Togura, taking him by the arm as if to lead him somewhere.
And, his arm linked with Draven's, Togura turned the ring on his hand. A moment later, they were in -
A green chamber, not very well lit.
"Blood's grief!" cried Draven, shocked.
A moment later, something in the shadows by a jumble of empty barrels sat up. It was a man. A warrior!
