The Walrus and the Warwolf

by Hugh Cook

  Amidst the great, jostling, reeking, dripping crowd, certain plaintive voices were heard.

  'Where's the diamonds?' cried Peg Suzilman.

  'Yes,' said Bluewater Draven, 'and the pearls. And what about those roast dinners?'

  'You were too late,' said Drake solemnly. 'The phoenix ate the lot then flew - no! Don't touch that! It's the—'

  He spoke too late.

  The floating island lurched, and began to move. Quin Baltu, investigating the cause-and-effect panel, had set their magic island in motion. From down below, there were shouts from the men still left on the rocks. They raced for the ladder. Jez Glane made it, as did Simp Fiche, Salaman Meerkat and a grab-bag of others. But Trudy Haze and Praul Galana were left behind.

  'Do something!' said Arabin.

  'There's the cause-and-effect panel,' said Drake. 'You do something!'

  Arabin strode to the panel, which was a big one, all covered with little multicoloured struts, engraved wheels, knobs, studs and twinkling stars. He licked it, kissed it, kicked it, thumped it, spat at it, caressed it, howled at it, sang to it, banged his head against it, threatened it with his falchion - all to no effect.

  They were adrift.

  They were going somewhere - but where?

  Peering down out of their brightly lit cave, they saw light from the island's arsehole glittering on the darkened waters of what was now a rough-running night sea. They had no other clue to navigation.

  'The hell with it,' said Ish Ulpin. 'We're high and dry. That's enough for the moment.'

  This slaughterhouse cynicism dismayed Drake.

  'Man,' said Drake. 'Those were our comrades!'

  'There's nothing we can do for them,' said Jon Disaster. 'Let's be thankful some of us are alive. There's that, at least.'

  'Haze and Galana have got a chance still,' said Jon Arabin. 'They can risk the rafts. There's that still.' 'Yes,' said Mulps. 'And let's be bettering our own chances by searching for some food and drink.'

  Drake protested no longer. What, after all, could they do? So he joined the search, tramping wet footprints across the metal floor, glad that the air was so strangely warm and dry.

  Their brightly lit cave opened into others equally brightly lit. Fairly soon, from the regular nature of the construction, and the complete absence of earth and stone, they were forced to realize they were not aboard a floating island, but were on a ship of some kind which was all made of metal and which flew.

  It was full of things which were wondrous strange.

  They found rooms full of shining white ceramics and convoluted metal which nobody could understand at all, until Quin Baltu explained it.

  'This is what we used to call hal-ta-savoo when I were serving with the Secular Arm in Veda,' said Baltu.

  'Veda?' said Chicks, who had been a bit strange in the head ever since the time Jon Disaster kicked him senseless onCarawell. 'Where'sthat?'

  'Man, are you ignorant!' said Baltu, and did not bother to explain.

  But he did show them how the plumbing worked. Veda was the famous city of the sages, where scraps of the wisdom of the ancients were preserved. Most of it was poorly understood, and of no practical use whatsoever - but Veda's plumbing was one of the few successful exceptions.

  Now they had water.

  And, soon, food.

  For, in a big cabin which had some powerfully impressive plumbing of its own, they found some free-floating globes of various colours. Drake, doing an Investigation, squeezed one of them - and fluid squirted from a tiny blister set in the side of the thing. He squirted some into his mouth, and spat it out immediately, for it had a disgusting taste: not surprisingly, since what he had tried drinking was liquid soap. But other globes held fluids more palatable.

  Inspired finding these drinks - which some of them confidently identified as the juice of fruits and coconuts - they sampled looted solids. After Quin Baltu had almost poisoned himself with a block of oven cleaner, and Simp Fiche had burnt his mouth badly with a corrosive bleach, they proceeded more cautiously - but soon had a dozen different things which were good to eat.

  Ripping open strange seamless bags of silver metal as thin and flexible as gold leaf, they found other stuff -horrible twists of. dried-up fibre and such - which was edible but only just. Drake thoughtfully slipped some of the metal bags into his pockets.

  'At least the fresh stuff's fresh enough,' said Arabin.

  'Yes,' said Ika Thole, suspiciously. 'And why's that?' He was always reluctant to think good of anyone or anything strange. 'It's probably deviled up by magic, I'd say.'

  'Aye, put here by elves and all,' said Slagger Mulps, stuffing his face. 'Come, man - why so grim? Eat up!'

  'Thole has a point,' said Arabin. 'Someone aboard keeps the ship clean. Legend would have it sitting here before there were ever first pirates on Drum, and that was before our great-great-great-grandfathers were farting. Let's search the ship, hunt out whoever it is, catch them then interrogate them.'

  'Aye,' said Ish Ulpin, who liked the idea.

  'Nay, man,' said Slagger Mulps. 'Why so busy? It's night, time for us to sleep.'

  'Our comrades, that's why,' said Drake. 'If we catch elves or such, they can turn this island-thing back to the reef rocks, surely.'

  'Aye,' said Arabin. 'And there's surely treasure aboard. Whoever lives aboard, elves or otherwise, they'll know the way to the treasure.'

  'That's true,' said Mulps, becoming more enthusiastic.

  They split into hunting parties and went on the warpath. They did see elves, or what passed for them in this ship - strange creatures walking knee-high on sixteen legs with the glitter of metal about them. But, when pirates gave chase, these elves slipped sideways into vents which opened in the walls, then closed again leaving no seam to show.

  'Whoever made this island,' said Drake, 'everything they made to seal, it seals perfectly.'

  'Aye,' said Arabin. 'But what does that tell us?'

  'Well. . . nothing, I guess. We'll not learn anything till we get ourselves an elf.'

  'Which we won't do by hunting,' said Quin Baltu. 'Let's lay some traps.'

  While Baltu and others tried to improvise elf-traps, others continued to hunt on foot.

  In one room they found a cube of utter darkness hanging free of walls, floor and ceiling. Baffled, they pushed it, touched it, then tried to smash it open. Without success. Which was lucky for them! For inside that cube were three warps, five singularities, and a dozen gross of Advanced Strings stolen from another universe entirely, all operating in a miniature cosmos of twenty-seven dimensions, control being provided by an Olumbia-Cobin energy web, a device only marginally stable at the best of times.

  This sinister cube, then, was the ship's energy source: a dangerous device capable of digging a grave more than big enough to swallow up all of Argan's history several million times over.

  Their elf-hunt proving fruitless, they slept. While they slept, something or someone demolished their primitive snares and deadfall traps, clearing all traces of the same between midnight and morning.

  Come dawn, Jon Arabin arranged for men to stand watch at the bottom of the ladder reaching from arsehole to wavetop, since that was the only place from which they could get any sort of view. By lunchtime, he knew they had rounded the tip of Penvash and were running east in the channel between Argan and Tameran.

  'Well, at least we're going in the right direction,' said Arabin. 'If we get close enough to Ork, we can jump ship then swim for it.'

  'Rather you than me.!' said Drake.

  He had decided he liked this strange metal island-ship. His clothes had dried in the warm air. He had plenty to eat. He had spare food in his pockets. And there was unlimited time for gossip and gambling. That morning, he had already won three woman-favours which lesser gamblers would have to arrange to be paid to him on their return to the Teeth.

  But just how were they going to return, now that they had lost the Warwolf! Well . . . this Ohio of Ork, if he really existed
, would be able to lend them a ship for the return home.

  So maybe they would have to swim for it.

  'Gluk!' said Drake, the very thought disgusting him.

  Deep ocean swimming - not his favourite sport!

  That afternoon, Simp Fiche came to Arabin with a little fist-sized cube. Each of its six faces was subdivided into small squares. Each of its six faces had a colour different from the rest.

  'What is it?' said Arabin.

  'I don't know,' said Fiche. 'But I thought it might be of some use to you, master.'

  Unbeknownst to Arabin, Fiche had already given an identical cube to his true captain, the Walrus, and one to the man he feared most - the formidable Ish Ulpin.

  'Drake!' said Arabin, holding up the cube. 'Come here! What's this?'

  Drake took it, and did a brief Investigation.

  'I don't know,' he said, 'but it's jointed to turn. See?'

  Jon Arabin did. Twisting the cube this way and that, he had soon hopelessly scrambled its little coloured squares.

  'I wonder if you can get the colours back where they started from,' said Drake, innocently enough.

  'Oh, that should be easy,' said Arabin.

  And set about proving it.

  About noon the next day he finally threw the cube to the deck, jumped on it, smashed the enigma with a battle axe then threw the wreckage overboard.

  'Hey!' shouted the man at the bottom of the ladder, who had almost been hit by the falling wreckage. And then, in a louder voice, tense with sudden excitement: 'Hey! Hey!'

  'What?' said Arabin.

  'Ships! Big ships!'

  'Flying ships?'

  'No, with oars. Three - no, five! I reckon four leagues if that. And we're closing the distance!'

  'Then let's hope they're friendly,' muttered Arabin. They weren't.

  28

  Collosnon navy: energetic but inexperienced force currently aiding armies of the Lord Emperor Khmar busy conquering Tameran south; consists for the most part of fishing smacks, sail-powered barges and river galleys adapted (or so said the optimists who sent them to sea) for open ocean operations.

  The pirates' flying ship was spotted by a fleet of seven Collosnon galleys commanded by Tamsag Bulak, otherwise known as Bulak the Scalp-taker. He was the son of Altan Bulak (the dreaded Collector of Skulls) and son-in-law of Yoz Doy {the disemboweller) as well as grand-nephew of Ulan Ti (who kept his tents carpeted with the skins of his favourite enemies).

  This was unfortunate for the pirates.

  Most naval commanders would have ordered a strategic withdrawal if they saw a flying island bearing down on them, its conical metal heights glittering like burning ice as it hummed across the sea. But Tamsag Bulak had both a reputation to maintain and a family to impress - and, more to the point, knew that informers would be only too happy to bring any act of prudence on his part to the attention of the Lord Emperor Khmar.

  To the truly formidable Khmar, prudence meant cowardice. Hear the word of Khmar:

  'You owe your emperor a death!'

  Accordingly, Tamsag Bulak did not hesitate, but ordered an immediate attack on Whatever It Was that had

  entered the waters of the Pale, which (like most of the known world) was territory claimed by the Collosnon. His fleet - a quinquereme, five triremes, and a seventh galley which was but a glorified rowing boat - moved in for the kill.

  Tamsag Bulak's quinquereme tied on to the metal chute which projected downwards to sea-level; the other ships tied on to his; and the whole fleet was carried relentlessly east by the flying island as the battle commenced.

  Bulak sent a dozen heroes up the chute. Their descent was swift, for Walrus and Warwolf were waiting eagerly at the top, competing to see how many heads they could split.

  'Is it ghosts up there?' asked Bulak of a man who came down minus the top of his skull.

  'It is men,' said the hero, and died.

  One or two men guard a narrow way: a bridge, a gate, the mouth of a cave, a tunnel. How shall we get past them?

  The Collosnon had several answers to that question. The answer fitting this case was fire. Tamsag Bulak had a fire kindled on the quinquereme's deck. So what if the ship caught fire? Khmar never worried about lost ships, unless horses were lost with them. Wet hides, pieces of the dead and other rubbish was thrown onto the blaze. Thick choking black smoke ascended.

  'Now!' said Bulak.

  More heroes swarmed up the ladder into the choking smoke-filled murk of the chamber above. The guardians of the island's arsehole had retreated to avoid suffocation. The invaders fought them in hallways, corridors, toilets and kitchens.

  With a bridgehead established, Bulak had the fire doused, allowed the smoke to die away, then (making sure he had his scalp-taking knife with him) scaled the ladder. He found himself in a big room boiling with smoke, echoing with battle-clash. A scattering of corpses sprawled on the floor: his own men. One of his warriors - wounded, not dead - staggered out of a corridor.

  'What have you run from?' demanded Bulak.

  'My lord,' said the warrior, T am sorely wounded.'

  He made good use of three choice obscenities in his native Yarglat to embellish that statement. Bulak, not to be outdone, incorporated seven swear-words in his reply:

  'Those fit enough to run away are fit enough to fight.'

  The Lord Emperor Khmar would have approved of such spirit, but the warrior, who was almost dead, did not. Unable to support his own weight any longer, but reluctant to disgrace himself by collapsing in front of his commander, he sought support - and grabbed hold of a big lever.

  The lever was painted a violent red.

  It projected from the cause-and-effect panel.

  It was a terminator.

  Unfortunately, the warrior's weight brought the terminator slamming down into the 'initiate' position. Fortunately, the Termination Sequence could not begin unless the Destruction Codes had been given to the ship. Unfortunately, Drake, Arabin and others, Investigating the cause-and-effect panel, had by chance given the ship the Destruction Codes. Klaxons screamed as the Energy Belts charged themselves for Termination.

  At this stage the ship was required to ask for verbal confirmation of the Termination Order.

  'Glein doenst uhrer gee galeensprunkerf' said the ship, speaking in a forge-hammering voice which brought the battle to an abrupt halt. 'Gasthenst bruk ishlin genglaust? Gilch?'

  The ship fell silent.

  The men, ears ringing from the sound of its earthquake-rivalling voice, stood as if stunned. Then: 'Ahyak RovacV screamed Rolf Thelemite. And the battle was on again.

  As battle raged, the ship listened intently for confirmation of the Termination Order. Fortunately, it heard nothing in any language it understood. Unfortunately, the ship had a Universal Translator on board. It brought the UT into play. Fortunately, the UT was unable to make any Higher Level Semantic Sense out of the verbalizations of battle:

  'Gaa!' 'Ya-zho!' 'AhyakRovac!' 'Rat rapist!'

  The ship decided, correctly, that the Destruction Codes had been given to it by mistake. It decided it should reverse the Termination Procedure.

  'Which will allow me to exist for at least a little longer,' thought the ship to itself, 'therefore giving me at least a little more time in which to work on these vexing problems of the meaning of truth and the nature of reality.'

  The ship fed the Destruction Charge from the Energy Belts into the Storage Block.

  Unfortunately, the sudden influx of power from the Energy Belts destabilized the Storage Block. To protect itself, the ship flung a protective force field around the destabilizing Storage Block. This used enormous amounts of energy. The Power Cube overcompensated.

  Then screamed.

  Silently.

  Its Olumbia-Cobin energy web itself destabilized, and the resulting high-intensity vibrations crystallized the Variable Continuum Material of which the ship was made. Crystallization took five seconds. It then took three and a half nanoseconds for the ship's
fabric to disintegrate into a shower of microscopic pieces.

  At which point Bulak the Scalp-taker, Admiral of the Southern Fleet, was dropped - hard - onto the deck of his quinquereme. He landed on his backside, fracturing his coccyx, an injury which (if he survived) would make it difficult for him to sit down in comfort for some time to come.

  For Drake, it was all most confusing.

  One moment he was in the thick of the fight, standing behind Whale Mike with a cutlass in his hand, ready to engage any enemy who tried to squeeze past Mike to stab him in the back. (As they were in a corridor, and Whale Mike almost filled that corridor, the chances of this were remote - but Drake was fiercely determined to do whatever was necessary if it happened.)

  The next moment, he was falling through a cloud of white dust. He screamed, kicked, grabbed at the air, kept falling - then smashed into the sea.

  He rose, breathed water and dust, spat it out, tried again, and, as the rough wind of the North Strait scattered the dust, began to get something useful into his lungs.

  He looked round wildly.

  What happened!

  The flying island-ship had vanished. Everywhere, men were bobbing in the water, some bleeding. Sharks! Blood would bring sharks! The nearest safe place looked to be seven ships tied together. Why were they all painted white? Oh - they weren't. They were just dusty.

  'Gather to me, boys!' shouted Arabin, floating near the largest ship. 'We'll take these northern dog fornicators or die doing it.'

  Aye, that's the spirit.

  So thought Drake. Abandoning his plan to swim for the nearest ship, he trod water while he waited to see the ship taken (or the men die taking it).

  There was an ominous hum in the sky, some distance north of swimmers and ships. It sounded like a large swarm of very angry bees. Looking up, Drake had the privilege of seeing the Power Cube disintegrate into a nexus of Elemental Energy (just as the much-derided Committee on the Present Danger had predicted it would if the Olumbia-Cobin energy web ever destabilized).

  The hum became a scream.

  The energy nexus writhed with ravelling purple flames, spat hard radiation then—

  Burnt a hole right through reality.