by Hugh Cook
As Drake's enemies poured booze into him, they took the occasional swig themselves, then took more than the occasional sip. They began singing to each other, mourning out nostalgic ditties.
'Sholeesh,' said one, indicating to Drake that he should drink once again.
' 'leesh,' he said.
And drank.
They laughed.
Truly, they thought he was getting drunk. Good. He began to act the part, meanwhile noting carefully how much the two warriors drank. Oh, he was on form tonight! Amazing how chance and hope could fire up one's thinking.
When both Collosnon warriors were quite drunk, one grabbed for Drake. Drake grabbed back. He closed his fingers on his enemy's throat and squeezed. And grabbed for the nearest knife.
In fury he struck, then struck again. Did one man shout? If so, he was dead a moment later. Drake stabbed, slashed, hacked. In his frenzy, he kicked over the single candle which had lit their revels.
He was in darkness. Darkness? It seemed a red haze hung in the air. A strange ringing sound dinned in his ears. He blundered to his feet, struggling with his own unruly limbs.
Gasping.
He dropped the knife. 'Knife,'he said. 'Knife.'
And scrabbled for it. Wet hands. Gross bulk. And this beneath his fingers? Wet, wide. Flesh? Ripped fabric. Bone so close. Like killing a dog, that's all.
'They were enemies, weren't they?'
Sharpness.
Blade.
Knife.
Go, time to go.
Something. Something forgotten. What? Oh. Oh, yes. Sacrifice. Dedication of sacrifice. Had to be done. Didn't it? First kill? Wasn't there a ceremony? The corpse to the Demon?
What Demon?
'The Demon is dead.'
But what if the Demon wasn't dead? Theology. At a time like this? Had to be done. Shame to waste a dead man, anyway. Two dead men.
T dedicate—'
No. The word was consecrate.
'This blood. Consecrate. I consecrate these killings. To the Demon or the Flame, which. I don't know. Both. That's it. One each. One to the Demon, one to Flame. There. Can't say fairer than that.'
And with that said, Drake waded outside. To the night. To the cool. To the air. He threw back his head and gasped, dragging in air as if he had surfaced from the sea near drowning.
He was shaking.
The knife?
He still had it.
Then move, man, move!
'Ahyak Rovac, as Thelemite would say,' muttered Drake. Trying to— What? Joke?
'Philosophy later,' he muttered.
He was already walking. Closing the distance. It couldn't be done bloodless. Another kill. He had to. No way round. Saunter, now. Relax. Let footsteps speak of friendship. Easy, now. Easy.
He was quite near the torture posts. A single guard was on duty.
'Galof?' said the guard.
In reply, Drake simply started whistling a tune he had once used - it seemed years ago now - to annoy Gouda Muck. Whistling in the dark. Bravado.
And brave with it, too.
'Stralk!' said the guard. 'Chala klan?'
Drake, very close, said in reply:
'Eat this!'
Feeding the guard steel.
'That you, man?' said Whale Mike, from his cluster of posts.
'No, that not him, that me,' said Drake. 'You got sarky tongue,' said Whale Mike. 'You watch tongue or some day some joker cut tongue out.' 'Yeah, sure, sure,' said Drake.
And started cutting the thongs which bound Mike to his multiple posts. Mike waited patiently till the job was done. Then went into action.
'I got knife,' said Mike, after a search of the dead guard.
'Good,' said Drake. 'Then help.' 'Oh, I do that. You not need to say.'
Drake tried to make a smart retort, but found his mouth had suddenly started shaking too badly to shape words. His limbs were blundering again.
Yet he kept on with his work.
Shortly, all the survivors were free.
After a muttered consultation, Walrus and Warwolf and all their followers crept down to the shore. There they stole three fishing smacks. One was commanded by the Warwolf, one by the Walrus, and the third by Bluewater Draven.
They set to sea.
The night proved rough; by dawn, Bluewater Draven had managed to get himself lost, and was nowhere in sight. But the other two craft remained in sight of each other - and it was clear that the one commanded by the Walrus was sinking.
'Not so proud this time, eh, me pretty one?' said Jon Arabin, as Slagger Mulps was helped from his sinking boat.
'We're all in this together, man,' said Mulps.
And they were, too, for as long as their voyage lasted. Which was not long at all, for, a day later, their boat was wrecked on the northern coast of Penvash, somewhere west of Chag-jalak. In the wreck, Drake lost the knife he had won from the Collosnon. He counted himself lucky not to have lost his life as well.
But he still had plenty of time left for losing that. And he was going to have plenty of opportunity, too, if he was any judge.
30
Survivors of the wreck on the Penvash coast: Jon Arabin (aka Warwolf); Slagger Mulps (aka Walrus), Dreldragon Drakedon Douay (runaway swordsmith's apprentice and common pirate, aka Drake); Sully Datelier Yot (disciple of Gouda Muck and apostle of the Flame); Whale Mike; Bucks Cat; Ish Ulpin (once gladiator in Chi'ash-lan); Rolf Thelemite (self-proclaimed hero from Rovac); Jez Glane; Simp Fiche; Tiki Slooze; Salaman Meerkat; Ika Thole; Jon Disaster; Peg Suzilman; Raggage Pouch; Harly Burpskin (who, after living for years with more money than sense, now has equal quantities of both thanks to gambling losses to Drake).
After their wreck on the Penvash coast, the seventeen survivors spent a miserable night huddled in a body-ball in a marginal cave constantly wet with spray from the booming surf. When the grey, straggling autumn dawn arrived, Drake was sent aloft - straight up the cliff face.
'Come back with your shield or on it,' said Jon Arabin, giving him a parting slap on the back.
'What?' asked Drake, blankly.
'Never mind,' said Arabin. 'Climb, man - day's wasting!'
Up went Drake, and pioneered a route which others could follow. By noon, all seventeen were on the clifftop. A bleak and desolate spot it was to be sure, with precious little shelter from the North Strait winds or the North Strait rains, both of which were in full swing.
'God's gall and devil's bane,' said Salaman Meerkat. 'What did we do to deserve this?'
T don't know what you did,' said Jez Glane proudly. 'But I did rape, murder, theft, arson, piracy, horse-thieving, cattle-rustling, poaching—'
'Save the catalogue,' said Jon Arabin. 'Let's march.'
He pointed inland, where white-capped mountains rose against the dismal heavens.
'March?' said Burpskin. 'To where?'
'Over the mountains there's rivers, man,' said Arabin, ' Rivers which flow to Estar in the end.'
'Aye,' said Tiki Slooze. 'But we'll go through the Old City on the way.'
'If it exists,' said Jon Arabin, who knew that legend too. 'Suppose it does. What's worse? To go by way of the Old City, maybe meeting with ghosts? Or to stay here, becoming ghosts ourselves soon enough?'
'Isn't there anything else we can do?' wailed Burpskin.
'Sure there is,' said Arabin. 'You can leave by sea. First build an escape boat - with this!'
He pulled up a handful of tough grey cliff-grass and offered it to Burpskin. Then threw it to the snatching wind. 'Or walk the line of the coast - a pretty path it is, too.'
The coast was no such thing, being jagged as the blade of a two-handled Jatzu rip-saw, slashed deep by sea-eating gullies as numerous as the death-notches on Ish Ulpin's battle-belt, interrupted by razorback ridges which looked as though a regular wreck-storm sea had been frozen forever into rock, and knobbed with isolated upthrusts of rock reminiscent of Sully Yot's warts.
'Mark me well,' said Jon Arabin, 'I put no compulsion upon anyone
. Those who know a better road can follow it. Those who want but to die can do so here, in their own time - not mine.'
'But what about the Old City?' said Tiki Slooze.
'What's this Old City?' asked Drake. 'Those of us who never heard of it have rights to know, surely, if it's there we're going.'
'You've got rights to a kick up the arse, if you talk so stroppy,' growled the green-haired Walrus.
But Rolf Thelemite thought otherwise:
'Drake's right. We're right to learn danger before meeting it. Thus courage can prepare itself. Thus—'
'Aagh!' said the Walrus.
He spat. Into the wind, which flung his spittle back at him. He smeared the stuff into his green beard, then coughed.
'The Old City,' said Burpskin, in a voice already grieving for his death, 'that kills.'
'Aye,' said Tiki Slooze. 'It's in the Valley of Forbidden Dreams, isn't it just? I was born in Sung, that's in Ravlish, we know the legend-talk well, aye, better than others. Ghosts which eat, fire which eats, stone which eats - all such live there.'
'Aye,' said Jon Arabin. 'Maybe they do. But wind eats, rain eats, and hunger eats most swiftly of all. I can't speak for the Old City, but I can speak for this place here - those bone-eaters will hunger down any man who stays.'
'You're ahard man,' said Harly Burpskin.
'Aye, hard I am, butno tyrant, not when we'reoffthesea. I'll put it to the vote of feet. Those who wish can stay: you others, follow.'
With that, Jon Arabin set off inland.
Rolf Thelemite was first to follow, more sure than the others of his ability to survive a long march by land.
Next went Salaman Meerkat. Though he had not confessed to his ignorance, Meerkat had never heard the legends of the Old City. And anyway, as his grand-daddy used to say:
'If we never went any place someone somewhere held to be haunted, we'd never go any place at all.'
Whale Mike followed, being too stupid to worry about the dangers of the journey. Then went Ish Ulpin, acutely intelligent but as reckless as they come. Then Slagger Mulps, to try and salvage a shadow of the pretence of leadership. Then Simp Fiche, always ready to curry favour with the Walrus if he could.
One by one they straggled off into the hinterland, a ragged band of rough-bearded unarmed mariners, watching only the feet of the man in front, since the wind and the driving rain discouraged idle gazing about.
In the end, only Drake and Yot were left at the clifftop.
'Those old guys are crazy,' said Drake, who - cold, tired, hungry, and generally utterly shagged out - felt like giving up entirely.
'For sure they are,' said Yot.
Then, without further ado, started walking after the last of the pirates.
'Me old uncle was right,' said Drake, meaning his uncle Oleg Douay, the best swordsmith on Stokos. 'We are all mad to get ourselves born.'
And, with that, he fell in behind Yot.
31
Place: Penvash, a squat peninsular some 300 leagues long projecting from north-west corner of Argan.
Intelligent inhabitants: green-skinned river people known as Melski; small, elusive fox-furred animals known as foddens; the people of Lorp (a small human enclave on the south-west coast of Penvash).
Geography: an upthrust wilderness of snow mountains, forested hills, cliffs, gorges, streams, waterfalls, torrents, rapids and rivers, most watercourses feeding at last into Lake Armansis, from where the Hollern River flows south out of Penvash and into the land of Estar.
They came upon the door toward evening. It was set in the side of a mountain, with half a league of broken road leading up to it. Stone animals, their features blurred by weather as though they had been made out of soap, flanked the last stretch of the road.
The door was elephant-high, but not elephant-grey, being made out of incorruptible white metal. While Walrus and Warwolf examined it, their followers kept a prudent distance, huddling down with backs to the wind.
'This here is muff,' said Jon Disaster, scraping a little frozen snow off a patch of bare earth.
'Muff,' said Drake.
He remembered - it seemed a long, long time ago - seeing muff at a distance from the deck of the Warwolf. Aye. Down in the Drangsturm Gulf, when their
ship had been anchored by Island Tor. Wild days, yes . . . the golden skins of the Ling ... his nights of passion with the golden people ... the Neversh he had beheaded with his sword . . .
Belatedly he remembered he had never actually enjoyed the flesh of one of the golden people. Nor had he really decapitated the Neversh. But he had so often boasted about both those accomplishments that it was difficult to remember the truth of the matter.
Curious about muff, he stole some from the earth. Like quartz, it came in crystals - only these were a bitter cold, and softened to nothing at the touch. He tried eating it, but sharp pains in his teeth made him spit it out. While he knew by now that ordinary poisons had little effect on him, snow might be different, for it surely must be magical in its nature.
'There's not much of this muff around,' said Drake.
'Oh, there'll be regular falls of it soon enough,' said Jon Disaster. 'It's late enough in the year, and we've climbed cold enough.'
'Yes,' said Rolf Thelemite. 'I warrant it can get bitter enough at these heights. Bitter as the Breathings, no doubt.'
'Breathings?' asked Drake.
'Aye,' said Thelemite, watching Mulps and Arabin push open the great big metal door. 'What are these Breathings?' asked Drake. 'They—'
Thelemite broke off as the door slammed shut with an almighty great boom.
'Hell's grief and whore pox!' said Raggage Pouch. 'That's loud enough to drum up fifty dead men's widows for last year's army.'
They stared at the door at length, but it did not open.
'Mayhap they're dead,' said Ika Thole.
'Aye,' said Burpskin. 'I said no good would come of fiddling through the mountains.'
Ish Ulpin, without a word, got to his feet. He strode forward. Bucks Cat and Whale Mike followed. The three swaggered to the door, then pushed it open. When Walrus and Warwolf emerged alive, the others chanced themselves forward. Beyond the door lay a tunnel.
'The door doesn't open from the inside,' said Arabin. 'Then we'll not go into it,' said Ika Thole, 'or we'll be trapped.'
'No,' said Drake. 'We can stay outside and freeze to death. Some choice!'
'We'll prop the door open with rocks,' said Arabin. 'That's safest.'
'Aye,' said Rolf Thelemite. 'Then send scouts ahead to see how the innards fare. I'd say this place guts right through the mountain.'
'I'd say it must,' said Arabin. 'Otherwise we're dead men. And I say, too, no scouting parties. We're dying on our feet as it is. Time is life, man. If there's no way through, we're likely all dead anyway. So let's push on.'
After much argument, they piled up rocks to jam the door open, then dared the tunnel. It was cobbled with red and green stones and lit by millions and millions of pinpoints of white light built into roof and walls.
They had not gone very far down this square-cut shaft when there was a grating sound behind. Turning, they saw the door was closing. As they raced back, the door crushed the rocks, sealing the tunnel mouth. Panting, they hammered against the door.
The door boomed like a sullen drum as the men attacked it. Echoes waded away down the tunnel, crashing from side to side as they went.
'Give, you ganch!' screamed Drake in panic, kicking it.
'Easy, man,' said Arabin, his own pulse slowly subsiding. 'We'll not break metal with muscle.'
And Drake, at length, abandoned the attack.
'Grief!' said Simp Fiche, picking up a handful of fragments from the shattered rocks. 'What kind of rocks were we using?'
'Rocks solid enough,' said Ish Ulpin, giving the door one last kick.
'We're trapped,' said Ike Thole bleakly.
'We trapped with friends,' said Whale Mike, in a voice which was meant to be encouraging. 'That someth
ing, anyway.'
Drake, remembering the invisible door he had found in the Wishing Tower in Ling, hunted around for a cause-and-effect panel. But found no such thing.
'Well, we're bound on our journey now,' said Jon Arabin, 'whether we like it or not.'
'We don't like it!' said Burpskin.
'Aye, then that'll encourage us to step out smartly-like,' said Jez Glane.
They walked for a long time, pushing past three more doors. Each closed behind them with an enormous echo-raising crash. Then they came to a stream which ran in through a gaping hole on one side of the tunnel and out through an equally dark and ominous hole on the other, leaving fifty paces of the tunnel (which dipped slightly at that point) almost knee-deep in water.
'I'm weary,' said Arabin, 'and I'm thinking this is as good a place to camp as any.'
'Aye,' said Mulps. 'We could all of us use some sleep, that's for sure.'
Nobody argued. They quenched their thirst then settled to sleep. Drake dreamed of his trip to Ling, of the Neversh he had fought on the deck of the Warwolf, of a gold-skinned woman hot in passion. . . of a sea-maid wet within his arms, cold kelp slicked across her delta.
He woke with water lapping round his boots: the stream was rising.
'Rain outside,' said Arabin. 'Heavy rain, by the looks. Better push on, before the whole place floods.' On they went.
Drake, footsore and weary, lagged behind the others, with Sully Yot at his side. Was the tunnel endless? To while away the march, he made his amulet begin its recitation.
'What's that?' asked Yot, fascinated by the low-murmuring voice issuing from the fancy little object, which he had never seen before.
'Ah, this!' said Drake. 'It's from a Wishing Tower in the land of the Ling. A hot journey I had to get there, too. Fifty leagues across the barrens, with no water. I would have starved, man, except I had a crossbow with me.'
'A crossbow?'
'A shooting weapon. Man, how long have you been a pirate? Don't you know anything?'
'How can a shooting weapon get you water?' said Yot.
'I shot vultures from the pink skies - aye, don't look at me like that, man, the sky runs pink when you get that far south - then I drank their blood. Then I had five fights and a devil of a bruising going hand-to-hand with a pack of Guardian Machines. Fierce with fire they were, with whips about them tipped with burning suns.'
