by Hugh Cook
The lizard-monster leaned down casually.
Then struck.
It hooked huge claws under the stranger's ribs. It hoisted him up, then slashed at Drake with its spare man-mangier. Drake rolled sideways. Another stranger burst from the Door - and the monster grabbed him.
Holding a man in each clawed hand, it tried to cram both into its maw simultaneously. While it was thus occupied, Drake grabbed his sword.
'Gaaa!' he screamed.
And hacked the monster's guts open. It clapped its hands together, smashing its two claw-hooked prey together - then flung its arms wide, sending the two bodies flying.
The bodies fell sprawling to the dust.
The monster loomed over Drake, who was in easy reach of its jaws and claws. If he turned to run, it would kill him. He tried to ease himself backwards, shifting his boots shuffle by shuffle on the underfoot sand, keeping his eyes fixed on the monster.
With an oiled, fluid motion, slick as a fish swimming through water, the monster eased itself forward. Blood dripped slowly from its claws. Red blood.
Bugger! There was no getting away!
The monster was watching him, aye, staring him out, trying to paralyse him with terror. Yes, as weasel will paralyse rabbit.
'I'm no rabbit, man!' screamed Drake, in something close to hysteria.
He was panting frantically. His legs were shuddering. He was pissing himself. He was grasping his sword in a vice-like grip. He was a moment away from collapse. Then remembered - very clearly - duelling on the deck of the
Warwolf in the Penvash Channel. He remembered the weapons muqaddam saying:
'Grip, remember? Relaxed yet firm.'
Words like crystal.
'Yes,' hissed Drake, eyeing the monster, waiting for it to strike. 'Yes . . .'
He had his breathing under control now. He was remembering the weapons muqaddam preaching:
'Breathing in battle is life, is death. Breathe deep. Breathe slow. Master fear through your breathing.'
And Drake hissed:
'Yes . . .'
And remembered the weapons muqaddam's favourite saying, which lived on though the man himself was dead:
'If you must die, then die with style!'
'Yes!' shouted Drake.
Convincing himself of his courage.
And the monster roared. Lunging at Drake with its jaws.
Drake met teeth with bronze.
As metal and ivory clashed, Jon Disaster came leaping through the Door.
'Gaaa!' screamed Drake. Swinging again at the monster.
As he did so - Disaster struck. He chopped into the monster's tail. It tried to turn, swinging its neck around - and Drake, with a scream, hacked at the neck.
The monster wavered.
Jon Disaster tucked his sword under his arm as if it were a spear, and charged, coming at the creature from behind, sinking good bronze deep into its spine. As it subsided, Drake swung again at its neck, once, twice, then thrice.
Then wiped some of the blood and sweat from his face, and looked around for fresh enemies.
Finding none.
Now he had time to attend to something further removed than the threat of imminent death, he saw he was standing in a huge circular arena ringed with walls of white marble rising high and bright to tiers of seating where tens of thousands of people stood waving, shouting, cheering, jeering, or screaming with excitement. That was the source of the audio confusion he had been vaguely aware of all through his monster-fight.
'Thanks, fans,' said Drake, in a sardonic voice which suggested his nerves were in a much better state than they were.
He began to strut his stuff, waving to the crowd, and blowing kisses in all directions. This posturing performance took him to a tall much-gargoyled pillar of stone standing amidst the sands of the arena just thirty paces from the Door.
Tied to it was a man with purple skin and violet eyes. He wore a purple robe clasped with a golden brooch. Gold hung from his ears. Was it ... ? Yes. It was Prince Oronokd. Drake never forgot a truly hated rival. So who was that tied to the other side of the gargoyled post?
It proved to be a high-breasted woman with flaming red hair. Her cloak was also purple, but her skin was the same red as her hair.
'Zanya!' shouted Drake.
His voice, hoarse with a regular battle-thirst, cracked as he screamed her name. She looked at him with eyes dull with the horrors of imprisonment, nightmare and threat of death.
'Who are you?' she said.
'You know who I am!' said Drake. 'Your lover! Your one and only love! Your true love, aye!'
'I have no love,' said Zanya, in a dull voice. 'I live only for the Flame.'
'But I love you!' said Drake.
'Are you an emissary from the Flame?' she asked, bewildered at these declarations of love from a total stranger.
'Yes,' said Drake, deciding that full explanations of his undying love for her could wait until later.
And he cut her loose.
'My name is Zanya,' she said.
T know,' said Drake. 'Didn't I just shout your name? You are Zanya Kliedervaust, the most beautiful woman in the whole world.'
'The Flame has no use for beauty,' said Zanya, speaking like one drugged or drunk. Or sleeptalking, perhaps.
'You're beautiful regardless,' said Drake. 'And passionate. Gouda Muck told me. He said you dream nightly of lust.'
'Yes,' she said, shocked to realize Gouda Muck had somehow divined her secret at a distance and communicated it to this stranger.
'Gouda Muck sent me here,' said Drake, inventing furiously. 'He sent me to gratify your physical passion and impregnate you with many children.'
Zanya swayed on her feet.
'I think we may have a communications problem here,' she said faintly. 'I don't think Gouda Muck could have said quite that. Anyway, arguments later - cut free our fellow worshipper.'
And she pointed at purple-skinned Oronoko.
'As you wish, Zanya,' said Drake, who did not think this strictly necessary.
Oronoko, cut free, began to massage his wrists, but added nothing to their conversation since he still spoke no Galish.
'Oh, look!' said Zanya. 'Two more striders!'
She pointed to a gate set in the wall of the arena, from which another two lizard-monsters were venturing.
'See that steel arch but thirty paces away?' said Drake. 'It's aDoor to Elsewhere. Run for it!'
They ran toward the Door. But halted abruptly as a dozen savages burst out of it. The savages milled around screaming in a battle-frenzy. The striders came on with huge, loping strides. Running. Animated nightmares.
'We're doomed!' cried Zanya.
Then the savages scattered away from the Door. Something had come through that Door. Something big. Twice as tall as a man. As broad in the shoulders as a man's outstretched arms. It carried a great metal rod in its hands.
'Watch out!' screamed Zanya. 'A giant!'
'That's no giant,' said Drake. 'That's Whale Mike. As he'd say - he my friend.'
The savages ran, fearing for their lives. But the striders had no such fear. On they came. Drake hauled Zanya into the safety of Mike's shadow. Oronoko followed, not knowing what else to do.
'This strange place,' said Mike, looking around.
'This very strange place,' said Drake.
Then the first of the striders was upon them. Whale Mike swung his battle-rod. Thwapl The monster's head exploded into a spray of blood and bone. Its headless body went down, limbs flailing, kicking up sprays of sand.
'Oh, great stuff, great stuff!' said Drake. 'Mike, you could just about take on a watermelon stand!'
'He could just about what?' said Zanya.
'Do battle with a watermelon stand,' said Drake. 'They're fearful dangerous, man.'
'I'm a woman,' she said. 'And you're babbling. And -look, there's crocodiles!'
As Mike dealt death to the second strider, Drake looked where Zanya was pointing and saw a horde of low-slung be
asts slithering out of the gate from whence the striders had come.
'Those are crocodiles?' he said, disappointed. T thought they'd be bigger.'
'They're four times man-length,' said Zanya, 'and there's dozens of them. Isn't that enough for you? Where's this Door you were talking about?'
'There!' said Drake, pointing at the silver screen humming in the steel archway.
And he hustled her through it.
Oronoko saw them vanish - but held his ground. He was confused. Bemused. He didn't know what to make of it. That, under the circumstances, was pardonable.
'Don't wait around, man!' yelled Jon Disaster. 'This place is bad news!'
And he hustled through the Door, dragging Oronoko with him. The pair found themselves on a beach. With Drake. And Zanya. And a heap of hands and feet. And some discarded spears. Some swords. Oronoko armed himself.
'Where do you think we are?' said Drake. 'Somewhere cold,' said Zanya, shivering in her thin purple robe.
The sea was a grey-thrash wilderness. The beach was brown-scab desolation of sand, rock and fractured rust. The hinterland was a desolation of wind-spiking reeds. Out of the reeds, with a scream, came a dozen warriors. They wore leather breeches and sheepskin jackets.
'Run!' screamed Drake.
He hauled Zanya through the Door. And found himself on a marble plinth in a ruin-ringed slade deep in a bitter-chill forest. He was back in the Old City where he had first entered the Circle of the Door.
The muddy clearing was littered with carcasses. Corpses of three dozen warriors dressed in leather breeches and sheepskin jackets. Bodies of sixteen grey armoured monsters slaughtered by those warriors. At the edge of the forest, one poor fellow was yelling his head off as a great yellow slug browsed on his legs.
Drake turned back to the Door. Then stopped. What? Go round again? No, that was crazy. Better to wait here for the others, who couldn't be far behind.
'Welcome to my nightmare,' said Drake to Zanya. 'This is the Old City of Penvash Utter.'
'Is it?' said Zanya, without much interest.
'Aye,' said Drake. 'My grandfather ruled here once, when my family was still kings and all.'
'Oh,' said Zanya, in her dull sleepwalking voice. Then: 'I'm cold.'
'There's a cure for that,' said Drake, jumping down from the marble plinth. 'As long as you're not fussy.'
Zanya, as unfussy as they come, was soon dressed in leather breeches cut off just below the knees, and a warm sheepskin jacket. She wore her purple cloak over those garments.
'Where are we?' she said.
'As I told you,' said Drake. 'In Penvash. The northwest corner of Argan. Understand?'
He was alarmed to find her mind so foggy when the demands of survival were so great.
'Oh,' she said. 'Penvash. I've been here before, I think. In a dream. But. . . what. . . what's that. . . ?'
She pointed at a slug, which was cruising towards them. Very calmly. Other slugs were emerging from the forest. Slowly, they oozed over the dead, absorbing them. The screaming man at the forest's edge stopped screaming. He was dead.
'Those slugs are murder,' said Drake. 'Stay away from them.'
One was very close now. 'Shall we run?' said Zanya.
'I'm tired of running,' said Drake. And, to the slug: 'Come on then.'
As the slug came within range, Drake hacked with his sword. The bronze gashed home sweetly. With a hiss, the entire blade sizzled into steam. Drake was left holding the hilt alone. Phlegmatically, the slug oozed forward, oblivious of the weak slurry of yellow spilling from its wound.
'Now we run!' yelled Drake.
He snatched up a club, Zanya grabbed a spare spear, and they scarpered into the forest. When they stopped, both panting, Drake realized he was disorientated. Lost, in fact.
He smelt burning. Yes. With Zanya in tow, he followed the smell to a wall of blue crystal fronting a burnt-out stretch of forest which reached away to an identical crystal wall. At least he knew where they were. The crystal walls ran east-west.
'Mokasalitina,' said a low-pitched voice.
lGomo sapasalarpa,' answered another.
Drake crouched. Zanya followed suit. Shortly they saw two warriors in sheepskin jackets prowling through the forest just west of them. As soon as these were out of sight, Drake led the way east. Toward the river.
'Where are we going?' said Zanya.
'There's a river,' said Drake. 'It runs south to Lorford. That's a town in Estar. That's—'
' I know where Estar is,' said Zanya.
Her voice sounded crisper, firmer, as if possession of a battle-spear had awakened her intelligence. Good. The last thing Drake needed right now was for his woman to collapse into a helpless heap of whimpering femininity.
They wentslowly, cautiously, until they reached the river-bank. What now?
'Sit down,' said Drake. 'We'll wait for my friends.'
'Friends?'
'The - the giant you saw with the metal rod. And some other people. We'll waitforthem.'
But, if the others reached the Old City, they'd surely make for the west, not the east to which Drake had been driven by stranger danger. Or maybe Rolf Thelemite or some other hero would lead them round the Circle again, hoping to make for the Castle of Controlling Power if all the green centipedes by Drangsturm were dead or glutted.
This was very difficult!
Tiny drops of rain, sieved from low cloud above, fell all around, utterly soundless but very cold. 'Bugger!' said Drake.
'The Flame,' said Zanya, 'does not approve of such talk.'
'Then bugger the Flame,' said Drake.
'You can't say that!' she said, in an animated voice of anger nothing at all like the drugged tones in which she had spoken earlier.
'I'll say what I like,' said Drake. 'Bugger the Flame!'
He shouted it. And heard, as if in answer to his shout, a grunt from the forest. Then saw, crunching towards them, a grey monster with spiked head and a collar of natural armour around its neck.
'Amonster,' hesaid.
'No,' said Zanya. 'Two monsters. There's another behind it. Look!' She was right. 'Oh no,' said Drake softly.
As the monsters paced toward them, Drake vaulted over the first crystal wall and began to run for the second. A wall of fire roared from the second wall and marched toward him. He ran back to Zanya. The monsters charged.
'The river!' yelled Zanya. 'It's our only hope!'
Abandoning her spear, she jumped. Drake hesitated. He snatched up the spear. He threw it at the nearest monster. He missed.
'Bugger bugger bugger!' he sobbed.
Then, screaming, jumped into the river. The river which had eaten his comrade Raggage Pouch just the day before.
Water snatched him. He was swept towards the firewall, which raged across the river and up the further bank and on into the forest. At the last moment, he ducked his head into the unknown horrors of the Waters Below -and was carried under the fire-wall.
He surfaced beyond the flames and struck out for the shore. The river ripped him downstream. The bitter cold was swiftly sapping the last of his strength.
Ahead, rocks divided the waters. Something big and red was on those rocks. Another monster? No, it was Zanya! He held out his hand; she grabbed it; she hauled him onto the rocks. He clung to her, sobbing, gasping, soaked, cold, shivering.
'Are you all right?' she said. 'Hush now, hush. You're going to be all right.'
Slowly she soothed him.
At last, calmer now, he had the strength to smile and say:
'Man, you look as beautiful as when I first saw you.' 'And when was that?' she said.
'Don't you remember? Why, I was in the water, a horizon away from Stokos. And you in a ship, aye, a ship of more colours than a rainbow. I asked you to marry me. Remember?' Zanya looked puzzled. Then:
'Oh! Now I remember you! You're the fisherman from that boat which got mauled by a kraken.'
'Aye,' said Drake, remembering the lie he had told to explain
his presence in the sea. 'That's me. The sole survivor. Only I'm a swordsmith, not a fisherman.'
'Of course you are!' said Zanya. 'You told me all about it when we met again on Burntos. I remember now! You're - Arabin lol Arabin. Right?'
'Right,'said Drake, beaming.
'The one who tried to rape me in Cam!'
'What?' said Drake, in dismay. 'That business in the leper colony? You're not still on about that, are you? I explained that on Burntos. It wasn't me, man! It was witchcraft making my body do horrible disgusting things, that's what it was. The wizard Miphon said as much. Remember?'
'He also said to me, in private,' said Zanya, 'that you were the most trouble he'd seen in one package in the last fifty years. He warned me to watch out for you. Not that I needed much warning!'
'Hey,' said Drake, aggrieved. 'I'm a nice guy.'
'Oh yes! The nice guy who jumped on top of me in Cam! Yes, that's what you did! Jumped right on top of me! Just like an animal! Well, don't try anything like that here or you'll be in really big trouble!'
'I think,' said Drake, a touch of sullen anger in his voice, 'I think I'm entitled at least to the normal hero's reward. Rescuing fair damsels in distress and all that. You know how it is.'
'Yes,' said Zanya. 'The rescued damsel marries the hero. She owes him. Well, you owe me. I saved you from the sea off Stokos.'
'That's not true!' said Drake. 'You had a whole shipload of men to help in the rescue.'
'And you had your giant-friend to help when you came for me,' said Zanya. 'Anyway, I saved your life again, just five heartbeats ago, when I hauled you from the river. So I owe you nothing. Even if I did, I'm not free to lust or to marry. My body is consecrated to the Flame.'
She said it with determination. They stared at each other. Wet. Shivering. Hunched on the rock like starving animals about to fall to fighting over a bone. Close enough to kiss. Her lips red, rich. Warm. Surely.
A kiss will discover.
'Dearest heart,' murmured Drake.
And, seizing his chance, he kissed her. His lips met hers. Flesh against flesh. He felt her will relax. Imagined her body prone or supine beneath him, he'd take her either way, whichever way she fancied. He broke the kiss. He was feeling good. Triumphant. Smiling.
'You liked that,' he said. 'Didn't you?'
