by Hugh Cook
'This good fire,' he said. 'Fire good friend.'
'Fire is sacred,' said Zanya. 'The Flame is the High God of All Gods.'
'Oh,' said Mike. 'You think like Drake.'
'You mean Arabin lol Arabin?' said Zanya.
'Yes,' said Jon Arabin. 'It's my son Mike means when he talks of Drake. But you won't be surprised if he fumbles the names at times.'
'No,' said Zanya, understanding that an obvious imbecile like Whale Mike could be expected to speak error as often as truth.
'Drake okay, whatever you call him,' said Mike amiably.
'Does . . . does he worship the Flame?' said Zanya.
'He tell big story in Brennan,' said Mike. 'He say he priest of Flame. I think maybe joke. We drinking back then. But few days ago, Drake talk about Flame. He very serious. Well, Yot do most talking.'
'Yot?' said Zanya. 'Not the Favoured Disciple?'
'This Yot,' said Mike. 'He tall guy. Many warts.'
'That's him!' said Zanya. 'Muck's Favoured Disciple! We thought he was dead. What's he been doing? Has he been preaching the Flame?'
'He talk enough,' said Mike. 'Maybe too much. Ish Ulpin, he pissed off, not like to hear god-talk. He say Yot shut up or get eaten.'
'So Yot was with you,' said Zanya. 'And Drake . . . Drake is a priest of the Flame. That's very strange. But what's this business of Drake drinking? A priest of the Flame doesn't drink. Liquor is not pure.'
'Mike,' said Jon Arabin. 'How about you go hunting?'
'If you want, Jon,' said Mike. 'But I not got weapon. I had nice stick, strong stuff like steel, but that lost in river.'
'Never mind,' said Jon Arabin. 'I'm sure you'll manage.'
Obediently, Whale Mike took himself off into the forest. When he was gone, Jon Arabin told Zanya about how Drake had been cursed, and could never get drunk. How did Jon Arabin know?
The barman who had helped Drake learn about the curse had later told Arabin all about it.
Indeed, while Drake prided himself on having a great many important secrets which nobody knew anything about, he was virtually transparent to Jon Arabin - who, after all, had not become a ship's captain and a leader of men by accident.
'So you see,' concluded Jon Arabin, 'whether liquor is pure or otherwise makes no difference to my son, who drinks what he likes but never gets drunk. Hence has no pleasure in it.'
'Then he should be glad of what he calls a curse,' said Zanya. 'For it makes him pure without effort.'
'But takes away his free will,' said Jon Arabin.
'Why,' said Zanya, slowly. 'So it does. I can see why that would . . . that might be hard to take, at times . . .'
She sat back, thinking. So her lover, Arabin lol Arabin, was a priest of the Flame. Then why did he sometimes call himself Drake? The son of Hagon bore that ugly name. Surely a priest of the Flame would not call himself that. Unless . . .
T think you're lying,' said Zanya. 'I don't see how a priest of the Flame could live as a pirate. Our angry young hunter - he's Dreldragon Drakedon Douay, isn't he? The son of Hagon! The Evil One! The Demon's son!'
Her voice was hard, strident, rising in fear and anger. But Jon Arabin just laughed. It took some effort to conjure up that laugh, but he managed it all the same.
'Why are you laughing?' said Zanya, fierce and flushed. 'It's true, isn't? Your son is no son of yours but a son of Hagon!'
'Woman,' said Arabin, 'if Sully Yot has survived the Circle of the Door, then likely he'll come down the river and prove out the fact that a priest of the Flame can live as a pirate. Before you say more mad things of my son, what say we wait till we see what survivors come downriver?'
'And if nobody comes?' said Zanya.
'Then you'll have to do some thinking!' said Arabin. 'There's three of us, one of you. If we were ruthless, would we wait before raping? Nay, woman. If my son were the Evil One, he'd have cock to quim in a moment. But have we not saved you? Sheltered you? Fed you?'
Zanya made no reply.
'You've a mind at least warped in parts,' said Arabin. 'I don't blame you for it, since it's life which makes minds, for the most part. But give thought to that warping. Remember, Whale Mike bore witness. My son has been seeking to make conversions to your Flame. Aye, at risk of his own life.'
'That. . . that's so,' said Zanya, slowly.
She was starting to feel ashamed of the way she had spoken.
'Woman,' said Arabin, 'perhaps my son uses the name of Drake on occasion, for purposes of survival or otherwise. I know not. Perhaps he calls himself Drake Douay on occasion, or even Dreldragon Drakedon Douay. Well then. Is that so remarkable? A priest of the Flame is pushed to some strange expedients to survive. Remember that.'
'I will,' said Zanya.
'And remember this,' said Arabin. 'My son is wild, as I've said. But he's hardly a hell-fiend. Nay, he's good, in truth. The core of him is solid. Which is why I love him.'
He stared at Zanya till she dropped her eyes. Then he took her hand and, lightly, gently, kissed it.
'Why did you do that?' she said.
'Because I, too, find it hard to resist the allure of your beauty,' answered Jon Arabin, in utter truth.
Much later, Drake returned from the forest. One look at his face told Zanya he had been crying. He held out the spoils of his hunt: some lugs of fungus garnered from a rotten tree.
'This is not much,' he said. 'But it's what I have. It's yours.'
'Thank you,' she said.
Later, Whale Mike returned by a different route. He was singing a happy song, and with good reason - he had killed two dog-sized fox-fur creatures of the type the expedition had first found when digging for what they thought were gwiffs.
Later still, Jon Disaster came down the river. Alone. He was more than glad to see them.
'And,' he said, with a grin at Zanya, 'it's good to see we've got some hot meat with us.'
'Man,' said Drake, with violence in his voice. 'Watch your tongue.'
'What did I say wrong?' said Disaster, aggrieved.
Drake pointed at the dead dog-creatures.
'See that?' he said. 'That's meat.'
He pointed at Zanya.
'And that, that's a woman. There's a difference.' Jon Disaster didn't see that there was, but he had enough sense not to argue about it.
Towards evening, snow started to fall, whispering down from a darkening sky. Jon Arabin, Jon Disaster, Whale Mike, Zanya Kliedervaust and Drake Douay built their fire higher. And that fire, seen from afar, brought the last of the stragglers down the river to their position.
The stragglers, Sully Yot and Prince Oronoko amongst them, came in slowly, slow as a bunch of crippled criminals walking to their own hanging dragging a ship's anchor with them as they went and dying of scurvy and roundworm on the way. And when they found not just fire but, as well, meat and shelter, they wept for gratitude and relief.
All spent that night under a single lean-to shelter. Zanya slept wedged between Drake Douay and Jon Arabin. And, while there was but one woman between many men, that made no trouble. Not, at any rate, on the first night.
38
Survivors: Drake Douay (aka Arabin lol Arabin), Sully Yot (the Favoured Disciple), Jon Arabin (the Warwolf), Slagger Mulps (the Walrus), Rolf Thelemite (oathbreaker accursed of Rovac), Jon Disaster (slayer of monsters), Whale Mike (by common agreement, an imbecile just smart enough to put one foot in front of another), Bucks Cat (a husky Talsh-born maroon with a grinning throat-scar speaking his luck), Simp Fiche (a degenerate pervert even by Orfus standards), Ika Thole (harpoon man from the Ebrells), Ish Ulpin (slim, grim gladiator from Chi'ash-lan), Prince Oronoko (who converted to the Flame after travelling with Zanya Kliedervaust to Stokos), Zanya Kliedervaust (who, having survived the journey from Burntos to Drangsturm to the Ebrells to Parengarenga, was martyred in the Great Arena of Dalar ken Halvar in company with Oronoko - fortunately being rescued by Drake Douay before her martyrdom could proceed to its proper conclusion).
Missing in Acti
on: Guest Gulkan (Pretender to the throne of Tameran, enemy of the Witchlord Onosh Gulkan, past companion of Rolf Thelemite).
A day's march. South. Downriver. Grey skies. The threat of further snow - withheld for the moment. Stumbling water. The forests forever. Each survivor nursing aches, bruises, nightmares.
Near day's end, they killed another of the dog-like creatures.
'One of your relatives, Mulps me beauty,' said Jon Arabin, pointing to the creature's startling green eyes.
Drake again remembered the wizard Miphon, who had had eyes of a similar green. The wizard had given advice about love. Yes. Flowers. Poetry. Persistence. Pretty speaking. Daily visits. Sincerity. A diligent wooing. He'd thought it nonsense at the time. But, if he'd followed the pox doctor's advice, maybe he would have had Zanya years ago . . .
Evening.
Firelight.
'Drake,' she said.
'That's my name,' he answered.
'Can you explain it?' she said. 'Who are you? Arabin lol Arabin, priest of the Flame, son of Jon Arabin? Or Drake Douay, swordsmith of Stokos?'
'Both,' said Drake, who had talked things over with his putative father during the march, synchronizing a whole raft of mutually supporting lies.
'How so?' said Zanya.
'I was,' said Drake, hoping he had the story right. 'I was, you see, born in Ling, on the terror-coast of the Deep South. There my gold-skinned mother bore me to my coal-black father. But, when I were but a boy, an evil slaver by name of Atsimo Andranovory stole me from the cradle. It were on Stokos I ended up. There a family by name of Douay bought me at market, not for profit but from pity. Thus I came to be Douay. Drake they call me, which is a word in Ligin meaning strilk.'
'Strilk?' said Zanya.
'Aye. Well. You know not that word? Strilk is something you eat, it's a cholo of sorts.' 'A cholo?' said Zanya.
'Well, yes,' said Drake, not knowing how else to render the word 'gourd' in Galish. 'Anyway, it's a fat thing you eat, okay? And a common name on Stokos. Where there's lots of Douays, aye, the place is crawling with them. Many of them Drakes, too, when it comes to that. And a fair few known as Dreldragon Drakedon Douay.'
'How come so many people with the same name?' said Zanya, unable to quell her last suspicion.
'Well, it's to do with taxes, you see,' said Drake. 'They're pretty harsh, as you may have heard when you were living in Cam. That was because King Tor always wanted to build roads and such rubbish, which meant the taxes were always on the upper. Anyway. With a name the same as everyone else, it's easy to escape the taxman. Hence the name.'
'Oh,' said Zanya. 'Then how . . . how are we, as worshippers of the Flame, to know the son of the Demon Hagon when we meet with him?'
'Evil cannot hide from the righteous,' said Drake sententiously. 'Evil speaks loud to the pure. We'll know the Demon-son all right, once we get him in a strangle. But don't expect to find him running around the world under his own true name! Oh no! He'll be far more cunning than that.'
'Yes,' said Zanya. 'Yes, yes, I suppose he will be. So . . .'
'So any person we come across called Dreldragon Drakedon Douay,' said Drake, 'that person, clearly, from the simple process of logic, cannot be the Demon-son. For the Evil One would hide his name far better.'
'Yes,' said Zanya, with relief.
It all fitted. If her lover had been the Evil One, he would have led his friends in gang rape already. He would not be talking so sweet and soft. And he would have hidden his name far better.
'I'd ... I'd like to say thank you for saving my life,' said Zanya, regretting her earlier discourtesies.
'My pleasure,' said Drake.
'We've settled who you are,' said Zanya. 'You're the son of Jon Arabin, yet a swordsmith of Stokos also. And a priest of the Flame on occasion. But - do you ... do you truly believe in the Flame?'
'I'm not sure,' said he, giving an honest answer.
'But you've been preaching the doctrines of the Flame.'
'I have,' he said. 'But living amongst pirates has. . . it's been fearful hard on occasion. To keep faith, I mean.'
'I understand,' said Zanya softly. 'I've had hard times myself, on the road between Burntos and Dalar ken Halvar. There have been times, indeed, when I thought of Gouda Muck and felt. . . but no, I'll not talk of that.'
'Please do!' said Drake. 'Feel free!'
So she told him how her own faith had suffered since he saw her last.
'The worst time was after my arrest in Dalar ken Halvar,' said Zanya. 'I was sentenced to death in the arena. I prayed to the Flame - but no help came.'
T came!' objected Drake. 'Aye, and fought monsters!'
'Yes,' said Zanya. 'But, somehow . . . somehow you don't seem very holy. Even if you Believe, I. . . somehow I can't credit you as an instrument of the Flame . . .'
They then talked theology for some time.
Later, when Drake went for a piss, Sully Yot came sidling up to him.
'Remember,' said Yot, sotto voce, 'Gouda Muck would have us be pure.'
'Man,' said Drake, 'I'm in no shape to be thinking of fornicating. So don't worry about my purity.'
'You don't fool me!' said Yot. 'I know you've been whispering sweet nothings into that woman's ear!'
'I've been doing no such thing,' said Drake. 'We've been talking about metaphysics, aye, and the Theory of Knowledge, the problem of pain, the nature of free will and the possibility of salvation for those who pray to false gods.'
He spoke the truth. But the truth was so improbable that Yot thought him the veriest liar.
'I know you!' he said. 'You've been talking to her about sex, that's what. Sex all dressed up fancy, probably. Long discussions about the spiritual aspects of physical union.'
Once heard, this could not be forgotten. So when Drake went back to Zanya, he gently steered the conversation around to a discussion of precisely that: the spiritual aspects of physical union. He did it carefully, for he had learnt a few lessons by now.
Later still, when Drake left Zanya's side a second time, Jon Arabin followed him into the undergrowth.
'Drake.'
'Aye?'
'Did she take our story all right?'
'She swallowed it solid, man,' said Drake. 'She believes I'm your son and a Stokos swordsmith both.'
'Good,' said Arabin. 'That girl's worth having. And she's hot for you. Play it for the thrust, man. You can get there tomorrow, if not tonight.'
'What the hell do you care either way?' asked Drake.
'I just don't want to see good meat going to waste,' said Arabin. 'And . . . Drake, there's something we have to talk about.'
'What?'
'Drake, I've never talked religion to you. But now's the time. I know gods, Drake, powerful gods. Aye. They've taken me through to pirate captain though all the world was against me. They're—'
'Demon's balls!' said Drake. 'Can't a man go into the bushes for a quiet shit without half the world's religions chasing after him?'
T won't take much of your time,' said Arabin. 'All I want is a little talk.'
'You're competing with diarrhoea,' said Drake, pulling down his pants. 'And you're losing!'
At that Jon Arabin retired. He would have plenty of chances in the future to convert Drake to the Creed of Anthus. There was, surely, no need to hurry.
That night, it was cold. That night, Zanya and Drake held each other close. For warmth. And, as far as Zanya was concerned, for safety. She mistrusted Drake's evil companions - Bucks Cat and Ish Ulpin in particular. She would have been terrified sleeping alone, without the protection of a fellow worshipper of the Flame.
Both woke in the deep dark, long after midnight. What had woken them? Mutual dreams of lust. Silently, they kissed. They kissed, and fingered. Then slept. And dreamt of taking their lust to its logical conclusion.
Come morning, Drake found both Yot and Arabin were onto him. Yot with lectures about purity, self-control, virtue, the teachings of Gouda Muck and the demands of the Flame. Arabin
with a different message altogether, and news of the gods of the Creed of Anthus.
'Our religion teaches that we must father a man for each we kill,' said Arabin. 'Drake, my boy, you've got a lot of breeding to do. This woman is ideal!'
These intellectual assaults multiplied Drake's religious confusion.
Yot, by the very intensity of his belief, annoyed Drake beyond measure; the more Yot insisted on purity, the more Drake regretted ever having made any concessions in that direction. And Arabin, while he did not convert Drake to the Creed of Anthus, certainly managed to weaken Drake's uncertain belief in the Flame.
Zanya's own uncertainties about her faith did nothing whatsoever to bolster Drake's confidence in the Flame. Finally, he decided to reserve judgment on all religions for the time being. What was important at the moment was Zanya. And Zanya's love.
Both Drake and Zanya were well over the shocks of their recent encounters with doom, death and disaster. Their spirits were rising. Their true nature was asserting itself - and the teachings of Gouda Muck had precious little chance against that most notorious of all aphrodisiacs: prolonged propinquity.
T still don't understand,' said Zanya one evening.
'Never mind, my dear,' said Drake. 'Understanding is not essential in women.'
In answer to that she crammed a big greasy hunk of bear meat down the back of his neck, whereupon he attacked her. Once the two of them had sublimated a substantial fraction of their sexual energies by wrestling - she was a right proper handful, that one - she complained again: T still don't understand.'
Drake thought of another smart reply to that, but restrained himself. They were now several days downstream from the Old City. Hunting had been good, since Simp Fiche had shown an uncanny knack for sniffing out bears, and they had killed three already (Zanya claimed the poor creatures died of fright when they saw Whale Mike). Zanya still had plenty of bear meat on hand, and would doubtless use it unless Drake behaved himself.
'What don't you understand?' said Drake.
'Why you ever use that ugly name Drake. Or Drel-dragon. Yes, I haven't forgotten - the people who adopted you on Stokos named you that. So you had no choice. But you've got a choice now. The Demon-son's name - every time I hear it, it makes me shudder.'
