by Hugh Cook
As An'vory was unconscious, Drake was declared the winner. Champion liar of all the world.
'Encore!' shouted an enthusiastic audience.
So Drake told one last tale.
'It happened that I once went north from Estar in company of a woodsman by name of Blackwood. North we ventured, way past Lake Armansis to the Valley of Forgotten Dreams, where we came upon the Old City, a place of legend, aye. Though legend tells not the half of the horror.'
And Drake told of adventuring through a Door with the woodsman Blackwood, of meeting the Pretender to the throne of Tameran, of daring a danger of centipedes in the terror-lands south of Drangsturm, then saving a red-skinned wench from a peril of monsters in the Great Arena of Dalar ken Halvar. Then bedding her soundly.
'Aye, she was real sweet,' he concluded.
'So where is she?' shouted Anonymous.
'Man, she died of delight in my arms,' said Drake. 'And she's not the first.'
'She died of delight?' cried Anonymous. 'Doubt it! Why, likely she died of blue leprosy!'
The grin on Drake's face faltered for half a heartbeat. Then he recovered himself.
'Nay, man,' he said. 'Wasdelight, for real. Delight kills instant, while this blue leprosy - it's a pox hidden for years before it shows.'
'An expert speaks!' jeered Anonymous.
'And an expert raised this question of blue leprosy to start with,' said Drake. 'Why, mostly only pox doctors know it for a pox of love. Most folk think it spread by sharing cups or such.'
'A pox doctor lectures!' yelled Anonymous, manic with delight.
'Brother,' said Drake, acknowledging Anonymous with a bow. 'It takes a true professional to recognize a colleague. But I think my skills higher than yours, for I'm free of the pox for the moment. But you, man - your nose is losing the battle, isn't it?'
This was true. The nose of Anonymous was being eaten away by syphilis.
Curses proceeded from Anonymous.
'Aagh, the man's jealous!' said Drake. 'Jealous of my skills with pox, aye, and of my skills of love, for he knows I'm best at both. When I talk of killing women with delight, it's truth, with naught exaggeration. Why, it's got to the point where I have to stay celibate, since the trail of dead women has become larger than embarrassment.'
He bowed again, ducked a rotten tomato, accepted a complimentary skin of liquor from the barman, and joined Pigot Quebec and a few others at a corner table out of the main swill.
'Booze, boys,' said Drake, thumping the skin onto the tabletop.
'Good,' said Quebec, and topped up his mug from the skin. Then said: 'Have you heard the news?'
'Why, I've heard that the world ended yesterday,' said Drake, 'that every fish in the sea is dead, that rats will conquer and horses sing in Galish. What else is new?'
'Let the Scholar tell it. Drax - meet the Scholar. Friend Scholar - this is Shen Shen Drax, the famous.'
They touched fingertips, lightly, in a ceremony of greeting peculiar to the criminal fraternity of Selzirk. Drake had heard of the Scholar, whose speciality was forgery. Now he listened while the Scholar told of how they were being threatened by a Law of Association which would forbid convicted criminals from consorting with each other.
'A suspension of civil liberties, that's what it is,' said the Scholar.
'Yes, well,' said Drake, 'that's less painful than suspension by the neck, no doubt.'
He picked up an empty mug which was lying lonesome on the floor, filled it with liquor from his complimentary skin, drained it, burped, patted his stomach then filled it again.
'It's an unprecedented extension of state authority, you know,' continued the Scholar. 'I hear the Regency's behind it.'
'What's the Regency?' asked Drake.
His research had been deep in war but thin on politics. He had, after all, only the one life. He had to work for Ol Tul, amuse himself, survive - and do research in his spare moments. So he had left a study of the leadership of Selzirk to the time when he should have some positive prospect of becoming ambassador or such.
'The Regency,' said Quebec. 'Why, that's the Guild of Brothel Masters.'
Not so, protested the scholar. He began to explain the truth - but was interrupted by the arrival of Scurf Drumbo.
'Why, pickle me balls and dig out me eyes with needles,' said Drumbo. 'I'm as buggered as a rat's arsehole.'
'Why,' said Drake, 'what have you been doing?'
'Drinking, man. And listening. Is that ale? No? Gah! Still. . .tastes sweet enough to me. Thanks, friend. Yes, drinking. And listening, hearing young sparrow-fart here blister the paint with untruthing.'
'Man, it was all true enough,' said Drake.
'Oh, hearty sure, I bet,' said Drumbo.
'You believe none of it?' said Drake.
'Oh, a word here, a word there,' said Drumbo. 'But Drax - I'd never believe a woman to die in your arms of delight.'
'She died smiling,' said Drake, deadpan.
'In your arms?' said Drumbo. 'Never! If she died, you strangled her, that's what. Man, but that story stirred me up a bit, though. I've never had a red-skinned whore.'
'She wasn't a whore,' said Drake.
'Red meat,' said Drumbo, pushing on regardless. T saw a red-skinned bitch today, sweet, yes, worth having.'
'There's plenty of red in the city,' said Quebec.
'Oh, this was no woman in her fancies,' said Drumbo. 'It was one of those Ebrell bitches. You can tell the difference. It's the nose, you see. With the Ebrell, the colour goes right up the nose.'
'You got that close?' said Drake.
'Drax,' said Drumbo, 'she was so hot for changing, she was near to mating with me.'
'Changing?' said Quebec. 'Changing? You mean she was a witch, to change you to pig or beast-hound?'
'How could she do that?' asked Drake. 'Friend Drumbo's been half pig and three parts beast-hound these last three thousand years or more.'
'Gah!' said Drumbo. 'She was no witch. Whore, more like it. Preacher's whore. When I speak of changing, it's faith I'm talking of.'
'You mean this woman was talking religion?' said Drake.
'Talking changing, yes, that's what I said,' declared Drumbo. 'Though this preacher fellow was talking more than her. Lucky old bugger! I vum he screws her nights.'
'What preacher was this?' said Drake.
'Oh, you know,' said Drumbo, helping himself to more liquor. 'A preacher's a preacher, isn't he?'
'Nay, man,' said Drake. 'They're all of them different. Some thieves, while others murder their mothers. Some heavy for opium, while others are into the booze. Boys for some, dogs for others, while the toothless taste women with fingerlength tongues. Tell of this one, man.'
'He's nothing special,' said Drumbo. 'But for his robes, perhaps. Fancy with flame they were.'
'Flame?' said Drake.
'Like enough,' said Drumbo. 'Either that, or someone had vomited carrots and tomatoes all over his robes.'
'Where was this?' asked Drake, who was, of course, seriously interested.
'Outside the Old Courthouse,' said Drumbo.
'Courthouse?' said Drake.
'It's an inn, now,' said Drumbo. 'But these preacher folk have taken it over entire, use it as a temple. Platform outside, guards on the gate, and all too holy within for strangers to enter.'
'But you saw her,' said Drake. 'The woman, I mean.'
'The blood-coloured bitch. Oh yes, she was on the platform with his worship,' said Drumbo. 'Wonder what colour her slunt shapes, eh?'
'If she was on the platform,' said Drake, 'how come you got close enough for mating?'
'Come now!' protested Drumbo. 'What is this? You talk at lies for longer than it takes to skin a whale with a toothpick, then—'
'Did you see the woman or didn't you?' said Drake, dangerously close to losing his temper. 'I saw her!'
'What did she look like?' said Drake. 'Speak true!'
'Why,' said Drumbo, shaping generous curves in the air, 'like this and like this. She
had two tits, if I counted right. A tall bitch, you'd look stupid beside her.'
'It's not fashion which worries me when I'm after a woman,' said Drake.
'You're hot for reds, are you?' said Drumbo. 'At the Cat's Head they've got a whole pack of women in red, would do you good, man.'
'He's been there,' said Quebec. 'We were there together the day before yesterday.'
'Aye,' said Drake. 'Now tell me where I find this Old Courthouse . . .'
45
Libernek Square: small piazza in Santrim; site of Old Courthouse. House of Record;>Moonflower Temple, Land Court, River Court, Suffle Manuscript Collection, Voat Library and Archaeological Museum.
The Old Courthouse was in Libernek Square, in Santrim, a quarter Drake had seldom visited. On arrival, he found a crowd listening to Gouda Muck preach from a platform built above the gate leading into the walled courtyard of the Old Courthouse. Drake strove toward the platform, but could not get near for the crush. He backed off, and hastened to the monumental sculpture which dominated the centre of the piazza.
The sculpture was a rococo piece of nonsense erected to celebrate heroes of Selzirk*s glorious past. Around an enormous central column formed by a coiling dragon - which had somehow become encrusted with seashells, baby mermaids, strings of onions and other tomfoolery - there were arrayed equestrian heroes (lifesize), several Neversh (in miniature), gryphons, unicorns, a platypus (which had no good excuse for being there, and no bad one either), a taniwha, a moray eel, and numerous ribs, vertebrae, skulls and jawbones cast in bronze.
Drake scaled this swiftly, displacing small children where necessary. On reaching a bronze horse which lacked a rider, he supplied its lack. And sat there in state, Investigating.
'. . . doom,'said GoudaMuck.'Doom, and death, unto the fiftieth generation. . .'
'Boring old mother-beater,' muttered Drake.
And looked beyond Muck to the Old Courthouse. It was built round three sides of an enclosed courtyard. The outer wall of the yard sustained the platform on which stood Gouda Muck, giving a dyslogistic lecture on the manners and mores of Selzirk. Scrutiny of the killing ground complete, Drake returned his attention to Muck.
The preacher had abandoned the plain purple he wore when Drake saw him last, in Runcorn. Instead, he wore robes of the most remarkable mixture of red, orange and yellow. Muck was dressed as the Flame. And he was ranting:
'. . . beware protein! Beware eggs! Beware meat! They are evil! They lewd the flesh to fornication!'
Drake was glad to see the audience treated this as light entertainment. He suspected some would have multiplied the amusement factor by throwing things, except that in amongst the crowd were two or three dozen tough young stave-men, dressed in robes of Flame like their master.
'. . . your daughters will die of cancers of the womb,' shouted Muck. 'Their flesh will be torn by the knives of abortion! Evil is the flesh, and evil are the pleasures thereof.'
He sounded hoarse.
He paused as a woman climbed onto the platform. She carried a glass of fine-cut crystal which she handed to Muck, who drank the water it contained. The woman was red in skin; her hair, piled up in a high and narrow tower held together with a multitude of pins, was also red. She wore flowing silks, and jewels which flashed in the sun.
It was Zanya.
'Zanya!' yelled Drake.
She looked over the crowd, bewildered.
'It's me!' shouted Drake, kicking the bronze horse with his heels, waving his hands frantically. 'Arabin lol Arabin! Your lover! Your husband!'
'Drake!' roared Gouda Muck.
'Yes, I see you too!' shouted Drake. 'Go back to
Stokos, you evil old bugger! But give me back my woman first!'
'Kill him!' screamed Muck. 'He's the Demon-son! The Evil One! Pull him down! Cut him, bash him, burn him!'
But the mob simply laughed. To them, this was all part of the day's theatre. Unlike Stokos, Selzirk had never been oppressed by compulsory debauchery, so the social tensions Muck's religion sought to exploit were lacking.
'They'll do nothing against me,' yelled Drake. 'They know what you are! A mad old bugger with a withered old cock, that's what! Lunatic, man! Zanya, get down from there! Bring me your breasts most beautiful, darling!'
After some confusion on the stage, Zanya disappeared into the courtyard. Muck gestured in Drake's direction, and his stavemen began to muscle through the crowd, determined to seize the miscreant.
'Oh shit,' said Drake to Drake.
And descended to the ground rapidly, bowling a number of small children in his haste. Leaving those wailing juveniles in his wake, he fled.
A mad chase they had of it through the streets of Santrim, Drake in front and the better part of thirty Flame-robed stavemen in the rear. Drake was still leading when they got to Kesh, the gate-tower dividing the Four Worlds of Selzirk.
There was usually a traffic jam of sorts at that bottleneck, but today it was worse than ever, for a funeral procession was going through Kesh. Or, more accurately, trying to go. It was getting nowhere fast.
The demon-drivers paced up and down on the spot, blowing their horns and trumpets; the chief mourners lay cursing in their palankeens; the pall-bearers, unable to take the weight any longer, let their burden rest; the hired hands from the Weepers & Waiters Guild gnashed their teeth and clawed the air with less and less passion as the delay lengthened.
Then came Drake.
Between the legs of a horn-player he went. Up he bobbed, dived through the silks of a palankeen and crash-landed on the belly of Mistress Turbothot, alumnus of the Santrim Institute For Feminine Arts, wife of Troldot 'Heavy-Fist' Turbothot, and patron of the Seventh College of the Inner Circle of the Fish-Star Astrologers.
'Pardon,' said Drake.
'Rape!' she screamed.
He dived through the far side of the palankeen, fell heavily on top of Mistress Turbothot's pet badger-dog (and killed the poor thing, though he was too busy to notice its demise), trampled over the coffin of the deceased (to whom he never got introduced), ducked a spear, dodged a sword, was missed by a whip, went pelting over the backs of a herd of hogs (no wonder there was a traffic jam!), and gained the comparative safety of Jone.
Where he stopped, panting hard and grinning like an idiot. Man! He hadn't had so much fun since he celebrated his sixteenth birthday. And that was saying something!
Then he saw a Flame-coloured robe.
'How many of you, darlings?' said Drake, softly.
There was just one. So far.
'Yoo-hoo!' cried Drake, jumping up and down, waving frantically. 'I'm over here!'
'Demon-son!' screamed the Flame-robed stave-man, spotting him.
'That's me!' yelled Drake.
And the chase was on again.
Drake led the single stave-man a merry dance through the backstreets, alleyways, mews and ditchleaps of Jone, the dockland area he knew by now as well as he knew the back of his own hand.
(Or better, in fact - for if he had been shrunk down to near next to nothing, then set beside the first knuckle of his own index finger, he would have had the devil of a job finding his way from there to his thumb - whereas he could have found his way round Jone blindfolded.)
Finally, Drake led the single stave-man into a friendly tavern, where half a dozen of Drake's drinking cronies helped mug the hapless hero. He was taken to the cellar, trussed up tightly (having been first stripped of his robes of Flame) then interrogated under threat of torture.
By evening, Drake knew everything he wanted to know.
'I'm off,' he said, pulling the robes of Flame over the set of serviceable leathers he was wearing.
'What happens to me then?' asked the stave-man.
'Why, at midnight the tide rises,' said Drake. 'Aye, then this cellar floods, and the rats come up with the waters. They'll eat your corpse to bones and gristle.'
'There's no tides in the Velvet River.'
'Oh isn't there just? Haven't you heard of the eagre?'
'The what?'
'Nevermind, man,' said Drake. 'Its waters will have you soon enough, aye, and the rats.'
After a bit more bluff and bluster equally as grim and heartless, he picked up the stave-man's stave and took to the streets, looking every bit the enforcer.
It was deep night by the time Drake had made his way from the backstreets of Jone to Libernek Square in Santrim. The gates of Muck's temple were open, but guards kept watch on the platform above the gate. Drake hung back in the shadows. Would there be a challenge? A password? or what? In the Old Courthouse, a scattering of lanterns held out against the tyranny of darkness. He could hear a woman softly singing; he wondered if it was Zanya.
Suddenly someone slapped an arm over his shoulder. Drake was about to fight when a drunken voice slurred:
'Tovarish.'
'Darling,' said Drake, taking stock swiftly. A trio of them. All wearing robes of Flame. All stank of the strong liquor Muck preached against so vehemently. 'Bedtime,' said one. 'Aye,' said Drake.
Together they rolled toward the gate. As they went in under the platform, all tried to straighten up, doing their best imitation of sobriety. Inside, one said to Drake:
' Come have a drink.'
Nothing is more persistent than a drunk who wants to get drunker.
'Sorry, man,' said Drake. 'I've got a yen for purity tonight.' 'Purity?'
Hooting laughter and renewed insistence.
'Hush, man!' said Drake. 'You'll get us in trouble!'
It was no good. The noise increased steadily until a challenge came from the platform. Drake ducked into the shadows under a single courtyard tree as platform-guards scrambled down to have a reckoning with the drunks.
Drake made himself one with the bark of the tree. Wished himself to the thinness of a needle. Heard a prolonged altercation, a short scuffle, a brief protest, a sound of something heavy hitting meat. Then peace. But for a single nightingale in the branches above, testing its tessitura. And someone, quite close at hand, urinating copiously. Another drunk, no doubt.
Time to move.
Drake slipped toward the stairway which, if his captive stave-man had spoken true, led to the female quarters. Up the creaking stairs he went, to a lantern-lit corridor. He heard, from behind one closed door, the rhythm of a bed riding in heavy seas. Elsewhere, suppressed laughter. A door opened without warning and a young woman burst out, giggling. She was in a state of advanced deshabille. After her came a muscular young man who was entirely naked.
