by Hugh Cook
Miphon, curious, decided to talk to Drake in private. When Drake shortly went to stretch his legs on the beach, Miphon followed.
The crisp, bright morn promised a clear, hot day. A few seagulls on the beach were fighting over fish heads. Drake gathered a handful of stones and began Investigating the best method of stoning gulls. He had just knocked a couple of grey feathers off one of the less wary birds when Miphon caught up with him.
'Good morning,' said Miphon.
'Hi,' said Drake.
He shied a stone at a gull but twenty paces distant. It was in the air before the stone hit. It seemed gulls had to take off in a straight line. Their capacity for evasive action was marginal while they were scrambling into the sky. So if. . .
'What's your quarrel with the birds?' said Miphon. 'What quarrel have the Swarms with us?' said Drake. 'That's no answer!' said Miphon. 'Yes, but it's a question better worth the asking,' said Drake.
He threw another stone. A gull saw the stone heading in its general direction. The gull took to the air - and almost flew right into the stone.
'Next time!' said Drake.
Should he use sticks instead of stones? A nice-sized throwing stick would be ten times the length of one of his little stones. Meaning he would increase his chances of a hit fivefold even if he was only half as accurate with stick as with stone.
'You're looking chirpy today,' said Miphon. 'How so?'
'It's the birds in my ancestry, I suppose,' said Drake.
Meaning to prove the point, he threw back his head and gave a bird-scream.
'If I heard that in the forest,' said Miphon, 'I'd say the bird responsible was sick. Very sick. Or mad. Or both. But you look healthy enough. I'm amazed. Why no hangover? You should be groaning in a sick-bed after last night's binge.'
'Man, I never get sick,' said Drake. 'Not from liquor, from poison or anything. I flourish while others fever.'
'Have you always been this way?'
Drake scuffed his feet in the sand. This morning, he was barefoot. His boots were being repaired by the local cobbler; he would pick them up at noon.
'Oh, aye,' said Drake. 'I've been fit enough for most of my life. Ever since someone cursed me.'
'Cursed you? When was that?'
Drake stooped for some seaweed which was fastened to a nice smooth surface-to-surface anti-seagull missile. He tore away the seaweed. Put a couple of bobbles of the stuff into his mouth. Chewed it. Salty. Seaweed taste reminded him of ... of childhood. Of the rocks on the seashore beneath his father's coal-cliffs . . .
'You want to hear of curses?' said Drake. 'The curse came early on, man. Yes. They hexed me, taking away all pleasure from drink. Near ruined my life, that did. But I survived. I'm hardy, see.'
'They cursed you?' said Miphon. 'Who is they?'
'If I knew that,' said Drake, 'they'd be dead.'
He threw his smooth stone. It missed one seagull, hit the sea, skipped, whipped over one gull then under another, skipped again, then sank. Rings of ripples expanded on the stone-flicked sea.
T don't understand about this curse,' said Miphon.
'Why not?' said Drake. 'You're a wizard. You should be a right expert.'
T know much of magic,' said Miphon. 'Curses of all kinds are possible. But they take great power, and greater effort. Nobody would curse you simply to stop you getting drunk.'
And Miphon, relentlessly, began to pursue the truth.
'Man,' said Drake, after the first fifty questions, 'last time I was mauled like this, I was flat on a torture bench.'
But Miphon was ruthless.
Finally, he started to smile.
'Why smiling, man?' said Drake.
'Because I think,' said Miphon, T think I know what happened to you. Your body was altered by a paratopic'
'A what?'
'A paratopic. That's a name for the snake which was fed to your flesh in Ling. Only it wasn't a snake at all, but a very special creature in snake-form. I've read of such in old, old records.'
'What does it do, this snake?' said Drake.
'Why,' said Miphon, 'it enters the body then becomes - well, many many little snakes. And those, between them, bring about the changes you've experienced. For instance, you don't get sick from bad water. Or drunk on liquor.'
'Man,' said Drake, 'so all this trouble I've had with drink, that was because of that snake! Those people in Ling, why did they do something so cruel?'
'Why was it cruel?'
'Because it denied me all pleasure of drink.' 'That snake,' said Miphon, 'has probably saved your life. Without it, you'd have killed yourself with alcohol.
Or died of river fever. You'd also have caught twenty different types of venereal disease. Including the pox which your beloved is dying of.'
T may well have caught that pox,' said Drake. 'You once told me yourself that it may take years to show itself.'
'If the paratopic works as the old books say it does,' said Miphon, 'then it will protect you even against blue star fever. You should count yourself lucky.'
'Lucky?' said Drake. 'Yes, well, perhaps I am, in a way. But it's still hard to skip pleasure when everyone else is getting it. That's the hard thing about not being able to get drunk. Still . . . man . . . what say we got one of these snake-things for Zanya?'
'That's a highly theoretical question.'
'What's theoretical about it?' said Drake. 'You said yourself that this snake saved me from the pox. If it saved me, why not Zanya?'
'You were healthy to start with, more or less,' said Miphon. 'Zanya is deep in the clutches of disease already. The power of the paratopic might not be sufficient to salvage her health. Anyway, we'll never know either way.'
'Of course we will!' said Drake. 'I'll find one of these snake-things. I'll go to Ling, yes.'
'To Ling?'
'Aye, man, where else? They had one of these snakes, they'll have another. For Zanya, yes. We'll take it from them at choke point. Aye! Swords to their throats then press for the question. Gut some of their children dead, yes, that's the way, that'll soon hustle them along.'
'You could always try asking, first,' said Miphon, mildly.
'Try what?' said Drake, incredulously. 'Asking,' said Miphon. 'Politely. You might get quite surprising results.' 'Hmmm,' said Drake. Miphon looked at him, sternly.
'Now don't go looking at me like that!' said Drake. 'All I said was "hmmm".'
'Yes,' said Miphon. Speaking volumes.
'All right then,' said Drake. 'You win. I’ll try asking politely to start with. Come on, let's find Blackwood. The sooner we get going, the better.'
Miphon was not sure he even wanted to get going, since the last thing he wanted to do right then was venture all the way south to Ling. But he let Blackwood do the arguing, which Blackwood did with great vigour, concluding as follows:
'We're men of command with serious responsibilities in Estar. We can't go whoring off on fairy-tale quests to the Deep South.'
'But you're questing heroes!' said Drake. 'Aye, famous for it! You, and Miphon, and Morgan Hearst. Why, man, when I held the Gates of Chenameg, I heard many a tale about—'
'What we did,' said Blackwood, 'was done under the gravest necessity.'
'My wife sickens. Is that not necessity? She sickens towards death. Is that not dire?'
'Friend,' said Blackwood, 'an afternoon's brawling in Lorford can see half a dozen dead. One person's tragedy cannot outbalance the needs of a town, or a nation.'
'But Hearst's taking care of Lorford,' said Drake. 'Aye, and of Estar entire. And Trest, man.'
'Yes, and we hold in trust the red bottle and the death-stone. Those are great resources, which Hearst may need to call on. We cannot risk them on - on—'
'On saving life,' said Drake.
Then said much more. But, when Miphon made it clear he supported Blackwood, Drake abandoned argument. And started planning, instead.
64
From the Lessers to Ling: a voyage from Brennan to Ling would entail a sea
-passage of some 1,150 leagues. A clean ship favoured with fair winds might reasonably expect to make the voyage in twenty-five days.
They had had quite a party. They had started early in the morning. Come noon, their behaviour had become so riotous that Hagi had thrown them out of his bar. So they had continued on the beach. But now it was night, and all had crawled off home - all but three.
Old Gezeldux, who had been one of the leading lights of the party, was asleep on the sands, his sleep warmed by a dragon-coloured fire. Zanya was asleep on the same beach, her head resting on Drake's lap.
Zanya had not drunk much that day: her body could no longer tolerate more than a little alcohol. But she had done her best to join in the fun. She did not like to confess how weak she felt, and how she had suffered as a consequence of her brave endeavours to fake merriment when she should have been resting. Zanya was fearfully afraid of becoming a true invalid. For what then? Would Drake leave her?
The problem troubled her dreams, in which she was being chased by a dragon.
Drake was still awake, picking his nose with a finger which smelt of woodsmoke, and staring out to sea. He was not admiring the beauty of Brennan harbour by moonlight. No, he was thinking, something he did well.
Zanya moaned faintly.
'Dearest heart,' murmured Drake, and stroked her cheek with the hand which was not otherwise occupied.
He felt lumps beneath his fingers.
Zanya grunted. Her dream-scene shifted. The dragon was gone. Instead, she was in the temple of the Orgy God on the Ebrells. The change was not for the better.
Drake heard Zanya give a thin, terrified whine. He kissed her. She grunted again. Shifted. Settled.
He had not told Zanya that her salvation might lie in Ling. He wanted to rouse no false hopes. Ling, after all, was many days distant. And Blackwood and Miphon still did not seem disposed to helping Drake get there. The pair of them were staying in a house lent to them by Gezeldux. In that house they had all of Hearst's soldiers, who had been refused permission to join the party. Funny, that. One could almost believe the two exiled rulers of Estar did not entirely trust young Drake Douay.
Well, he'd show them.
What did he need for the journey south? A boat. Yes, well, that was simple enough. Any fishing boat from Brennan Harbour would be stout enough for the voyage, as long as the summer weather held fair. Men? He'd like to have a few men with him. But he could sail a fishing boat single-handed if he had to.
But what he really did want was the death-stone.
And the bottle.
Since they were so close at hand, it would be foolish to go without them. Man, he'd taken Runcorn near enough to single-handed. He'd captured the Gates of Chenameg. So he should be able to handle a house full of soldiers, yes
The ghosts of a thousand dead generations breathed a little more life into the night breeze, and Drake shivered. The night was cooling. He threw a hunk of driftwood onto the fire, kicking up a shower of red sparks.
'The whip!' said Zanya, startled almost to wakefulness.
'Hush, dear heart,' said Drake. 'Hush. Hush . . .'
And soothed his fingers over her neck, over her smooth and beautiful neck. Finding a little lump which he knew must be sky blue. Her sickness was spreading to more of her body.
On the wind, Drake heard a voice. He thought, at first, that he had momentarily fallen asleep, and that the voice had spoken to him from out of a dream. Then he realized that it had come from out on the harbour. Yes. There were some boats out there, sails dark in the night. How many? One, three . . . five. Close to shore. Moving as if in convoy.
'Explain yourself, boats,' muttered Drake.
And reached out to shake Gezeldux awake.
Gezeldux breathed up beery fumes, then burped, bringing up a mouthful of half-digested fish, which he swilled round his mouth then swallowed again.
'What's problem?' said Gezeldux. 'Sky caught fire?'
'Boats,' said Drake. 'That's the problem. Look! Those are island boats, I hope.'
'How should I know?' said Gezeldux.
'Man, you live here.'
'A boat is a boat is a boat,' said Gezeldux.
He was too full of liquor to rightly care. So Drake, who had much experience of drunks, let him go back to sleep. Zanya had woken.
'Darling treasure snake,' she said, 'hold me close.'
'Man,' said Drake, giving her a perfunctory hug, 'I don't like those boats. Come on, we'll rouse the others.'
In truth, while he was suspicious of the boats, he had an ulterior motive for sounding the alarm. It gave him a good chance to test the defences Miphon and Blackwood had organized for themselves.
On reaching their lordships' house of exile, Drake found sentries posted, and wide awake. He was admitted into the interior, which was hot, and heavy with the smell of enclosed sweat. Miphon and Blackwood were swiftly roused, and made no effort to hide their suspicions. Clearly they thought Drake was playing some kind of trick.
'Man,' said Drake, 'trust me. If you won't trust me, then take my wife as hostage, and come see.'
So, leaving Zanya as hostage, they went to see his mystery boats, which, in the interim, had come in close to the shore. The crews were making no particular effort to keep quiet. The watchers heard voices, and one of those voices:
'Grief of suns,' hissed Drake. 'That's Sully Yot.'
Miphon and Blackwood knew that voice as well. So they joined Drake as he backed off hastily.
'How did he know we're here?' said Blackwood.
'Man,' said Drake. 'Likely he doesn't. Likely he's fled Estar for fear of what we'll do to him when we get ourselves organized. Likely this is his first stop on some flight to wherever. But, man, he'll likely find we're here, aye, soon enough.'
'What do you suggest?' said Miphon.
T suggest your house is a trap, so get your men out of it.'
Shortly, Blackwood, Miphon, Drake, Zanya and all the soldiers were lying in the dark in the scrub in some low dunes at the edge of town.
It was hard to judge how many men Yot had on each of his five boats. But Drake suspected six, easily - which would mean Yot's people outnumbered them about two to one. Six men per boat? The figure was just as likely to be ten.
The wind grew stronger, and colder. The refugees huddled together for warmth. Thick cloud was engulfing the stars.
Blackwood stirred, restlessly. 'Let's—' he said.
'Let's nothing,' said Drake sharply.
And nothing they did for some time.
Occasionally, noise came from the town. Shouts. Doors slamming. A suggestion of protest. A cry which might almost have been a scream.
Then a dog started to bay.
'A dog!' said Blackwood.
'Nay, man,' saidDrake. 'It's a nightingale. Yes, a nightingale with its voice a little harsh from eating iron filings.'
'Stop playing the fool!' said Blackwood. Tt'sadog. Isn't it, Miphon?'
'It sounds like a fruit-bat to me,' said Miphon.
The dog gave voice again. It was closer.
'If it's a fruit bat, then it's a man-hunting fruit-bat,' said Blackwood. 'We'd better get ready to do battle.'
But the dog was on the scent of a chiz, and came no closer to the fugitives.
For some time, the sounds of a dog hunting persisted. Then they were replaced by the sounds of a dog being beaten for incompetence. While the dog was Drake's favourite animal, on this particular occasion he felt no sympathy for canine suffering.
The hunt moved to the harbour.
Rowing boats came and went on the darkened waters. Lanterns gleamed on the sea. Then:
'Look!' said Drake. 'That furthest light! It's on our boat! They're on our boat!'
'They know we're here, then,' said Miphon.
'We should have taken to sea when we first saw them coming in,' said Blackwood.
'Man, you're a fine one to talk!' said Drake savagely. 'You didn't even believe the incoming boats existed. You thought I was tricking you out
side for a throat-cut. Well, man, that was your mistake. Now - mark the cloud. When it covers out the last starshine, we move.'
And, soon enough, they did. All went into the bottle but for Drake, Blackwood, Miphon, and two soldiers by the names of Scouse and Klupping.
They went catfoot down to the beach. Drake, in the lead, found a dinghy by barking his shins against it. A scrape, a splash - and they were afloat. The oars made an abominable noise as Drake and Klupping rowed.
A shout came from the shore.
'Quiet, now,'said Drake. 'Klupping! Rest on your oars!' The dinghy floated. Drake, listening, heard wind-driven
wavelets slapping against a nearby fishing boat. 'Let me row solo,' said Drake.
And sculled toward the fishing boat as quiet as he could. He came up under the bows.
'You sitting aft,' said Drake. 'What's your name? Scouse, isn't it? Right, grab the boat's anchor rope. Aye, and hold us steady. Now quiet, everyone.'
'Let's go aboard,' said Blackwood.
'Nay, man,' said Drake. 'Wait. Listen. Watch.'
Yot's people were being noisy. There was a lot of shouting. A lot of confusion. Someone cried out:
'They've put to sea!'
Further shouts ordered pursuit.
Soon at least three of Yot's boats had raised sails and were trying to tack for the harbourmouth against the incoming wind. Out in the night there was the sound of a heavy collision as a boat underway ran into one which was anchored.
'Now,' said Drake, 'go aboard. One at a time. Quiet like.'
This they did.
'What now?' said Blackwood.
'Let Yot and his friends enjoy their nightmare,' said Drake. 'Chasing around a strange harbour by night in total darkness. They're fools to be trying it, and we'd be greater fools to join them.'
'Let's go ashore,' said Miphon, 'and rally the islanders against Yot.'
'Oh,' said Drake, 'that's nice fighting talk, that's for sure. But can we trust them? What's Yot been doing ashore? What' s he been saying? Like as not the islanders know about the death-stone by now. Aye, and maybe the bottle, if he knows about such.'
