The Walrus and the Warwolf coaaod-4

by Hugh Cook

  'Who is it, darling boy?' said Plovey, in a voice sweet with the melody of triumph.

  'It's Slagger Mulps, the Walrus himself,' said Drake. 'You know him from the truths I've told you. Aye. It's all down on paper. A cruel man, aye. Gave me to Andranovory when I first became his prisoner. Aye. Then An'vory hung me from my ankles by way of torture when I wouldn't give him a suck.'

  'Drake!' said the Walrus, with grief in his voice. 'Don't speak against me as an enemy! What's past is past! I took you south with me to Burntos, didn't I? You stowed away, yet I let you live.'

  'Aye, and challenged me to death when I got back to the Teeth,' said Drake. 'Then made that mad challenge with Jon Arabin in the forest of Penvash. A lot of trouble that caused, too! But, man, I'd pardon you for that, except for one thing. You're the enemy. Jon Arabin's enemy. And any enemy of his is a mortal foe of mine. If he's to die, then so should you.'

  'Man,' said the Walrus. 'You've got things wrong, for things have changed. I'm now his blood-brother true.'

  Thus Drake was a second time dismayed. And his discomfort increased when the Walrus, overcome with sorrow and the fear of death, went down on his knees, sobbing.

  'Come,' said Plovey. 'No need to listen to that. We're finished.'

  He led Drake from the hall to a bare stone room where half a dozen guards stood waiting. Drake wiped the tears from his eyes. Took some deep, slow breaths.

  What's done is done. Can I set it to rights? Maybe. But I'll need a lawyer. So no more grief. Business first.

  'Right,' said Drake, in a voice which was as much business as he could manage. 'Time for me to be going.''Where to?' asked Plovey, who seemed amused.

  'Why, to get a lawyer to start with,' said Drake. 'Aye. We'll get petitions drawn up, yes. Asking clemency for Walrus and Warwolf. Pardons and such.''You're not going anywhere,' said Plovey. 'Seize him!'The guards grabbed Drake. He was astonished.'What's this?' said Drake.'This,' said Plovey, 'is your arrest. It's the consequence of the stories you've been telling, both to me and to others.'

  'But those stories were true!' said Drake. 'I was telling the truth all along! You know that now! You've had proof of it!'

  'Indeed we have,' said Plovey. 'So you stand condemned by your own mouth. For your story holds you to be a pirate.''And that amuses you?'

  'Indeed it does. For you see, dear boy, the penalty for piracy is to be tortured to death.'

  Kicking and screaming, Drake was carried away by the guards. And Plovey, smiling sweetly, went' home to the charms of his lawful wife, with the feeling of a day's work well done.

  48

  Elkor Alish: Rovac warrior who accompanied Morgan Hearst on a quest for the death stone, a weapon of surpassing power; later attempted to use death stone against Hearst and others; Hearst lost his right hand while helping thwart the attempt.

  Before Drake was incarcerated in the cell where he would wait until the death-torturers were ready, his gaolers stripped him of his clothes.'You can't leave me naked!' protested Drake.

  'Of course we can,' said a cheerful turnkey. 'Don't worry, me little rantipole. You won't be wanting clothes much longer. You'll be dead in a couple of days.'

  So Drake was consigned to his cell, and there he lay on a mat of filth which had once (a very long time ago) been straw. And wept. For his life, for his liberty, for the horrors of the world.He could see now the error of his ways.

  He had done so many things that were wrong, yes, badly wrong, criminally wrong.

  'For a start,' muttered Drake, 'I should never have run off with Muck's mastersword. No, that was a low, cowardly thing to do. I should have caught the old bugger in a back alley one dark night, yes, and cut his heart out. That would have saved a lot of trouble.'And later, in Runcorn:

  'I should never have tried to rule so sweetly. That's not my style. No. I should have got together a pack of

  knifemen, yes, to do for the opposition subtly. Why, when Garimanthea turned against me, I should have had him jugulated proper fast. No playing around!' And more recently, in Selzirk:

  T should never have gone into Muck's temple to try to sweet-talk Zanya. That was ego speaking, aye. Too much pride. Hubris, in fact.'

  Actually (to be pedantically precise) what he said was not 'hubris' but 'me thinking I could walk across fifty leagues of fresh-laid eggs in lead-shod boots without breaking a one of them'. But by that he meant 'hubris', for he had the concept right enough, even though he knew no precise word in any language to express it.

  I should never have gone into that temple, no,' said Drake. 'I should have got together fifty men with knives and hatchets, aye, all bribed with promises of treasure. Aye, that's the way. Send others in to kill, burn, plunder, kidnap. I was trying to do things lawful-like, and that's how I fell afoul of the law. A big mistake, man.'

  Yes. He should have organized a big raid to kill out the temple. Then, when he had Zanya in chains in some private place, he could have started talking some sense into her head.

  'But I really thought she'd come with me,' moaned Drake. 'Man, I really did. I thought we had something going there.'

  There is no telling how long these recriminations might have lasted, or where they might have led, for the very next day another prisoner was flung into Drake's cell: a garrulous old man named Shix, who had been imprisoned for brewing bad beer and worse wine.

  After that, Drake never got a moment's peace, for Shix suffered verbal diarrhoea while awake, and kept rambling on (though less coherently) even when asleep. If he had said something interesting, that might have been excusable, but he was a dreary old pedant who thought himself the world's best brewer and its best winemaker as well.

  In the days which followed, Drake learnt far more than he wanted to about yeast and hops, casks and grapes and zymome and malt, gluten and wheat, the rape which remains after wine-making, the derelictions of the average vintner, and hundreds of other technicalities in which he had no conceivable interest.

  All this talk of wine and beer set him to thinking about the magical brew he had tasted in Brennan, which had left him drunk and free-floating. At the time, he had made a resolution to seek out more of the stuff from wizards.

  Aye.

  And if he had resolutely pursued intoxication, he would never have become ensnared in this terrible city. He would have gone somewhere comparatively safe, such as the terror-lands south of Drangsturm, where there were only the monsters of the Swarms to contend with, and not lawyers and judges and such. But no, he had not taken the hint that magical liquor had offered him; instead, he had tamely accepted a life of sobriety, and was now to pay a fearful price for his foolishness.But when?

  When were they going to seize him, and strap him to a torture table, and subject him to a slow, lingering death of utmost agony?

  Drake got so curious about this vital question that finally he asked a gaoler.

  'When are we going to torture you to death?' said the gaoler, scratching his head. 'Why, I don't rightly know. What's your name?''Drake Douay.'

  'Ah! Drake Douay! So this is where you finished up! We all thought you'd escaped. Wait around, me younker, and I'll find out.'

  And the gaoler waddled away, leaving Drake to think:

  Me and my big mouth!

  The gaoler returned later in the day.

  'Well,' he said. 'There's some good news and some bad news.''I'll have the good news first.'

  'The good news is that you've already been tortured to death. Legally, I mean. When it was your turn and we couldn't find you, the executioners put a dog on the table and made do with that. A legal fiction, you understand?'

  'Yes,' said Drake, who thought he did even though he didn't. 'So can I go? Do I get out of here?'

  'Well no. For that's the bad news. Legally, you're dead. I've sighted your death certificate meself. We can't have dead men walking round the city, can we?''So what happens now?'

  'Why, me pretty little younker, you grows yourself older. Then in time you dies, thus matching reality with the
paperwork. Till then, you sit there nice and happy, another breathing corpse for the auditors to count come Assessment Day.''What's Assessment Day?'

  'Oh, that's technical, that's technical,' said the turnkey, who didn't rightly understand accounting practices but was unwilling to confess his ignorance.

  So Drake was left to linger in his desolation of filth, squalor, dungeon darkness and perpetual hunger. Sometimes, he heard rumours of the outside world: that the sun had died, that a forest had marched west out of Chenameg, that a thousand dragons had ravaged Selzirk. All kinds of wildness circulated in the muttering gloom.

  Old man Shix died, and his corpse was taken away. Shix had irritated Drake intensely, but now he longed to have his companion back. In fact, Drake got some of the old man back as part of his next dole of soup, but he did not know that, and thus gained no comfort from it.

  Sometimes, he dreamed of Zanya, of her frank lust, of the tender joys of her warm body … of her smile, her laugh, her joy in kittens and ducklings and silks and roast chicken … of the brightness of her fingernails, which were the cleanest he had seen in his life … of her randy jokes and her wild tales about the temple of the Orgy God in the Ebrells … of her hair and her skin flaming red in aroom lit by a blood-warm sun, her thighs enveloping. . . Had he imagined her?

  He was half-persuaded that he had. Aye, and the sun, moon, and sky, and all theother improbabilities of a world of earth, air, fire and water.

  But all those things were real.

  And, while Drake lay rotting in his filthy dungeon cell, Zanya Kliedervaust lay on her bed, stroking (in an absent-minded fashion) the sparse hair of Gouda Muck's head, which was busy between her thighs. Staring at the ceiling, she thought, with regret, of Drake. He was a brash sexist barbarian who needed to be taught good manners, and a lot of other things besides. But he had had so much promise! Why, when he had come bursting into her room, he had seemed to her, for a moment, like a regular demon lover, a true hero.

  But obviously Drake did not truly value her. Otherwise, he would have returned. Instead, after he was chased away by Muck's men, he had never returned. She was insulted by the way he had abandoned his quest for her so easily. . .

  Gouda Muck raised his head and removed one of Zanya's pubic hairs from his lips.

  'Darling,' crooned Zanya, 'you're a marvellous man, really you are.''Then worship me,' said Muck.Which she did, in a very practical fashion.And the days passed.

  And, meanwhile, History went on as usual, with its wars, riots, revolutions, law makings, law breakings, plantings, reapings, stocktakings, loves, lusts, joys, horrors, quests, herofeats, births, deaths, copulations, speeches, prize giv-ings, graduations, discoveries, despairs, hopes, philosophies, religious revelations undso weiter.

  Until finally, as a consequence of one of the minor eddies of History, men came for Drake Douay, who was known in certain quarters to be physically alive, for all that he was legally dead.

  He was seized. He was dragged from his cell, filthy and naked, breath foetid, eyes dull, hair and nails uncut, body swarming with vermin, a scrag of ginger beard on his chin. He was bathed, shaved, manicured, scraped, disinfected, deloused, then dressed in velvet trousers, a cotton shirt and black felt slippers.

  'You look beautiful, darling boy,' said Plovey of the Regency.'Where did you come from?' demanded Drake.

  'I came through the door, of course. Ah. Trousers, shirt, slippers – what more could you want?'

  'A hat,' said Drake, promptly, always one to grab when the grabbing was good.So Plovey saw him kitted out with a pert blue bycoket.'Now food!' demanded Drake.

  All he got was a bowl of broth and a single zakuska, but that was undoubtedly the most his half-starved stomach could have handled. Then he was led to a room which was far too bright for him and filled with far too many people, most of whom were talking simultaneously.

  'A Certificate of Resurrection,' said a beak-nosed lawyer, shoving a piece of parchment into Drake's hands. 'You are now officially alive again. Here – take this. A full pardon for all crimes you've so far committed, both in and out of Selzirk. You are free to go.''But,' said Plovey, 'first hear our offer.'

  'An offer I can't refuse, I suppose,' said Drake, clutching the parchments which had resurrected and pardoned him.

  'Of course,' said Plovey. 'What other kind of offer is worth making? General Tream, the situation, if you please!'General Tream stepped forward.

  'Listen up!' he bellowed, silencing the chatter in the room. 'Situation. A Rovac warrior by name of Elkor Alish has leagued with pirates and others to take the city of Androlmarphos. Alish holds that city now. Fortunately, the warrior Morgan Hearst has joined the army of Selzirk. He bears the deathstone. He will commit that weapon against both Alish and Androlmarphos unless the both surrender.'

  Then Tream, assisted by others, started to explain the details. But it was all so confusing – the noise, the brightness, the unfamiliar wealth of food in Drake's stomach, the unaccustomed labour of standing – that in the end he fainted clean away.

  After he had convalesced for three days, Plovey came to him alone, and explained things quietly.

  They wanted Drake to carry documents to Alish in Androlmarphos. One was a threat: he and his captured city would be destroyed by the deathstone unless they surrendered. The other was an offer: of safe conduct and a massive bribe if Alish gave himself up.

  'Once you've seen Alish and returned to Selzirk, we'll also pardon your Walrus and Warwolf.''They live?'

  'They do. Their trials have not yet been commenced. After all, unlike you, they made no foolish confessions of piracy. So. See Alish in Androlmarphos. Give him our letters. Then return. And both Walrus and Warwolf will be set at liberty. But you must bring us proof that you've met with Alish in 'Marphos.''And what proof would that be?'

  'Why, a document in Rovac runes drafted by the hand of Elkor Alish himself. Let him testify to the fact that you've seen him. Even if he wants nothing to do with our offers, I'm sure he'll give you proofs. For if he means to stand against us in defiance, he'll be as eager as you are to secure the release of two pirate captains. Useful men they'd make for him.''Then why are you prepared to let them go?'

  'It's a small stake in a big game. What can we lose? Two prisoners. What can we win? Why, maybe the war. Bring proof! Our Morgan Hearst knows Alish's writing, so try no fakery.''This sounds a right weird scheme to me,' said Drake. 'Ah, darling boy,' said Plovey, 'your judgment is very sound. I don't myself think you'll get audience with Alish. Or return.''Then why are you letting me go?' said Drake.

  'Ah. Because none of this is my idea. No, it's Watashi's idea. And Farfalla's son, dear boy, is a constant threat to the Regency which I serve. We must seize on every opportunity to discredit him. However … if you do return, well, no hard feelings. Indeed, if you do return, you must dine with me and my darling wife. I'm sure the family atmosphere would do you good.'

  'I'll return, right enough,' said Drake. 'But I'll see both Walrus and Warwolf before setting out. I know your life and death! They may be living by your law, though their bones have rotted away.'

  'Indeed,' said Plovey, 'such is possible. For the law specifically states that a person shall not be deemed to be dead merely because they have ceased to exist. However, both Walrus and Warwolf are alive, as the vulgar understand life. And you will see them before setting forth.'

  And so Drake did. And a tearful reunion he had with Jon Arabin, who was close to him by now as a father.And this was Plovey's parting advice to Drake:

  'Remember, darling boy, if you're not back within ten days, we'll torture Walrus and Warwolf to death. Little as I wish to see your return, I'll hold good to this threat, for I'm a very law-abiding man. I'll supervise the torture personally. Thodric Jarl will help me.'And Drake, despite himself, shuddered.

  49

  Velvet River, flows from Araconch Waters through lonely inland desolation, through Chenameg, then into Harvest Plains. Is joined by Shouda Flow at Selzirk. Divides into a del
ta near the sea, where the port of Androlmarphos prospers from the river-trade.

  Rule of Velvet River by dams (all upstream from Selzirk), irrigation schemes, dredging and dyke-building is a major function of the government of the Harvest Plains.

  On a day of high summer, Drake Douay was taken out into the streets, where the strenuous noise and the clash of garish colours made him dizzy. He saw a boy playing with a bandalore, which had been quite the fashion in children's toys throughout the winter. Drake mistook the leaping thing for a vicious insect, and looked away, frightened.

  The fashion for red-dyed skin was almost dead, though the Kingmaker Farfalla still indulged in it. But Drake did see one red-skinned red-haired woman, styling pink trousers and a matellasse blouse.'Zanya!' he cried, thinking it was her.Then saw it was an utter stranger.

  He started to cry. Was ashamed of himself, yet could not help it. Had endured so much. Too much.

  At a riverside dock, he boarded a trireme. Down the river they went. Sun too bright. Sky too blue. The riverside fields huge beyond all prison-cell imaginings.

  Shocked by the enormous vistas of liberty, he hid his face.

  The trireme did not venture all the way to Androl-marphos, for Selzirk would not risk such a valuable craft so close to the enemy-held city. Instead, on reaching the place where the Velvet River began to divide into the many branches of the delta, Drake was put aboard a smaller craft, a galley of but twenty oars.

  Some leagues downstream, Drake glimpsed a familiar sight: a pyramid some two thousand years old, built by a wizard of Ebber who had once lorded it as emperor of the Harvest Plains. That pyramid stood on the dusty plains within sight of Androlmarphos, and Drake had seen it often enough in the days he had spent as a galley-slave. That had been years ago, when he was a mere boy of sixteen. And how old was he now? Why, twenty. Young, yes, with all of manhood in front of him.

  Irresistibly, his spirits began to rise. Pirates were in Androlmarphos? Why, then, he'd meet with old comrades, surely. Jon Disaster, aye. Ika Thole, maybe, or Abousir Belench, or some of his shipmates from his voyage from Narba to the Teeth on the good ship Jade.Then the galley pulled in to the bank.'Get off,' said the galley captain.