by Hugh Cook
Whereupon Drake was filled with seething anger, with outrage, with implacable hatred. He would not drown! He would live! He would get to shore then murder those boatmen, one by one! Hang them! Jugulate them! Smash them to pulp then jump up and down on their splattered bowels!
Drake forced himself out of his trousers. He lay on his back, kicking his feet to keep himself afloat. He knotted each trouser-leg at the ankle. Then held the trousers by the waistband, so the legs dangled limply in the water. Then, treading water, he brought the trousers sweeping in a sudden arc toward the sea.
Air shot into the trouser-legs. The waistband, widened to a circle by the inrush of air, hit the sea. Drake forced it down. The trouser-legs stuck up into the air. Drake laid himself across the crotch of the trousers, trapping the waistband beneath him.
He was now afloat on his trousers. Bit by bit, the air would surely leak out, but by repeating his trick he could refill them. He looked a right daft lunatic, floating on his trousers with his naked arse shimmering in the seas of sunset. But he would live, unless he died of cold, or was eaten by sharks, or was set upon by giant seabirds, or—
Yes, probably he would die.
'But I'm not dead yet,' said Drake.
And floated.
All grim determination.
Darkness came, bringing a night longer than all the wormholes that ever were, longer than every bit of spaghetti which has ever been made since the dawn of time.
Drake fell asleep often, experiencing just a flash of dreamtime hallucination before waking again to the cold everwash of the sea. The greasy wool which protected his torso helped keep him alive. But for the warmth of wool, Drake would have been dead long before dawn.
By the time dawn approached there was no determination left. Only a boy of sixteen, alone, lonely, exhausted almost beyond endurance, cold to the bone, nine parts dead, skin wrinkled by the sea.
'It's lighter,' said Drake. 'A new day . . .'
Life is hope.
The east was grey. Then sullen red. Then ginger. Then up came the sun, as bright and cheerful as ever. Blue shone the sky. Blue sky. White clouds.
'It is a good day to die,' said Drake, since that was the kind of thing heroes were supposed to say.
Maybe heroes convinced heroes. But Drake failed to convince Drake. As far as he could tell, no day was a good day to die.
But it didn't look like he had much choice in the matter, for, by the bright happy sunlight, he saw a fin sliding through the sea. An evil fin. Sleek. Cold. Polished as a knife. Then out from the water came a sleek and polished head, which whistled at him in a high and alien language.
'I see,' said Drake. 'A whistling shark. Well, nice to be eaten by a novelty, I suppose.'
The brute rolled on its side, then dived. Going under. Drake drew his knees to his belly. Where was it? Where was it?
'Show yourself, bugger-breath!' he snarled.
And the monster did. It came out of the sea. It leaped right out of the water, described a fantastic arc, then plunged beneath the waves again. Then surfaced. Grinning. Yes! Its vicious beak of a mouth was grinning at him! There was no mistaking that expression. What next? Laughing, no doubt.
The smiling shark began to circle. The swells lifted Drake up then dropped him down. His trousers were almost empty of air: he was getting lower and lower in the water.
'Come on, shark!' said Drake. 'Make an end of it, you ugly bugger!'
But the shark just circled, chirruping now and then. Another joined it. Two of them, then. No, three!
'A dinner party, is it?' said Drake. 'Man, sorry to show up for dinner with a bare arse.' It was time to fill the trousers again. Or drown.
'Life is hope,' said Drake.
And manoeuvred himself off his trousers, meaning to slip them behind him to catch another load of air. But he was so weak that, as the last of that air-support left him, he slipped beneath the waves, losing his grip on the trousers. Which sank.
Drake sank.
Grabbing for the surface.
Something rose up beside him. He seized it. He found himself brought to the surface. By a shark. Too exhausted to scream, he lay there in the sea, lay with his cheek against the water-smooth flank of the shark, his arm over its great smooth back.
Then remembered that sharks are not smooth, for their skin has more teeth than their jaws. So this must be a dolphin, yes, he had heard of such, that accounted for the whistling and all, it was a dolphin, life answering to life just as the legends claimed. And Drake, unable to help himself, wept.
And heard someone hail him:
'Ahoy there! You with the fish!'
Now the dolphin is no fish, for its blood is warm, and, what's more, mother dolphins give birth to their young in a fashion close to human, then suckle their babies on milk. But Drake knew well enough that the voice was speaking to him.
'So it's true,' he said. 'The dead begin to speak to you as you die. Well, who'd have thought it?'
Then the voice called again. Turning his head, Drake saw a ship on the sea behind him. If he had looked around earlier, he would have seen it much sooner.
'Investigate,' said Drake. 'That's what I should have done.'
Then the dolphin submerged, leaving him floundering in the swell. But hope gave him strength, and he kept himself afloat until the ship came alongside. It was a xebec with sails ofthepalest lilac, a hull painted gold and topsides of silver. It looked like something out of a dream.
Looking up, Drake saw a woman looking down. She was tall. She was luxurious. Her hair was red, her skin also; her mouth was broad, her breasts high-lofted.
'Are you all right?' she said anxiously, in Galish tinged with a foreign accent.
Drake floated there, gazing up at her. What a mouth! What a nose! What beautiful body-lines! Suddenly he remembered all the good resolutions he had made in the face of death: Go for what you want! Yield to nothing! Grab while the grabbing's good!
Well,then. . .
' Will you marry me?' said Drake.
'What?' said the woman, her face showing alarm.
'Marryme! I'minlove!'
'You're crazy,' she said.
Drake lacked the strength to protest. He floated, his hair - beautifully clean by now - floating around him in the easy seas. Then a capture net scooped him from the water, and he was hauled aboard like a bit of dead meat.
Shortly, he was lying on hard boards with a coarse woollen blanket draped over his nakedness. The tall red woman was bending over him, feeding him sips of water.
'Careful, now,' she said, supporting his head. 'Not all at once!'
He seized her hand, and kissed it. 'Marry me,' he said.
'I'll learn you a rather hard lesson, if you talk on so foolish,' she said, a note of warning in her voice.
She was, he judged, about four years older than him, and a good head taller. He was in lust with her. Strenuously in lust. Or, to be more exact: he liked what he saw, and his ego compelled him to imagine that he had strength enough for lust, even after the trauma of his deep-sea survival exercise. It was that same ego which compelled him to pursue his suit:
'Tell me,' said Drake, 'tell me at least your name.'
'Zanya,' shesaid. 'ZanyaKliedervaust, lately of the temple of the Orgy God on the Ebrells.'
'The Orgy God?' said Drake. 'That sounds like my kind of deity.'
'Mayhap,' said Zanya. 'But I have renounced the temple. Also the flesh it worships. I seek a higher calling. That I hope to find on Stokos.'
At that moment, they were interrupted by a tall, well-built man with violet eyes and purple skin. He wore a purple robe; heavy golden ear-rings dangled beside his cheeks.
'Zanya,' he said. 'Faa n 'koto afa dree takaloka tee?'
'Gaa n'moto seki seki,' answered Zanya. 'Ka ta funofoonu ti.'
'Who are you?' said Drake, staring up at the big purple man.
'He speaks no Garish,' said Zanya. 'But his name is Oronoko. He's a prince from one of the provinces of Parengarenga.'
'Is this your boyfriend?' said Drake.
'He's a pilgrim,' said Zanya. 'He came to the Ebrells in a quest for purity. We've been questing together ever since.'
'I see,' said Drake. 'Questing for long enough to share a language between you.'
'Oh, I've known the speaking of Frangoni for years,' said Zanya. 'It's a language common enough on the Ebrells.'
Drake wanted to question her further, but first he had to deal with the ship's captain, a lean, anxious man who came bustling along the deck, peered at Drake with some misgivings, then asked, in a high-pitched voice scarcely half a tone away from hysteria:
'How came you to be in the water? What evil put you there? Witchcraft, perhaps?'
'Nay, man,' said Drake, improvising. 'I was on my uncle's fishing boat. Then up came a kraken! Ah, a brute of a thing it was! Terrible with tentacles. It drowned the boat. Ate all but me.'
His eyes were bright, his voice frenzied.
'Say no more,' said the captain, his fears of the occult apparently appeased. 'Leisure back, boy. Rest. Sleep. We'll land in Stokos soon enough. That will be the time for you to make a settlement with your grief.'
All the way back to Stokos, Drake's resolution hardened. His flesh, for the moment, was too weak to harden with his resolution. But there was no doubt about it. He could have, would have, must have this big beautiful red-skinned Ebrell bitch.
But he was to be disappointed.
For, on reaching Stokos, Zanya quit the ship swiftly, in company with Oronoko, without even bothering to learn Drake's name.
'Must follow,' muttered Drake to Drake.
And he gave chase.
But he had scarce taken a dozen steps when the ground snatched itself from under his feet and a sheet of stifling black tar rolled across the surface of the sun.
When Drake recovered consciousness, he found himself lying on a truckle-bed in the room which housed the skull collection which was the pride and joy of his uncle, Oleg Douay. When Drake called out, his uncle came to his bedside.
'What happened?' said Drake.
'Why, the sea gods saved you, that's what happened,' said Oleg. 'I prayed to them mightily. My faith, as you see, is justified.'
'No,' said Drake. T mean down at the waterfront. What happened there?'
'You fainted, or so report would have it. Nothing to be ashamed of. After what you've been through, it's a wonder you could walk from the ship on your own two legs. Rest.'
'Man,' said Drake, 'a woman came off that ship. She—'
'Never you mind about women!' said Oleg. 'There'll be plenty of time for that later.'
Shortly, Drake had a visitor: it was Sully Yot.
'Five shangles,' said Yot, sticking out his hand.
'Man!' said Drake. 'That's a fine form of greeting!'
'Pay up!' said Yot, obviously delighting in his triumph.
It occurred to Drake that, if the mischances of fate ever reduced him to slavery, then Yot was the very last person he would want as a master.
'Man, I'll pay all right, but only if you can find a woman for me.'
And Drake proceeded to name and describe Zanya Kliedervaust. By diligent inquiry, Yot found she had taken work in the leper colony on the outskirts of town. Drake paid over the five shangles, though the news gave him little joy.
He dared not venture to the leprosarium. For ordinary leprosy is terrible, but in that colony they had something worse still - blue lepers, who suffered outbreaks of blue sores, then great septic ulcers, then a black rot which consumed the eyes, Then a terrible variant of gangrene which broke out all over and finished them. They generally took two long, slow years to die, from the time the first blue sores erupted on their skin.
Love conquers all?
Maybe.
But Drake was not in love - he was in lust. And lust alone was not sufficient to compel him inside a leper colony.
'Woe is me!' cried Drake.
Then remembered that life did, after all, have some compensations. For he was about to start work on his first sword, was he not? That happy thought gave him the strength to rise from his bed after only three days of recuperation.
But, on proceeding to Hardhammer Forge, Drake found his hopes of making a sword of his own were not yet to be fulfilled. Gouda Muck had received a special order from King Tor for five blades of firelight steel. Muck was working flat out; he lacked the time to supervise apprentice work.
'But you promised!' said Drake.
'Wait till these blades are done,' said Muck. 'I'll be no use as a teacher if Tor chops my head off, will I?'
Drake had to concede the logic of that.
'How long before you're finished?' he asked.
'How long is a piece of string?' said Muck. 'What have you done about those men who threw you overboard? Have you reported them?'
'Not yet,' said Drake.
'Then I suggest you get on with it,' said Muck, who loved justice as much as any other man. 'Today. Off you go! '
'But I'm supposed to go to theory class this afternoon.' 'Do you care?'
'I do,' said Drake, with both truth and determination. 'I've decided to go all out for what I want. And what I want is to be a swordsmith, yes, the very best swordsmith on Stokos.'
'I'm impressed,' said Muck, who wasn't, but thought such an attitude deserved encouragement. 'Right. Go to theory class this afternoon, then tomorrow morning make your report.'
That night, Drake dreamed of the horrifying tortures which would claim Ish Ulpin, Bucks Cat and Whale Mike once King Tor was persuaded to punish them. He woke early, and, after a quick breakfast, hurried off to the Iron Palace to make his report.
4
Place: Stokos, a deeply indented island in Gulf of Veda off western coast of continent of Argan.
Area: by Court Cartographer's reckoning, about 4,750 vlests (some 12,000 square leagues).
Population: 123,045 according to the taxcount of Tor 5.
Ruler. King Tor (an ogre of noble birth).
Capital: the seaport of Cam (pop. 53,000).
Religion: worship of the demon Hagon.
Language: Kerzen, Arham and Ligin (all native to Stokos); also Galisn (lingua franca of Cam, where all three native tongues meet and compete).
Literacy: 27 per cent.
Life expectancy: 53 years.
Economy: mining; fishing; banking, import-export; steel production: metalwork (particularly weapons).
Lust mixes but poorly with justice.
By the time Drake's pursuit of Zanya had been stalled by the discovery that his lover was working in a leper colony, the boatmen who had tried to murder Drake had fled Cam. Indeed, they had fled Stokos, for the wrath of King Tor would be terrible if he learned they had exceeded his instructions.
He did learn - for, obedient to Muck's instructions, Drake went and told him. And his wrath was indeed terrible.
'By royal decree,' said King Tor, in a voice which woke the gryphon sleeping at his feet, 'Bucks Cat, Ish Ulpin and Whale Mike are to be executed immediately if they ever again set foot on Stokos. Thus will justice be fulfilled.'
'Well,' said Drake, 'now we've done with justice, how about marrying me off to your daughter?'
'You failed the challenge I set you,' said King Tor. 'You failed to get back to my palace by sunset.'
'Be reasonable!' said Drake. T never had a chance! Anyway, I survived perils worse than anything you had in mind - as you've heard. That proves I've got a lot going for me.'
'This is true,' said King Tor, munching on a frog. 'But perhaps I was a little hasty to offer my daughter so casually. Come back in two years, when you finish your apprenticeship. We'll decide then.'
Well. That was better than a poke in the eye with a blunt stick. Two years from now, he might be Prince Drake. No, probably the title would be more formal: Prince Dreldragon. Lord Dreldragon, maybe? Either way, it had a nice ring to
it.
Meanwhile, there was still Zanya. Now was the time to chase her. If she became Drake's lover, she could still be his concubine when he married Tor's daughter. But Zanya was working with lepers! What if she got the disease herself? Drake thought about it. Lust confused his intellectual processes, such as they were: he decided Zanya was far, far too beautiful ever to get leprosy.
'She's too high-class for such a low-class disease,' he declared.
Then dared himself as far as the rough-and-ready paling which marked the perimeter of the leper colony.
He did not see Zanya Kliedervaust, but, through generous gaps in the fence, he did see diseased corpses writhing on a huge pyre. A big purple-skinned man wearing nothing but a loin-cloth was heaping fresh wood on the fire. It was Prince Oronoko, who had been with Zanya on the xebec. Drake was so jealous he wanted to spit.
Imagine! A stinking foreigner enjoying the company of the fair Zanya Kliedervaust. Her company? Oh, she had been slick enough with her weird-rare talk about purity, but Drake could guess what pleasures she shared with her uitlander prince. Oronoko's muscles, oiled with sweat, glistened in the hot sun. Drake wondered how he would fare against Oronoko in a fight.
'Hey! You!' cried Drake. 'Where are you keeping Zanya?'
Oronoko did not seem to hear. Belatedly, Drake remembered that the foreigner spoke no Galish. He spoke some kind of alien gibberish instead.
Purple-skinned Oronoko threw one last load of wood on the fire then went away, perhaps to get some more bodies. The flames hungered noisily. Stray bits of bamboo burst asunder in the heart of the blaze. Drake felt the heat of the fire amplifying the heat of the sun. A corpse, compelled by the inferno, sat up, its arms warping amidst the smoke in a parody of agony.
Then a shift of the wind sent smoke plunging in Drake's direction. Before he could flee, he was enveloped in thick choking smoke, in the stench of burning hair and charring flesh. He scrambled away, cursing, coughing, spluttering, eyes watering. He was stricken with terror. What if the smoke had contaminated him? What if he had caught leprosy from that filthy disposal fire?