by Hugh Cook
'Because,' said the Great One, 'the spirit of purity burns strong within him.'
'Is he then Worthy?' asked the elders.
The Great One laid her hand upon Drake's forehead. A wisp of a hand it was, too, more skin than flesh - as frail as an old leaf which has almost frayed through to its skeleton.
'Yes,' said the Great One, after a lengthy pause. 'He is Worthy.'
Even Great Ones have their off days.
'Shall we then initiate him?' asked the elders.
'We shall. Indeed, we must. For it would be a sin to let one of the Worthy depart to the Plague Lands without initiation.'
'It shall be done,' said the elders.
And Drake was roughed onto a bloodstained metal rack and tied down with thongs of sharkskin. A jabber of excited faces crowded around him. Drums pulsed, nose flutes whined, witch doctors rattled bones, and an evil old gentleman made stone sizzle across steel as he honed a knife which already looked far more sharp than was necessary.
'No!' screamed Drake, writhing against his bonds. T didn't do it! I never touched them! What have I done? Is it something I said? Is it something I didn't say? I'll do anything, anything, just let me loose! Don't hurt me! Is there anyone here who speaks Galish? Gaaa!'
'Why is he screaming?' asked the elders.
'Because the Ecstasy has possessed him,' said the Great
One gravely. 'It is a good sign. He shall be truly blessed.'
'Here is the box,' said the elders.
'Good,' said the Great One.
And took the implement of initiation from the box.
Drake howled with incoherent fear as the gloating old woman held up a snake. It was small, and very much alive. It hissed, opening its jaws, showing sharp teeth. Before he had time to admire the red and orange markings twisting down its back (markings reminiscent of the forging-patterns of Gouda Muck's mastersword) it whipped free from the Great One's hands and fell to the floor.
There was an uproar as heroes competed for the precious little monster. But the man who had been sharpening the knife stayed calm. Humming gently to himself, he leaned over Drake's body and cut once, neatly, making an incision under the floating rib on Drake's right-hand side.
Drake hissed, with fear, with anger, with pain. The old woman had regained the snake. She was fondling it. Stroking it. Crooning to it. Bringing it closer. She was - no!
'No! No! No!' screamed Drake.
But she put the head of the snake to his open wound. He screamed again as it began gnawing into his vitals. It was like being stabbed repeatedly with a red-hot poker.
Then, strangely, the pain lessened. It became dull. Disappeared altogether. Yes. While teeth still tunnelled, he no longer cared. He was starting to float, hmmm, yes, drifting away on a river of deliciously warm milk.
The Great One leaned over him. He smiled up at her face, noting, for the first time, the red veins spiderwebbed in the milk white of her eyes. She kissed him, giving him her blessing for the Journey. He felt himself falling. Her face contracted to a point, then disappeared altogether. The last sounds hissed into silence.
'Who am I?' he wondered.
Idly.
Then wondered no more, for he was unconscious.
# # #
Drake did not wake to clarity, but to fever. Hot, flushed and thirsting, he endured cramps, spasms and hallucinations. He was fed strange foods and stranger fluids, which sustained life but did not cure him.
'Arabin,' he said. 'Get Arabin. Jon Arabin, understand?'
' O-fo-lo-mo-lee,' said one of the young women who fed him.
And smiled, and left him.
But did not return with Jon Arabin.
Time and again Drake repeated his demand. He had to get a message through to his captain. If he stayed in this crazy place, he would die.
'I'm sick, yes,' said Drake, to one of his handmaidens, 'but I'll do as well on the Warwolf as I would here. Honest. It's the sea air, I need it to keep me alive.'
The response was another smile.
Nothing more.
He could see, through his sickroom's embrasure, a slice of blue sky, occasionally decorated by patches of high cloud. Fair weather cloud, yes. In the little time he'd spent on the Warwolf, he'd already got into the habit of taking a right healthy interest in the weather.
'Those idle sons of sodfish will be playing around the anchor cable again, I suppose,' said Drake.
Yes. Or practising sword under the hard gaze of the ship's weapons muqaddam. Or patching sails. Or splicing ropes. Or—
But no matter. Whatever they were doing, Drake wanted to be with them. Aye. In the company of his comrades true. Quin Baltu, Shewel Lokenshield, Goth Sox, Lee Dix, Hewlet Mapleskin, aye, and Jon Disaster - he remembered them as brothers.
Finally, the day came when Drake was well enough to quit his bed and venture to the embrasure. Squinting into the brilliance of a world lit by real honest sunlight, he looked down on Ling Bay - and saw that the Warwolf was gone.
No! Surely not! Surely Arabin's ship of green sails lay close to the cliff, hidden by the limitations of the embrasure!
On rubbery legs, Drake staggered from the room, questing for a better view.
'Jon, Jon,' he said, as he stumbled down white-lit corridors. 'Jon, you can't have left me. No, say it's not true!'
How often did ships come to Ling? The Warwolf, or so it was alleged, visited once every two years. Apart from that - nothing.
'You'd better be there, Jon Arabin,' threatened Drake. 'You'd better be there, you and your ship. Or I'll damn you to fifty hells for seventy times eternity!'
Finally he found a square door cut in the side of the cliff, high above the sea. He stepped outside, into the warmth of the sun. Below lay all of Ling Bay: innocent of any ship. Clear shone the sparkling waters, as beautiful as the women of a poet's dreams. And empty.
Drake wept.
9
Saba Yavendar. one of the Nine Immortals; won poetic fame with Winesong and Warsong, written in the Stabilized Scholastic Standard (later adopted as the High Speech of wizards) of the Technic Renaissance.
Survived Genetic Mutiny and Interregnum. Joined Institute of Applied Theology (later destroyed by Founders in Wars of Suppression). After Famine Years, was adviser to Lords of the Eightfold Way (forerunner of Confederation of Wizards).
Gained great power in Empire of Wizards after Long War against Swarms, but lost all in Years of Chaos. Disappeared after offending Talaman the Torturer (aka T. the Castrator, T. the Eye Gouger and T. the Baby Strangler).
Later works (including notorious Victory of the Prince of the Favoured Blood) popular crowd-pleasers scorned by scholarship, which must concur with Larftink that Yavendar 'lived too long and wrote far, far too much'. Indeed, Gatquip's long-disputed claim that the Complete Works can be reduced to a canon of a dozen lines demands positive reassessment.
Drake's wound healed to a crinkled red scar. His fever abated. Abandoning his bed (yes, by now he recognized a heap of stones and sand as a bed) he explored. Questing. Seeking. Searching for a way out of this warren, a way back to civilization. He found rooms packed with dusty old bones. A mortu
ary, where the unkempt dead, anointed with wild honey, lay waiting for the Funeral Winds. A strange globular room with silver walls where his weight left him, and he hung weightless in the air like a fish in water.
He took stairs which descended as well as those which went up, thinking there might be tunnels which travelled deep underground before breaking out to freedom. He found dank, gloomy, ill-lit places flooded with slimy water.
Once, he found a door which opened on a huge, utterly silent hall perhaps three leagues in length, where a dozen bulbous grey shapes, each hundreds of paces long, lay half-submerged in pitch-black water.
'Grief of suns!' said Drake. 'Will I never get out of here?'
He lost his way a dozen times, and once wandered for a whole day in waterless tunnels before chancing his steps back to the inhabited areas. Nothing dau
nted, he set out again - but this time he carried a chunk of charcoal with which to mark his way on the walls.
At last, he squeezed out through a narrow vent to stand in harsh clifftop sunshine. He had won a view of some of the meanest terrain in creation, a desolation of stone pillars, razor-sharp shadows, thornbush, cactus, sparce acacia, gulleys, buttes, sinkholes, escarpments and ravines.
There was no sign of water.
'Desolation,' muttered Drake.
He had never before seen a landscape so lonely. Utterly unmarked by human hand. He longed to be on Stokos again, ah yes, back on his home island where the terrain had been civilized by mines, quarries, slag heaps, ash pits, and other comforting signs of human activity.
I'd die of loneliness if I tried to walk across this.
He saw something glinting a few paces away. What? His hot black shadow crabbed across the rocks as he ventured to the glitter. It proved to be a chunk of sharp-cut white crystals. Very hard.
'That quartz stuff Disaster talked about,' said Drake.
And wished he had Disaster with him. Or Ika Thole, yes, or even dim-witted Harly Burpskin.
'Anyone,' said Drake, 'as long as we've language in common.'
He was talking to himself a lot, these days. Was that a sign of madness?
'I'll talk when I want!' yelled Drake, suddenly angry.
And he hurled the chunk of quartz into the wilderness. Then it occurred to him that maybe the stuff was worth having. Disaster had called it 'cheap', but perhaps Drake could bluff an unwary buyer into thinking it valuable.
'Where did my quartz go?' he said.
He scrambled onto a small rock, and, from that eminence, swiftly discovered his quartz, which he duly retrieved.
'A bigger rock,' said Drake. 'That's the thing.'
Yes. From a bigger rock he might see - well, running water, if he was lucky. Or maybe an old road which he could follow east through the wilderness,- in the general direction of Drangsturm.
Drake dared a perilous scramble to the top of the nearest house-sized rock. From there, high above thorn bushes and other rubbish, he had a much better view.
No road. But. . .
Was that a building he saw? Yes. Half a league distant lay a square tower of thrice tree-height, built from massive white, blue and ochre blocks. A spike rose from each of its rooftop corners. Drake studied it doubtfully.
Could it be . . .?
Surely not!
And yet . . . it did look remarkably like the legendary Wishing Tower known to every child of Stokos from fairy stories. And he was on Argan, was he not? Argan, the true homeland of all improbable things?
'Improbability is not impossibility,' said Drake to himself, and, abandoning his chunk of quartz, he set off for the tower with all possible speed, i.e. slowly - the ground being regular leg-breaking territory.
At first he was all enthusiasm, dreaming of the marvellous things he would wish for. Fresh vegetables! A real live cucumber! A piece of lettuce! Then - well, the larger things. The throne of Stokos. The fair Zanya Kliedervaust, she of the red skin and the high-lofted breasts. And more height, yes, at least five extra hands of height.
'That would make me near as tall as Sully Yot,' said Drake.
He remembered his last encounter with Yot, in Androlmarphos, when the crazy wart:faced fellow had tried to stab him. What on earth had made him do a weird thing like that?
'I'd never have credited him with the nerve to gut a cat,' muttered Drake.
He paused, breathing heavily. This was hard work! The terrain was so rucked, hillocky and chopped about that a stone's throw of thirty paces meant a weary scramble of thrice that distance for the footsore traveller. The sun was heavy on his head. A bead of sweat rolled into his right eye. It stung, fiercely. Give up? No, never!
Drake struggled onward, shrinking as he went. Crushed by the sun.
'Man,' muttered Drake, 'and I was short enough to start with.'
Rock caught and amplified the heat. He smelt hot, pungent herbs. Their scent made him dizzy. How immense was the world! This desolate place, far beyond all voices, was teaching him how he really measured up against the universe.
Like an ant, man. An ant trying to walk across Stokos.
A shadow flickered over the ground. Shadow of a winged creature. A monster? Alarmed, Drake glanced skywards. No, not a monster - a buzzard. It started to circle.
'Piss off, you whore-faced puttock!' said Drake. The buzzard, a professional pessimist, continued to circle. Drake realized its diligence might well be rewarded. If
he broke an ankle out here, he was finished. Momentarily, he regretted ever leaving the safety of the tunnels of Ling. Leg-breaking apart - what would he do if he met one of the Swarms?
T don't believe they exist,' said Drake. 'Who says they do? Wizards, that's all!'
Maybe Drangsturm was a great big con, yes. Maybe there was wealth beyond the flame trench, aye, gold, silver, stuff like that. Probably wizards kept people away from it by making up tales of monsters. Likely they roamed the terror-lands at will, picking up chunks of gold and similar riches.
'Swarms?' saidDrake. 'Bah! Humbug!'
Much, much later, grazed by rock, stung by hornet, pricked by thorn and burnt by the sun into the bargain, he gained the doorway which pierced the lower level of the ancient square-built monument, and knew at once that this was not the fairy-tale tower he had hoped for.
Unlike the Wishing Tower, this one was not inhabited by a magic dwarf, a talking rabbit, a blue-nosed leprechaun and a friendly little elf. Peering into the gloom he saw, instead, four hideous totem poles of dull metal, closely resembling the Guardian Machines described by old teachings preserved by the metalworking guilds of Stokos.
'Guardian Machines,' saidDrake.
He had been taught about them in his theory classes about three years previously. What had he learnt, exactly? That they were dangerous, yes .Still. . . these ones looked pretty dead.
'You awake?' yelled Drake.
The totem poles sat in sullen silence. Maybe they weren't Guardian Machines at all. Maybe they were art. Drake had heard about art - bits of odd-shaped stuff set up in special rooms for people to gawk at. It was said to be real big in Veda, the city of the sages.
Drake stepped through the doorway. Dead leaves crunched underfoot. Inside, it was cool and shady. But dry. He wished he had water.
Look around. Investigate.
Four steep stairways spiralling up into the shadows. Some barely perceptible activity going on at his feet - yes, a tribe of red ants were practising genocide on some of their black-skinned cousins. And overhead . . . looking up, Drake saw a spider the size of a dog, which sat in a ceiling-spanning bat-catching web and glowered at him. Hastily he armed himself with a hefty stick in case the spider got any unfortunate ideas.
Then, since he had the stick in his hands, he hit himself on both shins, which hurt, but would help teach him that he was too old to believe in fairy tales.
What now?
Retreat or explore.
The view, that's the thing. From the roof, we'll see roads and stuff. Or a ruined city, maybe.
So thinking, Drake made for the nearest stairway. He was almost there when one of the metal totem poles, which was indeed a Guardian Machine, ground into life with an enormous racket of gears. Spitting blue sparks, it advanced. Drake went haring up the winding stairs - and slammed into an invisible wall, almost knocking himself out.
'Break!' screamed Drake.
He hammered the invisible barrier, butted it, stuck it with his stick, kicked it - all to no effect. Downstairs the Guardian Machine was hissing and roaring.
'Give, you ganch!' yelled Drake.
But it wouldn't. It yielded inwards slightly, but that was all. He scratched it, finding its surface cold and slippery. Beyond lay a skeleton, and the stairs leading upwards.
No escape!
'Olwek ba-velchV said Drake savagely, then turned to face the Guardian Machine.
Which, by the
sound of it, was still at the bottom of the stairs, grinding, hissing and tearing. As he listened, the sounds lessened. Then died. Cautiously, he crept downstairs until he could see the metal monster at the foot of the stairs. Obviously, it was unable to climb. But it scarcely looked short of patience. He suspected it could happily wait until ants carried away the dust of his bones - as they would indeed unless he could escape.
There was room to squeeze past the machine.
If he was quick—
Drake dared one step downwards. The machine roared and spat at him. Lightning slammed into his gut, knocking him backwards. He could not breathe! Paralysed, he lay with arms out flung, mouth gaping. Then managed to gasp a thimble-sized breath of air.
As the machine roared and whined, gathering strength for another homicide attempt, Drake very slowly and very painfully rolled over and began to crawl back up the spiral staircase. The machine shot at him as soon as it could -which was just a fraction too late.
Back at the invisible wall, Drake rested, collecting his wits. There was no way Out down the stairs, that was for sure. There were no windows, but light was definitely coming down from the top of the stairs.
He studied the skeleton. Somehow, someone had got beyond the invisible wall. And had died there.
Drake reviewed the Inner Principles of the Old Science which he had learnt as part of his apprenticeship studies. He recited the Beginning:
'Cause has effect; effect has control; control requires search; search elucidates cause.'
Then he recalled the first Rule of Investigation:
'Desribe what you see, for perception controls process.'
Drake had never put much stock in theory. In fact, he had always hated it - particularly since, being totally illiterate, he had had to memorize the whole 23,427 words of it. Being dubious about the validity of the Power Theory of Knowledge, he still resented the waste of all those bright sunny afternoons which could have been spent in healthy amuse-mentslikestreet-fighting.orinthepracticeofreligion - but the Scientific Approach now seemed to be his only hope.
So he began an Investigation.
He described: