by Hugh Cook
The hole was a castle-sized gash of darkness. The energy nexus fell through the hole and disappeared. The sea followed with a rush.
Drake did not understand all the ramifications of the hole's existence. (Indeed, all of Jon Arabin's arithmetic would have been inadequate to contain the Seventh Level Mathematics needed to describe the hole itself, let alone what lay beyond it.) But he did understand that men, ships, sea, spume, dust and air were being sucked into the hole.
And he was being sucked along too. 'Mother of sodfish!' he swore. And tried to swim.
It was no use. He was surfing toward the hole. He screamed. From the height of a cresting wave he looked down, down, down into the utterness which was—
Gone!
Snapped out of existence!
The waters rushing toward the hole from all directions crashed together. Drake was flung to the sky. From the heights, he had a brief, synoptic glimpse of clashing seas, swirling ships, chaotic sheets of sea-spittle, bodies, a raised hand, bobbing heads, flying spray—
Then, falling, he twisted his body so he hit the water cleanly, arms cutting the way for him. He dived deep, deep in the cold, burdensome seas of the North Strait, then rose - not too fast, there was no need to hurry - towards the mottled green of the sky.
Breaking the surface, he lay on his back, kicking just enough to keep himself properly afloat. He felt cold already. Exhausted. What were his choices? He would die if he tried swimming for the land, which looked to be at least half a dozen leagues away. Nearby was a ship. Drake swam for it.
As he had lost all his weapons, even if he had been born a hero he would have been unable to prove it.
29
Collosnon Empire: dominant power in Tameran; capital at Gendormargensis; formed generations previously when northern horse tribes (the Yarglat) defeated Sharla Alliance in Wars of Dominion; ruled by the Red Emperor, the horselord Khmar, a man very much in the mould of his much-feared grandfather Nol Umu (not Nol Umu the Widowmaker, who was only related to the family by marriage, but Nol Umu the Maker of Wastelands, who is said to have died by drowning in his enemies' blood).
In the autumn of the year Khmar 19, Jon Arabin and certain survivors from the wreck of the Warwolf became prisoners of the Collosnon Empire.
They were taken to Chag-jalak, an island commanding a narrow sea-gap between Argan and Tameran. Here the Collosnon had improvised a naval base of sorts, and here the prisoners would be held until they could be shipped further east to the port of Favanosin, there to be tortured at leisure.
'I demand to see the ambassador of the Narba Consortium,' said Jon Arabin to his captors.
He had already planned out his story. The Narba Consortium, drawing on the strength of the armies of Ling, armed with secret war machines left over from the Days of Wrath, supported by a legion of Immortals who had been grown in the gene tanks of the Technic Renaissance, was about to launch a conquest of the world from bases in Narba and the Greater Teeth.
Jon Arabin - or so his story ran - was travelling to Tameran as an ambassador for the Narba Consortium, to ask the Lord Emperor Khmar if he would care to join them in this modest enterprise. If necessary, the Warwolf was prepared to bluff his way right to Gendormargensis and back.
T demand,' he repeated, 'to see the ambassador of the Narba Consortium. Don't you understand? Ambassador!'
But his captors spoke no Galish.
Nor did they understand High Churl, City Churl, Field Churl, Ashmarlan, Lorp Talk, Estral, Rovac, Ligin or Ling, which was almost the sum-total of the languages Jon Arabin spoke. Fortunately he had learnt one more argot in his youth, the Geflung tongue spoken near the port of Stranagor at the mouth of the Yolantarath River.
'These are Yolantarath ships or I'm a baked oyster,' said Arabin. 'One of your people must speak some Geflung.'
And he addressed all and sundry in a clear loud voice:
' Varamora! Aaa vaa salaa! Yaa stranaamaaV
Several of his captors understood. But none confessed to doing so. For Onosh Gulkan the Witchlord (who had ruled the Empire before Khmar took over) had tried to extirpate the Geflung peoples after a misunderstanding over taxes. While that had been years ago, the Witchlord's Provision for the Permanent Abolition of Riverside Vermin was still in force.
'Listen here,' said Jon Arabin. 'Someone must understand at least some—'
His speech was interrupted by half a dozen Collosnon soldiers, who grabbed him, roughed him up, then threw him into the prison-pit to which the rest of his men had already been driven.
The next day, they were still there.
It was well and truly autumn. Their prison-pit had no proper roof, being covered with an open latticework of bamboo. Through this their meals were lowered: miserable portions of fish and small bowls of a greasy grey broth which always arrived cold.
Drake dreamt of Stokos, remembering the summer, the airless heat and the reek of blood within the temple of Hagon, the hot oppression of crowds in the streets of Cam on market day, air around forges shimmering with intolerable heat, the warmth and taste of a woman . . .
He woke from dreams to the realities of his prison cell, where there was standing room only, no provision for sanitation, no shelter from the drizzling rain which had quenched all hope of sunshine, and no way to warm oneself in the dank cold where his breath came misting from his mouth.
Fortunately, he was well-dressed, for he wore woollens bought in D'Waith, and sealskins over them - indeed, all the pirates had dressed in their warmest and best before abandoning the Warwolf.
Rolf Thelemite, who claimed to know about such things, took it upon himself to care for their feet. Men were hoisted onto Whale Mike's shoulders, one at a time. They would sit there, hair brushing the bamboo above, while Thelemite removed their boots, wrung out their damp socks, and massaged their feet.
'For,' said Thelemite, 'if we're to go anywhere, we're going to need feet to go with.'
'Aye,' said Ika Thole. 'To walk over the water, no doubt.'
'Well,' said Rolf Thelemite, 'we all saw young Drake do just that, once. With the right kind of liquor inside us, we might end up doing it too.'
T never saw it,' complained Whale Mike.
'Nor me,' said Jon Arabin, who had been a prisoner of the people of Brennan at the time. 'So you're in good company.'
'Good company to escape in,' said Rolf Thelemite.
'We'll not be escaping anywhere,' said Ika Thole gloomily. 'Not without proper food. We'll be done to death by the cold and the rain if this goes on much longer.'
'Body warmth will save us,' said Thelemite staunchly.
Yet the mention of food made Drake's mouth water. He had lost most of his packets of foil-packed food to the sea, but he still had one remaining. If only he had some privacy in which he could eat it!
Drake woke that night. Darkness. Light rain. Whale Mike, snoring with a sound like a ripsaw working wood. Ish Ulpin muttering something in a foreign tongue.
His feet were numb. Absolutely comfortable. A warning sign - Rolf Thelemite had told him so. Drake worked his feet this way and that in his boots till they came alive with red-hot pain. To think! He slept standing up as if he'd done it all his life. But then, packed in tight as they were, he could hardly fall.
Food.
Now.
He reached into his pocket for the packet. It crinkled. The crunching metal foil made a sound enormous in the night, despite Mike's masking snore.
'Drake?'
It was Sully Yot.
Awake.
Did he hear the foil crinkle? Did he guess what Drake had? Well - rather die than share food with Sully Yot. So thought Drake.
And stood sleepless till dawn, hating Yot for the very fact of his existence.
Next day, Drake's hunger was worse, as was the rain. Again he longed for privacy. Yes. So he could gorge his food-packet entire. But he had no privacy. So .
Share the food?
Ridiculous!
There were so many people jammed into th
e pit that sharing would mean less than a tenth of a mouthful apiece.
Drake kept his secret.
Noon came. A meal was served. This time, no fish. This time, no broth. Only water. A bowl of water apiece.
'Don't drink it all at once, boys,' said Jon Arabin, trying to make a joke out of it.
Upon which Whale Mike, without warning, began to cry.
'Oh, this no good, Jon,' said Whale Mike, tears blubbering down his swollen sallow face. 'Oh, this not good way to end.'
Then he said no more, for grief made him speechless.
Watching Mike's tormented face, Drake remembered . . . yes, remembered Mike in the rowing boat which had gone by the name of the Walrus. In that boat, while rowers slowly hauled a horizon away from Stokos, Mike had tried to speak for Drake's life. And later? Yes. When the big ship by the same name as the rowing boat had been wrecked, when the Walrus had gone down on the Gaunt Reefs, Mike had saved Drake then.
And had sheltered him when he stowed away on the Walrus, driven to join Slagger Mulps' expedition south by the orders of King Tor and Lord Menator.
I owe him.
And suddenly Drake found he could not endure Mike's sorrow any more. He cleared his throat. 'Aagh,' said Drake. And spat into his hand.
'So you're awake,' said Ika Thole - who had less and less which was good to say with every passing day.
'I'm awake,' said Drake. 'And amongst comrades. Friends, aye. Friends is luck, or so I'm told. So I'm rich in luck to have so many comrades. But it means we'd have little food to share around if it came to eating.'
'Are you talking of killing someone, then?' said Thole. 'Killing for eating?'
'Nay, man,' said Drake. 'For it's not come to that, and I hope it never will. I'm talking of eating. Food. But if we were to have food, it's Mike we should be feeding. That's what I'm thinking. For if we ever break out of here, it's his strength we'll be needing.'
'Talk away,' jeered Sully Yot. 'For there's no food here.'
'But if there was,' said Arabin, quietly, guessing at Drake's situation, 'it's Mike we'd be feeding. Isn't that so? What about it, Mulps?'
'Of course,' said the Walrus, without thought.
Since there was no food on offer, it mattered not to him what he said.
And the others were equally easy in agreement.
Whereupon Drake reached into his pocket and, slowly, pulled out his one surviving packet of seamless silver foil. It crinkled in his hands as he tore it open, displaying the shrivelled chunks of lightweight fibre inside.
Men stared at it as men will stare at the luminous beauty of golden ingots.
'Mike,' said Drake, firmly, 'hold out your bowl.'
Whale Mike, still crying, held out his bowl. It looked pathetic in his hand - tiny, in fact.
Then - it hurt, but he did it - Drake tipped all the food into Mike's bowl, where it mingled with the water.
'There,' said Drake. 'Perhaps it will taste a bit better when it mixes with the water.'
Taste better?
As they watched, the stuff swelled with the water, took on form - and gave off a delicious smell. The smell of beef.
'Why, magic meat!' said Drake, amazed.
And, despite himself, bitter at what he had given away. But he kept his bitterness from his face.
Or I'd spoil the taste of the stuff for Mike.
Whale Mike lifted the bowl to his face. He breathed in the smell. Men watched the bowl as if it held their lives. Then Mike lowered the bowl again. He had stopped crying, though his face was still streaked with tears.
'We share,' he said, in a voice thick but firm. 'That good. That not so? You my friends. We share.'
Silence. Then:
'If we're going to share,' said slim dark Salaman Meerkat, 'we'd better add this to the share. Or else it won't go far.'
And he pulled a foil packet from a hiding place of his own.
'Aye,' said quavering old Tiki Slooze, after a bit of a pause. 'And this.'
And he too produced a packet of magic meat.
Then, one by one they came out, the hidden packets, the treasures stashed secret by greeding men, the food which none had been able to eat. And there was not just magic meat, either. Ish Ulpin had a handful of walnuts. Harly Burpskin came up with a length of salami which he had been hiding in his underwear. Jon Disaster had an orange. An orange? An orange? They were fearful rare at the best of times, but there it was, gleaming like a summer sun.
At first they were mostly shame-faced. Then Bucks Cat laughed, and others too began to laugh, or themselves to cry, or to embrace their comrades.
And then they ate.
And it made the best meal of their entire lives.
On the fourth day, they were all taken out of the pit. They were marched away at spearpoint then bound to individual posts - all except Bucks Cat, who was tied to three posts, and Whale Mike, who was secured to four.
'This looks like torture time to me,' said Ika Thole.
'Man, you're a happy little fellow,' said Slagger Mulps.
'Yes,' said Thole sourly. 'Happy as a walrus in a shit-heap.'
'Belay that!' said Arabin. 'We're one crew here, Walrus and Warwolf together.'
'One dead crew,' grumbled Thole.
And Jon Arabin's own morale was so low that he quite failed to find an answer for that.
It was clearly party time for their enemies. There was drinking, eating, wrestling, fighting and gambling. Then the enemy started into Pru Chalance.
By nightfall, pieces of the late Pru Chalance were being barbecued and eaten. Some of the Collosnon soldiers were kicking around heads which had once belonged to Quin
Baltu and Ching Quail. The weapons muqaddam was also dead; he had been buried upside down, with only his ankles showing above the surface (his feet having been cut before he was buried).
'We'll kill off some more of them tomorrow,' said Tamsag Bulak, who wanted the current festivities (which were in honour of his own birthday) to last several more days. (After that, any surviving pirates would be shipped to Favanosin for final disposal).
'Great Tamsag,' said two of his subordinate captains, 'Great master of the Pale, Horse amongst Horse, Scalp-taker amongst Scalp-takers . . . may we not take one of the younger men for our pleasure tonight? He'd still be in good shape for torture tomorrow.'
The admiral considered.
Would Khmar approve?
Hear the word of Khmar:
'All things are permitted to the victorious. But to the defeated - nothing.'
Undoubtedly, Tamsag Bulak and his men were the victorious. He felt he could indulge these two captains, who had valuable connections - one was a cousin of the Ondrask of Noth (a favourite of the Lord Emperor Khmar) while the other was related to a notable warlord by the name of Chonjara. Long-term political considerations, in the end, compelled Bulak to answer as he did:
'Take one of them. But take him somewhere private, or the other men will be jealous. And feed him plenty of strong liquor before you do anything with him - I don't want him breaking loose to make trouble.'
'Your will shall be obeyed,' said the two captains, and, having made reverence to their admiral in the Collosnon fashion, went to make their choice from the pirates, who had all been left tied to torture posts for the night.
Torches in hand, they wandered along the ranks. They paused momentarily in front of Sully Datelier Yot, then moved on, wanting nothing to do with anything which had that many warts. They admired Bucks Cat and wondered at Whale Mike, but decided, reluctantly, that both were too dangerous.
Then they stopped in front of Drake.
He, more dead than alive, looked at them with very little interest. So this was the end, was it? Well, he'd had a good life. He noted, not for the first time, the oval ceramic tile each of his enemies wore slung round his neck in plain sight, each tile decorated with a black spider on a background which, having seen it by daylight, he knew to be green.
The two captains, as officers, were not compelled to
wear such amulets, which were only compulsory for lower ranks. But the brash young navy of the Collosnon Empire had so far developed four traditions. The first three were simple: sodomy, rum and the lash. The fourth was th.at every single person should wear an amulet, to show solidarity.
Drake thought of his own talking amulet, lying in secret next to his skin. Now he would never know what that mysterious amulet-voice was talking about. Ah well... it had been good, yes, Ling and all. And Island Ko, yes. He had thought it melting. A good joke that one, aye, Jon Arabin had laughed when told about it. . .
A pity he'd never thought to show that amulet to the wizard Miphon. A wizard would know what the amulet talked about, surely. It would be nice to know. Aye. He should have done that at the Castle of Controlling Power. Miphon might have bought the thing off him. Aye. Perhaps the wizard would have thrown in Zanya Kliedervaust as part of the purchase price.
Drangsturm.
That was another thing. Getting all the way to the fire dyke then not getting a proper look at it. That crazy castle had been in the way. The power of it, yes, that he'd felt, shaking the very earth. The light of it, yes, reflected from clouds - that he'd seen too.
But I'd like to have looked inside it. Just once, anyway. They say the very rock melts to waves within. And salamanders. Fire-creatures. Good stuff to see . . .
Drake scarcely listened to the Collosnon garbling between themselves in their barbarian tongue. A knife sawed at his bonds. He thought, with detachment, that he would have kept a sharper edge on any blade of his. Then the ropes supporting him fell away. He collapsed to the ground. The warriors grabbed him by feet and shoulders, and lugged him away to a shoreside tent.
They laid him down on a horse blanket which stank from years spent in some distant northern stable, then they offered him booze.
'A party, is it?' said Drake.
He was answered in his enemies' alien nonsense-talk.
'Well,' said Drake, T don't care what you think of me as long as your liquor's good. Who knows? Tonight I might get drunk.'
But, though he guzzled on the strong liquor the two men fed him, it had no more effect on him than water. He felt cold. Cold as death. Not frightened, but . . . remote. He knew what he had to do.