Hugh Cook - The Walrus and the Warwolf

It's right hard being a prince in exile. Aye. A prince, having to live in the gutters. That doesn't sound right. Bui I'll have to bear with it for the while, if I'm to be king on Stokos. So what do I need? Bed and board. Aye. Work and eats. And how to find that?

Well. Go where there's talk, that's the way to start. Aye. For certain. A lesson here, isn't it? I was too close to my misery, back in Kelebes. Should have gone into the town more often earlier. Might have heard rumour sooner. Might have got to Selzirk in time to talk away the war. Talk, that's the thing! To know what the talk is! Well.Live and learn.

And now? Search talk!

So thinking, Drake scrambled down off the roof of his warehouse. If he'd found no shelter by nightfall he'd return there to sleep. Cold, yes, but sleeping at ground level might be rash in this big and evil city.

Searching for talk, Drake soon enough found himself a tavern. Alcohol, he knew, would do him no good – and no bad, either. Nevertheless, a tavern was the place to be. There, people would gladly keep him company and tell him – he was sure – the things he needed to survive.

The tavern he found was a cedar-built beer-barn filled with bodies mostly male, some for sale but most not, and with the wuthering uproar of a hundred upraised voices, and with the smells of sweat, porter, lager beer, arak, gin and zythum.

The denizens of this murky boozing hole, practical worshippers of the Demon to a man (whether they knew it or not), were mostly drunk, and were mostly talking Churl. Not the High Churl of the upper classes, or the City Churl of the commons, or any of the coarse country dialects known collectively as Field Churl, but a thieves' cant which named itself as Shurlspurl. Not one in a thousand upright citizens could have followed their conversations.

Drake elbowed his way between thief and fence, pimp and pad, and a dozen types of lout, loon, hoon and ruffian. He shoved past a cly-faker, scrattling away at a yuke while keeping conversation with a burly brute who might have been the city slave-brander or the public executioner.

'Shanema chovea,' said a man curtly, as Drake jostled past.'Up yours!' said Drake.

And pressed on through the babbling gloom to the bar, where he slapped down a coin and said, in Galish: 'Wine.'

Wine was served to him. He breathed in its bouquet, which made him cough. He poked a finger into the liquid, feeling for sediment. There was no sediment to speak of, but for half a broken tooth, which Drake hoicked out of his mug and discarded to the dogs which were snouting about at floor-level.'A good drop, doubtless,' he said.

And sipped at the wine, which was warm. A dog stuck its head into his lap, and looked at him with adoring eyes.

'In love with me, are you?' said Drake, scratching the dog behind the ears. 'Well, I'm pretty to look at, I know that proper. If I'm not fixed otherwise, you can sleep with me tonight.'

But, when Drake came up with no hound-pleasing tidbits, his dog went begging elsewhere.'Bugger you, then!' said Drake.

'Speaks Galish, does it? said something approximating to a face.'Aye,' said Drake staunchly. 'That it does.''And what might its business be? Pretty or ugly?' 'Ugly,' said Drake. 'Very ugly.' 'Blood on the blade, then?' 'Maybe,' he said.

'Are you pad, then? Or does it jugulate for hire, perhaps?''My business is to dare,' said Drake.

'Then where has it been daring, out in the big bold world with its iron and its ugly?'

'Aagh, after dragons and such,' said Drake. 'Aye, hunting basilisk at dusk and phoenix at dawn.'

'Sounds famous work. So are you famous? Should I know your name? Is it Git the Rape, by chance? Or Surly Cock-cutter?''My name is not for the unnamed,' said Drake.'Why, as for me,' said the stranger, T be Fimp.''Then I be Fimp-friend,' said Drake. 'Happy?''Always happy, lover. Always.'

Nearing the end of the wine, Drake drank slowly, straining out the lees as best he could with his teeth. He was right – there was virtually no sediment. Only a few dozen soft black things looking like tealeaves. An excellent wine, then. Cheap at twice the price. A pity he couldn't get drunk on it.

'What does it need?' said Fimp. 'Is it looking for help, by chance? Someone to idle and oxter it, maybe? Does it need to make money?'

'It might make some through sale,' said Drake, wondering if Fimp's purse was fat or thin. 'But not sale of itself.'

'Has treasure, has it? From adventures, perhaps? Ah … I vum you've treasure indeed, yes, riches fit to make the heart quop faster.'

'Something of the sort,' said Drake. 'But not with me. It's a Door, aye, to wealth of all description.''Oh yes!''Really. I've got a … a sample of the wealth with me.' 'Show.''Buy me a drink,' said Drake. 'Then I'll show.'

He assessed the stranger's purse as the fellow paid out for a shot of quetsch. That was strong stuff, but Fimp bought for himself a jug of oxymel, which Drake had seen in other places, and knew to be a drink as mild as water.'What have we bought then, me pretty one?''Sight only,' said Drake. 'No touching.'

And he pulled out the magic talking amulet which he had won in a Wishing Tower in Ling after a battle with a ferocious Guardian Machine and an encounter with a deserted skeleton and an invisible door.

'What have you got there, me younker?' said Fimp, as Drake held up the magic medallion by its necklace-chain of smoothflowing black links.

'Something precious,' said Drake, speaking so soft that Fimp could hardly hear him for the background babble. 'Something rare.'

Fimp stared at the cool, glossy lozenge of silver-splashed black with greedy eyes.

'What's that silver on the black, youngling? Stars, is it? A golden sun on one side, yes, and – oh, this I must see!'Drake snatched the amulet away as Fimp grabbed for it.'Sight only!' he warned.

'Where did it come from, then?' said Fimp. 'A lady's throat, perhaps?'

T told you,' said Drake. 'It came from a land where I went by way of a Door. And there's more where that came from, through the very same Door.'

'Then thinks you to sell us a map, perhaps? Map to your Door so precious? For us to club good gold, then you to vanish? Mannikin, we're not so greedy, nay?''You're not greedy?' said Drake, not understanding.

'Oh, true, so very true,' said Fimp with a smirk. 'Never greedy enough to seek cheap wealth unending, or life eternal, or youth eternal either. Might sell such sometimes, true. I'm last to be selfish. So true! So true! Have sold a nation's worth of treasure cities in my time. But buy such? Never!'

Drake, seeing he would find no instant buyers for the secret of the Door of Penvash – he had thought, for a moment, he might be able to make a quick fortune out of it – told a tale closer to the truth:

'You want to know the truth of this? Man, it came from a Wishing Tower in the Deep South. Aye, and I had to fight with a Neversh to get it.'

Fimp laughed, showing pyrrhous stains on his teeth. And others, who had been listening close, laughed with him.'So now it wants to sell us maps to a Wishing Tower!'

'I'd never,' said Drake, 'for the knowledge is far too worthy to sell.'

All laughed again, knowing that for a bare-faced lie. But the lie itself was not unwelcome, for these people appreciated the comedy of outrage.

'Come, me little pajock,' said Fimp. 'Let's see that trinket closer.''You want to buy?' said Drake.

'Perhaps,' said Fimp. 'Perhaps. We can talk of buying, yes, that does no harm, no harm in talk.'

'Then first,' said Drake, 'flatten the gold you'll be talking with.'

And he pointed to the counter of the bar, where he wanted to see Fimp's coinage laid out for inspection.

'Come, Fimp,' said Drake. 'Why hesitate? Am I not Fimp-friend? Let's see the gold, then bargain.'