Hugh Cook - The Walrus and the Warwolf

And was taken from behind, encircled by strength. In panic he fought, thrashed, struggled.

'Hey, man,' said Whale Mike. 'Not so rough. You my friend, right?''Right,' said Drake. T your friend.'

Then he fainted.

Tor: uninhabited island thirty leagues long lying near coast of Argan on western side of Drangsturm Gulf; heavily timbered, particularly with summerpine, cedar and roble; considerable bamboo resource; rich in caves and water; fauna includes several species of gecko, bat, tree-frog and chameleon found nowhere else.Drake … Drifted . . .

Tangled with weed . . . deep-fathomed in a sea of bloody intestines . . . lost amidst falling pearls, amidst moon-gilded suns . . . confused by his aliases . . . Drake Douay . . . passion of disintegrating stars, of baked potatoes and consuming flames . . . Dreldragon … blade chiming against blade . . . Lord Dreldragon . . . Plovey falling, dead . . . Arabin lol Arabin . . .

The rain, falling, drowning all the world in its own forevers. A dead Neversh, dragged down to the numb cold by the Warwolf 's anchor . . . Drake, drowning with the Neversh . . .Surfacing, slowly.'Drake?''ZanyaShe laid herself down beside him.

They kissed. Her lips were corrugated with blue sores. Which revolted him. She was dying. No joy in her dying body. And Drake – Drake was disgusted. And hated himself for being disgusted.'Don't cry, dearest treasure snake. Don't cry.'

But he wept in her arms. Helplessly.

Someone had undressed him. A mattress of sorts was under him; a blanket comforted his nakedness.

Drake smeared tears from his eyes, sniffed heavily, then said in a voice thick with sorrow:T love … I love you.'

And, as he said it, knew it was true. He loved Zanya, or some attribute of his association with Zanya, despite the diseased and failing state of her body. But what exactly was the nature of this emotional attachment?What makes love love?

Is it an affection which can be separated from lust? Is it an alliance of wills? Is it something like homesickness, like nostalgia – a longing for the familiar, no matter how timeworn and battered? Is it a recognition of limits, a kind of maturity – settling for what is rather than what might be?

Drake – who, in early youth, had been schooled ruthlessly in thought by hard taskmasters – could not keep from wondering.'I love you too,' said Zanya.

Drake knew she spoke out of sickness. She was dying: she needed him. Absolutely. But if she recovered? Why, then things would no longer be so simple, no longer love-love-love, but the contention of will against will, of ego against ego. The eternal game-playing of human relations.

Drake stopped trying to unravel the tail-chasing complexity of his own thoughts. He doubted he would ever get any absolute answer about the nature of love. Indeed, his education had included (as part of his training in the Inner Principles of the Old Science) a study of the Principle of Uncertainty, and the hopelessness of any quest for exact and absolute answers to anything.

(The Korugatu philosophers hold that we can be certain of some things at least, such as our own existence. As Klen Klo puts it: 'I think, therefore I am; I drink to unthink, which proves that I think.' But Drake's teachers had taught him a more rigorous, more pessimistic formula: T think I think, therefore perhaps I am.')

'Where are we?' asked Drake, thus beginning an Investigation of his surroundings.'Here,' said Zanya. 'Here.'

And now it was her turn to weep, and his turn to comfort her. While he held her close, he looked around, blinking away the last of his own tears. They were in the red bottle. They had to be. There was no other explanation. But it was not at all what he had expected.

They were camped between two ranks of monumental royal statues in a gloomy hall of utter silence. Sad and solemn, the kings of long-forgotten realms maintained a watch over them. Kings carved in rock on a scale so huge as to be oppressive. Ponderous entities of granite, of basalt, and unknown stones harder yet, and heavier. Lines of death and wisdom graved deep in their faces. Bearded men, some bare-headed, some helmeted. All armed.

And Drake, lying on his mattress with his woman in his arms, thought: This is power.Something about power.It speaks ofpo wer.

It was the ultimate art of the State: huge, cold, implacable, inhuman. Built to crush all fragile emotion. To convince mere mortal bones of their fragility, of the uselessness of their protest.And Drake (perhaps unfairly) thought: Gouda Muck would have loved this place.

And Yot, too.

In the distance, someone was moving. A man. Approaching. A single man. Walking.

Boots striking echoes from the ranks of statue-kings. Echoes in a place otherwise utterly silence. Cool. Immense. A roof lifted beyond shadows. Walls lost in the distance. The floor beneath . . . veined with red. As if a million million blood-bearing capillaries ran through the stone.Gently, Drake separated himself from Zanya.

'Dear treasure snake,' she said. 'What is it? Are you hungry? Here – drink this.'

And she handed him a curiously-carved cup of ivory. Inside was a dark, unwholesome fluid.Drake drank. Then spluttered.'Blood's grief! What's that?'

'Siege dust mixed with water,' said Zanya. 'Drink it. Come on! It's good for you!''Man, you've got to be kidding,' said Drake.But he forced it down regardless.

And the lone man walking solo bore down on them. Falchion at his side. Jon Arabin.'Drake,' he said. 'Recovered?''I live,' said Drake.

Looking for the ring, which he expected to see on Jon Arabin's hand. And did see.'Who wears the bottle?' said Drake.

'Rolf Thelemite, for the moment,' said Jon Arabin. 'We've got a raft of sorts on the surface. A sail of sorts, too. The wind is from the east, so we're making for Tor. That's closest, in any case.''And the Neversh?''It's dead,' said Jon Arabin.

Drake braved himself to his feet, holding his blanket around him.'What duty for me?' he said.

'To rest,' said Jon Arabin. 'To rest with your love. Nay, man – don't protest. All are resting if not needed on the surface. We'll be busy enough when we make shore at Tor.''All are resting?' said Drake. 'Where?''Above. Far above. You two . . . let privacy serve you.'

And, satisfied with what he had seen, Jon Arabin turned and walked away from the long avenue of ancient kings. They heard his boots for a long time until he vanished, ascending a staircase.'Who are these kings?' said Drake.

'Who they are,' said Zanya. 'Who they were. Let me -let me look at you.'

And she took the blanket away, and gazed on what she thought of as his beauty. Lean flanks. A fluff of gingerish hair on his chest. A scraggly ginger beard on his chin. Hair yellow, bleached toward pale by the sun. Scars of whip-marks on his back. Scar encircling left ankle, where slave iron had gnawed his flesh when he was labouring in servitude aboard a galley on the Velvet River.'Turn around,' demanded Zanya.

Upon which Drake thought to raise his hands above his head and spin like a dancer. But he found himself too sore. Which was scarcely surprising, since there were rainbow bruises all over his body.

'If we get to Ling,' said Zanya. 'If we get what we're seeking, if we get a cure – I'll want more than to look.''I know that, most dearest saucy wench,' said Drake.And hugged her.Ling was still far, but Tor was closer.

After five days at sea, the clumsy raft which carried the red bottle grounded on the shores of Tor. Soon, every survivor from the good ship Dragon was out in the open air. The shore was of rocks and sand edged with rough grass, beyond which grew cool forest. The sky was of opal-bright blue, washed with wind and sunshine.

Ish Ulpin and Bucks Cat immediately set off hunting. In the red bottle, they had fed on nothing but siege dust – a survival food which tastes as bad as it sounds.