Hugh Cook - The Walrus and the Warwolf

He saw now that the cosy togetherness of drinking sessions was an illusion created by the alcohol. Each drinker was in fact drowning in a separate pool of booze. But Drake, who could no longer drown himself, envied them.

When he was not gambling, Drake would usually quaff an ale or two in company to quench his thirst, then have half a dozen more out of sheer good manners, plus a couple on top of that just to keep up his reputation. The beer made him piss more frequently, and that was it.

Soon, most pirates began to latch on to the fact that young Drake had a harder head than he pretended. But they did not stop gambling with him. No: ego compelled them to sit at table with him, downing the drinks and raising the stakes, to see who would slide under the table first. Drake once or twice consented to lose, and disappear beneath the table.

'See?' said the pirates, each to each. 'He's got his limits just like any other.'And returned, in force, to test him again the next day.

On occasion, evil men spiked Drake's drinks with drugs and poisons. Sometimes he felt slightly dizzy, and once, having swallowed enough cyanide to kill a horse, he became positively breathless for thrice three dozen heartbeats. But always the worms within his body brought their complicated chemistry into play, and the ancient genius of the genetic engineering of a lost and forgotten civilization preserved his flesh from yet another toxic onslaught.

Drake could no longer fuddle his wits with alcohol, or die from poison, or vanish into the world of drug-dream hallucinations. And the disease which could kill him had yet to be built. Sex still had its consolations, but these, of course, were momentary. The beauty of drunkenness is that it can last a lifetime – which, in the case of the Orfus' pirates, it often did.

Drake won much money but few friends. Lonely, he bought companionship in the form of a dog, which he named King Tor.

The dog is the favourite beast of the Demon, being undiscriminating in its appetites, and dirty, and loud, and ugly, and the habitat of vermin, and not very bright. Drake loved dogs. He bought King Tor a spiked collar, sharpening the spikes until they glittered. He decided to train this new companion to kill rats and fight alongside him when the Warwolf's heroes rumbled with the men of the Walrus.

As a sober man gambling with drunks, Drake was now so prosperous he was getting into money-lending and agiotage. Stokos was, without doubt, the best place in the world to live – but the Teeth were the place to get rich.

Drake began nurturing dreams of enhancing his earnings by setting up his own branch of the temple of Hagon. Surely worship of the bloodlord Hagon was precisely the right religion for the Greater Teeth. Yes, and he should practise being a priest right here and now, since he fully intended to buy into the priesthood on his return to Stokos. That was only natural, seeing as how he was so devout.

With establishing a temple in mind, Drake attended the Slaving Day Sales in the middle of winter, intending to buy the first of his women. But there was nothing worth having, if one did not like fat – and Drake didn't. What he did find was a familiar face, Sully Datelier Yot, in chains.

'Why, Sully Yot!' said Drake cheerfully. 'What brings you to the fair islands Teeth Major? A little far from the forge, aren't you?'

Yot made no reply, but sat there snivelling. Something – fear, perhaps, or maybe a virus, or possibly just the cold of the midwinter island air – had set his nose to running.

'Why so quiet?' asked Drake. 'Cat got your tongue? If not, I've got a dog that's eager to have it.'

And Drake stroked Yot's cheek softly. Yot pulled away. But he didn't go far, since he was roped to a floor-shackle.

'Darling!' said Drake. 'Why so cold? When we last met, at 'Marphos, you were so eager to embrace me. Yes. You had a knife in your hand at the time, unless I misremember.'

He remembered perfectly. When he had fled from Stokos, Yot had pursued him to Androlmarphos, and had made a determined effort to kill him.'Do you want to buy him?' asked a voice.

Drake turned. His interlocutor proved to be Simp Fiche, one of the crewmen from the Walrus.

'Are you selling this . . . this thing?' asked Drake idly, not really caring too much one way or the other.'I bought it myself just today,' said Fiche.'What for?' asked Drake. 'It's not good for much.'

T bought it to torture to death,' said Simp Fiche, giving an honest answer; he was bored, and needed some cheap and harmless occupation to while away the rest of the day.

'Why, that shows good judgment,' said Drake genially. 'I'd like to torture him myself. Would you sell me a piece of the action?'

'No,' said Fiche, who was an inveterate gambler. 'But I'll wager with him if you like. Dice-chess, the best of three games. My meat against. . . shall we say a pearl or three?'

'Bloody oath no!' said Drake. 'I don't risk jewels to buy scum. Your meat versus my left boot – which I'll fill with liquor if you win.'

'How about meat versus dog?' said Fiche, who had seen King Tor and liked the look of him.

'No!' said Drake sharply. 'My final offer – I'll wager with both boots, the left full of ale, the right full of mead.'

'Done,' said Simp Fiche, seeing these were the best odds he was going to get offered.And they sat down to gamble.

Now the game of chess is, of course, very old and very solemn, its intricacies sufficient to tax the highest of intellects. But when the dice get rolling, freeing each player to make (sometimes) as many as a dozen moves at once, then most of its niceties vanish. The stately clash of armies degenerates into something more like a free-for-all brawl, a gutter fight with flails, whips and hatchets.

Drake and Simp Fiche played ferociously. They rolled the dice and scrambled their pieces over the board, whooped with delight or cried out with anguish, punched themselves in the head as punishment for gross stupidity, jabbed gloating fingers at each other's misfortune, and overall comported themselves more like cheap drunks in a casino than solemn chess players.

Men gathered to watch as the titans did battle. Their warriors hacked and slaughtered. Their Neversh clashed in the skies, bringing death and disaster. Battering rams converged to crumble castles. Wizards raged, and, raging, fell. In less time than it takes ordinary chess players to make their first three moves, these dice-chess players had swept nearly everything from the board but the hellbanes – which are, as every player knows, beyond capture.And Simp Fiche had won the first game.

Drake drew the second but won the third – so the best of three left them even.

'Flip a coin, then,' said Simp Fiche, who was all played out and a little bit weary.'Fine,' said Drake.

And took from his pocket one of the coins he had gained through agiotage: a bronze bisque from the Rice Empire, with the disc of the sun gracing its face and the crescent of the moon riding its reverse.'Sun or moon?' asked Drake.

'Moon,' said Simp Fiche, who had a touch of vampire in his ancestry, and had never liked the sun. Drake tossed the coin to Yot.'Flip it for us, boy,' said Drake. Then, as Yot sat limp and snivelling: 'Flip it! Or we'll gouge your eyes out here and now!'

With the greatest reluctance, Yot's fingers crabbed their way to the coin. He took it into his shivering hand and gave it a little flip. It fell with the sun uppermost.

'Fair enough,' said Simp Fiche gravely, and got to his feet and wandered off as the spectators began to disperse.

Fiche had already decided that any stray cat he could catch would probably give him as much sport as Yot would have done.'Let's go home, darling,' said Drake.

And releasing Yot from the floor shackle, led him away by the rope round his neck. A few pirates made jokes about mutilations. A strong smell of dung began to permeate the air; the pirates laughed outrageously.Shortly, Drake showed Yot into his cave.