Hugh Cook - The Walrus and the Warwolf

This woman could obviously carry a grudge for a long time. Drake tried to think. How was he going to handle this one? He looked to the wizard Miphon for help – but that worthy was staring at a low-skimming seagull, as if in love with the thing.

'Man,' said Drake, thinking quickly, 'I jumped you, I'll not deny it. But I didn't get very far, did I? You punched me over something fearful.''Failure excuses nothing,' said Zanya.

'Man,' said Drake, 'then let the truth excuse me. It was my body which made the attempt, but not my will. For I wasn't truly myself. I was under the command of witchcraft. Someone worked the Black Arts on me.'

Zanya turned to Miphon.'Is this true?' she said.

'What?' said Miphon, jerking upright, startled, as if woken out of a dream.

'This – this pirate says it was witchcraft that made him try to rape me. Is that true?'

'That is hardly for me to say,' said Miphon, blandly, 'for I, as a wizard, know nothing of witchcraft.'

Zanya snorted.

'Your excuse,' she said to Drake, 'lets you live. But don't presume that your excuse gives you permission to speak to me.''I'll find the permission I want, in time,' said Drake.

Fortunately, he said it in his native Ligin, which Zanya did not understand. She did not ask for a translation, but sat talking quietly with Oronoko as the cutter made its way south toward Drangsturm.

Near evening, after a long, hot day of idling calms and desultory breezes, the cutter landed her passengers at the western end of Drangsturm, where the awesome upthrust of the Castle of Controlling Power stood guard against the Swarms. Drake was dismayed to see that the flame trench did not run all the way to the sea. Instead, a buffer of basalt two hundred paces broad separated flame from sea.

'Man,' said Drake, pointing at the bare rock, where only a low parapet protected north from south, 'this is right daft, having a hole like this in our defence.'

'The rocks of this fire dyke are so hot they'd explode if the cold sea touched them,' explained Miphon. 'Hence the plug of rock. It's a killing ground. Don't worry – little has crossed it in the last four thousand years.'

And he led the way toward the nearest gate of the castle. That castle, its jumbled walls and towering spires flung upwards as if at random, looked as if it had been fathered by earthquake and mothered by a bad-tempered volcano.

'Why stands the castle in such strange array?' said Drake.'Because it was not built by human hand,' said Miphon. 'How was it built then?'

'Wizards united their power to call from the ocean legion upon legion of squid and of octopus. Yea, even the might of the kraken was summoned to the building. Hence the intelligence you see in the stone is not that of mortal men.''That's a strange way to build,' said Drake.

'But a quick one,' said Miphon. 'The castle was built in a night. It had to be done by dark, since the creatures we worked with hate the light. That explains, you see, some of the flaws in the construction.''Oh,' said Drake.

Then stopped, pointing south.'Look! A league south! Men!'

'Southsearchers, that's all,' said Miphon. 'They've started out on patrol. They march mostly by night, since the Swarms sleep then. By day they shelter.'

'Do the Southsearchers dare themselves that way?' said Drake, pointing westward, in the direction of Ling.'Lands west do not concern us,' said Miphon.'Have you tried to explore those lands?''Why should we? There's no profit in exploration.'

'Man,' said Drake, 'there might be cities out there, aye, cities built of gold. Or lands of pearl diving, perhaps.'

He was trying to find out whether his knowledge of the existence of Ling might have some value in the market place. His hopes were disappointed when Miphon laughed and said:

'Perhaps. But we're rich as it is, for all trade between the Inner Waters and the Drangsturm Gulf passes through the Confederation's hands. Come on, let's not stand here chattering.''What trade is that you speak of?' said Drake.

'The trade in sponges, pearls, slaves, crocodile skin, whale oil, scrimshaw and keflo shell, amongst other things. The Galish kafilas take such north along the Salt Road, together with siege dust of wizard manufacture, and other things. And it is with the Galish that you yourself, in all probability, will soon be going.''Soon?' said Drake.

'Depending,' said Miphon, 'on what the Confederation decides to do about your case.'

'My case?' said Drake. 'Man, what are you talking about?'

'You are, after all, a pirate,' said Miphon, 'or an associate of such. I bear you no will. As for the Confederation – well, we own no ships, and none of the sea reavers ventures this far south. Hence we suffer nothing from pirates. But, even so, the Confederation cannot lightly accept the presence of a lawless pirate in the heart of power.'

'Man,' said Drake, 'I'm a very law-abiding boy! Famous for it! Man, I'm meak, mild, honest, upright, and sober as a sledgehammer. You'll get no trouble out of me.'

He desperately wanted to win the trust of the wizards, so that he would be at liberty to use his wiles on Zanya Kliedervaust. But, shortly after passing through the nearest gate of the Castle of Controlling Power, Drake found himself taken in charge by some blue-uniformed Landguard troopers, and thrown into a prison cell to await the pleasure of the Confederation.

The Galish: the nomadic trading people of the Salt Road, that trade route which runs up the western flank of Argan from Drangsturm to Narba, to Veda, Selzirk and Runcorn, through Chorst and Dybra to Estar, up the Hollern River to Lake Armansis, to Larbster Bay on the coast of the Penvash Channel, then from D'Waith along the southern seaboard of the Ravlish Lands, ultimately finishing up in Chi'ash-lan in the Cold West.

'Justice delayed is justice denied.'So believed the Confederation of Wizards.

Therefore, at noon the next day, a subcommittee of the Confederation gathered to consider the case of Arabin lol Arabin, a pirate or associate of pirates left stranded on Burntos after an unexplained brawl.

Unfortunately, the subcommittee decided it was right and proper for them to sentence him to death – and they duly did so. Fortunately, the sentence was suspended. Unfortunately, the subcommittee ruled that the sentence was to be carried out if Arabin lol Arabin had not gone north by nightfall.

A Galish kafila was leaving that very afternoon; Miphon made sure that his young guest went with it.

'Man,' said Drake, as they parted, 'I'd like to stay just a day or two longer. Why, I haven't even had a good look at Drangsturm yet. That's all I ask – just a day as a tourist or such, so I can tell my grandchildren all about it.'

'Knowing you.' said Miphon, who was a better judge of character than Drake thought he was, 'one extra day would give you unlimited opportunities for getting into trouble. Anyway,theJusticeCommitteemakesnojokes – ifyou're not gone by dusk, you really will get your head chopped of f.' 'And if I return?'

'If you return, your fate will be the same. So . . . till we meet again.'

They clasped hands. Briefly. Then the Galish camel caravan set off. They camped by the roadside that night. Drake, his mind hot with thoughts of Zanya Kliedervaust, planned to slip away in the dark and dare his way back to Drangsturm. But the Galish tied him hand and foot before they went to bed.

'You can't do this to me!' said Drake. 'This is outrageous!'

'The wizard Miphon has paid us to take you all the way to Narba,' came the reply. 'So take you to Narba we will.'

It was a long way to Narba – a journey of well over a hundred leagues, on which Drake acquired an abiding hatred of that execrable hunchback, the camel. All the way he plotted and schemed. He would have Zanya Kliedervaust. He must! That was what his flesh demanded. That would be his revenge on Sully Yot and Gouda Muck. And … if he could convert Zanya away from the worship of Muck, no doubt she could help free the rest of Stokos from that same weird cult.